(no subject)

[chess]

I have not been posting much lately. This is mainly because my life is not very interesting any more. I work 40 hours a week testing software (which is fun but only really interesting to me and my colleagues, plus I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say about it), then I come home and flail vaguely in the direction of trying to keep myself alive. I now have no free weekday evenings.
Monday is my free-est evening because I just have an online meeting to make sure that organising the 3YGB is ticking over. Tuesday, from this coming week, is 'D&D&Dave', a D&D campaign run by ahdok. Wednesday is requiem_17_23's Werewolf campaign. Thursday is Growth Group (church bible study group thing). Friday is not in fact currently CUTT because that's done for the year - instead gwyntar is running an Ars Magica game called Whitewash. All three of these games are run in my flat (which is fantastic because it means I don't have to attempt to turf myself out of the house of an evening, something I find very difficult indeed). When I do have any free time I squander it playing World of Warcraft, although I am still not caught up to everyone else's primaries, some secondaries have overtaken me, and this is likely to continue as some people have free weekday evenings...

Anyway, the reason I'm posting now is that I wanted to post the following meme:

The "Grown Up" Survey
(Meant to be completed by those out of high school)

Tired of all of those surveys made up by high school kids?
'Have you ever kissed someone?'
'Missed someone?'
'Told someone you loved them?'
'Drank alcohol?'
Here are 50 questions for the people who are a little more "mature"...


1. What bill do you hate paying the most?

Car tax disk. It used to be inconvenient because you actually had to get paperwork together and go into town to pay it. Now it's inconvenient because my car has somehow ended up registered at the wrong address despite the fact I've never registered this particular car at that address, so all my paperwork goes to the wrong place. And changing the address requires lots of physical paperwork again.

2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?

I can only think of one incident which could be construed as a romantic dinner, with Nicholas in the Thai place on Green Street sometime near Valentine's Day.

3. Last time you puked from drinking?

While I can now be tempted by sufficiently sugary alcohol, I have so far avoided getting sufficiently drunk to be anywhere near the stage where you throw up. Throwing up is nasty.

4. When is the last time you got drunk and danced on a bar?

I do not think I have ever danced on a bar. Mostly 'other people nearby being drunk and silly' is a more powerful force for excessive silliness than 'I am drunk'.

5. Name of your first grade teacher?

Mrs Collett (which I have almost certainly spelled wrong). I was told her first name once (in a touching incident where she crept up on me and untied my shoelaces in payback for an incident in pre-school where I did the same to her and then couldn't tie them back up again, when I had come back to help out at the school, and I finally managed to replace the sour image I had of her with one of a real human being possessed of a sense of humour) but don't remember it.

6. What do you really want to be doing right now?

While I would somewhat rather be saving the world, aside from things like that I'm quite happy where I am, writing meme responses on LJ, thank you.

7. What did you want to be when you were growing up?

I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to be a superhero. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be a Civil Servant and fix the country from behind the scenes. I wanted to be a computer programmer (although really that was more 'expected to become' than 'wanted to be'. I wanted to be a scientist, briefly.

8. How many colleges did you attend?

My Further and Higher educational needs were served with various degrees of quality by a sixth-form which was a continuation of my secondary school, Braintree College, and Cambridge University.

9. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?

I do not have a shirt on right now. It is far too warm for clothing in this house. I am considering tying my hair up, too.

10. GAS PRICES?

I cannot understand why Americans bitch and whine about gas prices when petrol is so amazingly cheap over there. Or rather, I can, but I wish I couldn't. Petrol prices here seem, if anything, too cheap - I don't have to think about the price of petrol when I take my car somewhere, it still costs less than public transport (especially if I pack five people into it, which I prefer to do whenever possible).

11. If you could move anywhere and take someone with you?

I don't want to move. I like Cambridge. Although if I could take Cambridge with me, I'd transplant it to where Edinburgh is, because the climate's better there.

12. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?

The alarm is not currently set, so it did not go off this morning. I prefer not to wake up to an alarm if I can at all avoid it, and now that it's summer the sun wakes me up in good time anyway. What I thought when I first opened my eyes was 'mnh, it's past half nine, guess I should have expected that when I accidentally stayed up past 2am'.

13. Last thought before going to sleep last night?

Some confused kind of quasi-dream involving the WoW interface.

