win or die
Name: Rebecca
How did you find out about the community? If it is through an LJ user, please tell us who it is (individual user if possible, not just a community name!): using a search engine for something unrelated, strangely
Age: ...28, ehh
Location: New York City
Occupation: Radiation oncology therapist
All About You
1. Describe your ideal house/home. Please go into as much detail as possible, and be sure to include your ideal geographical location in the description!.
My perfect location would be somewhere near an ocean; I was raised near the ocean and was a competitive swimmer for most of my life, and I have a really strong connection to it. Sometimes I have to play water noises (I particularly like the sound of water drops echoing in a cave) on a sound machine to fall asleep. I also don't like humidity or heat so I'd prefer somewhere dry and cool. But I'm not sure you can get both an ocean and arid climate without leaving the northeast US. I'd like to live in a house, 1 floor, and a quarter acre of land would be enough space but not too overwhelming to take care of. I like trees but I've had many some experiences with woods; I've been covered in hundreds of ticks at once and have suffered from permanently acquiring a few tick-borne diseases. I've also had deer huff at me (scary!). But the quiet of a pine forest is special. Basically I like where I grew up; the pine barrens of long island.
That said, I'm going to be moving to Toronto within the year, a place I've always considered living in. So realistically, I have to give up the ocean, but I think I'll be happy with trees and the winters. I used to hate snow but after a 2 hour hike in knee deep snow I guess I got over it. Also, I heard up there they don't have a tick epidemic like long island does.
2. Imagine you're given the classic opportunity: a genie granting you three wishes. What would you wish for? Please be as elaborate as you can. Wishing for more wishes is not permitted! I've learned that the only thing important to me is happiness, so I would wish for that first and foremost. As vague as it is, nothing specific is likely to get to achieve this, and I have been trying most my life to get it.
I'd also wish for good health, because even if I'm happy and sick, I'd like to at least live to enjoy my happiness. Working in oncology I've seen a lot of sick, happy people. I don't want that.
My last wish would be for my fiance's good health because I don't think I could live without him. And since I can only have three wishes, I will be selfish and wish for his health rather than his happiness. Sorry buddy, you're on your own for happiness.
3. In your life so far, what accomplishment are you the most proud of? Why? You can list more than one if you have trouble deciding. ;) It's hard for me to feel proud of anything I've done. I have some sort of extreme aversion to pride. It makes the interviewing process very difficult since I don't know how to sell myself. Anyway, I guess what I'm most proud of is how many things I've done in my life, although I used to be ashamed of it. I thought it made me a flaky sort of person, but when people (accidentally) find out, they all seem awed. A lot of people have told me they wish they could do as much, although it all seemed very mundane stuff to me. I still don't really like talking about it.
4. Which of the following is most important to you: Love, Money, Knowledge, Family, Friendship, Adventure, or Pleasure? Which is the least important to you? Please explain why for each choice. At this point in my life, love. I thought I was incapable of feeling love for anyone or anything for a very long time, and I worked very hard to change it. I am so glad I did. Everything in life is better with love. And I don't even mean romantic love, just love in general. It's so much better than hatred. Although I still have a lot of that.
Least important to me is family. While my immediate family might be very important to me specifically, the idea of family is not. My parents are important to me because of who they are as individuals, not because they are my parents. I feel no familial loyalty. If family members have done nothing for me, or worse, done things to hurt me, why should they be of any importance?
5. What's one quote (or passage, song lyric, etc.) that effectively describes you and your values? Explain. Oof, I've never been good with quotes. I can't remember them. I'd have to spend a lot of time looking up quotes to find something to answer this. I remember underlining some lines in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky because I felt like they spoke to me at the time. I was young and educated but was stuck in a situation I didn't want to be in, contemplating my worth in the universe and basically hurting myself. My life is a lot different now, and I find that reflecting too much on my emotions, values and general self causes too much pain so I don't do it.
6. How do you manage your money? On that note, how important is money/financial security to you? Go into as much detail as you can. I kind of don't. I make money and it auto deposits into my bank account and I never really check it. I autopay my bills, and I buy things occasionally. Every so often I make sure I have money in the bank and it always turns out I have so much in my checking account I have to deposit a few thousand into the savings. I guess financial security is important but even when I made almost no money, I spent a lot less so again it never seemed to matter. I don't know, I hate thinking about finances and money and whatever. As long as I have enough to live.
