My 30

I stole this idea from Marica, because those 7 things just weren't hard enough. 

1. I'm turning 30 on March 31. I can't wait. Seriously, people might actually start taking me seriously. 
2. I come from a very big family. My oldest half brother is 44, my youngest half sister is 1.
3. 3 of my grandparents were born in present day Hungary. My maternal grandmother was raised in Vienna and then in Cork, Ireland, where she married an Irish Catholic man of Spanish Jewish and Irish speaking Irish background. I never knew her, she died when my mother was 4.
4. I started Junior Infants in Ireland a year early, because I was so smart.
5. Two years later I failed kindergarten in the US. 
6. I used to be a US American citizen. I'm no longer that. 
7. I've been out of my adoptive parents' home since I was 14, and my adoption was dissolved and I was emancipated at 16. 
8. I went back to my adoptive parents when I was 18, because I was manipulated into giving up a good portion of my inheritance after my aunt. 
9. I served an LDS mission. Well, only a few months, because my health prevented me from serving the rest. 
10. My first language was either Hebrew or Irish. I forgot both, and now I consider myself bilingual in English and Hungarian. 
11. I love musical theatre. No surprise there, I, guess, as I'm gay. I played the role of Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar when I was 16. 
12. I know more about your religion than you think I do. It doesn't matter what your religion is. 
13. I can do cross-stitch, and I'm pretty good at it. 
14. I identify as culturally Hungarian Irish-Israeli. I lived longer in Hungary than in Ireland. 
15. I've spent more than half of my life fighting cancer. Statistically, I should be dead. I am not, so I am super lucky. 
16. I enjoy teaching, and I enjoy doing it the way I am doing it now, team teaching in a highly individualized environment. I am gone about 8 school days a month, and my team teaching partner about 9 days. 
17. I haven't celebrated Christmas for several years now, and I miss it more than any of my kids or my partner. I don't miss the religious aspect, but I miss the completely secular Christmas of our years in Hungary. 
18. I just turned down a book deal for something because the publisher wanted too much control over my material. I doubt I'll ever be published because of that reason. 
19. I'm politically very liberal, yet somewhat old fashioned in my everyday life. 
20. I can argue for everything and the exact opposite of it, if the need arises, thanks to my debate coach. 
21. In the last 18 months there hasn't been a day when I didn't listen to at least one Harel Skaat song. My most listened to song on my playlist is this one:
    
22. When I grow up, together with my brother Chalin I want to open a café combined with a bookstore, finish rabbinical school, and name it The Reading Rabbis. I want it to be a place where people come to read, enjoy coffee and to talk when they need to. 
23. I'm a twin. 
24. I'm exteremely opinionated and can be harsh about my opinions. I'm also judgemental.
25. I love making home made chocolate. I got the recipe from a friend in Transylvania. In the 70's and 80's it was very difficult to get chocolate in Romania, but they could get cocoa powder, so they made their own chocolate. Very yummy.
26. I miss having proper seasons. 
27. One of my favourite foods is hamburgers, another one is shrimp. Shrimp, of course, is not kosher. 
28. When I was younger, I really wanted to compete in some Idol style show.
29. American St. Patrick's Day traditions irritate the Irishman in me. 
30. My favourite thing about living in Israel is the close proximity of the beach, the ability to fly kites for most of the year and we can have barbeques for pretty much every holiday.