Interview meme 1
Thursday, June 5th, 2003 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranth... the questions from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flickgc ...
1) Do you still feel that you need to have more than one LJ, particularly given that there are [some] people on both friends lists? Why?
'Both'? That is, my name is legion: there are several of me out there. :)
However, it's true: there are two major LJ accounts I use, with a very small crossover. A rather larger number of Friends of one LJ have friended the other but not been friended back, so they see only public posts. Why did I have two in the first place? When I first set up my journals, I was working somewhere where I couldn't specify the Friends-group filtering for a post (it's a Javascript applet); instead, I set up two separate identities, in both of which I could post public or Friends-only posts and (important!) expect them to reach different audiences. Nowadays, the two LJs represent quite different communities in which I have different personas.
The great Outing last year made me think about what I post where, and why. My conclusion -- much reinforced recently! -- was that there are conversations I can have with imaginary internet friends that I couldn't have with anyone who actually knows me (or, sometimes more importantly, knows my real-life friends and connections). And vice versa -- though to a lesser extent, as there are more and more people on my Friends list here who I don't actually know in person.
There's another aspect of the 'audience' issue which is difficult to explain (well, I'm finding it difficult!). My other LJ is active in a particular subset of communities and journals, and newcomers to that area have a fair chance of finding my other LJ without knowing very much about me. They are not necessarily the target audience for posts about my personal life. Likewise, a great many of my real life friends, and their friends, and incomers from fandom etc, would be (at best) uninterested in my life Over There. [Does this make any sense?]
As you can see, I really do need multiple journals to cope with the amount of hot air [or cyber-equivalent] I can produce at the drop of a hat!
2) If you could save three pieces of music, and all others would be destroyed, which would you choose?
Define 'destroyed'. Destroyed everywhere except in my memory, or in my memory as well? Important distinction to me, because there is a great deal of music I know by heart. Let's assume 'destroyed in ways not involving amnesia' ...
You know those Microsoft progress bars where the last 5% takes as long as the previous 95%? Well, that's my brain, thnking about this question.
- Beethoven's Ninth (am a huge fan of his vocal and orchestral work, and this combines the two). Have a feeling that a whole symphony might be cheating: but just think, it could be an opera, and that would be even longer ...
- Led Zeppelin, 'Rock'n'Roll' - bouncebouncebouncebouncebounce
- Blondie, 'Dreaming' (Utah Saints remix) - ditto, but differently
3) What do you want to do for a living? Would you rather freelance or have a contract? IT or writing?
I'd rather have something that allowed -- in theory, at least -- for breaks between projects. Have just suggested to agency that I would far rather take on short-term contracts (one month rather than six, for example) until they find me something that actually meets my requirements. That way I can take a break after each job, keep looking for something that fits my skill-set and experience, and pay heed to my non-work needs (fresh air, sunshine, writing, Real Life).
Oh, and IT, definitely. Not least because I suspect programming pays more than I would ever make from writing! I can write to order, but the results are seldom satisfactory to me. And I love problem-solving, which is what programming at its purest is about. When I'm not doing any IT work, a part of my brain languishes: but even when I'm working hard on an IT project, the creative side of my brain is churning away (writing drabbles during beaks, scribbling dialogue on the back of system specs ... oh, and actually the specs can be pretty creative too!)
4) If you could go back in time and meet, on their death bed, one person born pre-1800, who would you choose? Would it make a difference if you were to meet them when they still had most of their life before them?
I have a suspicion that the further back you go, the less the chances are of being able to have a conversation -- I mean in terms of mindset, rather than actual spoken language. But *waves magic wand* let's assume that I can talk to whoever it is as an equal, regardless of cultural (and gender-based) distinctions ... Given my current classics fetish, I'd like to talk to Odysseus*, assuming there was an original warrior/adventurer on whom the myths were based. (Other contenders include Farinelli, the Empress Theodosia, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Barbara Strozzi, John Donne, Byron, Beethoven, Laurence Sterne ...)
As for whether it would make a difference to meet earlier .. well, depends. With Odysseus I think I'd be more interested in talking about what he'd done, what he'd seen: but with some of the others I'd like to know more about their hopes, ambitions, intentions -- and, assuming I could remember anything from their biographies, I'd want to dispense advice ("Flying a kite in a thunderstorm is really stupid, and you'll catch a chill").
