Tagged! - a meme
*waves* Hello to all my long-time friends and all of the new people I've added in recent friending memes, Misha's Rhino hunt, and through the Supernatural fandom. I was tagged by oddlyfamiliar to do this meme and figured this was as good a time as any to do a meme to introduce myself.
1. Make a list of 5 things that you can see without getting up.
1. Screen
2. Keyboard & Mouse
3. Dog
4. Bolts of fabric
5. DVD collection
2.How do you style your hair?
Style? It has a style? At the moment I'm growing it out. I had it cut off so that I could wear it in my convertible without having it tangle. I loved the easy care (5 minutes with the hair dryer -- FIVE MINUTES!!!) but shorter hair isn't "me" so now I'm growing it out again. I try to control it with straightening balm and a blow-dryer but it's wavy and has its own ideas.
3.What are you wearing now?
Is this a meme or an obscene phone call?
A blue, sleeveless shirt and blue pants. Aren't you glad you asked?
4.What do you want to be when you grow up?
I'm in a transition period, trying to pick a career to last the rest of my working life.
Sat for the first time for the Foreign Service Officer Test a couple of weeks ago. They like for you to prove your sincerity by taking the exam several times before passing you to the next hurdle so I don't expect I passed. In the meantime, I'm looking at other options, all of which require returning to school: patent lawyer (combines my enjoyment of intellectual property law and my abiding love of science), database builder/programmer (has the virtue of being something I've done in a small way before), or working for an archaeology museum (has the virtue of combining my previous work in museums and as an archaeologist).
I know, those have nothing to do with each other. There are too many interesting things to do in this world. I need to commit to something.
5.What do you hear right now?
The dog snoring and birds singing.
6.Who was the last person you hugged?
My BFF.
7.What is/was for dinner?
Rigatoni with veggies & sauce. Dessert was figs.
8.What did you do today?
Wake up. Make coffee. Empty dishwasher. See that I'd promised oddlyfamiliar, who'd tagged me, to do this meme. Do this meme. It has been an exciting day.
9.Dog person or cat person?
Both? I love animals, period. Forced to choose, I'm more of a dog person. I adore dogs. They're always so happy to see you, they're packages of boundless joy; simple things in life make them happy. How can you argue with making another creature's day just by coming home? Or being in the same room? It's ridiculously flattering.
I grew up with cats, though, and loved them just as fiercely. They have the advantage of living longer, too, so it feels like you get to know them more intimately.
10.If you had to change your name, what would you change it to?
Elizabeth. It's my favorite name. When my BFF was giving herself a middle name (it's a looooooong story), she asked me to choose and that's what I chose. I think it's a beautiful name and it can be shortened into several other pretty names: Beth, Lizzy, Eliza, Bess...
11.What was the last thing that you bought?
Drops for the dog's eyes. He's had inoperable, acute early-onset cataracts for 7 years now. He needs daily drops to control the inflammation, poor baby.
12.If you could afford to go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Everywhere? Since we're dropping the money limit, I want to go everywhere!
I want to explore Canada outside of just my favorite city ever, Vancouver. I want to visit the Pyramids of the Yucatan, Central America, Costa Rican coffee plantations, the Pampas, and Machu Piccu.
I want to meet the !Kung San peoples after studying them for so long and reading Nisa's narrative, to see South Africa's caves (esp. Swartkaans & Sterkfontein), Tanzania's Serengeti, Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Swahili architecture in Zanzibar, the rock art of Tanzania & Malawi & Libya, the Rift Valley & the Afar Region, Ethiopian churches carved into the rock, the Egyptian Pyramids, the Cairo Museums, the Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Petra, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (mountain gorillas!) & Kahuzi-Biega Park (more gorillas!), Mozambique, Madagascar (LEMURS!), the Zambezi River, Djenne (& Djenne-jeno) in Mali, Timbuktu, the dunes of the Sahara, the Gold Coast...
OMG I'll never finish even Africa when I also want to visit the Alhambra, all of Europe with its history, castles, cathedrals, the MUSEUMS, its countryside, Germany, Italy, France, Spain & Portugal, ANCIENT GREECE, modern Greece, Turkey (technically Asia but Turkey is linked to ancient Greece in my head) & Çatalhöyük, Babylon, Mesopotamia, Ur & Eridu, and of course every square inch of every one of the British Isles.
(ETA: And Scandinavia! How in the world could I forget to list Sweden, Norway, Finland...and Denmark, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia?? I know those aren't all the same country, or even the same language family, but I've wanted to visit the northern climes for so very long. Can't believe I forgot them.)
