25 Things?

On Facebook recently, there has been a chain letter of sorts floating around. "Notes" can be written and added to you Facebook profile. The chain is to write a note with 25 Random Things about you, and then tag 25 Facebook friends on the note. By tagging them, they see your note, and are, in turn, asked to post their own 25 things. You tag the person who tagged you so that they can know you've posted your note. I am enjoying this tremendously.

I was tagged fairly early in this process, and wrote my note quickly, without taking the time to post the most important or interesting things, just the first things that came to mind. In retrospect, this might not have been the greatest idea. I posted one thing that was unintentionally controversial, and it caught someone's attention as having a negative connotation. This is what I wrote about in my last blog entry. I decided not to go back and edit the 25 things to remove that item, but I wish I'd kept that one to myself.

In reading everyone's 25 things, I have learned a lot about people. It's been especially fun to read the things from people I have not seen since High School, and who I may not have known well even back then. In writing my own, I realized I could come up with far more than 25 random things. If I were writing it now, I'd probably do better. In light of that, I'll add some more "things", although I'm not sure if I have 25 or not. I'll make these different from the first 25 - you'll have to look at my Facebook profile to see those.

1. Before age 18 I lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Yonkers, New York; Oak Park, Michigan; Gainesville, Florida; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Huntsville, Alabama; and then back to Oak Park.
2. After age 18 I lived in East Lansing, Michigan; Evansville, Indiana; Ann Arbor, Michigan and Doral (Miami), Florida.
3. I've been a scuba diver since 1986.
4. I became a scuba instructor in 1989, and retired from active instruction in 2007.
5. I've dived all 5 Great Lakes.
6. I have been an active cave diver and technical diver, but have not done either in quite some time.
7. I've been to North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. I also dived in Egyptian waters, near the Israel/Egypt border, so I can claim being in Africa, but really, it doesn't count.
8. I speak French, and am beginning to understand Spanish, but consider myself a beginner and I can't get a sentence out in Spanish without only being able to think of the French words.
9. My beloved dog, J.D. (Janet's Dog) died and a few months before my Mother passed away suddenly in 1993. It was a bad year.
10. I love reading, puzzles, photography, and, of course, scuba diving. I take underwater photos too, but I am still using film for that with my trusty Nikonos V.
11. I like to cook, but typically only do it when I am having guests over. I like having the leftovers for meals during the following week. I'm a decent cook.
12. None of my relatives lived near us when I was growing up. My paternal grandparents both died before my parents met. My maternal grandparents, uncle (and aunt) and two cousins lived in Sao Paulo. My other uncle (and aunt) and cousins lived in New York, but we were not close until more recent years.
13. I've visited Brazil twice, when I was 7 and again when I was 11. I've been to Israel (Dad's birthplace) once, when I was 26.
14. The first Sitchin born in the US was my nephew Eli, closely followed by his brother Wyatt.
15. It you meet another Sitchin, they are doubtless a relative.
16. My parents were related by marriage when they met (and that's how they met). There is Sitchin family in Brazil (Sao Paulo only, I think).
17. Both of my Grandfathers were from the same town in Ukraine (Golovanevsk). My maternal grandmother was from Romania and my paternal grandmother was from Baku (now Azerbaijan, then Russia).
18. When I became a naturalized citizen (at age 7), we changed the spelling of our name from Sitshin to Sitchin. Coming from Hebrew and Cyrillic (Russian) alphabets, it is still an approximation of the sounds.
19. Before I got interested in computers, I thought I'd be a writer some day. I don't write much any more, but I have had some scuba articles and photos published.
20. I had a creative writing scholarship to Michigan State University. It was small and basically paid for the English class (usually creative writing) I took each term.
21. I'm lucky to have quite a few close friends - one's I can count on and who can count on me.
22. I miss my friends from Michigan, but I still manage to see them when we travel together to dive destinations.
23. I believe you see in others what you are looking for, and that if you look for good, you will find it. Conversely if you look for faults, you'll find that too.
24. I believe people accuse others of the things they themselves are guilty. (A jealous ex-boyfriend led me to that one.)
25. Being alone is better than being in the wrong company.
26. My uncle from New York is the author of more than 10 books, in countless languages now, on Ancient Civilizations. I go to most of his seminars when he gives them, but wished I had been closer to everything when he was also traveling with groups to various sites and museums. It is fascinating, whether you buy his theories or not.
27. I maintain websites for my own site (where I learned how to build one) with scuba photos (home.comcast.net/~janetsitchin/index.html), in part maintain my uncle's site (http://www.sitchin.com/), and for two dive clubs, the one in Michigan and a national one that is a SIG (special interest group) of another social organization. Fortunately none take a lot of time. I've gotten lazy with my own and generally post photos to flickr now instead of the web site.

I think that's all for now. Again, I did not go off and ponder for days on these things. Some are things I've thought about over the last few days, others I just thought about as I wrote. I think none are controversial this time. Although that controversial one did open a dialog, and helped me to begin getting to know an old acquaintance again, so it wasn't all bad.