Long Long Long
Five Subject Meme
Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.
Curls
People who have known me for less than five years are surprised to find out that I used to have really long hair with crazy curls. (Pics or it didn't happen.) I often got comments about my hair, about how long it was, about how nice it looked, what kind of shampoo/conditioner I used, whether I'd ever tried straightening it... etc. etc. And, frankly, I'm not the kind of person who likes having endless conversations about hair, not even my own. So after a while I felt ready to stab people with a fork as soon as they brought up my hair. A scenario that happened at least once, and possibly more than once, was somebody I'd only known for a few minutes asking whether I'd ever tried straightening my hair and me having an insane outburst along the lines of: "STOP TALKING ABOUT MY HAIR!!" Yeah, that probably didn't leave them with a favourable opinion of me.
I sometimes threatened to shave myself bald, but I don't think anyone took me seriously until I showed up to school one day, looking like this. Reactions were mostly shocked and horrified, but I told people it was my hair and I could do with it what I wanted (maybe they would have been less shocked and horrified if I had warned them beforehand, but I knew people would try to talk me out of it if I told them of my plans).
Of course, this wasn't the only reason for cutting my hair short. It also took a long time to wash and brush, much more time than I was willing to spend on dead skin cells. I might have expended that time if I'd actually thought it looked nice, but I didn't. To me it just looked like I had a shrubbery on my head.
The only regret I've ever had about getting my hair cut is that I didn't think of it sooner. :P
Also, you might like to know that I still have the curls in a plastic bag under my bed in Iceland. Maybe I'll donate them to leukemia patients some day.
Languages
German is my first language, even though I lived in Iceland the first five years of my life. The reason for this is, of course, that my parents mostly spoke German at home. I think I was raised pretty bilingually, though, because I don't remember struggling with the Icelandic language in nursery.
I don't know how old I was when my mum started teaching me English, but I was very, very young, making me the only kid I've ever known who could read in three languages before starting school. Even though neither of my parents is a native speaker of English and we didn't casually speak English in the home until much later, when Jared and I were teenagers, I think of myself as being trilingual. And I'm very grateful for it. Without this foundation I certainly wouldn't be studying literature in England right now. I probably wouldn't even be writing this in English at this very moment.
The next language I approached was Danish. It proved to be shamefully easy to learn, because I already knew Icelandic and German. I say "shamefully" because when I moved back to Iceland, my classmates had already done a year of Danish, but I still managed to outdo them. I suspect that a lot of them weren't even trying, because if they had, they would have noticed the similarities to their own language. I don't think my Danish is fluent, but I can easily get by with it. I don't use it much, so I'm probably rusty, but I'm sure it would all come back to me if I lived in Denmark for a few months (not something I'm intending to do, but you never know what new surprises life has in store for you).
In MH I started learning Spanish. I was very enthusiastic about it at first, and did quite well. With my Spanish dictionary as a weapon, I'd sometimes translate silly sentences and song lyrics into Spanish, for no particular reason. Once I got to Spanish 400, I lost the interest, mainly because I was so close to studying in England (something I'd been looking forward to for years) and I knew I would never live in a Spanish-speaking country (too hot down there for my pale, Scandinavian self).
Speaking three languages fluently, one semi-fluently, and being all right in a fourth one is very impressive and more than most people ever manage. So I really thought this would be enough and it was time to settle down. But Life had different ideas. I really never expected to learn Finnish. I never expected to want to learn Finnish. I think the first time I opened a Finnish book I almost started crying, because it looked so difficult and I didn't understand a single word. But slowly and surely I worked my way through the alphabet salad this language consists of, having the greatest motivator in the world by my side (meaning love, although Mika has been a great help too by telling me how well I was doing). I'd be lying if I said that I speak Finnish. I can form short and simple sentences, but not many of them are useful. But I'm fairly good at reading the language, and I'm getting better and better.
Once I've learned Finnish to my satisfaction, I might tackle Japanese and Russian, just for sake of coolness. And possibly to become an international spy.
Marriage
Marriage is an important part of my religion. As Paul says, "neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." (1 Corinthians 11:11) For this reason I grew up with quite a romanticised view of marriage. It wasn't until I was older that I learned about the uglier parts of this institution; abuse and divorce and suchlike. I never stopped wanting to get married, though. Even in my most cynical times, my faith in the importance of marriage kept a spark of the hopeless romantic in me alive.
When I was 15 and 16 I wasn't happy with my family at all. At that time I believed that once I was married and had my own children, everything would be perfect and I'd be happy forever more and there'd be birds and trees and flowers and fluffy animals. Now I know that this is quite a naive world view (although it might have been neccessary to keep myself sane at that time). I'm not expecting all my problems to get solved through a wedding ring and a piece of paper. I do, however, believe that life will be slightly easier to handle when I'm married, simply because I'll feel less alone. Because instead of crying into my pillow at night, I'll be able to cry on somebody's shoulder.
