Come at me, bro!
Comment with "Come at me, bro," and:
- I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better.
- Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
- Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.
I was asked five marvellous questions by bluestocking79; you will find them and their accompanying answers behind the cut!
1. What do you most love and hate about ice hockey?
You mean, what do I hate besides the completely insane rioting?
My love and hate are much the same thing: I love how easy it is to get swept up in it-you don't need a particularly sophisticated understanding of the sport and the way the plays work (although, amusingly, I find them to resemble basketball plays incredibly closely). It's fast and straightforward and has enough controlled violence to add to the spectacle, but, at the same time, that makes it so easy to become emotionally invested and subsequently devastated, even if that is part of the fun.
And I can't remember the last time a team I was cheering for the whole way through actually made it to the final, which made the Canucks loss last night particularly brutal. Still, that's sports.
And, Kesler, I still love you!
2. What do you find most satisfying and intriguing about Austen?
Oh, goodness, everything! But I will narrow it down to two. One, which is more of an adaptation-related tangent is the complete madness of Austen mania in the last fifteen years or so. It's a phenomenon I've grown up with and it certainly colours the way I read Austen and engage with the films and various other media surrounding the novels.
Otherwise, basically my favourite thing in the world is close-reading, and Austen is particularly wonderful to read closely. Her language and style is so precise and tight and well structured, which makes me feel as though I am in safe hands-I can trust her to know what she is doing and to be creating very deliberate effects. The ambiguity is meant to be there, and she's always aware of it, even if it isn't always controlled ambiguity. Genius.
3. If you could have one single magical object from the world of Harry Potter, which one would you choose?
Much as I would like to say Pensieve, I feel as though that would be a dangerous possession; I already have a tendency to obsess over things that have happened, and having the ability to experience the memory as an interloper would only feed the habit.
Ditto Remembrall, except that I'd undoubtedly pull a Neville and lose it almost immediately.
So I shall be unoriginal and say a flying broomstick, even though I have a moderate fear of heights, because the desire to fly is just so strong. Gillyweed would also be amazing because I love being in water, and being able to breathe in it would make deep-sea diving less terrifying.
4. How did you get into yoga?
Throughout my teens, I was insanely active, to the point that I spent somewhere between twenty and thirty hours a week doing various types of training for all of the sports I was involved in (mainly basketball and triathlon, with some various manifestations of track on the side). While I did, for the most part, enjoy it, the end result was being completely burnt out at seventeen, by which time I had accumulated a number of preventable yet painful injuries as the result of inconsistent coaching and overtraining. When I finished school and moved away, I more or less dropped everything, partly out of sheer exhaustion and partly because I was sick of having to go back into physio every six months (usually to deal with my IT band, which had started causing problems when I was thirteen or so). (Fortunately, I had a wildly attractive physiotherapist!)
In my last year of high school, I'd had to do an extended research essay with a mentor, who was very into Bikram yoga, and we spent a lot of time discussing it. She was someone I found generally inspiring and who had a large impact on my decision to study English (and Austen!), and, when I moved, I joined the university's yoga club and tried a couple of different varieties, with the vague intention of tracking down a hot yoga studio when I had the chance. The yoga I tried initially bored me, mostly because I was so stiff from years of being athletic that I could barely get into the postures, and the slow pace meant that I never managed to warm up enough to feel like the yoga was doing anything (also, I have a limited amount of patience for Western appropriations of Eastern spiritualism, and the instructors all seemed to be big on that, or middle-aged women who would have been aerobics instructors in earlier decades), so after a while my yoga attendance fell by the wayside.
I tried to take up running again and within two days could barely walk because my IT band was so tight. (Side note: do anything you possibly can to avoid an IT band injury. For those unfamiliar with it, it is the tendon that attaches just above your hip and runs down to just below your knee-if it tightens up too much, usually from poor running form or a failure to stretch properly, it rubs on your hip and knee bones, to the point of inflammation and hurts. A lot. And once it happens, it keeps coming back! Forever! Until you cure yourself with yoga!) Finally, I got up the courage to try a Bikram class, and... it sucked. It was unbearably hot and humid in the room, and, although the heat helped me loosen up a bit, I was still embarrassingly inflexible. And the teachers barked out orders rather than soothingly murmuring vague instructions about opening my heart. It was hard in a way that no physical activity had ever been: I spent most of that first class lying on my mat, wanting to die.
