When I got tagged a few days ago, I ignored it (see below, point 1). Now I got tagged again, and I can’t ignore it any longer (see below, point 1). This is how this works: You blog about 5 things that people wouldn’t necessarily know about you, and then in turn tag 5 other people. So it’s like a chain letter for adults. Alright then…

In no particular order, here are five things about me:

1. I absolutely dislike popular trends (for example, iPods or chain letters). I like to believe this is due to my well-adjusted bullshit meter, but the actual explanation is probably more mundane, especially since if you just prod long enough I’ll do popular stuff anyway (and occasionally, I get to do stuff before it gets popular, like this photo blog…)
   
2. Some of my favourite pieces of classical music reduce me to tears (like, for example, Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs")). However, the same is true for most movies with sad endings. So there goes all dignity out of the window again.
   
3. In high school (or actually the German equivalent of that) I managed to break a bone each year, going through both my pinkies, one of my ring fingers, one of my wrists and some other bone in one of the hands. Since I absolutely hated sport, I didn’t mind at all. I have since found other ways to avoid physical activities (easier when you’re an adult), even though I also found sport that I actually like (squash, karate).
   
4. I once ran what was then the largest computer simulation of the Universe (back in 1998). While that sounds kind of interesting and fascinating, the actual truth is that it’s neither interesting nor fascinating. During the course of that project I once managed to basically crash the supercomputer center of the Max-Planck Society, something I’m still proud of. The images that I generated from those simulations are still widely used, and I’ve had them reprinted in , for example, the New York Times and Scientific American.
   
5. Before entering high school, I had the choice between picking French and Latin as a second foreign language (after English, obviously). Easy choice, isn’t it? So I picked Latin, arguing that learning Latin would be very useful for further studies of foreign languages, proving that a) I have the ability to convince myself of anything (even if it’s complete bogus) and b) often I don’t even know what I’m talking about, and then later c) once having made a choice, regardless of how useful, I stick with it: I studied Latin until I graduated, thus having to learn French on my own later.
   

And now I tag Hester, Amy, Swen, Jen, and Ralf.