(no subject)
a. Comment on this post and I will choose seven interests from your profile.
b. You will then explain what they mean and why you are interested in them.
c. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.
meridianrising picked the following from my interests list: bloomington, empire earth, loreena mckennitt, prokaryotes, renaissance faires, speculative fiction, string theory
Bloomington
This is the city where I lived for the past four years and just recently moved away from. I miss it so much. I don't miss grad school, which was the reason I was living there (Bloomington houses the main campus of Indiana University), but I loved the city very much. It's like a little spot of culture hidden in a little valley right in the middle of deepest redneck southern Indiana. There's so much nature: trees everywhere, bike trails along creeks, two state parks, two state forests and a state reservoir all within a thirty-minute drive. The campus itself is such a beautiful place. And while I can't see myself ever moving back there permanently at this point, I could do a lot worse. I hope wherever I end up long-term is as good as Bloomington. Here is the obligatory Wikipedia link.
Empire Earth
Um, this is a computer game. It's like five or six years old and they're on Empire Earth III or something by this point, but all I've ever played is the original. I've played it a lot. It's one of those RTS empire building games that were popular at least a few years ago, if they're not still. This one is my favorite. I still play it a lot, even more than the Sims 2. I don't talk about it because it's basically the same thing every time: build an empire and destroy the other side. I love it because it's pretty easy while still presenting enough of a challenge that it doesn't get boring or tedious. It's a good way to relax after a long day when you don't want to think too much but endless games of Solitaire are a little too mindless.
Loreena McKennitt
She's a singer/songwriter/composer from Canada who does Celtic music with influences from all different cultures around the world. I love her music. The only bad thing is that she doesn't come out with a new album very often. She was pretty prolific in the nineties and then kind of disappeared for several years. Her most recent album came out in 2006. Her website is here: Quinlan Road
Prokaryotes
Prokaryotes, basically, are unicellular organisms that don't have membrane-bound organelles (such as a cell nucleus). Current classification systems put life into three domains: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryota. Bacteria and Archaea are prokaryotes. Eukaryota are, obviously, eukaryotes, which means that their cells do have membrane-bound organelles. My field is microbiology, and mostly I've worked with bacteria, which are prokaryotes. And why have prokaryotes instead of just bacteria in my interests list? 1) I do have bacteria in my interests lists, and 2) I'm one of only like five people on LJ who list prokaryotes as an interest. I need to have something that's a little unique.
Renaissance Faires
I'm far from being a regular at Ren Faires, but I try to go to at least one every summer. Sometimes I dress up, and sometimes I just go to enjoy the atmosphere. I like ren faires for the same reason I like Dragon*Con: it's a place to quite literally escape into a different world for awhile. Unfortunately I haven't been to one since 2006 because the friend I went to them with moved halfway across the country.
Speculative Fiction
My preferred term when I'm talking about the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It's just an umbrella term that I like to use when I'm talking about speculative genres as a whole (I recently made a post about it).
String Theory
I barely passed my college general physics course, but I like reading layman's theoretical physics books. String theory has dominated these books for the last decade or so, even though the term is currently used as shorthand for several different hypotheses that grew out of the original string theory (which as I understand is mostly now considered wrong). You might have heard of superstrings or M-theory, which are two subjects that string theory is mostly used as an umbrella term for. The very basic idea behind string theory is that subatomic particles, instead of being two-dimensional point particles like particle physics has always assumed, are actually three-dimensional "strings" that create all matter and energy by the way they vibrate and interact with each other. I think there's something very poetic about that idea, like something Madeleine L'Engle wrote in her A Wrinkle in Time series. Here is the official string theory website.
b. You will then explain what they mean and why you are interested in them.
c. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.
meridianrising picked the following from my interests list: bloomington, empire earth, loreena mckennitt, prokaryotes, renaissance faires, speculative fiction, string theory
Bloomington
This is the city where I lived for the past four years and just recently moved away from. I miss it so much. I don't miss grad school, which was the reason I was living there (Bloomington houses the main campus of Indiana University), but I loved the city very much. It's like a little spot of culture hidden in a little valley right in the middle of deepest redneck southern Indiana. There's so much nature: trees everywhere, bike trails along creeks, two state parks, two state forests and a state reservoir all within a thirty-minute drive. The campus itself is such a beautiful place. And while I can't see myself ever moving back there permanently at this point, I could do a lot worse. I hope wherever I end up long-term is as good as Bloomington. Here is the obligatory Wikipedia link.
Empire Earth
Um, this is a computer game. It's like five or six years old and they're on Empire Earth III or something by this point, but all I've ever played is the original. I've played it a lot. It's one of those RTS empire building games that were popular at least a few years ago, if they're not still. This one is my favorite. I still play it a lot, even more than the Sims 2. I don't talk about it because it's basically the same thing every time: build an empire and destroy the other side. I love it because it's pretty easy while still presenting enough of a challenge that it doesn't get boring or tedious. It's a good way to relax after a long day when you don't want to think too much but endless games of Solitaire are a little too mindless.
Loreena McKennitt
She's a singer/songwriter/composer from Canada who does Celtic music with influences from all different cultures around the world. I love her music. The only bad thing is that she doesn't come out with a new album very often. She was pretty prolific in the nineties and then kind of disappeared for several years. Her most recent album came out in 2006. Her website is here: Quinlan Road
Prokaryotes
Prokaryotes, basically, are unicellular organisms that don't have membrane-bound organelles (such as a cell nucleus). Current classification systems put life into three domains: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryota. Bacteria and Archaea are prokaryotes. Eukaryota are, obviously, eukaryotes, which means that their cells do have membrane-bound organelles. My field is microbiology, and mostly I've worked with bacteria, which are prokaryotes. And why have prokaryotes instead of just bacteria in my interests list? 1) I do have bacteria in my interests lists, and 2) I'm one of only like five people on LJ who list prokaryotes as an interest. I need to have something that's a little unique.
Renaissance Faires
I'm far from being a regular at Ren Faires, but I try to go to at least one every summer. Sometimes I dress up, and sometimes I just go to enjoy the atmosphere. I like ren faires for the same reason I like Dragon*Con: it's a place to quite literally escape into a different world for awhile. Unfortunately I haven't been to one since 2006 because the friend I went to them with moved halfway across the country.
Speculative Fiction
My preferred term when I'm talking about the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It's just an umbrella term that I like to use when I'm talking about speculative genres as a whole (I recently made a post about it).
String Theory
I barely passed my college general physics course, but I like reading layman's theoretical physics books. String theory has dominated these books for the last decade or so, even though the term is currently used as shorthand for several different hypotheses that grew out of the original string theory (which as I understand is mostly now considered wrong). You might have heard of superstrings or M-theory, which are two subjects that string theory is mostly used as an umbrella term for. The very basic idea behind string theory is that subatomic particles, instead of being two-dimensional point particles like particle physics has always assumed, are actually three-dimensional "strings" that create all matter and energy by the way they vibrate and interact with each other. I think there's something very poetic about that idea, like something Madeleine L'Engle wrote in her A Wrinkle in Time series. Here is the official string theory website.