25 Things
Here's that meme people are doing on Facebook (woo) and that I keep getting tagged for.
Play if you like :)
25 Things
Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.
1. I've put off doing this meme all week; it's been a crazy week out of a crazy month out of a crazy couple of years.
2. The last five years of my life were spent in England. The two years before that in Austin, the two years before that in Seattle, three out of the four years before THAT in Northampton, and one of those four years in Geneva. I've lived six months or more in five different countries.
3. I'm a TCK. That's a Third-Culture Kid to you. I speak three languages (only two of them well), used to be native-level fluent in a language I now barely remember, and hold two passports, as does my son. That all sounds very romantic, but what it really means is that I struggle to find close friends who live close by enough to do everyday things with, and I continuously agonize about where to move next and how that decision will affect my child as he grows up.
4. I'm fat. I stopped dieting nearly six years ago and have only rarely looked back, and never long enough to actually go on another diet! I believe in Health At Every Size (HAES) and I wish more of my dieting friends would realize what beautiful, intelligent, and creative people they are and stop the soul-destruction that is dieting (no, I don't have a problem with slow, gradual changes, but I'd rather not know about your latest calorie-restrictive food plan!). I frequently wish that I were thinner but am working hard on believing that my value as a human being and my weight do not go hand in hand.
5. My current favorite color is red. A friend of mine in Manchester owns what is almost my dream house: a little English Victorian cottage with hardwood floors painted black, walls painted white, and deep red rugs, curtains, and accents. The only thing I'd do to improve on her house is have a bigger garden.
6. I've always loved gardening, especially since I discovered the joy of seasons after moving out of California. Spring is a joy, summer is tedious but produces nice roses, and autumn light is the most remarkable thing ever. I love old-fashioned flowers, like roses and bulbs. Currently, I have a bunch of pots of primroses and spring bulbs from the nursery waiting to be planted into larger pots on my deck. I don't miss California weather one. single. bit., except for the fact that the fruit there in the summer was so incredibly good because of the heat.
7. Reading is one of my passions, especially fantasy. I wish I could write fiction well, but I'm a non-fiction kinda gal. I couldn't pick a favorite author, but am currently re-reading Jacqueline Carey's "Kushiel's Legacy" trilogy. They're magnificently written, a little bit naughty, and beautifully rich. Great escapist reading during a hard month at work!
8. Right now, I couldn't say I have a best friend. When I was a kid, my best friend lived many hours' drive away in Cote d'Ivoire. In high school I had several very close friends, as I did in college. At the moment I'm too far away from anyone to feel like I have a bosom friend. That's not to say I don't have good friends, just that I desperately wish I knew someone here in Seattle that I could connect with really regularly. I was so very sad when I knew that I was coming back to Seattle, but that Kami Blackwell Kinney didn't live here anymore!
9. I'm in my early thirties and still living with my parents! That is, I live on the lower level of their house, which is laid out as its own apartment. That's both fun and frustrating; I love being close to them after years of living far apart, but it can be very hard to escape that parent/child dynamic, even now that I have a child of my own! I love that they care so much for my husband and it is a joy for them to be so close to Ciaran.
10. I am jealous of my parents, and my husband, because my son loves them best and I'm in a pathetically lagging fourth (and would probably be further behind than that if anyone ELSE lived in the house!). I worry a lot that I'm a bad parent.
11. A couple of things I hope my son learns from me are the love of reading and discovery, and that treating people well no matter who they are makes the world a better place. Things I hope my son does not learn from me are my propensity for being overly picky and critical (of myself and others), and my complete and utter inability to be a good correspondent!
12. I have *workmates* on Facebook. I'm censoring myself ever so slightly as a result.
13. If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be in Le Chambon sur Lignon, France. I spent six months there as a teenager (and nearly a year as a baby). It is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful places in the world.
14. I'm an INFJ. This description sums me up pretty well (good and bad!):
Because the INFJ has such strong intuitive capabilities, they trust their own instincts above all else. This may result in an INFJ stubborness and tendency to ignore other people's opinions. They believe that they're right. On the other hand, INFJ is a perfectionist who doubts that they are living up to their full potential. INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves - there's always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them. They believe in constant growth, and don't often take time to revel in their accomplishments. They have strong value systems, and need to live their lives in accordance with what they feel is right. In deference to the Feeling aspect of their personalities, INFJs are in some ways gentle and easy going. Conversely, they have very high expectations of themselves, and frequently of their families. They don't believe in compromising their ideals.
