20 Facts About Me: A.M. Molloy

Hello everyone! Welcome back (or to) my blog.

Today I thought I would share with you all 20 random facts that you may or may not know about me. These factoids may not have to with my writing life, but they’ll help you understand who I am as a person. So! Let’s take a dive into my life.

Sorren1 — Sorren

Literally my soul-kitty

If you didn't know this already, I have a cat named Sorren. She is my soul-kitty and the love of my life. We’ve barely been apart the 11 years she’s been in my life. I wasn’t going to accept any job abroad unless I could bring her.

I love to travel. In fact, my first big travel was to a summer camp in China when I was 15, way back in 2004.

Great Wall - 2004

15 year old me on the right in China.

So far, I’ve been to (in order), China, America, Japan ( x3 ), Korea, (x3 ), Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Being Canadian, I’ve obviously been to Canada, though I haven’t travelled as much within my own country. I do plan on visiting more countries soon, but for now, I’m planning another return visit to Japan for my upcoming summer vacation.

I’m in the front row, middle. Taken right after the test was completed so I’m still wearing my 1st degree black belt uniform.

I am a 2nd-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, although it’s been a few years since I practiced due to financial issues. I would love to practice again, especially as I live in Korea now, but now is not the right time for me. I still have all my equipment and remember most of my forms so perhaps someday!

Side note, back in the day when I did practice, I used to go to competitions and would usually win first or second place. Usually first for forms and second for sparing. I rarely got lower and if I did it was for sparing. Forms were my strong suit.

I used to be an animator. I went to an art school studying animation and graphics and working in my field after graduation. Though if I’m being honest, I was never the best at animation. Still, art was more my thing. So when I worked for Contendo, I eventually gravitated towards mostly audio work and eventually becoming their Senior Audio Editor. I still do art, but it’s now for fun rather work. And let’s be honest, the art I did for Contendo isn’t what you would have expected me to be doing. At Contendo we made training videos for oil and gas companies.

Below is my super old demo reel, and I have improved since 2009 But this is to just show you what I used to do. I was by far the best but I enjoyed doing it all the same.

Note: The video is from my old YouTube channel from college. I do not use that channel anymore. If you want to see more up to date videos and life in Korea, check out my actual YouTube channel: Canadian Abroad: A.M. Molloy.

I have a total of 11 tattoos! (So far). Below is a slideshow from my very first tattoo (the tribal dragon when I was 17) to my latest, number eleven done this year in Korea (Sorren).

I am fluent in English, French, Spanish and I can speak intermediate Japanese (taught myself) and beginner Korean (also teaching myself).

My dad is French (from Quebec) so I learned English and French growing up in my household. I majored in Spanish at university and spent a semester in Spain as an exchange student.

I used to do a lot of cosplay, but I haven’t done so in years. I haven’t cosplayed very much and I reused the same cosplay for many cons (and halloween costumes) but I still enjoyed doing it all the same. I can’t sew so I always had help making them. I still appreciate a good cosplay from other cosplayers.

Yuna FFX Cosplay

Not the greatest, but the best cosplay I ever did.

I love photography, though I’m still learning. I’m far from good but I’m getting better every day. I mostly take iPhone photography shots because I don’t always lug around my Nikon D3200. Honestly, with a bit of practice, anyone can make iPhone pictures turn out great. Featured below are a few of my favourite shots taken with my iPhone 8 and (later) with my iPhone 11 Pro.

I have a wall of all my shots but my favourite will always be of my best friend, Leila, holding the Polaroid picture I just took of her. The picture of her holding the picture (INCEPTION) was also another iPhone shot.

I made my own language/culture because reasons. Mostly RP though. The language is called Hikaran and is spoken by a race on the planet Spira. I go into full length on said language and people in a previous blog post, so please, go ahead and check it out!

Admittedly, I made most of this up during math class in high school. It’s safe to say I’m not very good at math.

Anyway, instead of going into full detail here (because it’s in the blog post), I’ll just leave this popular Hikaran saying here:

Anel he baka ei = Evil is here in Hikaran. — *Anel he baka ei* = *Evil is here* in Hikaran.

While on exchange to Spain back in the summer of 2016, I met and shook hands with the queen of Spain in what I call a happy accident. One day I was walking around my school and taking a stroll around town and I noticed a blocked road a crowd starting to form where there usually isn’t. So, naturally, I had to get up front to see what was going to happen. Turns out the queen of Spain was in town and she took time to shake hands with people and I got lucky enough to be one of them. Moral of the story: when you see a tent or a barricade and people starting to gather where there usually isn’t, get up front because awesome things are gonna happen.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture with her, but I do, however, have a picture of her. (Pictured above).

Back in high school, when it was time for graduation photos, we were told we could bring an item, like a soccer ball or baseball bat, if we wanted for our pictures. Being the cat-obsessed weird person that I am, I legit brought my cat, Marbles (AKA Mibs) in a duffle bag (it was open) to school for my picture. Needless to say, I was the talk of the school for bringing a cat haha.

I lived super close to my school so I took my picture and brought her straight home. She hated going to school but was a good girl and took an amazing picture.

I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. Literally grew up with it. I was in the 6th grade reading the first three books because that’s all that was published at the time. When the first Harry Potter movie came out, I’ll never forget the experience. It was amazing and I loved every bit of it.

PS: I’m a proud Gryffindor. I also have many friends from all of the houses, but most of them are from Slytherin.

My new all time favourite game is Life is Strange all other games in said franchise. THAT GAME IS MY LIFE, YO. I mean, if you noticed on fact number 5 that one of my tattoos is Life is Strange themed.

My favourite author is Rachel Vincent.

Literally, anything she writes is golden to me.

My favourite series of hers will always be the Soul Screamers series. I still can’t believe how she ended that series. Love it! I just get so invested in each world that she creates that I feel like I’m right there with the characters and I don’t know what to do with my life when I finish each book.

If you love reading, I highly recommend checking her out.

The origin of my author name: A.M. Molloy is basically the initials to my given name, Alex Molloy. However, in person, I prefer to be called Mina. Mina is my Korean name and to be honest, I was never fond of Alex. Since I live in Korea, everyone here calls me Mina. It makes me happy to hear people call me Mina. :3

My novel is in its third round of edits and beta reader stage. One of my beta readers created SOUTH’s very first meme! I’m so in love with it that I’m sharing it here.

So, my university had this mini ball pit kept in the student center. Once during a society meeting at my university, my friend and I decided to completely organize the ball pit into a rainbow. It literally took us forty-five mins straight but we did it! And then no one wanted to sit in the ball bit for like a week because they didn’t want to mess it up so we had to mess it up again so people would use it again.

During my second visit to Japan, I had the pleasure to meet a real sumo wrestler. It was an honour. I wish I could have seen an actual match but this was still awesome all the same.

I loved volunteering at my university for many things, but my favourite was being an NSO Leader. My last year at uni I had the privilege to be on the best team, Yellow Team, and had the most amazing crew. It was truly the best experience. I loved helping all the newcomers to UPEI and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I was still in school.

Well, you’ve made it this far! Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about me. For now, this concludes my new post, 20 facts about me.

Take care.

— Mina (A.M. Molloy)

20 Facts About Me: A.M. Molloy /May 17, 2019 by A.M. Molloy