Friday Five, borrowed from the bittercat

[badseed1980]

1. what did you want to be when you grew up and why?

An archaeologist. I've always loved reading about ancient civilizations, and even the "mind-numbingly dull" stuff people warned me about when it came to archaeology sounded fascinating to me. This was the closest I could get to actually experiencing those cultures. I still sort of want to do this... *sigh*

2. who was your favorite person to do things with (excluding your parents)?

Probably my best friend Mike. We were a couple of geeky kids who got a kick out of putting together wires, gears, and bits of broken appliances in his basement "workshop", and watching Ghostbusters. We had a lot of fun, but lost touch in our early teens.

3. did you love school or did you hate it? Why? Did that change as you got older?

Both. I loved learning when it was a subject that interested me. I loved socializing with my friends. But between 5th and 8th grade I got a lot of teasing about my weight and my (really relatively slight) geekiness. I hated that. Especially the weight thing. I'd never known that it was "bad" to look the way I did until I moved to that new school and got teased about it. No one had cared in my old school. But when high school started, I made more and better friends and my enemies mostly lost interest.

4. was your family close? What were your favorite family traditions?

Yes, we've always been close, and I am grateful for that. I think my favourite tradition would have to be decorating the Christmas tree. My mom has all the ornaments my sister and I made as kids, a lot of other interesting ones, and even a bunch of beautiful antique ones. It was always nostalgic and fun to unwrap them all, say, "Oh, I remember this one!" and recall the silly names we gave to them as kids (like a bunch of grapes we called the Grapes of Wrath and a little man made of beads we called the Evil Chinese Guy because of his Chinese hat and his angry expression). We'd drink hot cocoa and my parents would play Christmas music. New England Christmastide and The Bells of Dublin were my favourite albums.

5. did you think that being an adult would be cool?

Oh yeah, I always looked forward to it. Well, parts of it. I looked forward to being given more respect. I looked forward to not having to look to my parents for permission all the time. It's not that I wanted to do stuff they'd think was bad. It was just that I felt I could make my own decisions and behave in a mature and responsible way, and shouldn't need to ask to do stuff.

Comments

[leenah.livejournal.com]

re: #1, archeologist

ME TOO! there was some sorta program in sixth grade, and when i got home i started digging in the back yard. found a broken piece of pipe w/ lettering on it. i was thrilled!

or, i wanted to be a museum curator. or a librarian. yes, i have always been geek girl.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

I did the site prep, site mapping, and research for an archaeological dig for my 8th grade Science Fair project. It went to the top 10 in the state. It was awesome. We (my dad helped me out on some stuff) managed to get the site mapped and gridded for digging, found and noted a few surface artifacts (piece of what looks like old shoe leather, some cast iron, and pottery), and even found out who had probably lived there and where they were buried by looking at really old maps from the 18th century. It was neato!