What are some surprising things about you?

Habib le toubib, you already know about me having three cousins also called Nick Nicholas, and that I translated Hamlet into Klingon, so those things I won’t count as surprising.

So what should I count?

• I can dance. Not just dad dancing as I walk into a cafe, although I certainly do that. I do dance Greek dances, and I can pick the steps up for unfamiliar dances readily—although not if they’re from up north. (I did try to dance along to a 13/8 number from Florina/Lerin once. I really did try.) I have had salsa lessons too, although I think my hips are not yet Latino hips.
• In high school, the disciplines that fascinated me were mathematics and physics. No, you’re not missing any pearls of wisdom from me in those topics. When I switched to the humanities, I really switched. My engineering education had successfully killed off any love I had for those disciplines.
• Oh, and word to the Melbourne Uni Physics Department. If anyone thinks teaching students Special Relativity without teaching them Classical Mechanics first is a good idea? Fire them.
• You would think that, with my prodigious intellect, my analytical background, and my incisive insights, I’d be genius at strategy games, right?

  … Why the hell would you think that?!

  My gameplay in Civ—all iterations of Civ—was best summed up 15 years ago, by my colleague idly watching me play. “You’re not actually playing Civ at all, are you? You’re just randomly moving all the pretty horseys around the screen.”

  I do enjoy escape rooms. Though they’re not a good combination with anxiety disorder.