Some things about me

[calissa]

A few weeks ago, alee_grrl posted a "Some things about me" meme. Since I have a few new friends around here, I thought I'd do the same.

1. I was a professional actor in Italy for 2 weeks.
2. When I was a young, I wanted to be an Olympian in equestrian. I won ribbons in dressage, but my parents refused to buy me a horse.
3. I don't like declaring favourites, particularly in relation to books, movies and tea.
4. I shriek in the presence of wild mice and rats. To my great annoyance, this is involuntary.
5. I would rather have a Kindle than a diamond ring.
6. I have been vegetarian for around 12 years. I have never learned how to prepare or cook meat.
7. With very few exceptions, I find book launches pretentious. I suspect I'm in the wrong line of work.
8. I find it difficult to disguise when I am bored. This is probably unfortunate in combination with #7.
9. I have a mild allergy to fresh pineapple.
10. I have a very good musical ear. This is probably why I've lost what little skill I had in reading music.

Comments

[raze]

Oooh, dressage. I rode as a child but never anything competitive, but I always volunteered with Equine Rescue's fundraisers at the annual dressage show. Love to watch.

And, *high five for meatlessness.* I've been a began since I was ~ 13 or so, though you wouldn't know it from how I feed my pets XD

[calissa]

Occasionally, I miss dressage and horses more generally. I also used to be awesome at polo crosse, though that was only at my lessons and never on a team. Do you have much contact with horses where you are now?

*Returns high five* I didn't start until I was about 19, but my cooking skills before that were almost non-existent. I'm still the one that feeds the dogs when there is any kind of meat or wet food involved. My partner has been vegetarian for even longer than I have and is amusingly squeamish about some things.

[raze]

I had to stop riding in my early teens due to a combination of injury and disease; I pinched a nerve in my back being thrown from a spooked Arabian that makes riding anything more jarring than a trot painful, and my knees and hips have so little healthy cartilage left in them that positioning them around a horse is... not a good time. Plus my left knee dislocates; I used to have to pop it back into place every time I got off a horse. XD

I did continue to volunteer with rescued horses until I moved away from New York, however, but currently I do not work with them. Horse work even when you're not riding is hard work, and with my health being hit or miss I haven't felt confident making a weekly commitment to volunteer at an equine rescue down this way. Also one of my last experiences with rescued horses involved getting the everliving shit kicked out of me and some nasty injuries (facility's fault, they had the wrong horse in the wrong stall so I walked in with a dangerous animal thinking it was a docile one), so I'm not in a rush to "get back into the saddle" metaphorically or literally, haha.

[calissa]

I can totally understand needing to stop riding or working with horses due to injury. I have a bad back as well and I think that in the long run it was for the best that I stopped riding. And you are right about horse work always being hard work.

I was so lucky never to have any really bad experiences with horses, so I can only imagine how horrible being kicked by a dangerous horse must be. I can understand why you wouldn't be in a hurry to go back. Besides, you really do have enough on your hands with all your other critters.

[darakat]

I can understand the pretentiousness of book launches, its ok to think that and be a author/editor. Book launches are a marketing tool, a not always useful one. I think its ok to prefer a private party or some other celebration for a book launch.

[calissa]

A marketing tool, yes that's a good way of looking at it. I'm not sure why I never made the connection before. I suspect that is also the reason I find them pretentious.

[clare_dragonfly]

Do you go to many book launches? I think of them as sort of a vague, faraway thing that huge bestsellers get in New York. Either that or just a few posts by the author saying "hey I have this new book out," which you can just scroll past and no one else will know if you're bored!

I think I have a mild allergy to fresh pineapple, too, but I also read somewhere recently that if you get a tingling/burning sensation (as I do) from it, it's actually the pineapple's enzymes digesting the inside of your mouth.

...which, of course, makes me want to eat pineapple even less.

[calissa]

Yes, I have been to quite a few book launches--both for books I've had stories in and for books I haven't. Part of this is because I'm active on the Australian speculative fiction publishing scene. Part of it is because I've been published in traditional print more often than in electronic format. And part of it is because I live in a highly literate city with an impressive number of writers.

if you get a tingling/burning sensation Yes, that's it! It's a bit like eating battery acid. Thanks for sharing that tidbit. I didn't actually know that.

[onewhitecrow]

What did you act? Do you shriek at tame mice and rats too?

Ironically, I've been veggie since I was 12 but my job requires me to know how to butcher anything up to and including a human being (not to do it, mind, just to know how for the purposes of analysing cut mark clusters on archaeological material). My family have forced me to cook meat for them before, though - mostly it's a matter of just turning whatever lump of corpse against the heat source until it goes brown.

What do you play?

[calissa]

The play was an adaption of a book called Lockie Leonard: Scumbuster written by Aussie author Tim Winton. There were a total of four of us in the troupe: 2 boys and 2 girls. The 2 boys played the main characters. The rest of the roles were divided between the girls. We must have had at least half a dozen each.

What is your job, if you don't mind me asking? I have a bit of an idea, but I'm not quite sure.

My family aren't quite brave enough to make me cook meat from them. I think they worry they'll get food poisoning. There's probably some justification for this.

I used to play the flute, though I don't really do much anymore. I did do some composing with friends back in the day, but it was never really a talent of mine.

