Interview Meme
May. 22nd, 2008 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
esemeIt's Interview Meme time again. This goes around like a virus every couple of years.
Best virus out there.
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
On to Lissa's questions!
1. We've joked about totems before; is there a particular animal you have an affinity for? An element?
So I checked out my "animal avatars" tag and found this: http://eseme.livejournal.com/11399.html from an old trip to Letchworth. The key bits were: "Chris sees me as a Hawk, Chatham thinks I'm a cat, Josh voted otter, and Carbone says I am in no way a bird of prey- I'm a bunny or a hamster. He says I'm wary at first, but very cuddly when approached. Though he also sees me as a feral mother cat. According to him, I am not at all in any way a dog or wolf."
I've also gotten Magpie a lot, for my tendency to grab shiny things. The otter was probably due to a character I was playing at the time, and my generally cheerful nature.
Edit I can't believe I forgot this one- a doe. Someone sees me as prey... It makes a certain kind of sense.
Of animals I like most, I have to go with cats, and the very small and furry. I am not a dog person.
I've played a lot of characters with fire powers, although I swear it's because I like the special effects. Hair on fire has shown up a couple of times. I think it may be because fire scares me (precious books!) and I like the idea of controlling it or being immune. People who have lived with me have noted that I seem to spend much of my time communing with water. My showers are legendary.
2. What’s been the single greatest influence on how you live your life? (Stolen from Qlipoth)
I am really bad at these "pick one thing" questions. I'm a Libra, we get indecisive.
One major influence was my dad reading to me when I was little. I was four, and I wanted to know what was in big people books. I saw him and my mom reading, and I wanted to know what was so cool about their books. He picked out a book he thought I would like (Laura Ingals Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods) and offered to read it to me. He explained that these books had no pictures, and that you had to use your imagination to make your own pictures. I was enthralled by the idea. In my head Laura didn't have to have brown hair, she could have blond hair like I did! What a concept!
Imagination and creativity are very important to me. The other big influence on that was the Anne of Green Gables series, as Anne had such an imagination. And kept it once she was an adult, working as a school teacher. That idea that you would keep your flights of fancy as an adult and it was OK was another big influence.
3. What has changed the most about you in the last five years? What has stayed the most the same?
Argh. I'd be better at the last six years- in August of 2002 I moved to Rochester, and in November of 2002 I started gaming. Sometime between March and May of 2003, five years ago, I started playing D&D.
Gaming as a hobby has changed a lot about me. It's given me a great creative outlet. It's taught me a lot about myself, and it's even helped me gain some social skills. I know I am more sociable than I was in high school and college.
What's stayed the most the same? *looks around the empty apartment*
I still live alone, and spend most of my free time alone. There was a year-long period where I was someone's roommate, but I still seem to default to just me. On the one hand, it means that I get to do whatever I want, whenever I want, and don't need to coordinate schedules with anyone. On the other hand... it's just me. Alone. That's one thing I'd like to change in the next five years, even if it just means getting a cat. And honestly, the notion of wanting other people around regularly is something of a change.
4. Autumn or Spring? Winter or Summer? Which is your favorite season and why?
Hrm, I thought I had answered this at one point, but I can't find it. I love fall. Being born in October makes it a good time of year to start with, and I utterly love the bright colors of the leaves. Rochester's autumn is rather drab, compared to what I grew up with in Maine and what one can find in the Southern Tier. Hot cider, apples, delicious spicy smells... I really love Autumn.
I can wear my favorite clothes in the summer, so it comes in a close second. It's too hot though, but my favorite outfits require at least 70 degrees so Summer is handy for that.
5. What's one important thing you've learned about someone else, or people in general, in the last year? I'm not talking gossip here... something profoundly true that you didn't know before.
Wow. You put the hardest one last. That's just HARD. I mean, some things one learns are profoundly true but also not your revelations to share.
And profound comes along less often than one would think.
The thing that stands out the most is not a positive one. And I like positive, so I'll ad in one of those too.
What stands out the most is that either I am out of step with the times, or people just don't have the common courtesy they used to. I had ten serious job interviews in my field over a period of seven months. Two were by phone only, all the rest were in person or by phone followed by a second in-person interview. I got a total of two... well technically three phone calls notifying me of whether I had the job. One was from the job I got. One was from a university in Maine. The third... hardly counts as I had called that non-profit group in may to determine I had no job and they called back in like late July to officially notify me of that. Otherwise I got letters and emails. Six places notified me only in a rather impersonal way, given that I had traveled, in most cases, hundreds of miles to interview with these people. I was shocked. I had always thought that in-person interviews deserved phone calls.
On the plus side, I got to see the full spectrum of humanity working at one of America's largest retail and catalog companies... and we are doing pretty well. People were friendly, polite. They smiled, and typically responded well to smiles and greetings from complete strangers. That was a good thing to learn.