14. Favorite style of underwear?

Big Comfortable Cotton Knickers and smooth, non-lacy, non-underwired, seamless bras. (It is almost impossible to get the latter, especially given that I loathe shops but can't guarantee that the fabric is smooth enough if I don't get to touch it before buying.)

15. Favorite style of underwear for the opposite sex?

I don't care. Whatever makes them feel comfortable.

16. What errand/chore do you despise?

Cleaning. Any kind of cleaning, from tidying the rat's-nest around my desk to washing my hair. I hate tasks that you have to do over and over again and don't even make a tiny bit of incremental progress.

17. If you didn't have to work, would you volunteer?

Yes, or I would go mad and die. I am incapable of properly utilising free time. Just a free weekend is bad enough; the bank holiday weekend gave me Holidayitis despite only being one day longer. (Holidayitis is the state in which I collapse into a puddle of lethargy and woe - I fail to do anything, bemoan my faliure to do anything, and get upset, which further limits my capacity for doing anything.)

18. Get up early or sleep in?

I currently sleep in quite excessively. This is because I don't get to bed until Stupid O'Clock. At least three nights a week this is someone else's fault (okay, so it's my fault really for having gamers round, but I get to bed quicker if they're in my house than if I had to travel home afterwards).

19. What is your favorite cartoon character?

I have not watched a cartoon for a very long time, and I don't really have any favourite characters in the webcomics I read.

20. Favorite nonsexual thing to do at night with a girl/guy?

Hugging's nonsexual, right? I also enjoy talking and talking until Nicholas is no longer paying attention and then poking him until he pays attention again.

21. Have you found real love yet?

Yes. I have a tienelle. He is great. Also, he puts up with me, which is quite an impressive feat.

22. When did you first start feeling old?

When people born in the 90s started being actual people. (Soon people born after 2000 will start being real people and I'll feel really old.)

23. Favorite 80's movie?

I pay no attention to when movies that I watch were made. Is Tron an 80s movie?

24. Your favorite lunch meat?

I eat crisps and chocolate for lunch. This is because the food supply in the techie-side kitchen at work is crisps and chocolate. (The non-techies get fruit and cheese and yoghurt and tasty things, and technically we're allowed to go and raid their supplies too, but it feels like someone else's territory so I can't bring myself to do it.) I do not have sufficient organisation to end up with meat for lunch.

25. What do you get every time you go into Sam's Club?

It appears that whilst this survey is not 'high school', it is still very much American. Almost all of my shop visits (I hate shopping too - I go shopping for main food stuff about once every three months) are to the Co-op on the way home from work for additional chocolate or other gaming snacks. (I am getting a bit twitchy because I've run out of vitamin pills and will probably have to go shopping properly again soon even though the freezer is still pretty well-stocked. Also we're running out of pasta a bit.)

26. Beach or lake?

Lake. Beaches have sand, which is awkward and gets everywhere, and are generally full of objectionable people. Lakes can be surrounded by nice cool shady trees and have lots of beautiful little secluded spots with gurgling streams.

27. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?

No, marriage is a thoroughly in-date ritual.

28. How many people do you stalk on livejournal?

It's no longer really 'stalking' and more 'desperately trying to keep up with at least some of my friends'. I don't have time for serious stalking.

29. Favorite guilty pleasure?

I answered this question recently on apiphile's journal. Currently it's definitely more on the Really Nice Chocolate Or Strawberry Ice Cream side. (Now I want nice ice-cream, dammit. Heck, lousy ice-cream would do. But I don't want it enough to put on clothes and go around the corner to the shop to get some.)

30. Favorite movie you wouldn't want anyone to find out about?

If I like a movie I want everyone to find out about it so that they watch it too (although the response is often 'eww, gross, you *liked* that?' or 'well, that was a bunch of pretentious wank, wasn't it?').

31. What's your drink?

Water. But if you're talking alcohol, Midori. It is very green and it tastes of melons. It is therefore the most fantastic alcoholic beverage ever.

32. Cowboys or Indians?

Indians get better costumes, more fun weapons (I am not a fan of firearms, give me a nice solid melee weapon any day, or failing that a bow and arrow), a more interesting culture, and war-paint. There's some minor historical detail about them losing, but other than that they are obviously and in all ways more fantastic than cowboys.

33. Cops or Robbers?

That one's harder - both are quite dull. Probably Robbers, because I have a thing for the underdog.