[onewhitecrow]

...so you were all the scum that got busted?

Oh! Sorry: I'm an enviromental archaeologist specialising in bird bone. Being ORCA's most junior enviromental specialist, though, I do a lot of the general enviro technician stuff...so when you see statistics on, say, the cattle at the Ness of Brodgar, that's me sitting there all winter going "yep, that's one bone...nope, that bit doesn't fit..."

Yeah, well, that was back when I lived with them (and my dad could still catch and beat the **** out of me for disobedience). Still, if ever you have to care for a wounded wendigo or something, dark brown is 'done'. On fire is 'overdone'.

I am still impressed. Note-reading at all is something like magic to me, let alone writing it.

[calissa]

Not quite. It was about environmental issues, so that would be the scum. I played a love interest, various parents and miscellaneous townsfolk. It was a lot of fun.

What a cool job! It seems like it suits you well. Do you enjoy it?

We don't really get any wendigos around here, but there are some other interesting beings so thank you for the cooking tip :)

Trust me, note-reading is like magic to me these days. I can do it, but it takes me a very long time and with lots of working things out. So, one of the longer spells to cast :)

[onewhitecrow]

"Miscellaneous Townsfolk" is a fine thing to have on your CV, I think.

Oh, thanks! I'm probably supposed to tell you at this point that it's not all mighty hats, lost temples, crazy plans and curses, but y'know, sometimes it is. I wanted to be an archaeologist ever since learning that "Alsatian" wasn't a valid career choice, so I suppose I suit it rather than it suiting me...I do, and I am crazy-lucky to get work in my chosen field in a place I love. I hope I can do something to deserve it someday.

You never know when someone might bring one...though true enough, your Customs officials'd likely blow it up.

Kee...

[calissa]

:) It was also the first time I had traveled overseas, so I think that was a pretty good way to go.

So... you have a mighty hat, then? :D

I think that the best way to deserve such wonderful luck is to enjoy it as fully as you can.

Customs would likely blow a wendigo up. You should hear the fits they have over the dirt on the shoes of football teams returning from New Zealand.

Personally, I think drawing is a pretty magical talent.

[onewhitecrow]

Good for the Italians, getting you involved! Are you fluent?

Of course (it has probably even saved my life at least once). Though day-to-day I usually wear my communist cap (I don't know what the real name of the style is, but picture a Soviet worker in a cap, it is like that) or if it's snowing, my dragon hat.

I don't think that counts as deserving...I want to use the opportunity to give back at least something. [nudges stalled article, which doesn't do anything] Yarr...

Yikes? I don't think so...not the drawing itself, anyway. To draw well, one only needs focused practice, like anything else - this is why when you see people who're really good at it and ask them when they started drawing they'll say "I always did", like the very best violinists and linguists and so on start their careers as soon as they're out of the cradle, it's that kind of headstart. It's a skill, and can be sucessfully learnt later...talent only comes in if one's attempting to make art rather than draw pictures, really. [ducks a bit] Sorry, that sort of clipped the edge of a pet peeve I have regarding the idea that people either Can Draw or Can't Draw, which discourages so many from so much for no real reason...I take it you don't try to papyrumance often, then?

[calissa]

Actually, the entire troupe was Australian. We had been invited to Italy for a youth theatre festival and ended up picking up a bit of work while we were there. It was about enough to cover the cost of our accommodation, which was awesome.

None of us were fluent in Italian. Fortunately, we spent most of our time so far north in Italy that the inhabitants are equally likely to speak German as Italian. I wouldn't say I'm fluent in German, but I had enough to get me by.

Okay, I'm pretty sure I know what you mean by you communist cap, but what is a dragon hat?

Sorry to touch on a sore spot. It is true that I don't try to papyrumance often, mostly because I have so much else that I am busy with. I would love to learn to do botanical sketches and whatnot so I could keep a proper nature journal. A camera does fine for the stuff that stays still, but not everything does.

[onewhitecrow]

Like troubadours! Huh.

It has fleecy horns, spikes and a tail. ^_^

Most of learning to draw really is just learning to look properly...I have heard that people not used to drawing tend to attempt to draw what they think a thing should look like rather than the thing that's there: the art department in the college make abstract 3D scapes out of plain card for such folk to practice seeing and shading with, perhaps that would help. As for getting fast drawing creatures...get yourself a basic working knowledge of their skeletons to get your subconscious trained to know how things can move and what's impossible, and like drawing anything, practice, practice, practice. Do a handful of 1-minute sketches three times a week, sound out your strengths and work specifically on your weaknesses until things improve.

If you think I'm not talking from experience, I assure you that large furry things are my bane, and I've recently singled out horses to practice practice until I can draw 'em, because someday I want to draw Kwengam right properly (ask Shanra why).

It really is very similar to a martial art, though: once you have an idea of the forms drilled into you, you can make them work fast and well when things are in action. It's why the shrimp method works, and results in the ability to draw well without reference.

[calissa]

Yes, like troubadours! In fact, at that stage of my life I dreamed of being a troubadour.

That sounds like one awesome hat.

This is some good advice. I'm a bit swamped with editing at the moment, but I'm going to file this away to take a closer look at in the future.