On the subject of personality analysis, I'm an Enneagram Type 4w5. I like the way the enneagram explores the negative sides of our personalities as well as the positives.
Something that convinces me astrology is pretty much rubbish is reading my Chinese horoscope (Fire Snake) and my regular horoscope (Sagittarius), and realizing I'm absolutely unlike either one (although they are very much like each other).
15. I played the flute for eight years, including private lessons, loved it, and was devastated when I couldn't continue at Smith. I haven't touched it in years, although I keep telling myself I should.
16. I like order but am completely disorderly...except my bookshelves, which are divided into non-fiction and fiction. The fiction is in alphabetical order by author and the non-fiction is currently in semi-subject order. I don't own enough bookshelves.
17. If I could own any artwork in the world, it would be a Vermeer (preferably the "Art of Painting") or a Rembrandt etching. In more modern art, I also enjoy a bit of Dotty Attie (Smith's Print Room owns a set of drawings by her based on the Decameron and borrowing from Old Master paintings) but most 20th century art leaves me pretty cold.
18. To paraphrase what one of my colleagues at my current job told me, "I've heard of mis-matches between job and training, but your case is ridiculous!" What she means is that I hold an MA in art history but work as an office coordinator. That's because, folks, art history jobs are even harder to get than they tell you they are and an MA doesn't cut it!
19. I like playing with Scotch tape. I was once complimented on my Scotch tape rolling skills and asked what machine I used to get my pieces of tape so uniformly cut and rolled. It is, perhaps, somewhat pathetic that I took this as a compliment!
20. I can't remember the punch lines of jokes. I laugh, and within 20 minutes they're gone from my head. I blame it on being blonde, but really it's just that my memory is scarily bad!
21. One of my favorite foods in the world is popcorn, but only when it's my dad's or fresh from the movie theater popper. I'm not a huge fan of chocolate, although I enjoy a brownie now and then.
22. I like blank books. I had to stop buying blank books because I have so many that aren't written in, or are only partially written in. I wish I were a brilliant sketch artist but can't be bothered learning how to draw well enough to be one.
23. I've always liked birds but this is the first year I've put up bird feeders. We get a lot of chickadees, juncos, and blue jays.
24. My first international flight was at the age of six weeks. The longest I've gone without flying abroad is eight years.
25. Squirrel is one of those words that looks weird to me, even when it's spelled correctly.
Play if you like :)
25 Things
Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.
1. I've put off doing this meme all week; it's been a crazy week out of a crazy month out of a crazy couple of years.
2. The last five years of my life were spent in England. The two years before that in Austin, the two years before that in Seattle, three out of the four years before THAT in Northampton, and one of those four years in Geneva. I've lived six months or more in five different countries.
3. I'm a TCK. That's a Third-Culture Kid to you. I speak three languages (only two of them well), used to be native-level fluent in a language I now barely remember, and hold two passports, as does my son. That all sounds very romantic, but what it really means is that I struggle to find close friends who live close by enough to do everyday things with, and I continuously agonize about where to move next and how that decision will affect my child as he grows up.
4. I'm fat. I stopped dieting nearly six years ago and have only rarely looked back, and never long enough to actually go on another diet! I believe in Health At Every Size (HAES) and I wish more of my dieting friends would realize what beautiful, intelligent, and creative people they are and stop the soul-destruction that is dieting (no, I don't have a problem with slow, gradual changes, but I'd rather not know about your latest calorie-restrictive food plan!). I frequently wish that I were thinner but am working hard on believing that my value as a human being and my weight do not go hand in hand.
5. My current favorite color is red. A friend of mine in Manchester owns what is almost my dream house: a little English Victorian cottage with hardwood floors painted black, walls painted white, and deep red rugs, curtains, and accents. The only thing I'd do to improve on her house is have a bigger garden.
6. I've always loved gardening, especially since I discovered the joy of seasons after moving out of California. Spring is a joy, summer is tedious but produces nice roses, and autumn light is the most remarkable thing ever. I love old-fashioned flowers, like roses and bulbs. Currently, I have a bunch of pots of primroses and spring bulbs from the nursery waiting to be planted into larger pots on my deck. I don't miss California weather one. single. bit., except for the fact that the fruit there in the summer was so incredibly good because of the heat.
7. Reading is one of my passions, especially fantasy. I wish I could write fiction well, but I'm a non-fiction kinda gal. I couldn't pick a favorite author, but am currently re-reading Jacqueline Carey's "Kushiel's Legacy" trilogy. They're magnificently written, a little bit naughty, and beautifully rich. Great escapist reading during a hard month at work!
