Latest rendition of interview meme
Aug. 7th, 2003 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikHere are the rules:
1 - Leave a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond and ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
My answers to questions from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chinchillagirl
1. If there was one thing you would change about yourself, what would it be (if any)?
I'd fix the alignment issues with my legs. I mean, I'm trying to do that through the long slow remodel but oh, if I could just wave a magic wand!
2. If you could have any superpower what would it be?
I've always been kind of attached to Kitty Pryde's "phasing" in X-Men -- not so much in the sense that no one could touch me, but I love the idea of being able to go through any obstacle. There's also something very appealling about the idea of being about to melt into things -- what would it be like to phase into a tree, or a rock. Or water?
3. If there was one thing you did in your past that you regret and could go back and fix. What would it be?
Frivolously (well, kind of) I'd have sold off my MSFT options in January of 2002, when I offerred my resignation (and told my financial advisor "if I can get the current price I'll be happy") rather than holding off because they didn't want me to leave.
But that's a rueful "don't I wish" sort of regret as opposed to a deeper, ethical sort of regret. That's harder... I've tried to live wthout regrets, mostly. Hmmm. Okay, this is kind of weird but it's bothered me for years.
When I was in sixth grade a boy by the name of Robert had been insisting on hanging out at lunch with me and my best friend Katy. I didn't really know him, he he'd kind of attached himself to us, and was getting more and more obnoxious and I'd been trying to get rid of him. (OTOH, we're not talking a mean guy, and it was clear he had problems making friends.) At some point, playing around while we were trying to get him to leave us alone, he grabbed Katy and started bending her back over a chair. Now she was a dancer, and really flexible, but she also had a problem with her back, which I'm pretty sure he didn't know about. She started shouting that he was hurting her, and I think he didn't take her seriously, and kept pushing her backwards.
I tried to pull him off her, but I wasn't getting any leverage. So grabbed him just to get his attention, and told him that the reason he was in foster care was that his real parents didn't want him, and I think a few other things along that line. I don't think I had even consciously known he was a foster child, I was just fruck out and I somehow knew that saying that would get through to him and he'd let Katy go. But while I certainly don't regret protecting my friend, I really wish I hadn't said that to him. He did kind of go limp and let her go, but I felt like I'd taken his fears and shoved them in his face, and he was just a dumb kid who didn't realize what he was doing and certainly had enough other problems in his life.
4. Why do you like to garden?
There are a lot of answers to this. I've always liked spending time on simple subsistance sorts of skills -- foraging, spinning, weaving, and sewing, making things by hand, and that sort of thing. So gardening is another one of those. But there's also this process of negotiation involved with it -- I'm not making the plants grow, I don't have that kind of power or control, I'm just kind of helping them along (though sometimes my help is pretty substantial). Their own natures, the weather, the pests are all things I work with but don't control. So it is kind of a metaphor for me, of on the one hand how by perseverance and diligence and such we can bring wonderful things to past, but at the same time how it's something we work with and negotiate, not something we have control over. I think in many ways I tend to be a control freak, and would like to be more in the driver's seat, and yet there's a wonderful elegance of working gently along with the world instead of trying to whip it into the shape you want. Very much like Taiji, where you learn to exert the smallest amount of force in order to bring about the effect you're seeking.
And the plants themselves fascinate me. I like learning about gardening from them as I work with them each year, seeing how much differently they behave in different places or with a little more water or of some nutrient or another. Not to mention it's a fine way for me to get even more involved with the weather and the changing of the seasons (which I'm already a little obsessive over, in case you've missed that).
And, of course, most of the things I grow are things I eat. Which is both ritually rewarding, in that there's something magical about working with these plants over the course of the year and then harvesting and eating them... but also I really like food and fresh home grown vegetables and herbs are much, much higher quality than anything you can buy.
5. When was the last time you performed a random act of kindness to a stranger? What was it?
What do you count? I try to smile and talk to strangers frequently, because I think we are socialized not to acknowledge the existance and humanity of others, and I think it really makes a lot of difference when we do. Does it count when I give directions and a recommendation of where to get the best cheap food locally to someone I was chatting with on the bus (last week)? When I let the hyper little girl gymnast play with my iPaq in the PT waiting room (Tuesday)? Try to return a kitten I thought was lost (but wasn't) to his home (Sunday)?
For that matter, who's a stranger? Except for the kitten who'd I'd met before (though we hadn't been introduced) I didn't know any of these people, but they don't really seem like strangers now.
