nanila | Entries tagged with navel-gazing

Who was your first crush?

Real person: It was a boy named Colin, in the fifth grade. I would have been ten years old. I can't remember anything about him except he had blue eyes and I could make him laugh until he cried.

Fictional TV character: Jean-Luc Picard.

Fictional literary character: Sherlock Holmes.
Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

I have extrovert energy, but I'm an introvert and I very much need my alone time.
What is your favorite non-sexual thing you like to do with the love of your life?

I can't think of a particular favourite. I just enjoy his company.
What is one quirky habit your partner does that either annoys you or makes you grin?

This does both: throwing his pants at the laundry basket and missing. Like, every single day.
Do you believe in monogamous relationships?

It works for me. I do understand they're not for everyone.

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How far back can you trace your family tree?
That depends on which side of the family (maternal or paternal) we’re talking about. I have distant relatives who have done a lot of work tracing back the ancestry of various people from my grandparents’ generation to the late 1700s / early 1800s. However, there are also substantial gaps, particularly on the paternal side. I couldn’t tell you the names of my great-grandparents on that side.
What is the most interesting (or strange) thing you've heard about one of your relatives?
I knew that one of my great-grandparents had been a chemist at Eastman Kodak, but until recently I hadn’t gone and looked up the various patents he filed in the mid-20th century.
How do you feel about legacy names like John Henry Smith IV or naming children after other relatives?
I think whatever other people choose to do about naming their children is their business, although if you name your child something like “SanDeE*” I may have to fight the urge to judge you for overcomplicating the administrative burden they’ll endure for the rest of their lives.
Would you consider yourself and/or your family to be traditional?
Not really. I think the absence of religion in our lives probably affects this. We do like traditions that involve food, though, like Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) and Easter.
What is one tradition you have passed on to your children and/or plan to pass on to them?
I have passed on the following to them:
- It is OK to put shoyu (soy sauce) on anything.
- Rather than have the argument over pumpkin pie v pecan pie for Thanksgiving dinner, it is best to make both. Also, it is OK to celebrate Thanksgiving at the weekend, since it is not a thing in the UK.
- There is no such thing as “quickly” popping into the bookshop. Or the library.

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Did the house where you grew up have a newspaper delivered regularly?

I grew up in a lot of different houses. The only one where a newspaper was delivered regularly was my grandparents’ house, who read the local version of the Times on Sundays. I used to read the entire thing, starting of course with the comics.
Have you ever subscribed to an actual print newspaper?

Yes, and still do. We also have print magazine subscriptions, because it keeps us from being distracted from things on our phones.
When was the most recent time you physically picked up and read a newspaper?

Yesterday. It was the most recent edition of “The New European”.
Do you pay for news online now?

Yes, I do. I have a paid subscription to “The Guardian”. The academic institution I work for also provides a paid subscriptions to “The Financial Times”, and I read both regularly.
Do you have any saved newspaper clippings?

Yup! Mostly stuff about various space missions I worked on.

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Do you like your birth-name? Why?

Yes. It is reflective of my birthplace and my parents. It's unnecessarily long. It is unique.
If you could change your name to anything else, what would it be?

When I was younger I sometimes wished I had a more Anglo name. I always liked Selene and Natasha. But I have no interest in renaming myself now.
What names would you consider giving your children?

Been there, done that! I think Keiki and Humuhumu's actual names suit them well. Sometimes I wish we'd given Keiki an additional Hawai'ian middle name, Keikani, but overall I think we got it right. Who knows what they'll think themselves when they're adults!
If you had a band, what would you name it, and why?

Sliced Bread (as in, best thing since).
Is there a name that you completely hate? Why?

I'm not very fond of Chad. It's a name I associate with bone headed twerps from my teenage years. Sorry to all the nice Chads out there.

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Of the various cultures, ethnicities or nationalities you belong to, which most strongly do you consider yourself?

My childhood, teenage years and young adulthood were approximately equally divided between Hawai’i, the Pacific Northwest, and California. All of these were very formative to my character and beliefs in different ways.
Is there a culture you cannot claim heritage from but which you feel quite close to?

I have lived in the UK for over 20 years now and taken British citizenship. My partner and children are British. Although I wasn’t born here I do live as a Brit on a day-to-day basis. Probably the most significant milestone, in my opinion, is that when I’m travelling and I get homesick, it’s for the UK, not anywhere else. I’d struggle to pinpoint exactly when that happened, but I have no doubt about it now.
What's one language you wish you knew fluently?

Tagalog, so I could talk to my dad in it.
If you could move anywhere in the world and be guaranteed a job, etc., where would you go?

I’m pretty happy here, but if I could spend some time in the English-speaking* southern hemisphere with the family , I would live there for a few years.
If you had a time machine, and could witness any one event without altering or disturbing it, what would you want to see?

I would love to witness the formation of the first life form on Earth.

* I’m too old and too occupied with raising children and an extremely demanding job to properly learn a new language.

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If you could go back and relive one moment or day from your life, without changing anything, what would you re-experience?