Best virus out there.
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
On to Lissa's questions!
1. We've joked about totems before; is there a particular animal you have an affinity for? An element?
So I checked out my "animal avatars" tag and found this: http://eseme.livejournal.com/11399.html from an old trip to Letchworth. The key bits were: "Chris sees me as a Hawk, Chatham thinks I'm a cat, Josh voted otter, and Carbone says I am in no way a bird of prey- I'm a bunny or a hamster. He says I'm wary at first, but very cuddly when approached. Though he also sees me as a feral mother cat. According to him, I am not at all in any way a dog or wolf."
I've also gotten Magpie a lot, for my tendency to grab shiny things. The otter was probably due to a character I was playing at the time, and my generally cheerful nature.
Edit I can't believe I forgot this one- a doe. Someone sees me as prey... It makes a certain kind of sense.
Of animals I like most, I have to go with cats, and the very small and furry. I am not a dog person.
I've played a lot of characters with fire powers, although I swear it's because I like the special effects. Hair on fire has shown up a couple of times. I think it may be because fire scares me (precious books!) and I like the idea of controlling it or being immune. People who have lived with me have noted that I seem to spend much of my time communing with water. My showers are legendary.
2. What’s been the single greatest influence on how you live your life? (Stolen from Qlipoth)
I am really bad at these "pick one thing" questions. I'm a Libra, we get indecisive.
One major influence was my dad reading to me when I was little. I was four, and I wanted to know what was in big people books. I saw him and my mom reading, and I wanted to know what was so cool about their books. He picked out a book he thought I would like (Laura Ingals Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods) and offered to read it to me. He explained that these books had no pictures, and that you had to use your imagination to make your own pictures. I was enthralled by the idea. In my head Laura didn't have to have brown hair, she could have blond hair like I did! What a concept!
Imagination and creativity are very important to me. The other big influence on that was the Anne of Green Gables series, as Anne had such an imagination. And kept it once she was an adult, working as a school teacher. That idea that you would keep your flights of fancy as an adult and it was OK was another big influence.
3. What has changed the most about you in the last five years? What has stayed the most the same?
Argh. I'd be better at the last six years- in August of 2002 I moved to Rochester, and in November of 2002 I started gaming. Sometime between March and May of 2003, five years ago, I started playing D&D.
Gaming as a hobby has changed a lot about me. It's given me a great creative outlet. It's taught me a lot about myself, and it's even helped me gain some social skills. I know I am more sociable than I was in high school and college.
What's stayed the most the same? *looks around the empty apartment*
I still live alone, and spend most of my free time alone. There was a year-long period where I was someone's roommate, but I still seem to default to just me. On the one hand, it means that I get to do whatever I want, whenever I want, and don't need to coordinate schedules with anyone. On the other hand... it's just me. Alone. That's one thing I'd like to change in the next five years, even if it just means getting a cat. And honestly, the notion of wanting other people around regularly is something of a change.
4. Autumn or Spring? Winter or Summer? Which is your favorite season and why?
Hrm, I thought I had answered this at one point, but I can't find it. I love fall. Being born in October makes it a good time of year to start with, and I utterly love the bright colors of the leaves. Rochester's autumn is rather drab, compared to what I grew up with in Maine and what one can find in the Southern Tier. Hot cider, apples, delicious spicy smells... I really love Autumn.
I can wear my favorite clothes in the summer, so it comes in a close second. It's too hot though, but my favorite outfits require at least 70 degrees so Summer is handy for that.
5. What's one important thing you've learned about someone else, or people in general, in the last year? I'm not talking gossip here... something profoundly true that you didn't know before.
Wow. You put the hardest one last. That's just HARD. I mean, some things one learns are profoundly true but also not your revelations to share.
And profound comes along less often than one would think.
The thing that stands out the most is not a positive one. And I like positive, so I'll ad in one of those too.
What stands out the most is that either I am out of step with the times, or people just don't have the common courtesy they used to. I had ten serious job interviews in my field over a period of seven months. Two were by phone only, all the rest were in person or by phone followed by a second in-person interview. I got a total of two... well technically three phone calls notifying me of whether I had the job. One was from the job I got. One was from a university in Maine. The third... hardly counts as I had called that non-profit group in may to determine I had no job and they called back in like late July to officially notify me of that. Otherwise I got letters and emails. Six places notified me only in a rather impersonal way, given that I had traveled, in most cases, hundreds of miles to interview with these people. I was shocked. I had always thought that in-person interviews deserved phone calls.
On the plus side, I got to see the full spectrum of humanity working at one of America's largest retail and catalog companies... and we are doing pretty well. People were friendly, polite. They smiled, and typically responded well to smiles and greetings from complete strangers. That was a good thing to learn.