5) Would you be happier if you didn't live in the UK? Where would you like to live, if you could choose anywhere (UK or otherwise. Trips off-planet not yet possible).
I've done some intensive thinking recently on this subject. There are a great many things I love about living here -- quite aside from the fact that very nearly all my friends are UK-based. The one massive drawback is the climate; I've had to face the fact that every year I'm going to suffer a major bout of depression as the light levels drop in the autumn, and I have observed that this is getting worse as I get older. This effect responds to medication (and would no doubt be alleviated if, for the last two autumns, other things hadn't hit crisis point around the same time of year) but it's no fun to live with. (And, I have to admit, neither am I).
Thoughts of emigrating have produced the following conditions:
- it'd need to be somewhere where English (or some colonial variation) was the main language. I'm bad at learning languages and paranoid about not understanding people.
- climate. I don't mind more extremes of temperature, but I demand more light. More sunshine, really.
- sea. At one point I was thinking very seriously about Colorado, and the one major drawback is the distance from the nearest beach (Thousands of miles: flying distance). London feels too far from the sea and it's about 50 miles.
- seems very likely that I'd be going on my own, so I'd prefer a country where I knew somebody, even if only online.
- political situation, within reason, not as important to me as it would have been ten years ago. Blame Blair for making me want to stick my head in the sand. I like Scandinavian politics better, but they all speak strange foreign languages.
- some culture, please.
So: USA, Australia or New Zealand are the prime contenders. As to whether I'd be happier .. I really don't know. Some of the things that make me unhappy are connected with my present situation in the UK and would be left behind. Some would, by definition, be over before I could leave (clue: family). Some are probably hard-wired, but I don't know if they'd be as important given absence of other factors.
Buy me an air ticket, arrange my visa etc and I'll let you know!
*and would have said this even before the announcement about the role being played by Sean Bean in the forthcoming film. Honest.
OK, next? Leave a comment if you want to be interviewed!
EDIT: Thank you, LochJournal, for converting all the HTML tags you put in to exciting literal strings!
flickgc ...1) Do you still feel that you need to have more than one LJ, particularly given that there are [some] people on both friends lists? Why?
'Both'? That is, my name is legion: there are several of me out there. :)
However, it's true: there are two major LJ accounts I use, with a very small crossover. A rather larger number of Friends of one LJ have friended the other but not been friended back, so they see only public posts. Why did I have two in the first place? When I first set up my journals, I was working somewhere where I couldn't specify the Friends-group filtering for a post (it's a Javascript applet); instead, I set up two separate identities, in both of which I could post public or Friends-only posts and (important!) expect them to reach different audiences. Nowadays, the two LJs represent quite different communities in which I have different personas.
The great Outing last year made me think about what I post where, and why. My conclusion -- much reinforced recently! -- was that there are conversations I can have with imaginary internet friends that I couldn't have with anyone who actually knows me (or, sometimes more importantly, knows my real-life friends and connections). And vice versa -- though to a lesser extent, as there are more and more people on my Friends list here who I don't actually know in person.
There's another aspect of the 'audience' issue which is difficult to explain (well, I'm finding it difficult!). My other LJ is active in a particular subset of communities and journals, and newcomers to that area have a fair chance of finding my other LJ without knowing very much about me. They are not necessarily the target audience for posts about my personal life. Likewise, a great many of my real life friends, and their friends, and incomers from fandom etc, would be (at best) uninterested in my life Over There. [Does this make any sense?]
As you can see, I really do need multiple journals to cope with the amount of hot air [or cyber-equivalent] I can produce at the drop of a hat!
2) If you could save three pieces of music, and all others would be destroyed, which would you choose?
Define 'destroyed'. Destroyed everywhere except in my memory, or in my memory as well? Important distinction to me, because there is a great deal of music I know by heart. Let's assume 'destroyed in ways not involving amnesia' ...
You know those Microsoft progress bars where the last 5% takes as long as the previous 95%? Well, that's my brain, thnking about this question.
- Beethoven's Ninth (am a huge fan of his vocal and orchestral work, and this combines the two). Have a feeling that a whole symphony might be cheating: but just think, it could be an opera, and that would be even longer ...
