Hey guys.
It’s been a little while since I did my last Get To Know Me video so I wanted to expand
a little bit on it so here are 50 facts about me.
I can’t go underwater without plugging my nose like this and that made for a very, very
scary situation when I was doing my SCUBA diving test in Thailand and I really and truly
thought I was going to die.
I did ballet, tap, and jazz, including pointe, from about age 5 to 18 and since then I’ve
done some ballet classes at the National Ballet School of Canada.
I can’t whistle.
I keep trying…I do what everyone tells me to do and I just…I can’t do it.
I grew up in the country on about 20 acres of land and of that about 6 acres was just
grass and it was my job from age 12 to use our big tractor to cut the grass.
It took about 6 hours and I would just listen to my Discman the whole time and I remember
especially loving the soundtrack to Good Morning Vietnam.
When I was a kid I hated having hair in my face - I actually still hate that - so I used
a pair of red Crayola scissors to cut a huge triangle in my bangs so that I could see and
my Mom was not very impressed.
The year after high school and before I started university I did a Rotary Youth Exchange in
Germany and it was the most incredible time and I made some friends that are friends for life.
I went to the University of Toronto in Canada and I started out majoring in International
Relations and then I switched to Ethics, Society, and the Law and I took this bioethics class
and completely fell in love with it so, in the end, I majored in Bioethics with minors
in Philosophy and German.
When I was younger I ran track and field - I was a sprinter - and I was at this meet and
they had a lot of confusion about who had placed in the top three.
So after I went home there was apparently this photo finish and they identified me by
my long braid.
I used to have really long hair and my braid, I guess, was just straight out behind me and
so my coach realized that was me and he actually brought the bronze medal to my house after
the meet and I was so, so excited.
Before high school one day, my Dad came into my room and said, “Hey, there’s a shuttle
launch happening in Cape Canaveral, Florida in the next day or so.
Do you want to go?”
So we jumped in the car, just the two of us, drove 24 hours all the way to NASA and saw
a shuttle launch and it was one of the most incredible things I have ever witnessed in real life.
I’ve had my ears pierced twice because they keep growing in and now this one is fine and
this one has grown in again so I need to get it pierced again for the third time because
I don’t want to look like a pirate.
Travel is my absolute number one favourite, favourite thing to do in life.
It’s the thing that I put all my resources into and all my time into trying to do because
I want to see as much of the world as possible.
When I was a kid I used to run away from school and once it was so bad that they had to send
a lot of the teachers out to look for me and they called my mom from work and then other
times I would chase my mom down the street while she was driving her car away and she’d
see me in the rearview mirror and sometimes I’d be running after her in the snow without shoes on.
Every spring in February or March we have this family tradition of going to the sugar
bush which is, in Canada, where they make maple syrup and I always stock up on maple
syrup for the whole year and you can eat as many pancakes as you want and they have these
huge tubs of maple syrup and it’s just the best, most delicious tradition.
I find it really relaxing to watch cooking shows for some reason, especially Nigella
Lawson or Ina Garten and sometimes when I’m getting ready for bed I’ll just play the
episodes on my phone while I’m brushing my teeth or whatever ‘cause I just find
them so cozy and it just - I don’t know why - it just gets me ready for bed.
Growing up I had this really bad habit of biting my nails and I’ve gotten a little
bit better but I still pick my cuticles.
My boyfriend and I have been driving a scooter since 2008 and we never had an accident until
December of 2015 when we were cut off.
I think the driver must have been drunk and we were thrown off of the scooter into the road.
It was really scary and some bystanders called an ambulance.
We were taken to the hospital.
They did x-rays.
We’re both fine now but it’s been more than 9 months and we’re both still in physiotherapy
but we are riding the scooter again.
My favourite number is 8 and it probably has something to do with my birthday being the
8th day of the 8th month but I also like that it’s so symmetrical and the symbol for infinity.
I just love the number 8.
My sun sign is Leo, my moon sign is Taurus and my rising sign is Leo and if you don’t
know all 3 it’s really fun to look them up and even more interesting.
I love using the library.
I’ve been going to the library since I was a kid.
I’m probably there every couple of days dropping books off and getting new books.
I’m pretty klutzy and I seem to injure myself in various ways every single day.
At university I lived in the dorms for the first two years and then in an apartment close
by with friends for the last two years.
I wear a Fitbit and I’ve really come to love it.
I like doing challenges with my family and my friends and I think it really does help
me stay conscious of how much I’m moving every day.
I’ve had two pretty important things stolen from me.
I had my iPhone stolen out of my bag while I was walking across Tower Bridge in London
and then I had my wallet stolen out of my purse in Barcelona while I was trying on
shoes in Topshop.
