nicked from zoje_george

The first thing I do when I get home from work: Drop my bag on the sofa, empty my pockets, and leap onto my bed to check the internet.

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning: Go back to sleep until the second alarm goes off.

The first thing I do when I get up on days off/the weekend: Check the internet. Then maybe call my friends and see what they're up to. Or just prepare to chill out all day.

The first thing I do when I get to work in the morning: I tend to prep my lessons first, then grab lunch and read or just hang out for a while until classes start.

First real grown-up furniture I bought: I have never bought real grown-up furniture.

The first 45 I ever owned: I just realised I don't know what these numbers even mean. I had a Muppet Show record and some Disney stuff (The Jungle Book, The Rescuers) when I was a kid, but I have no idea how the numbers work. Obviously I didn't own much vinyl at all after that.

The first apartment I ever had: Well, there was the flat in Cowane Street, Stirling, and the little studio in Sakura Heights, Tokyo, but those always seem a bit too transitory to think of them as the first one I had. The first one I had during my working life was the one in Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong, and I still have very fond memories of that place.

The first car I ever owned: I've only ever owned one car, an ice blue Toyota Corolla.

The first job I ever had: The first time I ever worked was making plastic bits at my grandad's factory in Leith during summer visits to Scotland when I was 13 & 14. But the first real job I ever had was in Hong Kong at age 18, where bizarrely I worked as a layout artist for a book about airports in China. It was shit, but the guy running the company thought it was pure genius. He also thought that about himself though, and was convinced that he had singlehandedly made millions for the South China Morning Post during his previous job. I only worked there for about two months, and then never worked again for six more years (apart from freelancing for a local magazine).

The First big trip I ever took: With my parents, trips to Belgium & Germany, Morocco, and Hong Kong (in the days before my dad had moved there). Then plenty of little one-week trips to various Asian destinations. The first one I really think of as a big trip though was my first trip to Nepal in 1993, which was a school trip. And the first big trip I did on my own (apart from studying in Japan, which I don't count as a trip) was three weeks across South China in 1999.

First big thing I bought with my own money: I guess it would be a heavy metal CD, bought with some of that cash I earned at my grandad's factory.

First real crush: Plenty of them from 13 onwards, but the first one that really mattered was with this girl when I was 16, and I was too pathetic at the time to do anything about it. It's the one I always think "what if i could go back..." about.

First real kiss: Age 8. Seriously. I was starting to turn into a bit of a precocious kid in primary school.

First date: Age 18. Yeah, that is a bit of a discrepancy. I think what happened was I moved to HK at age 10 and everyone and everything was new and my growing confidence retreated.

First sexual experience: Three weeks after the answer to that last question. Same girl, of course.

First break-up: 8 months after the answer to the First Date question.