Self meme - Day 3
So I'm back after a fantastic couple of days in Sweden, and a day in London to complete the rego process to get my visa for Japan. So now I can come back to this meme.
hmm. Well this could be a long entry. I hear the 'in great detail' part, but I can go into some epic detail if I really want to. To for the sake of my flist, I'll try to keep it brief.
My Dad's in his early 50's, and so far he's led what I would dub a pretty interesting life. He was born and raised until the age of sixteen in Chile, and moved to Australia a few months before Whitlam made it tougher for British citizens to come into the country (not that much tougher though, I'd imagine). He was a mama's boy in the uncomfortable sense of the word. He loved his mother but she was quite smothering, and Grandma Brown apparently HATED my mum, because mum has about as much British in her as any genuine Australian woman. So not much. He married my mother at 32, and three years later they had their first child (me). He ran his own business for a while, until they realised that it wasn't getting far and that Dad was better suited as an employee rather than an employer (although he makes a fair manager). He's a trained accountant with about 50% of the personality of one, that 50% being how much he loves and obsesses about money. It was his decision, mainly, for us to move to the UK, and naturally I didn't have any say in it because in many ways Dad gives me the least leeway of any of his children, since he knows I'll be the most tolerant. As I'm writing this I keep thinking of when I was last watching him eat ravioli - he had one mostly-naked leg lifted up onto the ledge of the fence and was getting sauce all around his mouth. It was truly disgusting, and having mum doing the weird moaning thing she does whenever she eats next to him made me have to leave the room. *ahem* My dad is a nice man, and with a wife like mum he has to put up with a lot of crap. But he's selfish as well, and he doesn't quite understand and appreciate what he has and how little he has had to fight for anything in his life. He's quite stingy, owing to his love of money, but not when it comes to himself. So he will lecture us, quite unnecessarily, about how he won't be around to provide for us forever although he would like to be, and that we have to smarten up and get jobs quick smart because we're obviously making no effort to do so at the moment (this was at a time when I was doing CV runs almost every fortnight, looking up all possible part-time job leads, and getting absolutely nowhere because nobody hires fat, ugly Australians these days), while buying himself locomotives for model railway displays that he has yet to construct. He's embarrassingly eager to try and get more money into the house and to spend as little as possible. Once our new neighbours mentioned that they had a small son and Dad automatically said "Gillian here is an excellent baby-sitter." I could have died of embarrassment right then. He also talks about doing Spanish translation work despite being up to his teeth in work at his job, because we are so financially destitute that such sacrifices are necessary, while he quite happily goes over to Spain and spends a fair amount of money having a lovely time. Interesting, huh? However, despite my complaints he is a nice man, he remembers our birthdays and to pick us up from work (although we do have to tell him what time we'll be there about five times and he still is normally an hour late), and as long as I don't have to watch him eat we get along extremely well. One other thing about him that niggles is how pathetic he can be, like when I'm talking about my depression and he says "I'm sorry. I gave you that (my condition is hereditary from his side of the family)". I have fantasised about kicking him many times.
On to mum. Mum's life has been relatively ordinary until she moved to France, despite her being a pretty unordinary person. She completed a Bachelor of Music Education, got married and had three children before she was thirty; something I at least doubt I will do despite wanting to. She got into computers when I was quite young and since about 1995 has worked entirely with computers and teaching people how to use them. She moved to France a few years ago (despite Dad's many howls of protest at how expensive it will be for them to be under two roofs how much he would miss her) and now works for a major electric/computer/really boring-stuff-producing company. Personality-wise my mother is a handful, and I often say that she needs a team of people to keep her at bay. She's very easily angered, and she's very smart, and she has no tolerance for stupid people, which to her means that she has no tolerance for pretty much everybody. Unlike Dad she is not stingy, and she has no qualms about supporting us for as long as we need to be supported, and knows not to lecture us about things that we really do not need to be lectured on. She is notoriously bad at realising her short-comings, and heaven-forbid we point out said short-comings to her. She's always been a performer and loves showing off in front of willing audiences, so the amount of times I've had to listen to her singing (which is good but not something I need to hear all the time) is unmentionable. The main problem with mum is that while she isn't selfish in the way that dad is, she is incredibly self-absorbed in a way that Dad definitely isn't. She craps on about losing weight so much that I want to take her, shake her, and tell her that losing weight is not the be-all and end-all of everything. But she wouldn't listen to me as she doesn't listen to anyone. She extends this obsession with weight-loss onto me; somebody who would obviously like to lose weight and be thin and pretty and normal like she has never been, but knows that in reality some people have to be the fat and unbearably ugly weirdos of this world. So she goes on about weight-loss but really doesn't do much about it. weight-wise she's OK. 85kg, which is a bit large, but she looks in-proportion and has never been healthier (although her diet has always been abysmal). Her table-manners are atrocious - she's the most disgusting eater, and ironically she gets pissed off at dad's eating. I think that she's quite proud of me, and of my academic accomplishments, but she would like me to be the thin, beautiful daughter as well as the smart one. Sadly my unfairly bad genetics has made it so that that's not really up to me, and hopefully eventually she'll understand that. But she loves me - her and Dad both adore me and both of my brothers. And I cannot ask for anything else from my parents, especially when so many people don't get loving parents. It makes me appreciate how lucky I am.
hmm. Well this could be a long entry. I hear the 'in great detail' part, but I can go into some epic detail if I really want to. To for the sake of my flist, I'll try to keep it brief.