That said, I don't approve of rushing into marriage. It should last forever, so you better know beforehand if you can stand that person forever. In my more depressed times, I wished that I lived in a time where society didn't place so much emphasis on twue wuv, so I could just have an arranged marriage with somebody nice enough, instead of having to angst about never finding somebody who loved me from the depth of his heart. While I still think that it wouldn't be bad, I mean, I'd probably get by and maybe even be quite happy in an arranged marriage, I now know that there is something better. I now know that you can be in love with your best friend, somebody who makes you laugh, who understands you, wants you to be happy, and thinks that you're absolutely awesome. :3
Shakespeare
When you go to school and are made to read books against your will, you develop the attitude that all books that are referred to as Literature are inherently boring. This is partly the teachers' fault for not presenting them in a more interesting way. They have a tendency to ramble about deep meanings and critical theory, instead of simply pointing out why this book is enjoyable. Lísa, for example, was surprised when I told her that Dickens was famous for being a clever satirist. She had had no idea that he was funny, and had always lived under the impression that he was as dry and dull as Hemingway (I'm allowed to make fun of Hemingway).
The first play by Shakespeare I've read is A Midsummer Night's Dream. I probably didn't understand everything and I doubt that I picked up any literary value. But I do remember sitting in my room, giggling my head off. I was surprised to find out that a 400-year-old play can be so funny.
Next I read Romeo and Juliet, which confused me a lot. Mainly because it is always advertised as "the greatest love story evah" while it's really about an incredibly stupid crush between two adolescents (Juliet is 13 in the play, I don't think Romeo's age is mentioned). Also, it's so full of innuendo that they'd probably ban it on American television if they knew what the words actually mean. Now that I know that I was right in my initial interpretation and wasn't just being cynical (seriously, their first conversation is something along these lines: "Hi, you're really cute!" "You too! Lets make out!"), I might enjoy it more when I re-read it.
Other Shakespeare plays I've read are Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra and King Henry the Fifth, parts I to III. The more I read of him, the easier I find the language to understand and the more I appreciate him as a master of his craft. My favourite comedy of his is Twelfth Night, which is full of cross-dressing and romance and really kick-ass female characters (yes, this 450-year-old was better at writing cool female characters than many Hollywood-writers today). My favourite tragedy is Macbeth... no, Othello! No, Macbeth! No, uh... let's leave it at a tie. Both plays have gripping storylines with chilling climaxes. Seriously, you should just read them.
Also, while I'm not much of a poetry person, I do enjoy Shakespeare's sonnets. They are quite superior to the mostly bland sonnets of his contemporaries.
Writing
Uh... how can I elobarate on the joys of writing without rambling on for 200 pages? Lets just say that I've always had a lively imagination. Even when I was four years old Jared and I came up with complicated storylines when playing with our toys. Well, complicated for four-year-olds.
When I was eight, a found a school assignment of my brother's lying around; a picture of a girl riding on the back of a big bird with the requirement of writing a story about it. The picture intrigued me, so I wrote a short story about a Birdland. That's when people told me that I should become a writer. Since my earlier dreamjob of police woman had pretty much vanished once I realised that I'd never be in physical shape to run around catching criminals, this new dream was perfect to replace it. And it's stuck with me.
I've since found out that I'm a very unpractical person and not really suitable for most jobs. The only thing I do well enough that I could earn a lot of money from it is writing. Of course, I don't like to think that I write for money, but simply for the pleasure of writing. But I would find it a lot more pointless if I didn't share my stories with anyone. That would feel like a waste of time. And, really, it wouldn't be nice to do all this hard work for free, especially if I don't want to have any other job.
María recently posted a video on her blog in which a woman talked about other people's reactions when they heard that she was a writer. Asking if she was afraid she'd never be successful and, once she did have one success, if she was afraid that she had reached her peak and would never be able to top it. While I have worried about the former question, I just need to read some of the books that are popular today and compare them with my own writing to remember: "Oh yeah! I'm actually very talented! Thanks for reminding me!" I like to think that it's just a matter of time until some publishing company catches on (gosh, I sound so vain!). The latter question, however, has never even occurred to me. When I compare my writing today with my writing a few years ago, it's just infinitely much better. This makes perfect sense to me; the more experience and practice I gain, the better writer I become. So I'm a lot more worried that 20 years down the road I'll hate what I'm writing now because I'll be so much more advanced, rather than that I'll be struggling to repeat my first success.
This took a lot longer than I intended. And I was actually going to write about something else too. Oh well, I'll leave it till tomorrow.
Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.
Curls
People who have known me for less than five years are surprised to find out that I used to have really long hair with crazy curls. (Pics or it didn't happen.) I often got comments about my hair, about how long it was, about how nice it looked, what kind of shampoo/conditioner I used, whether I'd ever tried straightening it... etc. etc. And, frankly, I'm not the kind of person who likes having endless conversations about hair, not even my own. So after a while I felt ready to stab people with a fork as soon as they brought up my hair. A scenario that happened at least once, and possibly more than once, was somebody I'd only known for a few minutes asking whether I'd ever tried straightening my hair and me having an insane outburst along the lines of: "STOP TALKING ABOUT MY HAIR!!" Yeah, that probably didn't leave them with a favourable opinion of me.
I sometimes threatened to shave myself bald, but I don't think anyone took me seriously until I showed up to school one day, looking like this. Reactions were mostly shocked and horrified, but I told people it was my hair and I could do with it what I wanted (maybe they would have been less shocked and horrified if I had warned them beforehand, but I knew people would try to talk me out of it if I told them of my plans).
Of course, this wasn't the only reason for cutting my hair short. It also took a long time to wash and brush, much more time than I was willing to spend on dead skin cells. I might have expended that time if I'd actually thought it looked nice, but I didn't. To me it just looked like I had a shrubbery on my head.
The only regret I've ever had about getting my hair cut is that I didn't think of it sooner. :P
Also, you might like to know that I still have the curls in a plastic bag under my bed in Iceland. Maybe I'll donate them to leukemia patients some day.
Languages
German is my first language, even though I lived in Iceland the first five years of my life. The reason for this is, of course, that my parents mostly spoke German at home. I think I was raised pretty bilingually, though, because I don't remember struggling with the Icelandic language in nursery.
I don't know how old I was when my mum started teaching me English, but I was very, very young, making me the only kid I've ever known who could read in three languages before starting school. Even though neither of my parents is a native speaker of English and we didn't casually speak English in the home until much later, when Jared and I were teenagers, I think of myself as being trilingual. And I'm very grateful for it. Without this foundation I certainly wouldn't be studying literature in England right now. I probably wouldn't even be writing this in English at this very moment.
The next language I approached was Danish. It proved to be shamefully easy to learn, because I already knew Icelandic and German. I say "shamefully" because when I moved back to Iceland, my classmates had already done a year of Danish, but I still managed to outdo them. I suspect that a lot of them weren't even trying, because if they had, they would have noticed the similarities to their own language. I don't think my Danish is fluent, but I can easily get by with it. I don't use it much, so I'm probably rusty, but I'm sure it would all come back to me if I lived in Denmark for a few months (not something I'm intending to do, but you never know what new surprises life has in store for you).
In MH I started learning Spanish. I was very enthusiastic about it at first, and did quite well. With my Spanish dictionary as a weapon, I'd sometimes translate silly sentences and song lyrics into Spanish, for no particular reason. Once I got to Spanish 400, I lost the interest, mainly because I was so close to studying in England (something I'd been looking forward to for years) and I knew I would never live in a Spanish-speaking country (too hot down there for my pale, Scandinavian self).
Speaking three languages fluently, one semi-fluently, and being all right in a fourth one is very impressive and more than most people ever manage. So I really thought this would be enough and it was time to settle down. But Life had different ideas. I really never expected to learn Finnish. I never expected to want to learn Finnish. I think the first time I opened a Finnish book I almost started crying, because it looked so difficult and I didn't understand a single word. But slowly and surely I worked my way through the alphabet salad this language consists of, having the greatest motivator in the world by my side (meaning love, although Mika has been a great help too by telling me how well I was doing). I'd be lying if I said that I speak Finnish. I can form short and simple sentences, but not many of them are useful. But I'm fairly good at reading the language, and I'm getting better and better.
Once I've learned Finnish to my satisfaction, I might tackle Japanese and Russian, just for sake of coolness. And possibly to become an international spy.
Marriage
Marriage is an important part of my religion. As Paul says, "neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." (1 Corinthians 11:11) For this reason I grew up with quite a romanticised view of marriage. It wasn't until I was older that I learned about the uglier parts of this institution; abuse and divorce and suchlike. I never stopped wanting to get married, though. Even in my most cynical times, my faith in the importance of marriage kept a spark of the hopeless romantic in me alive.
When I was 15 and 16 I wasn't happy with my family at all. At that time I believed that once I was married and had my own children, everything would be perfect and I'd be happy forever more and there'd be birds and trees and flowers and fluffy animals. Now I know that this is quite a naive world view (although it might have been neccessary to keep myself sane at that time). I'm not expecting all my problems to get solved through a wedding ring and a piece of paper. I do, however, believe that life will be slightly easier to handle when I'm married, simply because I'll feel less alone. Because instead of crying into my pillow at night, I'll be able to cry on somebody's shoulder.