For someone who comes from a highly competitive sports background, it was perfect. I don't think that you need that background to appreciate it, but I was much more sympathetic to the tough love approach than the floaty, spiritual one, thanks to a lifetime of being roared at by various coaches from across wide distances. Despite the intensity, though, I've never felt pushed to do something that I genuinely couldn't do (even if, at times, I have been pushed by instructors to do things that I can do, but am either uncertain about or cheating on). I took my first class in September 2008, and, although it took another year to really start practicing regularly, it has done incredible things for me, not just physically. I still have some stiffness in my hips, but I've worked through the worst of it and they no longer seize up at random. And, for the first time since I was about nine, I'm flexible!
Yesterday, I hung out in the splits before class without really warming up, just because I could. I'm still working on hip alignment, but the fact that I'm all the way down without any pain is impressive. Today, I did some of the best backward bending of my life and starting opening my shoulders, which have also sustained minor injuries from swimming.. Plus, soaking your mat-sized towel until it's dripping with sweat is totally satisfying and not at all gross.
And that is my recruitment essay! Go, find a Bikram studio. Also, Bikram is exactly as crazy as they say, which makes taking a class actually taught by him completely amazing. Don't be put off by the horror stories; any decent instructor will recognise your limits and only push you to do what you're capable of.
5. Single favorite Austen character?
I'm an Anne Elliot girl, all the way. Persuasion is my favourite Austen novel, largely for this reason-there is a maturity and acceptance throughout that is unique to it, which is a feature of Anne's interiority. I love that she makes a choice that we consider a mistake, but is a perfectly reasonable decision given the circumstances, and that the novel doesn't fault her for it, even if she has regrets-and, most importantly, I think, she continues to recognise the validity of her choice and her reasons at the end of the novel. It's a fitting rebuke to a culture that tells us True Love is the answer and is the only thing that can provide happiness or, at least, satisfaction, in that it doesn't dismiss love, but doesn't place it above other obligations, even if they are less romantic.
I burned myself out on my yoga rant. There are so many more reasons to love Anne. I hope you do, too!
- I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better.
- Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
- Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.
I was asked five marvellous questions by bluestocking79; you will find them and their accompanying answers behind the cut!
1. What do you most love and hate about ice hockey?
You mean, what do I hate besides the completely insane rioting?
My love and hate are much the same thing: I love how easy it is to get swept up in it-you don't need a particularly sophisticated understanding of the sport and the way the plays work (although, amusingly, I find them to resemble basketball plays incredibly closely). It's fast and straightforward and has enough controlled violence to add to the spectacle, but, at the same time, that makes it so easy to become emotionally invested and subsequently devastated, even if that is part of the fun.
And I can't remember the last time a team I was cheering for the whole way through actually made it to the final, which made the Canucks loss last night particularly brutal. Still, that's sports.
And, Kesler, I still love you!
2. What do you find most satisfying and intriguing about Austen?
Oh, goodness, everything! But I will narrow it down to two. One, which is more of an adaptation-related tangent is the complete madness of Austen mania in the last fifteen years or so. It's a phenomenon I've grown up with and it certainly colours the way I read Austen and engage with the films and various other media surrounding the novels.
Otherwise, basically my favourite thing in the world is close-reading, and Austen is particularly wonderful to read closely. Her language and style is so precise and tight and well structured, which makes me feel as though I am in safe hands-I can trust her to know what she is doing and to be creating very deliberate effects. The ambiguity is meant to be there, and she's always aware of it, even if it isn't always controlled ambiguity. Genius.
3. If you could have one single magical object from the world of Harry Potter, which one would you choose?
Much as I would like to say Pensieve, I feel as though that would be a dangerous possession; I already have a tendency to obsess over things that have happened, and having the ability to experience the memory as an interloper would only feed the habit.
Ditto Remembrall, except that I'd undoubtedly pull a Neville and lose it almost immediately.
So I shall be unoriginal and say a flying broomstick, even though I have a moderate fear of heights, because the desire to fly is just so strong. Gillyweed would also be amazing because I love being in water, and being able to breathe in it would make deep-sea diving less terrifying.
