A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days: Five Things . . .

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Five Things . . .

Posted by Pejman Yousefzadeh on Sat Jan 06, 2007 at 06:31:44 PM EST

The Baseball Crank tagged me with this meme. I shall do my duty and list away.

My first job ever was as a Hebrew tutor at the synagogue where I had my bar mitzvah and where I remain a member. I recall that one of the teachers came to me after a while and told me that the students I was tutoring had shown a great deal of improvement in their studies. It was one of the proudest days I can remember.
As a child in the first-grade, I played the role of a king in a school play and since I thoroughly enjoyed wearing a royal bathrobe and a Burger King crown, I began to harbor ambitions to become the Shah of Iran when I grew up. Of course, I have been an American citizen since birth . . . which kind of throws an obstacle in the way of the plan, as does the fact that I am Jewish. My father brought up this latter point to try to explain to me that my ambitions to be one of the successors to Cyrus and Darius would probably come to naught. This only reinforced my desire to sit on the Peacock Throne, as I believed that in fulfilling my Imperial destiny, I would simultaneously be striking a blow for religious toleration.
One of the first movies I ever say--when I was six or seven--was Patton. I loved it. Still do. Shortly after having seen it for the first time, I went and ransacked my school library for every book I could find on World War II and got annoyed when playmates couldn't discuss the Normandy invasion or the Battle of the Bulge. Additionally, whenever I saw a map of any kind, my first thoughts would be to use the map to plan military campaigns.
I met Ron Howard at a blogger wedding. Very nice guy and it was quite kind of him to indulge me as I babbled on and on and on and on and on about how I admired his directing.
Those who see me in my -3 magnification glasses will be shocked to know that my vision upon graduation from high school was 20/10. It is now 20/400.

I tag anyone who wants to take this meme further. Just give me a hat tip. Or don't.