another MeMe

[talekyn]

Yoinked this one from tinawiesen  as well:

Leave a comment and I will choose 7 of your LJ profile interests for you to explain/write about.

*note* The first commenter will also get to choose 7 of my interests for me to write about, so I will be required to write my drivel as the result.

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Of course, the whole way I got into this meme was because I

Comments

I had no idea this would be this long....

[caughtshort]

cats - No, not the musical. I love cats. I always have, my whole life. I got my first cat as a child. We actually got two. Dixie and Trixie. My dad didn't like cats, so this was after my parents divorced, I was probably six. From Dixie and Trixie came generations of many cats. I have to admit I wasn't always kind to them as a child. I remember kicking the occasional cat, and we used to always get a kick out of tossing them in the pond to watch them swim out. Cats are great swimmers, btw. I remember once we put Trixie in the microwave to dry her off. Luckily Mom caught us in time. I cannot imagine the horror we'd have experienced if that had been allowed to continue. ::shudders::

My current cat is a sweetie, Orange Kitty, and I miss him terribly. Of course, I miss the late Grey Kitty too. If I end up being the crazy cat lady in my later years, that'll be perfectly alright with me. Each cat I've ever had possessed a unique personality, and I've had a few with enough attitude to humble Madonna. I do love dogs too, as well as most animals, but cats are very special to me.

Cuba - I have no idea how it started. I'm not Cuban, I have no Cuban family. I do remember as a little child my grandfather would tell me stories of when he was in the Navy. He described Cuba as an incredibly beautiful place. In the last several years I've come to really enjoy Cuban music, Cuban food, and I've wanted to travel to Cuba so badly. Part of it is that it's forbidden. It is, I believe, the only place that our own government forbids us to travel to. And I have to admit that that fact has wanted me to go there all the more.

My fascination with Cuba, and it's people, it's history, and our own history with it, is what led me to become interested in travel and the Spanish language, and to me wanting to study international relations. My selection of this school I'm in right now was in part determined by the hope that with a new white house administration the restrictions on educational licenses for travel to the island will be lifted and I'll be able to go there before I graduate. We'll see how that works out.

Now, the preceding makes it sound like I'm obsessed with Cuba...that's not the case, I swear.

folklore - Gosh, who doesn't love folklore? It's the whole body of history, stories, traditions, and customs that makes a people who they are. The word describes a vast sea of things, and because of that it's hard to write about why I like it in that way.

I do have an interest in anthropology, and the study of other cultures. Specifically, as a fan of horror tales, I recognize that most of what we consider horror has its roots in the tales and superstitions of various peoples throughout history, and that those tales can reveal some of the concerns that particular group had at the time and carried with them. Even in our popular culture (which is really just a component of our modern folklore) you see this. If you wanna know what concerned Americans in the 1950s, you might look at the popular horror films and see "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" there and read into that that we were concerned about loss of individuality (as we perceived to be happening in the Soviet Union) or a response to McCarthyism. Those fears were so ingrained that the author of the novel insists there was no allegory intended. But it's clear. And it's clear that even if the allegory wasn't intentional the public responded to it. The original film has been preserved in the Library of Congress for it's historical and social significance. It's now a part of our official folklore.

I also like American folklore. Like, not history as it actually happened, but what we've built it up to be. George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and never lying, Paul Revere's ride, Columbus being the first to discover these two continents, and all that. Things that are incredibly incorrect, yet no less continue to be present in school history books because they've become a part of who we are as a country.