That said, I don't approve of rushing into marriage. It should last forever, so you better know beforehand if you can stand that person forever. In my more depressed times, I wished that I lived in a time where society didn't place so much emphasis on twue wuv, so I could just have an arranged marriage with somebody nice enough, instead of having to angst about never finding somebody who loved me from the depth of his heart. While I still think that it wouldn't be bad, I mean, I'd probably get by and maybe even be quite happy in an arranged marriage, I now know that there is something better. I now know that you can be in love with your best friend, somebody who makes you laugh, who understands you, wants you to be happy, and thinks that you're absolutely awesome. :3
Shakespeare
When you go to school and are made to read books against your will, you develop the attitude that all books that are referred to as Literature are inherently boring. This is partly the teachers' fault for not presenting them in a more interesting way. They have a tendency to ramble about deep meanings and critical theory, instead of simply pointing out why this book is enjoyable. Lísa, for example, was surprised when I told her that Dickens was famous for being a clever satirist. She had had no idea that he was funny, and had always lived under the impression that he was as dry and dull as Hemingway (I'm allowed to make fun of Hemingway).
The first play by Shakespeare I've read is A Midsummer Night's Dream. I probably didn't understand everything and I doubt that I picked up any literary value. But I do remember sitting in my room, giggling my head off. I was surprised to find out that a 400-year-old play can be so funny.
Next I read Romeo and Juliet, which confused me a lot. Mainly because it is always advertised as "the greatest love story evah" while it's really about an incredibly stupid crush between two adolescents (Juliet is 13 in the play, I don't think Romeo's age is mentioned). Also, it's so full of innuendo that they'd probably ban it on American television if they knew what the words actually mean. Now that I know that I was right in my initial interpretation and wasn't just being cynical (seriously, their first conversation is something along these lines: "Hi, you're really cute!" "You too! Lets make out!"), I might enjoy it more when I re-read it.
Other Shakespeare plays I've read are Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra and King Henry the Fifth, parts I to III. The more I read of him, the easier I find the language to understand and the more I appreciate him as a master of his craft. My favourite comedy of his is Twelfth Night, which is full of cross-dressing and romance and really kick-ass female characters (yes, this 450-year-old was better at writing cool female characters than many Hollywood-writers today). My favourite tragedy is Macbeth... no, Othello! No, Macbeth! No, uh... let's leave it at a tie. Both plays have gripping storylines with chilling climaxes. Seriously, you should just read them.
Also, while I'm not much of a poetry person, I do enjoy Shakespeare's sonnets. They are quite superior to the mostly bland sonnets of his contemporaries.
Writing
Uh... how can I elobarate on the joys of writing without rambling on for 200 pages? Lets just say that I've always had a lively imagination. Even when I was four years old Jared and I came up with complicated storylines when playing with our toys. Well, complicated for four-year-olds.
When I was eight, a found a school assignment of my brother's lying around; a picture of a girl riding on the back of a big bird with the requirement of writing a story about it. The picture intrigued me, so I wrote a short story about a Birdland. That's when people told me that I should become a writer. Since my earlier dreamjob of police woman had pretty much vanished once I realised that I'd never be in physical shape to run around catching criminals, this new dream was perfect to replace it. And it's stuck with me.
I've since found out that I'm a very unpractical person and not really suitable for most jobs. The only thing I do well enough that I could earn a lot of money from it is writing. Of course, I don't like to think that I write for money, but simply for the pleasure of writing. But I would find it a lot more pointless if I didn't share my stories with anyone. That would feel like a waste of time. And, really, it wouldn't be nice to do all this hard work for free, especially if I don't want to have any other job.
María recently posted a video on her blog in which a woman talked about other people's reactions when they heard that she was a writer. Asking if she was afraid she'd never be successful and, once she did have one success, if she was afraid that she had reached her peak and would never be able to top it. While I have worried about the former question, I just need to read some of the books that are popular today and compare them with my own writing to remember: "Oh yeah! I'm actually very talented! Thanks for reminding me!" I like to think that it's just a matter of time until some publishing company catches on (gosh, I sound so vain!). The latter question, however, has never even occurred to me. When I compare my writing today with my writing a few years ago, it's just infinitely much better. This makes perfect sense to me; the more experience and practice I gain, the better writer I become. So I'm a lot more worried that 20 years down the road I'll hate what I'm writing now because I'll be so much more advanced, rather than that I'll be struggling to repeat my first success.
This took a lot longer than I intended. And I was actually going to write about something else too. Oh well, I'll leave it till tomorrow.