4. How did you get into yoga?
Throughout my teens, I was insanely active, to the point that I spent somewhere between twenty and thirty hours a week doing various types of training for all of the sports I was involved in (mainly basketball and triathlon, with some various manifestations of track on the side). While I did, for the most part, enjoy it, the end result was being completely burnt out at seventeen, by which time I had accumulated a number of preventable yet painful injuries as the result of inconsistent coaching and overtraining. When I finished school and moved away, I more or less dropped everything, partly out of sheer exhaustion and partly because I was sick of having to go back into physio every six months (usually to deal with my IT band, which had started causing problems when I was thirteen or so). (Fortunately, I had a wildly attractive physiotherapist!)
In my last year of high school, I'd had to do an extended research essay with a mentor, who was very into Bikram yoga, and we spent a lot of time discussing it. She was someone I found generally inspiring and who had a large impact on my decision to study English (and Austen!), and, when I moved, I joined the university's yoga club and tried a couple of different varieties, with the vague intention of tracking down a hot yoga studio when I had the chance. The yoga I tried initially bored me, mostly because I was so stiff from years of being athletic that I could barely get into the postures, and the slow pace meant that I never managed to warm up enough to feel like the yoga was doing anything (also, I have a limited amount of patience for Western appropriations of Eastern spiritualism, and the instructors all seemed to be big on that, or middle-aged women who would have been aerobics instructors in earlier decades), so after a while my yoga attendance fell by the wayside.
I tried to take up running again and within two days could barely walk because my IT band was so tight. (Side note: do anything you possibly can to avoid an IT band injury. For those unfamiliar with it, it is the tendon that attaches just above your hip and runs down to just below your knee-if it tightens up too much, usually from poor running form or a failure to stretch properly, it rubs on your hip and knee bones, to the point of inflammation and hurts. A lot. And once it happens, it keeps coming back! Forever! Until you cure yourself with yoga!) Finally, I got up the courage to try a Bikram class, and... it sucked. It was unbearably hot and humid in the room, and, although the heat helped me loosen up a bit, I was still embarrassingly inflexible. And the teachers barked out orders rather than soothingly murmuring vague instructions about opening my heart. It was hard in a way that no physical activity had ever been: I spent most of that first class lying on my mat, wanting to die.
For someone who comes from a highly competitive sports background, it was perfect. I don't think that you need that background to appreciate it, but I was much more sympathetic to the tough love approach than the floaty, spiritual one, thanks to a lifetime of being roared at by various coaches from across wide distances. Despite the intensity, though, I've never felt pushed to do something that I genuinely couldn't do (even if, at times, I have been pushed by instructors to do things that I can do, but am either uncertain about or cheating on). I took my first class in September 2008, and, although it took another year to really start practicing regularly, it has done incredible things for me, not just physically. I still have some stiffness in my hips, but I've worked through the worst of it and they no longer seize up at random. And, for the first time since I was about nine, I'm flexible!
Yesterday, I hung out in the splits before class without really warming up, just because I could. I'm still working on hip alignment, but the fact that I'm all the way down without any pain is impressive. Today, I did some of the best backward bending of my life and starting opening my shoulders, which have also sustained minor injuries from swimming.. Plus, soaking your mat-sized towel until it's dripping with sweat is totally satisfying and not at all gross.
And that is my recruitment essay! Go, find a Bikram studio. Also, Bikram is exactly as crazy as they say, which makes taking a class actually taught by him completely amazing. Don't be put off by the horror stories; any decent instructor will recognise your limits and only push you to do what you're capable of.
5. Single favorite Austen character?
I'm an Anne Elliot girl, all the way. Persuasion is my favourite Austen novel, largely for this reason-there is a maturity and acceptance throughout that is unique to it, which is a feature of Anne's interiority. I love that she makes a choice that we consider a mistake, but is a perfectly reasonable decision given the circumstances, and that the novel doesn't fault her for it, even if she has regrets-and, most importantly, I think, she continues to recognise the validity of her choice and her reasons at the end of the novel. It's a fitting rebuke to a culture that tells us True Love is the answer and is the only thing that can provide happiness or, at least, satisfaction, in that it doesn't dismiss love, but doesn't place it above other obligations, even if they are less romantic.
I burned myself out on my yoga rant. There are so many more reasons to love Anne. I hope you do, too!