- Led Zeppelin, 'Rock'n'Roll' - bouncebouncebouncebouncebounce
- Blondie, 'Dreaming' (Utah Saints remix) - ditto, but differently
3) What do you want to do for a living? Would you rather freelance or have a contract? IT or writing?
I'd rather have something that allowed -- in theory, at least -- for breaks between projects. Have just suggested to agency that I would far rather take on short-term contracts (one month rather than six, for example) until they find me something that actually meets my requirements. That way I can take a break after each job, keep looking for something that fits my skill-set and experience, and pay heed to my non-work needs (fresh air, sunshine, writing, Real Life).
Oh, and IT, definitely. Not least because I suspect programming pays more than I would ever make from writing! I can write to order, but the results are seldom satisfactory to me. And I love problem-solving, which is what programming at its purest is about. When I'm not doing any IT work, a part of my brain languishes: but even when I'm working hard on an IT project, the creative side of my brain is churning away (writing drabbles during beaks, scribbling dialogue on the back of system specs ... oh, and actually the specs can be pretty creative too!)
4) If you could go back in time and meet, on their death bed, one person born pre-1800, who would you choose? Would it make a difference if you were to meet them when they still had most of their life before them?
I have a suspicion that the further back you go, the less the chances are of being able to have a conversation -- I mean in terms of mindset, rather than actual spoken language. But *waves magic wand* let's assume that I can talk to whoever it is as an equal, regardless of cultural (and gender-based) distinctions ... Given my current classics fetish, I'd like to talk to Odysseus*, assuming there was an original warrior/adventurer on whom the myths were based. (Other contenders include Farinelli, the Empress Theodosia, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Barbara Strozzi, John Donne, Byron, Beethoven, Laurence Sterne ...)
As for whether it would make a difference to meet earlier .. well, depends. With Odysseus I think I'd be more interested in talking about what he'd done, what he'd seen: but with some of the others I'd like to know more about their hopes, ambitions, intentions -- and, assuming I could remember anything from their biographies, I'd want to dispense advice ("Flying a kite in a thunderstorm is really stupid, and you'll catch a chill").
5) Would you be happier if you didn't live in the UK? Where would you like to live, if you could choose anywhere (UK or otherwise. Trips off-planet not yet possible).
I've done some intensive thinking recently on this subject. There are a great many things I love about living here -- quite aside from the fact that very nearly all my friends are UK-based. The one massive drawback is the climate; I've had to face the fact that every year I'm going to suffer a major bout of depression as the light levels drop in the autumn, and I have observed that this is getting worse as I get older. This effect responds to medication (and would no doubt be alleviated if, for the last two autumns, other things hadn't hit crisis point around the same time of year) but it's no fun to live with. (And, I have to admit, neither am I).
Thoughts of emigrating have produced the following conditions:
- it'd need to be somewhere where English (or some colonial variation) was the main language. I'm bad at learning languages and paranoid about not understanding people.
- climate. I don't mind more extremes of temperature, but I demand more light. More sunshine, really.
- sea. At one point I was thinking very seriously about Colorado, and the one major drawback is the distance from the nearest beach (Thousands of miles: flying distance). London feels too far from the sea and it's about 50 miles.
- seems very likely that I'd be going on my own, so I'd prefer a country where I knew somebody, even if only online.
- political situation, within reason, not as important to me as it would have been ten years ago. Blame Blair for making me want to stick my head in the sand. I like Scandinavian politics better, but they all speak strange foreign languages.
- some culture, please.
So: USA, Australia or New Zealand are the prime contenders. As to whether I'd be happier .. I really don't know. Some of the things that make me unhappy are connected with my present situation in the UK and would be left behind. Some would, by definition, be over before I could leave (clue: family). Some are probably hard-wired, but I don't know if they'd be as important given absence of other factors.
Buy me an air ticket, arrange my visa etc and I'll let you know!
*and would have said this even before the announcement about the role being played by Sean Bean in the forthcoming film. Honest.
OK, next? Leave a comment if you want to be interviewed!
EDIT: Thank you, LochJournal, for converting all the HTML tags you put in to exciting literal strings!
