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If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?
I’m a girl of a lot of contradictions so it’s hard for me to pinpoint just one thing I’d change in the world. There’s so much bad out there that I’ve seen and heard about but I don’t know if the lack of it would really be such a great thing. We need evil so we can know what good is; I can’t just get rid of it. There are a lot of frivolous things I’d do like change the colour of the sky because blue bores me or un-do society’s negative ideas about nighttime but it seems like those aren’t proper answers for such a choice. I guess that this is kind of a non-answer but as big a fan I am of imagination, -this- is the world we live in. The reality of it is that we have to first learn to survive in it and second fight as hard as we can to make the changes we want. And maybe that’s it, I see so many people around me who have given up on fighting for their happiness or their ideals and just become sort of complacent and miserable. I kind of wish they wouldn’t give up. Maybe then more could be accomplished. Society is too smug and too willing to just take the easy way out of its problems: ignorance. Sometimes people NEED to fight and just keep fighting and not stop. I don't even care if they win, as long as they TRY.
What makes a person respectable?
Because respectability is a concept open to individual interpretation it’s hard to say exactly what makes a person respectable. However, I can tell you what I think. I think that a person is worthy of my respect if they first have their own. It is hard to respect someone who doesn’t respect themselves. Your achievements can help make you respectable but at the same time you cannot buy respectability. Respectability is very subjective. If you live your life in a way that I admire I’ll probably find you respectable. I don’t even think you necessarily have to be a good person to be respectable. You can be misguided and still be respectable in your folly. I find dedication and sacrifice respectable. Anyone who sacrifices elements of their own happiness or security for someone else or something that they believe in is respectable. It may not be the right cause. It may be the enemy cause. It doesn’t matter. Mostly though, I think that a respectable person is someone who uses what they have be it courage or smarts, cunning or industry. Even if they don’t have much as long as they use it as much as possible they’re respectable. A fool who does everything he can with his limited intelligence can be more respectable than a genius who doesn’t use the full scope of his ... geniusness. Wasted talent is not respectable.
What do you look for in a friend?
I’ve never really had an easy time with friendship. Ideally, I’d like to have just a very few really close friends rather than a lot of “acquaintance” friends. As it is, I tend to have these incredibly polarized groups of friends. I’m not really close with my friends from school. We’re friends because we were in Middle School but now it’s more habit than anything else. Half the time I don’t even think we all like each other. So the friends that are really important to me are the ones that I’ve met online and a few from my theatre group. I think that the closeness I have with the latter two groups is the one thing that I value above all else, people who I can share anything with, people I’m not going to drive away if I’m too open or too strange, people who trust me enough to share their true selves with me. I’d die for my friends. I’d also kill for them. I would like to think that they’d do the same for me. That kind of intensity is both terrifying and comforting. I need people willing to put up with my own moods and peculiarities. I tend to be drawn to people who are a little off center, a little troubled, people who don’t quite click right into society. They have to be interesting. They have to be tolerant. Intelligence is a must. I loathe empty conversations. “How are you today?” “Good. And you?” “Good” “That’s…good” “Yeah, it is” “Well, bye then” “Bye”. We might as well not talk at all. I guess that what I look for or “value” in a friend is rather hard to pinpoint but essentially I need people who are my equals in intelligence/maturity/experiences. I need closeness and I need absolute trust and commitment to the friendship. It’s a lot to demand of another person and probably one reason why I’ve had so many problems keeping friends. They tend to decide I’m too much work and just leave.
What are your hobbies?
I tend to collect hobbies. Reading has been my hobby and delight for as long as I can remember. Back in grade school I had a social anxiety problem and sort of came to the conclusion that books were the safest friends I could have. A really good book is better than a lover because when it’s over and done with and I’m a drained emotional wreck I can always go back and do it all over again, no betrayal, no questions, no let-down.
More recently writing has become another one of those all consuming hobbies I’m prone to. I’m constantly scribbling in a notebook (I write in three regularly and generally have one with me at all times.) When I don’t have paper I’ll write on everything else in reach; my body, my shoes, napkins, and my binders tend to be frequent victims. I have this fascination with words to the point where it’s a weakness. You could convince me to carry out my own execution if your words were striking enough.