Not to mention the countries formerly behind the iron curtain, where I never thought I'd get to visit: Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania, and Russia itself! INDIA & the Indus Valley, China (the Great Wall! the history), Mongolia, Indonesia, Japan, Australia & New Zealand, the Barrier Reef, and both poles. (OK, I'd be happy to visit the edge of Antarctica rather than the South Pole itself.)
And after all that there are still places in this country I desperately want to see: Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Oregon, Idaho, & the Dakotas rank high on my list. I want to go back and see more of Alaska. I want to explore Newfoundland. I'm curious about the Marianas Trench.
I'd like to visit the moon and Mars. I think it's a damn shame that we won't have the ability to travel to other galaxies in my lifetime because I hate to think that I won't have the opportunity to see them.
oddlyfamiliar mentioned taking me and hils along with her on her travels and I think this is an AWESOME idea. Ladies, you're welcome to join me and my BFF Amy on my personal Odyssey to see absolutely everything.
13.Where do you see yourself in five years?
Settling into a career, hopefully as a foreign service officer. Learning a new language, a new city, a new culture, a new job.
14.Favorite book?
Oh lord. If you aren't new to this journal, you know that "favorite" anything and I simply do not get on. I am constitutionally incapable of choosing just one anything. Thankfully, I'm ignorant of most of non-Western literature so it's a much smaller pool to choose amongst.
Pride & Prejudice is a perennial favorite that I can reread at any time. The Iliad has been one of my favorites since I was ~8 so it wins for being on my Beloved Books List the longest. Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently books make me laugh just to think about them. Amy Tan draws me into her world every time. Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon opened my eyes to the world of reinterpreting literature. Is it possible to overestimate the importance of the Lord of the Rings trilogy? I think not. Love in the Time of Cholera is lyrical and magical.
I gleefully buy every new Eve Dallas book that comes out, despite their sometimes predictable nature because there is no sexier bastard than Roarke. Carl Hiaasan entertains me and gives me the justice so often lacking in real life. Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels are always a breezy, quick read -- perfect for airplane travels. Aaron Elkins's older novels are excellent reads as are Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody books and her Vicky Bliss stories.
Plays by Euripides make me weep and those by Aristophanes make me laugh. As long as I'm thinking classic literature, Shakespeare obviously comes to mind. His use of language moves me and yet he's also a dirty, dirty bastard. I enjoyed Virgil's the Aeneid (hello Trojan Horse!), the Italian Renaissance poetry (oh Petrarch!) I learned for Academic Decathlon so many moons ago, Pope's bits of wisdom, Ben Franklin's bon mots, John Donne's sarcastic poems, T. S. Eliot's odes to cats, and even the terribly soppy Byron and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (ETA: And Robert Frost! How could I fail to mention him?!?)
I loved loved loved John Ciardi's translation of the Inferno as a kid. I first read Animal Farm when I was too young to know it was anything more than a tale of clever farm animals. The scene in Fahrenheit 451 where the government televises its pursuit of a scapegoat to feed the public desire for vengeance has haunted me as have the dystopian visions of Brave New World, the Handmaid's Tale, and 1984. Why my parents let me read these novels at such a tender age I'll never know.
I retain a fondness for the Cat in the Hat with its ever-spreading stain. If only we had Cats X, Y, & Z to take care of nuclear waste and other industrial pollutants.
*sigh* I haven't even begun to think on other much loved non-fiction books such as The Vegetarian Epicure, my art books, The Woman that Never Evolved, The Blind Watchmaker, Stephen Jay Gould's work, Fuytuma's evolutionary biology text, some of my bone books, Edith Hamilton's Mythology, etc.
15.What are you doing this weekend?
Tonight is a much anticipated episode of Supernatural, which I will undoubtedly be squeeing over with fandom friends for days, no weeks to come. Other weekend plans include the scintillating activity of cleaning the house before my parents visit on Thursday. Their health has been less than good of late so I'm savoring every opportunity.
After revisiting my favorite books mentally, I'm feeling the yen to reconnect with my paper books in the physical realm so I imagine I'll pick up one of the listed tomes as well.
16.If you could play any musical instrument, which one would you play?
As a kid I played the piano, taught by my grandfather who was a musical prodigy, so I'd love to have a nice piano and the room to house it. I would love to learn the djembe.
17.How are you?
Well? Rambly? Short? Alive? All of the above?
18.What are you doing tomorrow?
Maybe I shouldn't have done this on a Friday as the answer is the same as #15. :\
19.What are you looking forward to the most?
