Questions: The Regrets Edition (Part I)

I was an ass-kicking pull-upper - sweet justice after years of scrawny nerdiness in elementary school. A little slow on the shuttle though - the one where you run back and forth picking up blackboard erasers.

Girls didn't have to do pull-ups. We just had to hang there, in the up position for a certain number of seconds, which I could do just fine. But I never got the award. I don't remember all of the categories, but there was always one that I sucked in. Maybe I couldn't run fast enough. I know I could never climb that fucking rope, but I don't think that was in the fitness test. It was just one of those humiliating gym moments.

I don't think we had something like that. Then again, I got out of most of PE by being on the swim and waterpolo teams.

I took it, but don't really remember how well I did. I suspect it was about average, since I'd remember humiliating myself, and I'd remember if I did excellent on it.

Lacking a president, we never needed to take his test. High school gym was fairly disorganized. My university gave every freshman a swim test. If you didn't pass, you were automatically enrolled in swim class. A rather sensible idea, and the reason I now can swim, though not very well.

No President's fitness test. We had our own fitness challenge involving balance beam, running 1 mile, sit-ups, girlie push ups and squat thrusts (which aren't as fun as they sound)

Yes, we had them.  I did fairly well but we had a bitchy gym teacher that made all but the one or two teachers pets feel like crap every chance she got.  I don't know why we - meaning all those classes all those years - put up with it.  When I think about some of the things that she said and mostly not to me I am amazed some parent wasn't raising hell.  I thought the fitness tests were a good thing but we had gym three times a week for everyone all though high school.

the only thing i was good at was the friggin stretch exercise, which shows you just how weak i was.

I just won at everything. A complete stud. Gold gold gold.

You know... they say Gods walked the Earth in those days.

They might be right.

About right, I think. Grades were important to me, but I didn't sacrifice living for them either. (I have not always maintained that balance as well in my professional life.)

This is a little embarrassing to admit, but I never thought much about grades at all. I am blessed with a brain that learns in exactly the way schools in America taught in the 1970s and 1980s, so I just sat in class and voila. I didn't have to work to learn until I got to college.

I cared about grades for exactly 3.5 years. The ones that counted in high school. No regrets there, except maybe I wish I'd figured out how to read the US History material sooner than 1am the night before the test. College, on the other hand, I found easier than high school. And I also stopped caring about grades 'cause I didn't have any interest in graduate school -- so they seemed meaningless. Maybe there's a part of me that wishes I'd had better grades in college.

About the right amount, on average. There was a time when I obsessed about it in an unhealthy way, and there was a time when I didn't care as much as I should have.

I was one of those annoying teacher's pets through grade school and high school. Led the province in a couple of subjects, won a scholarship. In university, after four years of all-male Catholic education, rediscovered girls and found some other vices for the first time. Grades plummeted. I managed to get out with a degree, but post-grad studies proved a bridge too far. I sometimes think I should go back for a year or so and pick up a master's. But life's too short; no regrets.

I wish I cared more about grades my freshman year of college. I minored in biomedical engineering, and majored in parties, spades and fun. Good times, but should have tried to make it to class more :)

In high school I just did what assignments I deemed worthy of my attention so my grades were all over the place from A to D in the same class each semester.  Because I test well I got away with it.  It is not the grades I regret - it is the habit of lack of discipline and doing what I damn well please that has haunted me the rest of my life.

I was basically someone who did very little work in school and said he didnt care about grades but freaked out whenever he got a bad one, even on one test or paper, let alone an entire class. im with O in that school, esp. high school was just too easy.

I just won at everything. A complete stud. Gold gold gold.

You know... they say Gods walked the Earth in those days.

They might be right.

Too little until the last moment to save my academic career, when it finally kicked in.  I was a rebellious youth.

Language has always been my worst subject. I'm glad that I have my high-school French, just so that I have one other language (sort of), but my year of German in college was a waste of time.

There are many countries that I'd go to for a year. I regret not taking a job in Paraguay a few years back.