My Dad's in his early 50's, and so far he's led what I would dub a pretty interesting life. He was born and raised until the age of sixteen in Chile, and moved to Australia a few months before Whitlam made it tougher for British citizens to come into the country (not that much tougher though, I'd imagine). He was a mama's boy in the uncomfortable sense of the word. He loved his mother but she was quite smothering, and Grandma Brown apparently HATED my mum, because mum has about as much British in her as any genuine Australian woman. So not much. He married my mother at 32, and three years later they had their first child (me). He ran his own business for a while, until they realised that it wasn't getting far and that Dad was better suited as an employee rather than an employer (although he makes a fair manager). He's a trained accountant with about 50% of the personality of one, that 50% being how much he loves and obsesses about money. It was his decision, mainly, for us to move to the UK, and naturally I didn't have any say in it because in many ways Dad gives me the least leeway of any of his children, since he knows I'll be the most tolerant. As I'm writing this I keep thinking of when I was last watching him eat ravioli - he had one mostly-naked leg lifted up onto the ledge of the fence and was getting sauce all around his mouth. It was truly disgusting, and having mum doing the weird moaning thing she does whenever she eats next to him made me have to leave the room. *ahem* My dad is a nice man, and with a wife like mum he has to put up with a lot of crap. But he's selfish as well, and he doesn't quite understand and appreciate what he has and how little he has had to fight for anything in his life. He's quite stingy, owing to his love of money, but not when it comes to himself. So he will lecture us, quite unnecessarily, about how he won't be around to provide for us forever although he would like to be, and that we have to smarten up and get jobs quick smart because we're obviously making no effort to do so at the moment (this was at a time when I was doing CV runs almost every fortnight, looking up all possible part-time job leads, and getting absolutely nowhere because nobody hires fat, ugly Australians these days), while buying himself locomotives for model railway displays that he has yet to construct. He's embarrassingly eager to try and get more money into the house and to spend as little as possible. Once our new neighbours mentioned that they had a small son and Dad automatically said "Gillian here is an excellent baby-sitter." I could have died of embarrassment right then. He also talks about doing Spanish translation work despite being up to his teeth in work at his job, because we are so financially destitute that such sacrifices are necessary, while he quite happily goes over to Spain and spends a fair amount of money having a lovely time. Interesting, huh? However, despite my complaints he is a nice man, he remembers our birthdays and to pick us up from work (although we do have to tell him what time we'll be there about five times and he still is normally an hour late), and as long as I don't have to watch him eat we get along extremely well. One other thing about him that niggles is how pathetic he can be, like when I'm talking about my depression and he says "I'm sorry. I gave you that (my condition is hereditary from his side of the family)". I have fantasised about kicking him many times.
On to mum. Mum's life has been relatively ordinary until she moved to France, despite her being a pretty unordinary person. She completed a Bachelor of Music Education, got married and had three children before she was thirty; something I at least doubt I will do despite wanting to. She got into computers when I was quite young and since about 1995 has worked entirely with computers and teaching people how to use them. She moved to France a few years ago (despite Dad's many howls of protest at how expensive it will be for them to be under two roofs how much he would miss her) and now works for a major electric/computer/really boring-stuff-producing company. Personality-wise my mother is a handful, and I often say that she needs a team of people to keep her at bay. She's very easily angered, and she's very smart, and she has no tolerance for stupid people, which to her means that she has no tolerance for pretty much everybody. Unlike Dad she is not stingy, and she has no qualms about supporting us for as long as we need to be supported, and knows not to lecture us about things that we really do not need to be lectured on. She is notoriously bad at realising her short-comings, and heaven-forbid we point out said short-comings to her. She's always been a performer and loves showing off in front of willing audiences, so the amount of times I've had to listen to her singing (which is good but not something I need to hear all the time) is unmentionable. The main problem with mum is that while she isn't selfish in the way that dad is, she is incredibly self-absorbed in a way that Dad definitely isn't. She craps on about losing weight so much that I want to take her, shake her, and tell her that losing weight is not the be-all and end-all of everything. But she wouldn't listen to me as she doesn't listen to anyone. She extends this obsession with weight-loss onto me; somebody who would obviously like to lose weight and be thin and pretty and normal like she has never been, but knows that in reality some people have to be the fat and unbearably ugly weirdos of this world. So she goes on about weight-loss but really doesn't do much about it. weight-wise she's OK. 85kg, which is a bit large, but she looks in-proportion and has never been healthier (although her diet has always been abysmal). Her table-manners are atrocious - she's the most disgusting eater, and ironically she gets pissed off at dad's eating. I think that she's quite proud of me, and of my academic accomplishments, but she would like me to be the thin, beautiful daughter as well as the smart one. Sadly my unfairly bad genetics has made it so that that's not really up to me, and hopefully eventually she'll understand that. But she loves me - her and Dad both adore me and both of my brothers. And I cannot ask for anything else from my parents, especially when so many people don't get loving parents. It makes me appreciate how lucky I am.