I was once doing an overnight camping trip in the Sahara Desert and I remember asking
the guide where the toilet was and he gestured majestically all around him and said, “The
whole desert is a giant toilet.”
So watch where you step next time you’re there.
Every Thanksgiving I watch Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and at Christmas I watch tons
of movies but I have to watch Christmas Vacation.
It’s one of my absolute favourites.
I have this fear of being trapped underneath a boat underwater and when I was white water
rafting in Thailand with my boyfriend and this family from Denmark who we didn’t really
know the water was really low and so our boat on a rapid got stuck on some rocks and as
it was flipping over I jumped off and I was carried downstream until I was able to wedge
my paddle between some rocks and I just waited there for someone to rescue me which they
eventually did.
Everyone else was trapped underneath the boat and my boyfriend had to pull out these two
little girls from Denmark as their mom was screaming, “Save my children!”
It was…it was actually really scary.
I can’t dive.
I never got the hang of it as a kid.
Just didn’t want to do it in swim lessons and now I still can’t dive.
I was a vegetarian for about four years throughout university.
I’ve been to every continent so far except Antarctica which I still have to visit.
I absolutely love going to thrift stores, antique fairs, yard sales, flea markets - all
of those kinds of things.
I find it really relaxing and you never know what you’re going to find.
I have a Master of Bioethics from the University of Sydney in Australia and I was there as
a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.
I love Rotary!
And then I moved to Melbourne where I worked as a Teaching Associate at Monash University
helping with a course called The Human Body And The International Marketplace.
I’m a massive Jane Austen fan also known as a Janeite.
When I was 14 I started a local chapter in my hometown of the Jane Austen Society of
North America.
I own a custom-made Regency style dress which I’ve worn to a ball or two and I’ve also
visited every single place that Jane Austen ever lived.
I love reading and being physically surrounded by books makes me feel calmer and happier.
I love the way velvet looks but touching it gives me the willies.
I floss every single night and now it’s become such a habit that I don’t think I
could go to sleep without flossing.
When I lived in Germany and I was just starting to learn the language I was in a cab with
my friend and it was really hot out and I wanted him to put the windows down in the
back of the cab but I didn’t know how to say, “ Could you please put the windows
down” but I did know how to say “I am hot” so I kept saying, “Ich bin heiss…Ich
bin heiss…Oh Ich bin heiss” which literally means ‘I am hot’, right?
No.
It turns out I was saying “I am horny” the whole time.
I cry when I’m happy as well as when I’m sad and last summer for my birthday I was
on the Great Wall of China and when I first saw it I could not believe how beautiful it
was and I just could not stop crying.
I love doing road trips.
The last one I did was through the state of California with a little side stop in Vegas
and I loved every single second of it.
My Mom and I once spent 8 full hours in IKEA and didn’t even notice.
We were having so much fun.
We ate two meals there and had a coffee break.
I love pretty stationary and paper products and I still use an ‘old fashioned’ kind
of paper planner to remember everything.
I love midcentury modern design and furniture and I’m a big fan of Japanese and Scandinavian
minimalism but I have kind of a hard time being a true minimalist myself.
My height is about 5’8”.
I love fireworks and the best fireworks I’ve ever seen was New Year’s Eve off the Sydney
Harbour Bridge in Australia and the next morning I climbed the bridge and you could still see
all of the firecrackers littered everywhere.
I was in Lopburi, Thailand at this temple that’s been completely overrun by monkeys
and I crouched down to take a photo and these two pretty big monkeys jumped on my back and
I completely freaked out and I was, like, going like this trying to get them off my back.
I really hate mushrooms.
Something about the texture or that neutral flavour just grosses me out.
I was on a flight from Japan to Thailand and the woman sitting in front of me kept throwing
things at me, including her jacket and the hot cloth that she’d just used to wipe her feet.
I have a younger brother and an older sister.
I once fainted in a gym and I woke up to find myself slumped between a wall and a vending machine.
I drove a car for the first time when I was just 11 years old because we lived in the
country and my parents wanted to make sure I knew how in case there was ever an emergency.
My reaction to danger is often to laugh uncontrollably.
I’ve found through experience that I really do laugh in the face of danger.
One example is in Barcelona my boyfriend and I rented this really small scooter and we
ended up by accident getting on this massive freeway where everyone was going really fast
and honking at us and my reaction was to just laugh uncontrollably the entire time until
we could get off the highway.
That’s 50 facts about me.
Now I’d love to hear some facts about you so please leave a comment down below.
Tell me one fact about yourself or 50 if you feel like it - I’d love to hear!
I hope you enjoyed watching this video.
If you did, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe if you haven’t already and I’ll
see you in my next video.
The meaning behind your YouTube channel name.
It's my name.
My first name is Eileen. My middle name is Aldis.
Everyone thinks it's Elvis. Yeah.
That's ok. Elvis is cool.