Chris Betcher

Well. It seems I’ve been tagged!

A friend and fellow edublogger from Montreal, Sharon Peters, tagged me as part of a little game where she was tagged by another edublogger, Chris Harbeck who in turn was tagged by Karl Fisch, who in turn… well you get the idea.

The game is to tag five people in the blogosphere, get them to share five little-known facts about themselves, and then pass it on to five other bloggers to do the same. Of course I wouldn’t normally condone these online pyramid schemes, but this is different since it’s obviously designed to spread only within the educational blogosphere and – importantly – to get people used to the idea of tagging their posts! In that sense, it’s a great idea as so many people are completely clueless when it comes to using tags.

So, here are five things that you may not have known about me…

Number 1 – I am clueless when it comes to using tags.

That’s right. Clueless. Oh, I understand the concept of tagging, and I have actually tagged some of my previous posts, but I certainly haven’t internalised the process of tagging.

Actually, I’m really not clueless, I’m just lazy. From what I can see, to tag a comment so it can be indexed by, say, Technorati, you appear to need to cut and paste a bit of html code, edit it, and stick it at the end of the post. While I’m no stranger to doing such basic cut-and-paste tricks, I just keep thinking that there has to be a simpler way. What I’d like, if such a thing exists, is to have an easy to use tagging mechanism built into my blogging tool, much the same way that the categories can be set up in WordPress. Surely such a Technorati plugin exists for WordPress? Let me know if you have seen such a thing…

Hmm, perhaps I need to talk to someone like Mr Harbeck and put his words of wisdom on my podcast, and I can get all this tagging stuff out in the open once and for all!

Number 2 – My favourite punctuation mark is an ellipsis.

That’s right, an ellipsis. For those not sure, an ellipsis is the three dots (…) used to indicate some form of linking of ideas or a continuation at the end of a sentence. I don’t know why I like ellipsises so much (or is that elipsii?), I just think they are cool. Add one onto the end of a sentence and it just leaves a nice sort of open-endedness to it, full of promise and possibility. Mmm, I like that…

Besides, ellipsis is just a nice word. Say it a few times… ellipsis, ellipsis, ellipsis… cool huh?

Number 3 – I’m adopted.

Some people have weird ideas about adoption, but I’ve always been very proud of the fact that my parents loved me so much that they did whatever they had to do to have children. I was adopted pretty much from birth, so my adoptive mum and dad are the only real parents I’ve ever known. They ARE my parents, and in my humble opinion they did a darn good job of raising me. 🙂

People sometimes ask me if I’ve ever had any desire to track down my biological parents. The short answer is no, not really, although through a rather bizarre sequence of events and coincidences I did in fact get to know both my biological mother and father, as well as my brother. I try not to live in their pockets but we do stay in touch via email occasionally.

But mum, if you’re reading this, you have been the best mother in the whole wide world. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me. Much love! XXX

Number 4 – I’ve had a wide range of jobs in my life

Ok, define job. I’d suggest that a job is something that you get paid for it, you do it for a long time and you fill it in on your tax return under occupation. I’ve had quite a few different jobs over the years. However, I’ve also done lots of things that weren’t technically jobs (since I didn’t get paid for doing them) but I did get pretty good at them, and so I still consider them jobs in the sense that they helped shape my life skillset and my outlook on life in general.

So here goes… among my list of previous jobs (and not-quite-jobs) are swimming teacher, market researcher , courier driver, floral delivery driver, hospital television installer, taxi driver, taxi radio room operator, barman, networker, outback tour guide, rally driver, offroad driving instructor, art teacher, bass player, computer technician, technical writer, ICT coordinator, podcaster, high school teacher, technology evangelist, screen printer, photographer, blogger, helpdesk support, writer, father…

I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can think of right now. I feel blessed that I’ve been able to lead a life where I’ve pretty much done the things that I have a passion for, and that I’ve never been so hung up on having a “career” that it got in the way of doing things I love.

I am not what is on my business card.

Number 5 – Life Is Not Designed Accidentally

I really not a very religious person (at all!) but I do believe that things happen in our lives for a reason.

I don’t know why certain events happen to us and why certain people come into our lives, but I’m convinced that these things happen to us for a reason. We just need to be smart enough to recognise these gifts when they come.

Well that’s it. I now pass the baton onto Anne Baird, Kim Cofino, Michael Cridland, Simon O’Carroll and Brett Moller. Have fun guys!

technorati tags:  Simon O’Carroll Anne Baird Brett Moller Kim Cofino Michael Cridland