34. Who from high school would you like to run into?

I already ran into them on Facebook. Unfortuntely I don't actually have any time to interact with them, because I now have another circle of friends here which is too wide to keep track of. I think my 'keeping track of people as people' circuits top out at about 50, which probably means I know and consider to be good friends at least 150 too many people.

35. What radio station is your car radio tuned to right now?

I think it's BBC Cambridgeshire, because they were playing the best music last time I was in the car without a CD.

36. Norm or Cliff?

I do not know to what this question refers.

37. The Cosby Show or the Simpsons?

Given I only have the vaguest idea what The Cosby Show is (i.e. 'an American television program'), the Simpsons, which I used to watch quite regularly when I lived with my parents and hence had a TV.

38. Worst relationship mistake that you wish you could take back?

Not telling fieandpah that I was not emotionally mature enough to even think about calling someone a boyfriend and generally refusing to get involved in that.

39. Do you like the person who sits directly across from you at work?

Yes. They strike me as being a fundamentally good person, they work hard and are competent, they are helpful to everyone, and generally it would be hard to find a better colleague.

40. If you could get away with it, who would you kill?

If I could totally get away with it, I would kill someone random. Or I would take advice. I don't know enough about international politics right know to know who would be a good person to take out - GWB wouldn't help because there's a whole corrupt edifice beneath him which would just cough up some similar figurehead. There's nobody I'm angry enough to kill.

41. What famous person(s) would you like to party with?

I keep no account of famous people, and don't know if any of them are in fact at all interesting to party with.

42. What famous person would you like to sleep with?

I don't know - there are important questions like 'do they wriggle? are their feet made of ice? do they have bad dreams and suddenly start screaming in the middle of the night for no reason?' that you just don't know about famous people.

43. Have you ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?

I have never used a fire extinguisher in its intended manner, let alone for its intended purpose. In fact, the most use I have put a fire extinguisher to is 'prop open a door', and I'm not sure I've ever personally done that either.

44. Last book you read for real?

I haven't finished a new book for quite some time (I do all my reading on the Internet these days). The last book I dipped into was Permutation City by Greg Egan.

45. Do you have a teddy bear?

I own some teddy bears. They sit on top of the bookcases and look down on the room reproachfully.

46. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?

If there are no toilet blocks, I am very unlikely to get around to brushing my teeth.

47. Somewhere in California you've never been and would like to go?

I know nothing about California, geographically speaking. I don't even know which cities are in it (there were some mentioned in rockbirthedme's answer, but I will have forgotten the information again shortly). I know that it is warm and in America, though, which makes me less inclined to go there.

48. Do you go to church?

Technically, I go to church. This means I feel bad about missing church on Sunday mornings and go to a church-based small group (where I can actually contribute and I generally feel less intimidated and less like I am going to make lots of people feel bad if I do something like start crying).

49. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?

I start new relationships all the time - oh, you mean one with sex? Starting a new one of those would be entirely counterproductive. Starting a new career would be okay - there are lots of different things I'd be happy doing, basically any job where I'm fundamentally paid to sit down most of the day and be clever at things (without involving too much deep maths) would be fine.

50. Just how old are you?

I am twenty-one, something I always forget when I see signs saying 'you must be twenty-one or over'. (I feel a bit irritated about being twenty-one for this reason, because I've hated those signs since I was 16, which was when I considered myself a real human being rather than a child any more. I think I was right, too - I haven't seriously grown up since then. But now I'm twenty-one I can't flout those signs any more and show the world that I come across as old enough to be in adult places, because I *am* old enough.) In a few days I will be twenty-two, which apparently means I ought to have the training wheels off by now. Actually, I do kind of have the training wheels off - I'm married, I have a well-paid job, I rent my own flat, I buy and cook my own food, I wash my own clothes...

Comments

[marble.livejournal.com]

Norm and Cliff is a Cheers reference. I think that came out in the same year you did, but you've surely been exposed to reruns?

[chess]

I have never seen an episode of Cheers.

[rockbirthedme.livejournal.com]

You haven't missed much, with the exception of one or two episodes. And it definitely isn't worth watching through all the other episodes to get to those one or two.

[ktx.livejournal.com]

You remind me of me with your comments about holidayitis and beaches.

[jaq.livejournal.com]

What makes someone 'actual people'?

[chess]

In this context, they start showing up in contexts where I am not particularly expecting children and not being obviously much younger than me.

Hello

[(Anonymous)]

I'm new here, just wanted to say hello and introduce myself.