(no subject)
There's a meme going around, which goes as follows: Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given. I've been really enjoying everybody else's answers; it's fun to read what your friends ramble about!
Associations from gramarye1971:
New England
People are often surprised to learn that I'm not actually from New England. I grew up in southern Ohio; we lived there till I was sixteen, in the same house for fourteen of those years. I went to the same school my mother went to as a child, in the same little suburban town, and I still have family members there. I still have roots there, to some extent, which I sometimes forget and am sometimes very conscious of. I didn't actually want to move up north, at the time. (That changed pretty quickly.)
Nonetheless, New England is where I fit; it's the country of my heart. Whether I say I'm a Vermonter is very contextual, and there are some slightly (but not entirely) subjective boundaries of terms drawn in terms of descriptions I won't use, because I'm not from Vermont. My parents and my grandparents aren't from Vermont, and my childhood was elsewhere, and this means that in certain ways I will always be a flatlander. And I'm okay with that. But Vermont -- New England in general -- is still home.
I love urban New England -- which is to say, Boston, primarily, as that's the only place where I've lived, although both Burlington (VT) and Portland are awesome places too. Insofar as I have a city, Boston is mine; I can't see myself moving away from here any time soon. And I love rural and small town New England. I love Boston, but when I cross the border into Vermont -- when I'm surrounded by blue-hazed ranks of ancient mountains, and rolling valleys full of fields, and mountain hillsides and small towns full of dairy farmers and artists and that pervasive, deep-down sense of community -- that's home. I look around, and something inside me says, this is how the land should be. I could ramble on for ages, and I've already deleted some, but that's what it comes down to -- it's no better or worse than any other region, maybe, but it's the one that says home to me, in every breath.
Online RP
Hee. Well, since this is coming from a friend whom I met through online RP, I can hardly deny that!
I like writing. (Obviously.) I like storytelling. But more than that I like writing for an audience, at least some of the time, and I love collaboration. I love to bounce ideas and phrases and characters off people, and have them throw them right back with a new spin. RP is like juggling with stories.
Plus, it's a great way to meet a lot of seriously nifty people, in my experience.
Arabic
The fact that I studied Arabic is actually mostly random chance, although obviously the fact that I stuck with it is because of my own interest. I started taking it in high school, when a teacher (and one of my favorite teachers ever, as it turned out) started teaching it as a semi-club before school. I was coming in early anyway because I was carpooling with Dad, and up to that point I'd taken Latin and ASL, and I thought, "Why not? I'll try learning a language that's actually useful in a foreign country, for a change!" And it was fun, so when I got to college I saw that they had an Arabic program, and I thought "Why not?" and kept on taking it, while I debated what my major would be and if I really wanted to be a vet ('yes! yes totally! wait I hate chemistry and sub-cellular biology; this may be a problem') and so forth. I ended up dabbling in a lot of languages, but Arabic is the one I stuck with earliest and thus longest, and I kind of fell into majoring in Middle Eastern Studies.
I love the language. It's fascinating, and beautiful, and complex, and I wish I spoke it better. (I wish I was in better practice, too. I've gotten horrifically rusty.) As far as the associated politics and culture go -- this, too, is fascinating and complex, and beautiful (in the case of the culture) and heartbreaking (in the case of a lot of the politics), and I learned just enough to know how very much I don't know, and to be shocked every time I'm reminded of how much most Americans are completely clueless about. I'd love to go back to the Middle East -- both places I've been, and places I haven't.
Most of the jobs I've found in the field are ones I don't want to do, or am not competent to do, or both. But I'm still glad I learned what I did, and I wish I were in better practice and knew more.
The Sequence (*grins*)
Hee. But of course! This'd be the Dark Is Rising sequence, by Susan Cooper.
I read this young; I don't remember when, except that I read The Grey King first and loved it even though some parts of it were deeply confusing until I went back and reread later. But -- well. Some books I adored in my childhood I can't stand now; plenty of them have diminished, into stories I regard with a nostalgic fondness that's rueful or self-deprecating or deeply conflicted. But this series is one I can read again and again, and love every time.
Also, I'm pretty sure Susan Cooper's writing is one of the formative influences on my own. One of several, to be sure, but still one of those writers whose syntax sank deep.
Delicious tea
I am very fond of tea, as many of you know and mock me for. Partly it's the practical aspect of a cheap drink which goes well with pretty much every meal -- I used to drink milk alllll the time instead, but mild lactose intolerance put a stop to that. And juice is annoyingly pricey. But it's also the fact that, well, I just really like the taste of the stuff. There's a lot of subtlety in the different flavors; I love being able to look at a stack of teas, and ponder which precise one I'm in the mood for at the moment. It's calming, sometimes, and a good strong mug of tea wakes me up in the morning long before the caffeine has had any actual effect. One of my favorite things to do is sit outside or by a window, curled up in a chair, with a mug or pot of tea and a good book. (And maybe a cat.) That's pretty much my perfect quiet afternoon.
