General: Things About Me You (Probably) Didn't Know

[butterfly]

I've seen people write, on lj, that it can be nice to know some of the more personal, more human aspects of a poster. So, yes. Here you go.

Things About Me You Probably Didn't Know:

1. I check behind shower curtains. Every time that I go into a bathroom. Yes, even if the sheet is translucent. Because it could be a very pale serial killer who is hiding there.

2. I have, very briefly, flown a two-seater plane. I was sixteen, my grandma knew some people at the local airstrip. Both my brother and I each got to go up with pilots. And so I got to fly for a spell, be in control (though, of course, the real pilot could have seized back control at any time). It was... amazing. Truly, I don't think any words can capture it. Simply sitting in a plane can't compare.

3. I like to do things in order. Or, rather, I like to create an order of things and follow it. This is not the same thing as writing lists. I don't do lists. Lists don't work for me. Doing things in order does work for me. If I do a, then I know that I must then do b, and will remember to do b. With lists, I constantly second-guess myself.

4. I used to volunteer at the local zoo (it's the Oregon Zoo now, but back when I volunteered, it was still the Washington Park Zoo). Started out as a ZooTeen, taking care of the petting zoo animals, but I stayed long enough to become a Zoo Explorer. Which meant that I got to clean out the Rhino enclosure, among other things (for the record, the Rhinos were absolute sweethearts and I got to pet them many a time). During this time, I was also once sprayed down by Packy, the zoo's relatively famous Asian elephant (to quote the zoo webpage -- "Packy put Portland on the map in 1962 when he made international news for being the first elephant born in the Western Hemisphere in over 44 years." There you go.), who is, by the way, a complete spoiled brat. And I got to feed warmed up apple juice to one of the orangutan's, though I can't remember his name anymore (he would lean against the caged entrance and push out his lower lip). Amazing experiences, really. I should try to start up again, but I'm just not sure I have enough time.

5. I don't trust my memory. This is actually why I can't follow directions or lists. Because I will not believe that I have been following it. Writing example -- every time that I mention Anakin's false hand, I go and rewatch some section of RotS in order to see which hand it is. This is because I do not trust myself to have it correct in any previous sections. It must be checked from source or I will not believe that it's right.

5. My dad was in the Army, so I spent about three or four years in Germany. We left just after I'd completed... first grade, I think. And then I immediately had to retake it, because in America, I wasn't old enough to be in second grade. Those are possibly the right school years. Regardless, I did have to retake some early year of school because of the starting age difference in the countries (as, of course, did my brother).

7. I was amazing on standardized tests in HS, because my paranoia is stronger than my self-doubt. Because I will worry that I will not have the test finished on time, I will not allow myself to second-guess my answers, because I need to finish them all. And once I've answered a question, I will not change it, because I will worry that I will not be able to completely erase the previous answer, thus voiding the question (yes, even on human-graded tests, I would worry about this). So, I didn't screw myself over by changing my instinctive (and generally right) answers.

8. I'm second-generation fandom. My parents were/are Trekkies, RPGers and, well, geeks in general (especially my mom, who has a wall of science-fiction books). My mom was one of the people who wrote in to save Star Trek: the Original Series (back when it was only Star Trek) from being cancelled. I read a lot of science-fiction (and also fantasy, though that wasn't my mom's preference) at a very young age. I first read the entire Dune series (all of the original books) in my very early teens.

9. My brain stores information oddly. One psychologist explained it to me by saying that everyone's mind is a library, but in mine, the librarian keeps filing the books in the wrong sections, so I can't find anything quickly. And there are certain types of books that get misfiled more often. Cluttered thinking is what he called it. But I like the simplicity of saying, "things get misfiled".

10. When I was thirteen, I subscribed myself to Harlequin (it was almost by accident, really. I mean, they were offering free books! Free! Books! I was thirteen and fine print didn't yet exist -- I think this actually may be why I'm always careful of the fine print these days). My mom didn't find out for almost a year. She was pissed. These days, I can still devour a good Regency (some of them contain such useful information, too. I learned more about fishing from one particular book than I ever thought I wanted to know), but modern-day romances leave me cold. Also, I can't read books set in Scotland. I'm quite fond of Scotland, of the accent, of the delightful exports such as Ewan McGregor, but I can't read more than one chapter of a book set in Scotland. It's the invariably phonetic spelling-out of the accent that gets to me, I think.

Comments

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I was in Fulda (near Frankfurt). And we may have been there at the same time -- I was born in '82 and I was one or two when we moved there, and then we stayed for four or fiveish years (ah, the complete vagueness of my memory).

[larakailyn.livejournal.com]

If you moved there then, yeah, we were in the country at the same time. And that also means we weren't too far from each other. Ramstein is about a hour and a bit from Frankfurt.

I have notes from my German classes (I was in the fourth/fifth grades when we lived there) and they're in my handwriting and in German, and I have no clue what most of them say anymore!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

If you moved there then, yeah, we were in the country at the same time. And that also means we weren't too far from each other. Ramstein is about a hour and a bit from Frankfurt.

Wow, that's pretty neat.

I have notes from my German classes (I was in the fourth/fifth grades when we lived there) and they're in my handwriting and in German, and I have no clue what most of them say anymore!

I know how you feel. When I was a kid, I knew several German lullabies by heart and they're completely gone now.