If you could witness a moment in history, again without changing anything, what would you want to see?

f you could talk to a younger version of yourself, what age would you visit and what message would you give?

If you could choose one moment that would be guaranteed to happen in your future, what would it be and when would it happen?

Pretend you left a time capsule for yourself 5, 10, 15, 20 or more years ago. You just opened it. What three things from your past are you now holding and what age were you when you buried them?

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1. First time you cooked for someone else?

I don't remember. I would have been an adult. My family didn't teach me to cook. I could bake a cake or cookies by the time I left home, but I couldn't make a meal. It was likely to have been something very simple, like pasta with sauce, or a grilled cheese sandwich.

2. First time you threw up in someone else's toilet?

I haven't thrown up very many times in my life, and have mostly done so at home, once or twice outside. I really hate vomiting.

3. First time you did anything illegal?

This will be something very boring, like breaking the speed limit.

4. First time you saw snow/the ocean (whichever is more exotic)?

Lol, I grew up next to the ocean. I was eight when I first saw snow, at my maternal grandparents’ house. It was magical. The flakes were huge and diverse, and I can remember marvelling at the silence as they fell.

5. First thought when I say "crumple-horned snorcack"?

My brain conjures something that looks a bit like Allie Brosh's Alot.

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1. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Lots of things, including most unrealistically, Olympic gymnast and dressage champion. The ones that lasted the longest were veterinarian, astronaut, and Nobel-prize-winning chemist.

2. Did you follow through? If not, what happened?

Reality? I mean, I don’t particularly like taking massive physical risks with my body, and I have rarely ever ridden a horse. I did eventually become a PhD chemist, but I don’t rate my chances of winning a Nobel prize in that or anything else very highly.

3. Is your life turning out the way you thought it would when you were a kid? If not, is it better or worse?

It’s definitely better, and certainly not as I envisaged. As a child, I didn't think I’d spend most of my adult life living in another country, didn’t dream of becoming an academic, and was fairly convinced from the point at which it became an option that I’d never have kids.

4. Paradoxes aside, if you could time-travel back to when you were 10 years old, what would you tell your 10-year-old self?

Good job writing that book and getting it printed by your auntie, you’ll be proud of that forever! And yes, you will always have a cat. Sometimes more than one. So don’t worry about that.

5. Do you think the child you were, would like the adult you've become?

I think so. She’d certainly be happy that the adult was still a little bit (okay, a lot) weird.

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1. If the world were to suddenly end right now, what do you wish you would have done?

Finished my beer. [I filled this in on Saturday night.]

2. How many times do you hit the snooze button before getting out of bed?

None. I get up as soon as the alarm goes, and quite frequently before it. Hello, annoying morning person here!

3. What cartoon do you enjoy watching from the present (or the past)?

I still love watching “Danger Mouse” with the kids.

4. If you could go to any time and/or place in history, where/when would it be?

Uh, nowhere, thanks. Things were mostly crap for women in the past, especially ones who had the audacity to have an interest in science. Also, I don't much fancy living in a time when we did not know about bacteria and viruses, and couldn't refrigerate food.

5. If your life were a movie, what would it be rated and why?

I think it would depend on how the filmmaker decided to approach my young adulthood. If they focused on my daytime existence, it would be terribly wholesome and PG as I made my way through getting good marks at university, doing a PhD, and then going off to a postdoctoral position at NASA. However, my evening hours were quite often spent clubbing in the goth/industrial scene along with associated night-time activities, which would immediately turn it into an 18.

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1. If you could live in any city in the world, where would you live and why?

London would still probably be the top of my list. While I was living there, I loved not having to drive and being able to access so many remarkable things for the price of a £1.50 bus journey. I’m also too consistently tired and too completely absorbed in my job and my family to learn another language, so selecting places where English isn’t the lingua franca and introducing a greater level of difficulty into daily communications, isn’t feasible. On the other hand, London is horribly expensive to live in, the Tube is disgusting, and it is exhausting being smashed up against all those people all the time. I'm not sure city life is for me at this stage of my existence.

2. If you could speak any language fluently, what would it be?

Tagalog, because I'm still upset I was deliberately not taught it as a child.

3. When was the last time you rode a ferry and where did you go?

The last one I can remember, which may not be the most recent, was the ferry to Staten Island when I went to New York in 2008.

4. What was the longest plane ride you've ever taken?

Probably the LHR to LAX flights - 11ish hours. I have done a fair few of those.

5. If you discovered a country, what would you name it?

I’m going to interpret this literally and assume that this is about Earth. Given that the land masses on Earth have been populated by humans already, and my belief that the world has had enough of colonists, I'd call it whatever the people who already live there do.

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Sauntering Vaguely Downward

Into the land of lowered expectations

The Friday Five on a Bank Holiday Monday

The Friday Five on a Sunday

The Friday Five on a Sunday

The Friday Five on a Saturday

The Friday Five on a Sunday

The Friday Five on a Monday

The Friday Five on a Sunday

The Friday Five on a Monday

The Friday Five on a Sunday

The Friday Five on a Sunday

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