7. Name (and elaborate on) some of your hobbies. What are your favorite things to do outside of school/the office? I walk a lot. Not hiking, just walking. Hiking is OK too, but I have some injuries that prevent long periods of hiking.
I enjoy volunteering as a firefighter. Nothing quite like the feeling of taking a shower after hours of being around smoke and flame and then still being able to smell the burning wood. I wouldn't say I get an adrenaline rush from fighting fires, most times it is tiring from all the focusing and concentration. Only a handful of times I felt anything of a rush, and it was always fear based, not anything positive.
I like going to hockey games! Following my teams is a big hobby for me. I like going to away games. Nothing really more to that, though.
I like traveling but it is expensive and I have difficulty taking days from work, so it doesn't happen as often as I would like for it. I like immersing myself in something different for a while. Just kind of makes life seem less boring I suppose.
8. Name three things you are afraid of. Explain. Easy, there happen to be three things I am very much afraid of. Borderline phobia.
Moon: I am so disturbed by the presence of the moon I'm not sure how I've lived on this earth as long as I have. I used to have dreams about the moon as a child that I would love to describe to everyone but I think I'll panic if I try. I avoid looking at it whenever possible. I do like the stars.
Deer: They're so creepy. They stare at you and huff at you and I swear they could kill you in a second. Whenever I see one I can't move. It's like.. I BECOME the deer. The irony.
Sunflowers: Again, very creepy things. They grow far too large and they move too much. Something about sunflowers isn't right. I avoid them.
9. Name (and elaborate on) your top three BEST and top three WORST qualities (personality-related, not physical). Please answer as fully as you can, as this is an important question. Again, it is hard for me to say best qualities, as I find it difficult to like anything about myself, but I'll do my best.
Best
I'm cool under pressure. Certain kinds of pressure, anyway. I've done many jobs, many of them relating to emergencies and healthcare. I've seen a lot of craziness, and a lot of situations where the answer isn't clear. I have yet to panic, and I think that's a good thing. I think when an emergency type situation occurs, my mind just switches to some tactical mode that ceases to exist once the emergency situation is gone. Because tactics are just not my thing otherwise. It's like my coping method, which is cool I guess.
Tolerance. As I mentioned earlier, I still have a lot of hatred for almost everything, but I internalize nearly all of it. No matter what I'm feeling, I am able to treat people with respect and tolerate a hell of a lot because of it. I've had people verbally assault me for no reason other than that they are dying and angry, and I've had to return it with a smile and help them. I put up with a lot of bad behavior from co-workers too, and I think sometimes this becomes a fault of mine when it goes too far. I brush off almost everything people do or say. I am incapable of holding grudges.
work ethics. Despite all my personal beliefs and whatever, I know I have amazing work ethics. I don't know why. All I know is I've always been an extremely dependable and hard working employee, and I often was (and still am) taken advantage of because of it. As a ridiculous example, in 8th grade I told my mother she couldn't take me to Disney World because I couldn't get the week off from work. I was a lifeguard. One of many. She eventually forced me to take off, and I was still a lifeguard when I came back. More recently, I was afraid to ask to leave work an hour early to visit my father in the hospital. I thought that leaving an hour early won't really do much of anything, so it would be seen as taking advantage of the situation. To this day I constantly am going far beyond what my job requires of me, and I don't even do it out of compassion, because I don't really have that. I do it because that is just how I work. I work. and work. But I hate work. ?!??!?!
worst
No discipline. Outside of work, I can't get myself to do anything that isn't immediately gratifying, no matter how important I know it is to me. I have rarely have suffered serious consequences from it, so I am guessing that is why my behavior continues.
anxiety. I have so much anxiety about certain things, it is ridiculous. I show up an hour early for everything because I'm afraid the train might be delayed. Or I might walk too slow. Or traffic if I'm driving. I can't sleep at night because I'm afraid about going in to work the next day. I sometimes want to drop everything in my life so I can feel like I can relax and let my anxiety go. But that wouldn't be good for me so I haven't done that. I'm pretty sure my anxiety causes me to be a scatterbrain. I can't think straight under normal circumstances. I forget where I put everything, all the time. I constantly lose things. I can't do mental math because my mind is in 10000 places at once, which is unfortunate because my job requires continuous math. My poor fingers.
nihilist. I wasn't sure whether to put this in positive or negatives, but since most people would see this as negative (I think) I decided to put it here. I don't really assign any meaning to anything, or to life in general. It's just stuff that exists and things that happen. Ultimately, nothing is important and our actions do not matter. My behavior is a result of choices I make that I think will lead to a happier life. This type of thinking helps me get through tough days, but it also gets me into these depressing thought patterns that I find unhealthy and unwanted. I don't know how to balance it, I guess.
