Wednesday, March 2, 2011

I am Not Stylish

Brigid and Rev. Paul, being the classy people they are, have gotten an award for such on their blogs. For some reason (fascination with the horrible?), they've decided to tag me under the "pass it on" section. Myself, I rarely pass on such memes, but it would be impolite to brush off such polite curiosity.

Eh, so, ten things you don't know about me. Probably. Some of you do - The Alaskan Geek, over there on the sidebar, is an old housemate and wonderful friend, the kind that I helped move his library, what, five times after I moved out? And J at A Call to Wings helped me build my plane, and put up with random roadtrips...

1. I like finding 4-leaf clovers. Sitting outside, combing fingers gently through the ground cover and picking 4-leaf clovers is a relaxing activity for me.

2. I went to Space Camp in Huntsville as a teen. In fact, I went right after Christmas, and not only was my "class" not full, it was the only group there at the time. The schedule had lots of slack time built into accommodate shuffling large groups of kids, so we had lots more opportunities to explore the museum, the rocket garden, play on the simulator, and dive in the scuba tank than we were supposed to, as the counselors tried to find a way to keep us busy. To this day, when I think of museum, I first think of large, dark spaces with only a few display lights and emergency lights showing the corners of many fascinating things, running through with flashlights and a few voices in the dimness.

3. I started taking college classes in eighth grade. I absolutely hated my new math teacher, and he hated me right back. My grades took a nose dive, as did my interest in math or in staying in school. My parents put me into college math classes, and not only did I learn the algebra, I enjoyed the people. I completed an associate's in science the summer after my high school graduation, one subreq short of a history degree.

4. That wasn't my last run-in with math. At the engineering college, there was a tenured professor who declared on the first day of school, in freshman calculus, "I do not believe women should be engineers. If you are a woman, you will fail this class. You should leave, now." I still hold a grudge against him and the school that tenured him.

5. As a teen, I worked planting tobaccy and green peppers, topping, sprigging, and staking the tobaccy. One of my first hard lessons on economics occurred when the farmer and I eyed a boggy part of the field too muddy to get a tractor in, half-overtaken by weeds, and he explained with the numbers that by the time he paid me to finish it, it'd cost more than he could recoup. I understood, but it hurt to ride away on the tractor with a section of field still standing and the job not done.

6. I worked very hard for years to remove all traces of southern from my voice. Now that I'm living in Tennesssee, it's taking only a few months for dialect, grammar, and accent to return with a vengeance.

7. I really want to learn to ride a motorcycle, but I'm really wary of getting hurt when I dump it. So far, fear has strangled every opportunity I could take stillborn.

8. Whenever I take off from the runway, it never feels like I'm climbing - it feels like the world is suddenly falling away from me. All my worries, all my cares, all those little thoughts and regrets and to-do's drop out as the world is suddenly shrinking under the tires, and I'm left sitting in the sky with an altimeter merrily winding up the altitude as the VSI and engine temp work out their optimum balance.

9. One of the first guns I ever fired was a muzzleloader. I have no intention of firing one again, but I love them anyway.

10. I still cry when I hear taps.

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