Again with the superlatives. *eye roll*
The future? Choosing a career path and making progress on it? Going back to school and learning? Traveling? Experiencing new cultures? Tonight's Supernatural? Seeing my parents? Visiting friends? It depends on the context! There's so much to anticipate. Why choose?
1. Make a list of 5 things that you can see without getting up.
1. Screen
2. Keyboard & Mouse
3. Dog
4. Bolts of fabric
5. DVD collection
2.How do you style your hair?
Style? It has a style? At the moment I'm growing it out. I had it cut off so that I could wear it in my convertible without having it tangle. I loved the easy care (5 minutes with the hair dryer -- FIVE MINUTES!!!) but shorter hair isn't "me" so now I'm growing it out again. I try to control it with straightening balm and a blow-dryer but it's wavy and has its own ideas.
3.What are you wearing now?
Is this a meme or an obscene phone call?
A blue, sleeveless shirt and blue pants. Aren't you glad you asked?
4.What do you want to be when you grow up?
I'm in a transition period, trying to pick a career to last the rest of my working life.
Sat for the first time for the Foreign Service Officer Test a couple of weeks ago. They like for you to prove your sincerity by taking the exam several times before passing you to the next hurdle so I don't expect I passed. In the meantime, I'm looking at other options, all of which require returning to school: patent lawyer (combines my enjoyment of intellectual property law and my abiding love of science), database builder/programmer (has the virtue of being something I've done in a small way before), or working for an archaeology museum (has the virtue of combining my previous work in museums and as an archaeologist).
I know, those have nothing to do with each other. There are too many interesting things to do in this world. I need to commit to something.
5.What do you hear right now?
The dog snoring and birds singing.
6.Who was the last person you hugged?
My BFF.
7.What is/was for dinner?
Rigatoni with veggies & sauce. Dessert was figs.
8.What did you do today?
Wake up. Make coffee. Empty dishwasher. See that I'd promised oddlyfamiliar, who'd tagged me, to do this meme. Do this meme. It has been an exciting day.
9.Dog person or cat person?
Both? I love animals, period. Forced to choose, I'm more of a dog person. I adore dogs. They're always so happy to see you, they're packages of boundless joy; simple things in life make them happy. How can you argue with making another creature's day just by coming home? Or being in the same room? It's ridiculously flattering.
I grew up with cats, though, and loved them just as fiercely. They have the advantage of living longer, too, so it feels like you get to know them more intimately.
10.If you had to change your name, what would you change it to?
Elizabeth. It's my favorite name. When my BFF was giving herself a middle name (it's a looooooong story), she asked me to choose and that's what I chose. I think it's a beautiful name and it can be shortened into several other pretty names: Beth, Lizzy, Eliza, Bess...
11.What was the last thing that you bought?
Drops for the dog's eyes. He's had inoperable, acute early-onset cataracts for 7 years now. He needs daily drops to control the inflammation, poor baby.
12.If you could afford to go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Everywhere? Since we're dropping the money limit, I want to go everywhere!
I want to explore Canada outside of just my favorite city ever, Vancouver. I want to visit the Pyramids of the Yucatan, Central America, Costa Rican coffee plantations, the Pampas, and Machu Piccu.
I want to meet the !Kung San peoples after studying them for so long and reading Nisa's narrative, to see South Africa's caves (esp. Swartkaans & Sterkfontein), Tanzania's Serengeti, Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Swahili architecture in Zanzibar, the rock art of Tanzania & Malawi & Libya, the Rift Valley & the Afar Region, Ethiopian churches carved into the rock, the Egyptian Pyramids, the Cairo Museums, the Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Petra, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (mountain gorillas!) & Kahuzi-Biega Park (more gorillas!), Mozambique, Madagascar (LEMURS!), the Zambezi River, Djenne (& Djenne-jeno) in Mali, Timbuktu, the dunes of the Sahara, the Gold Coast...
OMG I'll never finish even Africa when I also want to visit the Alhambra, all of Europe with its history, castles, cathedrals, the MUSEUMS, its countryside, Germany, Italy, France, Spain & Portugal, ANCIENT GREECE, modern Greece, Turkey (technically Asia but Turkey is linked to ancient Greece in my head) & Çatalhöyük, Babylon, Mesopotamia, Ur & Eridu, and of course every square inch of every one of the British Isles.
(ETA: And Scandinavia! How in the world could I forget to list Sweden, Norway, Finland...and Denmark, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia?? I know those aren't all the same country, or even the same language family, but I've wanted to visit the northern climes for so very long. Can't believe I forgot them.)