A Song of Ice and Fire Related
1.How many books from the series have you completed? I have completed 1 - 4. I'm about a quarter through 5.
2.Who are your favorite three characters in the series? Why?
Petyr Baelish. Probably my number one favorite at the moment. From the very beginning I thought he was an entertaining character. His untrustworthy characterization only assisted in the entertainment, as he was a bit of a mystery for a time. I like his cleverness, but most of all I like his calm cleverness. He has managed to successfully do what is best for him without becoming a complete maniac like Cersei did. And I had such high hopes for Cersei.
Arya Stark. She is one of the few characters that don't make me want to yell at her. She has made some choices I didn't agree with or thought were stupid, but she's a young girl and she is doing a damn good job at existing in such a hostile environment. I don't think I would have made it as far as she did, even though when I was her age I was very similar to her. I guess that's another reason I like her; I was a very aggressive, athletic youth full of energy and very much against tradition. I got myself into a lot of trouble as a kid. :)
Stannis Baratheon. I dunno man, he seems like a decent guy. He's not someone I'd like to be around or anything, but I think he means well and would do well for the kingdom. He's the only guy who was willing to fight wildlings after all, right? Melisandre makes me a bit nervous as I kind of associate her with our world's monotheistic religions which have never sat well with me (being raised with both judaism and christianity and liking neither). But if I was in ASOIAF and I saw her magic; well, I'd probably want her on my side. So I don't blame him.
3.Who are your least favorite three characters in the series? Why?
Robert Baratheon. I don't know, just everything about him irritated me. He seemed like a perfect example of why monarchy is a stupid idea. He was a man who cared little for his kingdom and only for himself, and nobody seemed to notice it. SO FRUSTRATING. He didn't deserve that much power. He would have been better off as a knight or something. Too bad his wife cared about the kingdom even less.
Lysa Arryn. Another character who just irritated me endlessly. I can't stand children to begin with, so her ridiculous doting to such a pathetic excuse of a character really got on my nerves. She also seemed to me to be portrayed as a lunatic. I hate when people seem blind to logic, ARRGH.
ALL OF THE FREYS. Seriously, what an awful family. Now, I'm not one who values honor and all that, and the red wedding incident isn't really what got me hating them. I think it was the absurd lying that went on afterward. Own up to your deeds, man. If you're ruthless and vile, let the world know. That's got to be worth something in their world, eh? And that someone hasn't killed the lord frey is astounding. They're like rabid Sheep.
4.#1 Favorite moment in all of ASOIAF so far? Why?
My favorite moment was when Theon took Winterfell because I am a cruel, evil bastard sometimes. I didn't like Catelyn Stark, Eddard Stark's stubborn honor was more irritating than endearing, Brandon and Rickon just never seemed meaningful characters to me (although I do enjoy all the Brandon chapters, his character doesn't do it for me).. What I mean to say is most the Starks were not on my people I like list, so seeing the ward they had foolishly released stab them in the back was just very satisfying for me. Not surprisingly, reading that first Reek chapter in ADWD was probably the most disturbing thing for me in the entire series so far and actually haunted me all day. ALL DAY. Ugh. That is my second favorite moment is ASOIAF, by the way. Tee hee.
5. In your dream-world, how would you like to see the series end, and why? It would never end!!
I'm a sucker for bad endings, so I'd like some sort of dystopian ending where nothing is resolved and everything is awful. Some sort of sick pleasure of mine. Or maybe everything can be resolved but everyone will be dead. More than anything I want something I don't expect, or something that will give me a strong emotional reaction, good or bad. I want the ending to stay with me forever.
AHH, ok. Thank you to everyone who read all this rambling nonsense! Sorry if I sound ridiculous or didn't answer something properly or upset anyone! I'M VERY NICE I DON'T INTEND TO SOUND LIKE I'M NOT. :)