1. "I found my dancing shoes but they don't fit"

So I've been reading some of the "25 Random Things About Me" facebook notes that people have been posting recently. People that I haven't spoken to in years. People that I suspect secretly wish they had their own blogs. And then I read about Laid-Off Dad's approach -- make a blogging/writing exercise out of the idea by choosing a lyric from the first random song that pops up in your music shuffle and writing something about yourself relating to the lyric. Are you wondering why I am even following Laid-Off Dad's blog? Well, let's just say that I added a few blogs to my Google Reader in Ireland to keep myself "busy" while "at work" and this blog happened to be one of the lucky few many and now I am in way over my head in following blogs. I realize that I am being totally unoriginal here, but hey, I get a fun writing exercise to talk all about myself and revel in my narcissism, and you get to read and pass judgment.

So the rules are these: I'll use my "Currently" playlist on the iPhone which has a bunch of songs that I am, you know, currently listening to. If the first song that pops up doesn't have a good lyric that I can write about and I go to the second random song or the third, you probably won't ever know. I may not post every day as there is this pesky thing called tax busy season that's looming dangerously close on the horizon, like right above our heads really. Let's see if I actually make it to the twenty-fifth post.

1. "I found my dancing shoes but they don't fit"
Song: Ion Square by Bloc Party

If there is reincarnation, I know that in a previous life I must have been a professional ballerina. In this life, I was born with that true passion for ballet that unfortunately got thwarted by flat feet and inflexibility. I had to really work on getting the splits, my ankles never got strong enough to really master dancing in pointe shoes, and my leg extensions were never high enough. After years of muscle-stretching pain, blisters, broken toe-nails, SHATTERED DREAMS, I was told after the eighth grade to quit and avoid the imminent risk of breaking an ankle. The grace was there -- grace I had. But my body was just not built for the physical demands of ballet. Not in this life. The irony of my childhood was that I apparently had the talent for piano but could care less about it. The Great Ballet/Piano Debate was perhaps the definition of little KT during some formative years. How strange that seems now.

Which brings us back to Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Gladwell argues that all you need is 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill, such as playing an instrument or having Bill Gates computer knowledge. Kind of arbitrary, this 10,000 hours benchmark. Perhaps I could have spent more time at home stretching out the arches of my feet and getting my ankles stronger. Ten thousand hours of feet exercises? Jesus. Does performing torture on your body fall under the 10,000-hour mastering a skill umbrella? Discuss.

In another previous life I was a piano enthusiast with squat and chubby fingers, small hands, and no musical ear.

At some point I was also British.