Sometimes it seems like all I want to do is read and write and just drown in language and in life. I guess it’s strange that I consider life a hobby but I do. There’s every day mundane life, day to day trivialities and then there’s living. There’s those moment of complete fullness and I suppose my hobby is to seek them out. Recently I’ve fallen (rather unexpectedly) into this new group of friends. It’s been quite the experience because simultaneously I am trying to both overcome my age (my new friends are older) and I am finally learning what it is to be young and alive and dangerous. I’m learning about love, about riding in convertibles with the top down, about the throbs and joys of just being together. We do mad crazy things so we can laugh over them later. It’s all very new to me and often I feel like a bit of a spectator, the newbie who doesn’t really naturally fit in but is along for the ride and shockingly enough slowly figuring it all out. That living and learning is a hobby. It’s something that delights me.
Other hobbies include theatre, computer programming, and taking long walks at dusk.
Have or would you give time and money to a charity?
I tend to be a bit indecisive about charity. On first impulse I’m like “helping others, that is wonderful” but I always tend to question “What good would it do? What good would it do -me-? I don’t believe in salvation. Charity or lack thereof isn’t going to swing me toward heaven or hell. So if I give to charity it has to be because I want to. I think that I would be more likely to give time than money and I think that if I gave anything it would be to somebody or some cause near me, help a friend or work in the community library (I used to). I guess I have a need to see and know the results of what I do or give. In general I’d give if I believed in the cause enough but I wouldn’t give just for the sake of doing something good. I’d have to have a reason.
What is the one thing you would most like to accomplish?
I don’t really have any big goals or plans at the minute. I want to be happy and stay alive and generally just continue to learn and grow and experience things. I guess my most specific ambition of the moment is to make it through highschool chemistry alive because the class is giving me major problems which isn’t something I’m used to.
However one thing I’d really like to go is travel. Where? Well, everywhere really. I want to see Europe first and then I want to see Egypt and Thailand and Japan. I want to travel while I’m still young and alive and while my experiences traveling can impact the rest of my life.
Who is your role model?
I don’t really have a specific role model. There are a fair number of people I admire and some I respect a lot. I try to emulate certain qualities I see in other people, it’s true, but generally there’s no one I want to be just like. I want to be me not to copy someone else’s life.
What trait most annoys you about other people?
Apathy: I loathe apathy. I’m one of those people who has have strong opinions about nearly everything and to -care- a great deal even if I’m sometimes really shy about expressing it. When I experience emotions it’s these very intense highs and lows and overwhelming feelings. So I can’t stand those people who just skate through life apathetic about everything. Ask them about their opinions, they won’t have any. Look for signs of emotion and passion, none. I know that some of it is pretended, a sort of defense mechanism they put up but it’s still just something I can’t stand to be around.
What do you want to do for a living?
I used to have all these grand plans and ideas for my life but recently I’ve been at this sort of crossroads where I have no idea what I want any more. I don’t even have a dim idea or a dream to fall back on because the things that are important and exciting to me right now just aren’t the sorts of things that one can build a career off of. Honestly, I have no idea. I think that in college I’m going to major in European History and Theatre Studies but don’t know where I’ll go from there or what I’ll do.
If your friend was attacked (by a person, animal, or (in the magic world) beast), what would you do?
I’m assuming that this is a close friend. I’d react accordingly. The first thing I’d do is care for them, tend their wounds, and generally be there for them. Then I’d seek revenge or at the very least some sort of really good explanation. And if I was angry enough it would be a really really good revenge. My friends are more important to me than anything else including myself and my family. If it was more of an emotional attack or wound I’d probably end up bearing this incredible grudge against the attacker. I’ve been known to do that.
Would you ever use an Unforgivable Curse for any reason?
I can say fairly safely that if I was in mortal danger I would not hesitate to take any means to save myself including the use of an Unforgivable Curse. The same applies to the people I love. I’d kill for them and if I had to use an Unforgivable to do it, I would. So I’d use one on the defensive. I don’t think I’d use an Unforgivable Curse on the offensive unless you got me really angry but I’m ruthless enough that I might do it if I was compelled to.
What do you think are your top five abilities or qualities?\
1) I’m passionate: I care a great deal about nearly everything and I experience most emotions very strongly. If I care about something it’s this absolute dedication and adoration. This can be both a weakness and a strength as it’s given me some icky problems in the past but I still consider it a strength.
2) I’m intelligent: I’m constantly questioning everything and trying to learn more so I tend to be stereotyped as “smart” or “geeky.” I have this incredible hunger for knowledge and I kind of operate on the beliefs that “knowledge is power” and “all knowledge is worth having for its own sake.” I adore reading and writing and my favorite class is Academic Decathlon. My intelligence tends to be more centered on words/concepts/introspection than mathematics or science.