8. Right now, I couldn't say I have a best friend. When I was a kid, my best friend lived many hours' drive away in Cote d'Ivoire. In high school I had several very close friends, as I did in college. At the moment I'm too far away from anyone to feel like I have a bosom friend. That's not to say I don't have good friends, just that I desperately wish I knew someone here in Seattle that I could connect with really regularly. I was so very sad when I knew that I was coming back to Seattle, but that Kami Blackwell Kinney didn't live here anymore!
9. I'm in my early thirties and still living with my parents! That is, I live on the lower level of their house, which is laid out as its own apartment. That's both fun and frustrating; I love being close to them after years of living far apart, but it can be very hard to escape that parent/child dynamic, even now that I have a child of my own! I love that they care so much for my husband and it is a joy for them to be so close to Ciaran.
10. I am jealous of my parents, and my husband, because my son loves them best and I'm in a pathetically lagging fourth (and would probably be further behind than that if anyone ELSE lived in the house!). I worry a lot that I'm a bad parent.
11. A couple of things I hope my son learns from me are the love of reading and discovery, and that treating people well no matter who they are makes the world a better place. Things I hope my son does not learn from me are my propensity for being overly picky and critical (of myself and others), and my complete and utter inability to be a good correspondent!
12. I have *workmates* on Facebook. I'm censoring myself ever so slightly as a result.
13. If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be in Le Chambon sur Lignon, France. I spent six months there as a teenager (and nearly a year as a baby). It is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful places in the world.
14. I'm an INFJ. This description sums me up pretty well (good and bad!):
Because the INFJ has such strong intuitive capabilities, they trust their own instincts above all else. This may result in an INFJ stubborness and tendency to ignore other people's opinions. They believe that they're right. On the other hand, INFJ is a perfectionist who doubts that they are living up to their full potential. INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves - there's always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them. They believe in constant growth, and don't often take time to revel in their accomplishments. They have strong value systems, and need to live their lives in accordance with what they feel is right. In deference to the Feeling aspect of their personalities, INFJs are in some ways gentle and easy going. Conversely, they have very high expectations of themselves, and frequently of their families. They don't believe in compromising their ideals.
On the subject of personality analysis, I'm an Enneagram Type 4w5. I like the way the enneagram explores the negative sides of our personalities as well as the positives.
Something that convinces me astrology is pretty much rubbish is reading my Chinese horoscope (Fire Snake) and my regular horoscope (Sagittarius), and realizing I'm absolutely unlike either one (although they are very much like each other).
15. I played the flute for eight years, including private lessons, loved it, and was devastated when I couldn't continue at Smith. I haven't touched it in years, although I keep telling myself I should.
16. I like order but am completely disorderly...except my bookshelves, which are divided into non-fiction and fiction. The fiction is in alphabetical order by author and the non-fiction is currently in semi-subject order. I don't own enough bookshelves.
17. If I could own any artwork in the world, it would be a Vermeer (preferably the "Art of Painting") or a Rembrandt etching. In more modern art, I also enjoy a bit of Dotty Attie (Smith's Print Room owns a set of drawings by her based on the Decameron and borrowing from Old Master paintings) but most 20th century art leaves me pretty cold.
18. To paraphrase what one of my colleagues at my current job told me, "I've heard of mis-matches between job and training, but your case is ridiculous!" What she means is that I hold an MA in art history but work as an office coordinator. That's because, folks, art history jobs are even harder to get than they tell you they are and an MA doesn't cut it!
19. I like playing with Scotch tape. I was once complimented on my Scotch tape rolling skills and asked what machine I used to get my pieces of tape so uniformly cut and rolled. It is, perhaps, somewhat pathetic that I took this as a compliment!
20. I can't remember the punch lines of jokes. I laugh, and within 20 minutes they're gone from my head. I blame it on being blonde, but really it's just that my memory is scarily bad!
21. One of my favorite foods in the world is popcorn, but only when it's my dad's or fresh from the movie theater popper. I'm not a huge fan of chocolate, although I enjoy a brownie now and then.
22. I like blank books. I had to stop buying blank books because I have so many that aren't written in, or are only partially written in. I wish I were a brilliant sketch artist but can't be bothered learning how to draw well enough to be one.
23. I've always liked birds but this is the first year I've put up bird feeders. We get a lot of chickadees, juncos, and blue jays.
24. My first international flight was at the age of six weeks. The longest I've gone without flying abroad is eight years.
25. Squirrel is one of those words that looks weird to me, even when it's spelled correctly.