1 - Leave a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond and ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
My answers to questions from
chinchillagirl1. If there was one thing you would change about yourself, what would it be (if any)?
I'd fix the alignment issues with my legs. I mean, I'm trying to do that through the long slow remodel but oh, if I could just wave a magic wand!
2. If you could have any superpower what would it be?
I've always been kind of attached to Kitty Pryde's "phasing" in X-Men -- not so much in the sense that no one could touch me, but I love the idea of being able to go through any obstacle. There's also something very appealling about the idea of being about to melt into things -- what would it be like to phase into a tree, or a rock. Or water?
3. If there was one thing you did in your past that you regret and could go back and fix. What would it be?
Frivolously (well, kind of) I'd have sold off my MSFT options in January of 2002, when I offerred my resignation (and told my financial advisor "if I can get the current price I'll be happy") rather than holding off because they didn't want me to leave.
But that's a rueful "don't I wish" sort of regret as opposed to a deeper, ethical sort of regret. That's harder... I've tried to live wthout regrets, mostly. Hmmm. Okay, this is kind of weird but it's bothered me for years.
When I was in sixth grade a boy by the name of Robert had been insisting on hanging out at lunch with me and my best friend Katy. I didn't really know him, he he'd kind of attached himself to us, and was getting more and more obnoxious and I'd been trying to get rid of him. (OTOH, we're not talking a mean guy, and it was clear he had problems making friends.) At some point, playing around while we were trying to get him to leave us alone, he grabbed Katy and started bending her back over a chair. Now she was a dancer, and really flexible, but she also had a problem with her back, which I'm pretty sure he didn't know about. She started shouting that he was hurting her, and I think he didn't take her seriously, and kept pushing her backwards.
I tried to pull him off her, but I wasn't getting any leverage. So grabbed him just to get his attention, and told him that the reason he was in foster care was that his real parents didn't want him, and I think a few other things along that line. I don't think I had even consciously known he was a foster child, I was just fruck out and I somehow knew that saying that would get through to him and he'd let Katy go. But while I certainly don't regret protecting my friend, I really wish I hadn't said that to him. He did kind of go limp and let her go, but I felt like I'd taken his fears and shoved them in his face, and he was just a dumb kid who didn't realize what he was doing and certainly had enough other problems in his life.
4. Why do you like to garden?
There are a lot of answers to this. I've always liked spending time on simple subsistance sorts of skills -- foraging, spinning, weaving, and sewing, making things by hand, and that sort of thing. So gardening is another one of those. But there's also this process of negotiation involved with it -- I'm not making the plants grow, I don't have that kind of power or control, I'm just kind of helping them along (though sometimes my help is pretty substantial). Their own natures, the weather, the pests are all things I work with but don't control. So it is kind of a metaphor for me, of on the one hand how by perseverance and diligence and such we can bring wonderful things to past, but at the same time how it's something we work with and negotiate, not something we have control over. I think in many ways I tend to be a control freak, and would like to be more in the driver's seat, and yet there's a wonderful elegance of working gently along with the world instead of trying to whip it into the shape you want. Very much like Taiji, where you learn to exert the smallest amount of force in order to bring about the effect you're seeking.
And the plants themselves fascinate me. I like learning about gardening from them as I work with them each year, seeing how much differently they behave in different places or with a little more water or of some nutrient or another. Not to mention it's a fine way for me to get even more involved with the weather and the changing of the seasons (which I'm already a little obsessive over, in case you've missed that).
And, of course, most of the things I grow are things I eat. Which is both ritually rewarding, in that there's something magical about working with these plants over the course of the year and then harvesting and eating them... but also I really like food and fresh home grown vegetables and herbs are much, much higher quality than anything you can buy.
5. When was the last time you performed a random act of kindness to a stranger? What was it?
What do you count? I try to smile and talk to strangers frequently, because I think we are socialized not to acknowledge the existance and humanity of others, and I think it really makes a lot of difference when we do. Does it count when I give directions and a recommendation of where to get the best cheap food locally to someone I was chatting with on the bus (last week)? When I let the hyper little girl gymnast play with my iPaq in the PT waiting room (Tuesday)? Try to return a kitten I thought was lost (but wasn't) to his home (Sunday)?
For that matter, who's a stranger? Except for the kitten who'd I'd met before (though we hadn't been introduced) I didn't know any of these people, but they don't really seem like strangers now.