3) I’m idealistic: I have certain beliefs about how the world is and how it should be and I try to single-handedly make it that way. I can get really devoted to concepts. Even though my ideals are seldom realized and it upsets me on occasion I think that they can be a good thing on occasion. Most of my strengths are like that, sort of a blessing and a curse. It’s why I call myself a walking contradiction.
4) I’m fairly mature for my age so I tend to look at things in a different way than many of my peers. It’s one of the reasons I distance myself from them and also something I’m proud of simply because it is something I’ve had to fight for and I feel like I’ve earned to some degree.
5) I’m surprising. I’ve been described as intriguing but I won’t be so pretentious as to call myself that. I guess it’s that I’m a fairly complex person and so there are all these elements and layers to me. Lots of faces, and I show different ones to different people. I’m kind of a painful contradiction but I’m really more of a paradox because there are all these elements and pieces of me that should cancel out others but though it’s confusing they somehow still work.
What do you think are your top five weaknesses or worst qualities?
1) Indecisiveness: I have the worst problems making decisions. I just … can’t decide. I have to time to contemplate. And the more unimportant the decision is, it seems like the longer it takes. If it’s a life or death decision or a matter of love and hate and the such I usually do know nearly exactly what I want even though I will still question/fight it. If it's a matter of picking out a drink at Starbucks or choosing one seat out of a hundred DO NOT make me choose because I'll take forever and be generally annoying about it.
2) Insecurity: It’s something I’m really working on but I can be very insecure at times. It comes from having a form of social anxiety syndrome. I’m just not very comfortable around people and not always that comfortable with myself. It also makes me seem a lot more cold and distant then I really am. I hide my insecurity behind a sort of aloof and icy façade.
3) Confusion: I think way too much and over-analyze situations. It gets me confused and stressed and I forget to loosen up and enjoy myself.
4) I get too attached to people and I care about them more than they care about me so it really hurts when they leave or don’t have the same intensity of feeling. I guess I care about people a lot more than I let on. I’ve always been an independent type except when I form these connections that make me do a sort of reversal.
5) Ambition: I want more then I can or should have. This can make me manipulative and unpleasant at times especially if I’m frustrated. Even though I believe in living in the moment it makes it hard to ever be completely satisfied.
Define in your own words the following key traits:
Courage: Courage isn’t so much a quality of being fearless as it is a quality of being able to work through and face fears. Courage is doing something even though you’re terrified of it because you know it must be done. Courage is sacrificing your own comfort and surpassing your own limits to accomplish something.
Loyalty: Loyalty is just a complete devotion to a person or a concept. Someone who is loyal to you will go to any means to protect you. Usually this means keeping your secrets and confidences but on occasion it could also mean telling them to save you. A loyal person is someone who looks out for your better interests even to the detriment of their own.
Intelligence: There are different kinds of intelligences. There are people who get great grades in school but really aren’t all that smart. Most of the really brilliant people I know actually get mediocre grades in school because they’re too smart to do the busy work or they get bored or whatnot. My mother works for a rocket scientist who never got a college degree. So intelligence is rather hard to pinpoint. It can be knowing facts or it can be a more practical sort of intelligence where maybe you don’t have the book memorized but you can still figure out how to do something because you are intelligent. I think that intelligent people have a desire to learn and to acquire more intelligence in some way. Often intelligent people ask questions and listen more than they speak.
Ambition: Ambition is a desire to better ones position in a hierarchy or to acquire more of something. Ambition is a constant dissatisfaction with your current position and circumstance. Ambition is questioning how and why things are and wanting more. I think ambition is commendable though it can make people ruthless because the betterment of oneself is a noble goal.
Name: Elizabeth
Age: sixteen
What house do you think DOESN'T fit you? Probably the house that fits me least is Hufflepuff simply because I tend to think of Hufflepuffs as being really hard working and industrious and very sort of ... practical and down to earth. Those are admirable qualities but they aren't really ones I possess. I'm lazy. At school I procrastinate everything and get by mostly on talent unless it’s a class I really care a lot about. And I can sometimes be a little dreamy and unpractical.
Where did you find out about us? I’d come across the community a long time ago and been too shy to apply. And then rurouni_tenshi told me about it and eventually I decided to just go ahead and do it. So here I am.