Associations from gramarye1971:
New England
People are often surprised to learn that I'm not actually from New England. I grew up in southern Ohio; we lived there till I was sixteen, in the same house for fourteen of those years. I went to the same school my mother went to as a child, in the same little suburban town, and I still have family members there. I still have roots there, to some extent, which I sometimes forget and am sometimes very conscious of. I didn't actually want to move up north, at the time. (That changed pretty quickly.)
Nonetheless, New England is where I fit; it's the country of my heart. Whether I say I'm a Vermonter is very contextual, and there are some slightly (but not entirely) subjective boundaries of terms drawn in terms of descriptions I won't use, because I'm not from Vermont. My parents and my grandparents aren't from Vermont, and my childhood was elsewhere, and this means that in certain ways I will always be a flatlander. And I'm okay with that. But Vermont -- New England in general -- is still home.
I love urban New England -- which is to say, Boston, primarily, as that's the only place where I've lived, although both Burlington (VT) and Portland are awesome places too. Insofar as I have a city, Boston is mine; I can't see myself moving away from here any time soon. And I love rural and small town New England. I love Boston, but when I cross the border into Vermont -- when I'm surrounded by blue-hazed ranks of ancient mountains, and rolling valleys full of fields, and mountain hillsides and small towns full of dairy farmers and artists and that pervasive, deep-down sense of community -- that's home. I look around, and something inside me says, this is how the land should be. I could ramble on for ages, and I've already deleted some, but that's what it comes down to -- it's no better or worse than any other region, maybe, but it's the one that says home to me, in every breath.
Online RP
Hee. Well, since this is coming from a friend whom I met through online RP, I can hardly deny that!
I like writing. (Obviously.) I like storytelling. But more than that I like writing for an audience, at least some of the time, and I love collaboration. I love to bounce ideas and phrases and characters off people, and have them throw them right back with a new spin. RP is like juggling with stories.
Plus, it's a great way to meet a lot of seriously nifty people, in my experience.
Arabic
The fact that I studied Arabic is actually mostly random chance, although obviously the fact that I stuck with it is because of my own interest. I started taking it in high school, when a teacher (and one of my favorite teachers ever, as it turned out) started teaching it as a semi-club before school. I was coming in early anyway because I was carpooling with Dad, and up to that point I'd taken Latin and ASL, and I thought, "Why not? I'll try learning a language that's actually useful in a foreign country, for a change!" And it was fun, so when I got to college I saw that they had an Arabic program, and I thought "Why not?" and kept on taking it, while I debated what my major would be and if I really wanted to be a vet ('yes! yes totally! wait I hate chemistry and sub-cellular biology; this may be a problem') and so forth. I ended up dabbling in a lot of languages, but Arabic is the one I stuck with earliest and thus longest, and I kind of fell into majoring in Middle Eastern Studies.
I love the language. It's fascinating, and beautiful, and complex, and I wish I spoke it better. (I wish I was in better practice, too. I've gotten horrifically rusty.) As far as the associated politics and culture go -- this, too, is fascinating and complex, and beautiful (in the case of the culture) and heartbreaking (in the case of a lot of the politics), and I learned just enough to know how very much I don't know, and to be shocked every time I'm reminded of how much most Americans are completely clueless about. I'd love to go back to the Middle East -- both places I've been, and places I haven't.
Most of the jobs I've found in the field are ones I don't want to do, or am not competent to do, or both. But I'm still glad I learned what I did, and I wish I were in better practice and knew more.
The Sequence (*grins*)
Hee. But of course! This'd be the Dark Is Rising sequence, by Susan Cooper.
I read this young; I don't remember when, except that I read The Grey King first and loved it even though some parts of it were deeply confusing until I went back and reread later. But -- well. Some books I adored in my childhood I can't stand now; plenty of them have diminished, into stories I regard with a nostalgic fondness that's rueful or self-deprecating or deeply conflicted. But this series is one I can read again and again, and love every time.
Also, I'm pretty sure Susan Cooper's writing is one of the formative influences on my own. One of several, to be sure, but still one of those writers whose syntax sank deep.
Delicious tea
I am very fond of tea, as many of you know and mock me for. Partly it's the practical aspect of a cheap drink which goes well with pretty much every meal -- I used to drink milk alllll the time instead, but mild lactose intolerance put a stop to that. And juice is annoyingly pricey. But it's also the fact that, well, I just really like the taste of the stuff. There's a lot of subtlety in the different flavors; I love being able to look at a stack of teas, and ponder which precise one I'm in the mood for at the moment. It's calming, sometimes, and a good strong mug of tea wakes me up in the morning long before the caffeine has had any actual effect. One of my favorite things to do is sit outside or by a window, curled up in a chair, with a mug or pot of tea and a good book. (And maybe a cat.) That's pretty much my perfect quiet afternoon.