I did live in South Korea for a time, and learned enough Korean to get around. As for a dream country, I'd live anywhere. I'd like to be better at Spanish--I'm far from fluent--but I don't have a great aptitude for language. I can swear in Portuguese though. Porra! (See!) (pronounced PO-ha)

My study abroad experience in college was England. Still a very interesting cultural experience, but didn't help much in the way of foreign language learning. My language-learning career began in preschool, with French. Which of course I don't speak now. Closest I've got to fluency is with Spanish; that was year and half of adult education classes followed by a self-rewarded trip to Mexico. I'm not fluent, but after I've traveled somewhere Spanish-speaking for a day or two, I can make myself understood in pretty much any circumstance.

Germany, because it's where I was born. My German is passable, but could be much better. I also took a year of Chinese in college, but I know just enough to get into trouble. 王八蛋! (wángbādàn, which literally means turtle egg, but is better understood as meaning bastard).

I have lived in one foreign country for a year: the United States of America. I now speak fluent Murrican. And for an anglophone, my home province has all the advantages of a foreign country, without the need for traveling, passports and shots. My French is more than passable. I could see spending a year in France, with side trips to Italy and Spain.

Definitely Spain, and not because I just saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona. I've always loved the architecture of Barcelona, love the Moorish influence. I took Spanish in school and speak it poorly (but read it fairly well). I wish I could speak another language. I always feel like an asshat when in (or calling) a foreign country and expecting them to speak my language.

I did live in Iceland for 1 1/2 years and Scotland for 6 months. I am really glad I did.  That was the best part about being married to my first ex.  I learned Icelandic from my native friends.  I could follow conversations easily and make myself understood but lost it all after about 3 years.  I cannot speak any foreign language at all, I couldn't get through French in high school (I was passed so I wouldn't torment the teacher for another year) or get through one semester of Spanish in college in three tries.  I think I have to be submerged to learn. 

I travelled everything. Spoke every language. Especially, the language of love. Funny, it's got almost no hard G's. Or dipthongs.

Anyway. A complete stud.

Dominating the news cycle.

I think London would be my first choice.  I have quite a few friends there, it's full of smart and ambitious worldly people, and it's a stone's throw (and a cheap direct flight) from so many great places in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. (Remind me why I live in LA, again?  Is the weather worth it?)

As for living in foreign countries:  a few months in Singapore at the age of 12; a few months on a human rights internship in Bogota at 25; and the States since 2002.

Cook better

Not have any. It means not having any regrets about how I raised my children. :)

Have fewer of them: two as opposed to five. My mother had to be some sort of saint.

Be much less overprotective. And my kids wont be spending every Sunday in church.

I wouldn't use corporal punishment if I had children.

My parents, god love them, were awesome but they were/are a bit too concerned with pragmatism to really encourage me to pursue whatever crazy thing floated my boat. i will make sure my kids know that if they find something they love, they should do it no matter what the consequences.

I'll raise them to be a little less noble and self-sacrificing.

Maybe a little less humble.

If they're total studs, Gods who walk the Earth, then sobeit.

Facts is facts.

Telling my son I love him, and touching him affectionately.  Among other things.

Gary Coleman

Malcom-Jamal Warner

Johnny Depp. I see myself as an older, slightly handsomer Johnny Depp, with a silvery beard. He's also versatile enough to play me as a young man.

Angela Bassett. She's already portrayed Tina Turner, Betty Shabazz, Katherine Jackson, Rosa Parks, Violetta Wallace. She has to get around to me eventually.

I'm going to go with Angelina Jolie. Because if Acanuck can be delusional, so can I.

Bette Midler.

i'll go with jon cusack, lloyd dobler era

Nick Nolte.

In his later, really really damaged drunk phase.

He's a God.

Depp, no question.  Or maybe Cruise.  He's already played two Harvard Law grads, he's short, and he's been married multiple times.  We're freakin' twins.