Interesting fact meme

[dreamerinsilico]

Tell me an interesting fact about yourself and I will reply with an interesting fact about myself that I think of when I read yours. It may be entirely related, or only related in the weirdest, broadest definitions.

Meme provided by journalmemes.

(This one looks fun for interaction!)

Comments

[bladespark]

I have moved on average just shy of once a year for my entire life. I am 40. It's a lot of moves! (Although that is counting going off to college as a move, and a few other such things, so it's not full-on moved-an-entire-house-full moves every single time.)

[dreamerinsilico]

Holy wow, that's a lot! It sounds exhausting! How often have they been to completely new areas?

I have lived in five different cities, but the one I truly consider "mine" is Atlanta, even though I only spent grad school there. But I know it inside and out, and I go back every year for Dragon Con, so it will probably always feel like home to me.

[bladespark]

Probably around 1/4 of them were complete moves to totally different places. I've live in three different parts of Utah, one city in Washington, one in Texas, two in California, and two in Oregon, plus I lived in Ireland for a bit. The place I'm in now, in Oregon, is my favorite, though, I love it here, and we've moved around a few times recently but don't ever plan to leave this city again.

[dreamerinsilico]

It is my *dream* to live in the Pacific NW someday. I HAAAAAATE the south in general even though I hold Atlanta in affection, and I've been stuck here my whole life except the ~15 months I spent in Tokyo.

[bladespark]

It's so great here in so many ways! I won't pretend it's a utopia, but I just love it. <3 Especially with the majority of my time overall having been in Utah. Oregon was very much a breath of fresh air when I got here.

[tomakeanoffer]

When I was in elementary school, someone thought it was a good idea to write a paper/do a presentation on me. I do not recall details of this but I think my mom still has a copy of the paper itself.

[dreamerinsilico]

That is... very strange! I hope it wasn't a crappy experience at the time.

My favorite teacher in elementary school was the one everyone else hated and dreaded getting, because she was the strictest (and she had chronic severe resting bitchface, which I related to :P). But like, she was incredibly consistent in her strictness and a very warm, generous-spirited person and honestly the sole reason I stopped being the kind of student who finds ways to creatively get into trouble when bored, because she was the first teacher I had whom I really respected and wanted to think well of me.

[isabellerecs]

I have really sharp and long canine teeth (naturally) and while this means I snag the inside of my mouth with irritating regularity it also means that I've been asked (at work) by more than one child if I am in fact a vampire. (I usually say yes, but that it's a secret.)

[dreamerinsilico]

That is fantastic and adorable to imagine re: the kids. xD

I actually get called a vampire on the regular not because of my teeth, but because of my tendency to be nocturnal when I can remotely get away with it, and well-known dislike of sunlight. (My eyes are extremely photosensitive; I wear sunglasses outdoors during the day in all weather conditions.)

[bladespark]

I want to like... add a second fact now. :D When I was in my late teens, I convinced my baby sister's best friend that I was literally a real vampire, (they were about 8 at the time?) and used that to scare the snot out of her sometimes. I worked a night shift job that whole summer, and so everybody knew I slept during the day, so she totally bought it.

[isabellerecs]

LOL, that's awesome. ;)

[dreamerinsilico]

That is excellent.

One of my more vivid (and amusing) memories of my early-mid teens is one night I was out with my family, and we were walking - I think we were on vacation and had just left dinner? But anyway, on a whim, zero warning whatsoever, I went for my younger brother's throat like I meant it (didn't actually touch him, but apparently it was convincing), and he absolutely freaked out.

I was kind of a shitty older sibling when we were young. But we've laughed about that moment together as adults, so I don't feel too bad about enjoying the memory. (It was a highly atypical incident, as I am and have always been generally the opposite of impulsive.)

[isabellerecs]

Same on the sunglasses (sunny, overcast, doesn't matter). I'm also quite pale too, but the teeth really sell it. ;D

[eloquated]

Oh this sounds like so much fun!

I've loved audiobooks (podfics and radio dramas, too!) ever since I was little.
But the first one I listened too was Disney's 'The Black Hole', and it scared the stuffing out of me! 😱

[dreamerinsilico]

I had to look that up, but it sounds like it would have scared the crap out of me as a kid, too!

I... wish I liked audiobooks more, heh. I'd finish my knitting projects a lot faster if I did! But auditory processing is something I sometimes actively struggle with, and it's always a higher-energy endeavor than reading, so really the only time I do audiobooks is sometimes when I'm stuck driving for hours.

This is somewhat ironic because my dad, in his retirement, has become one of the most prolific and well-loved narrators on LibriVox.

[eloquated]

There was something about the combination of the voices and the plot and... yup, I was a very scared little El, hiding behind the couch with one of those indestructable kid's tape players!

I don't drive, so I end up listening to them a lot while I do my errands. Makes the walk a lot more enjoyable! Audio dramas or full-cast productions are also really amazing, and sometimes easier to listen to, because they have different voices.

And of course, the narrator makes a huge difference! (That's the coolest thing about your dad!! Oh my gosh, that's awesome!) Some narrators are just so mellow sounding that they almost put me to sleep!

[sideways]

Hmmmm. My birth certificate is in Arabic (though I myself am white Australian - just happened to be born overseas) so I had to get a translation when applying for a new passport. This is apparently a much harder job than I knew, because I received several varieties of the translation, my favourite of which claims my first name is "Curly".

[dreamerinsilico]

Oh wow, that is interesting and sounds very inconvenient!

For a little over a year right after grad school, I worked in Japan, at a multinational research institute (about half Japanese, half various Westerners). Despite me initially putting a fair bit of effort into learning Japanese, during my time there, my French actually improved more, because there were several French researchers and I was already conversational in that! (And also, holy FUCK it is hard to practice a language you're only partially literate in when you are generally much more visually-inclined than auditory! I learned hiragana and katakana easily but there's kanji in bloody everything!)