Not to mention the countries formerly behind the iron curtain, where I never thought I'd get to visit: Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania, and Russia itself! INDIA & the Indus Valley, China (the Great Wall! the history), Mongolia, Indonesia, Japan, Australia & New Zealand, the Barrier Reef, and both poles. (OK, I'd be happy to visit the edge of Antarctica rather than the South Pole itself.)
And after all that there are still places in this country I desperately want to see: Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Oregon, Idaho, & the Dakotas rank high on my list. I want to go back and see more of Alaska. I want to explore Newfoundland. I'm curious about the Marianas Trench.
I'd like to visit the moon and Mars. I think it's a damn shame that we won't have the ability to travel to other galaxies in my lifetime because I hate to think that I won't have the opportunity to see them.
oddlyfamiliar mentioned taking me and hils along with her on her travels and I think this is an AWESOME idea. Ladies, you're welcome to join me and my BFF Amy on my personal Odyssey to see absolutely everything.
13.Where do you see yourself in five years?
Settling into a career, hopefully as a foreign service officer. Learning a new language, a new city, a new culture, a new job.
14.Favorite book?
Oh lord. If you aren't new to this journal, you know that "favorite" anything and I simply do not get on. I am constitutionally incapable of choosing just one anything. Thankfully, I'm ignorant of most of non-Western literature so it's a much smaller pool to choose amongst.
Pride & Prejudice is a perennial favorite that I can reread at any time. The Iliad has been one of my favorites since I was ~8 so it wins for being on my Beloved Books List the longest. Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently books make me laugh just to think about them. Amy Tan draws me into her world every time. Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon opened my eyes to the world of reinterpreting literature. Is it possible to overestimate the importance of the Lord of the Rings trilogy? I think not. Love in the Time of Cholera is lyrical and magical.
I gleefully buy every new Eve Dallas book that comes out, despite their sometimes predictable nature because there is no sexier bastard than Roarke. Carl Hiaasan entertains me and gives me the justice so often lacking in real life. Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels are always a breezy, quick read -- perfect for airplane travels. Aaron Elkins's older novels are excellent reads as are Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody books and her Vicky Bliss stories.
Plays by Euripides make me weep and those by Aristophanes make me laugh. As long as I'm thinking classic literature, Shakespeare obviously comes to mind. His use of language moves me and yet he's also a dirty, dirty bastard. I enjoyed Virgil's the Aeneid (hello Trojan Horse!), the Italian Renaissance poetry (oh Petrarch!) I learned for Academic Decathlon so many moons ago, Pope's bits of wisdom, Ben Franklin's bon mots, John Donne's sarcastic poems, T. S. Eliot's odes to cats, and even the terribly soppy Byron and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (ETA: And Robert Frost! How could I fail to mention him?!?)
I loved loved loved John Ciardi's translation of the Inferno as a kid. I first read Animal Farm when I was too young to know it was anything more than a tale of clever farm animals. The scene in Fahrenheit 451 where the government televises its pursuit of a scapegoat to feed the public desire for vengeance has haunted me as have the dystopian visions of Brave New World, the Handmaid's Tale, and 1984. Why my parents let me read these novels at such a tender age I'll never know.
I retain a fondness for the Cat in the Hat with its ever-spreading stain. If only we had Cats X, Y, & Z to take care of nuclear waste and other industrial pollutants.
*sigh* I haven't even begun to think on other much loved non-fiction books such as The Vegetarian Epicure, my art books, The Woman that Never Evolved, The Blind Watchmaker, Stephen Jay Gould's work, Fuytuma's evolutionary biology text, some of my bone books, Edith Hamilton's Mythology, etc.
15.What are you doing this weekend?
Tonight is a much anticipated episode of Supernatural, which I will undoubtedly be squeeing over with fandom friends for days, no weeks to come. Other weekend plans include the scintillating activity of cleaning the house before my parents visit on Thursday. Their health has been less than good of late so I'm savoring every opportunity.
After revisiting my favorite books mentally, I'm feeling the yen to reconnect with my paper books in the physical realm so I imagine I'll pick up one of the listed tomes as well.
16.If you could play any musical instrument, which one would you play?
As a kid I played the piano, taught by my grandfather who was a musical prodigy, so I'd love to have a nice piano and the room to house it. I would love to learn the djembe.
17.How are you?
Well? Rambly? Short? Alive? All of the above?
18.What are you doing tomorrow?
Maybe I shouldn't have done this on a Friday as the answer is the same as #15. :\
19.What are you looking forward to the most?
Again with the superlatives. *eye roll*
The future? Choosing a career path and making progress on it? Going back to school and learning? Traveling? Experiencing new cultures? Tonight's Supernatural? Seeing my parents? Visiting friends? It depends on the context! There's so much to anticipate. Why choose?