Get to know me, really.

There’s a new chick on the Tubes who I rather like to watch. I think she’s really smart and funny and I do hope her videos take off. She has a vlog channel as well, as it happens and made up her own tag meme. Only thing is that I don’t do videos at all.

Well, that’s a lie. There’s videos of my cat sleeping, my dog not letting me sweep my back yard and there’s a video of a toy dinosaur (a Triceratops, if you please) walking across my dining table.

But no videos of me.

Anyway, Brianna Eason is her name and this is the meme vlog she posted with her questions.

As she was kind enough to write down all the questions (convenient because I am a lazy sod and couldn’t be bothered writing them down as I was watching), I thought I would answer them too.

As you do.

1. What did you study in college? (Or what do you want to study?)
My highschool scores weren’t that great. I initially wanted to get into child psychology and speech pathology. Unfortunately the entrance score for the only speech pathology course in town (and 15 fucking years later it’s STILL the only speech pathology course in town) was 88.6. My score? 36.4. About 52 and a bit points short. My score was, however, enough to get me into one of the lower-end universities to do a psych degree (Bachelor of Arts, if you please) and so I remapped and rerouted my education plans. I would major in psych and communications studies and once I had a year or two of that behind me, I would apply for the speech pathology degree because then I would qualify as a “mature age student” and would be able to use the credits from my courses and put them towards that degree instead.

Good plan, eh?

It wasn’t to be. I got involved in shit I shouldn’t have as you do when you’re a young, not-quite-20-something and lost my taste for hyer edumakashuns, so I joined the workforce.

15 years later, I am unemployed again and have just enrolled in a childcare course to become a kindergarten teacher.

Kids and I click and I have always been interested in childhood development.

The funny thing is that this surprises an uncomfortable number of people.

I’ve made it quite clear to all and sundry now that I don’t want to have kids. Operative word: HAVE. Meaning; “give birth to”. Plop a ready-made baby in my lap and I am happy as a pig in mud… or a mother in baby poop. Whatever. I like kids, I just don’t want to be pregnant and people often mistake this for dislike of children.

2. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Working as a kindergarten teacher. Not rich – I’ve sold my soul for money before and look how great that worked for me. (Note: Unemployed bum caught in the catch 22 of being too senior for pleb roles and too plebbish for senior roles.) Frankly, I don’t know what else I will be doing for certain in five years time. I just want to be happy and healthy.

Oh, I’ll want to have maintained 77kg for four years. Is that a silly enough answer for you?

3. Who is your favorite person?
My favourite person at this very moment? Ever? I don’t have favourite people to be honest. I love my husband and most people would, by default, say their spouses but I’m a contrary cow. He’s right up there on the list, mind you, but so are my other close friends. I don’t pick favourites. I love all my friends and everyone out there who supports me in even little ways.

4. What message would you give to the world if everyone was listening?
This is deep. Um… I think I would just tell the world to be kind.

Actually, I would ask them this:

It shits me to tears that Gangnam Style has hit over a billion views and made gazzillions of dollars and yet a song that actually means something is barely a blip on the map.

5. What one book changed your life?
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg. I have always thought I was a writer at heart. Not a very good one, mind, but a writer nonetheless. I used to do a lot of it but it tapered off somewhat over the last five or so years. Writing Down the Bones was one of those “how to” books that just spoke to me. I figured out how to tap into my stream of consciousness and it’s an odd sensation just sitting down in a quite place with an actual pen and a notebook and writing whatever comes to mind. There’s no clickity-click of the laptop keys. No gentle buzz of an internal processor. Just your thoughts and the page and the pen trying to move fast enough to capture them all.

“I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me… I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life… I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home I’ll ever have.” — Natalie Goldberg

I started writing a blog shortly after reading Goldberg’s books… about a year after my grandfather passed away suddenly. I’d never really got over his death. I’d only just got to know him due to moving over to his side of town… and where I currently now live. Until then, he was always over an hour away and I didn’t drive – so he was a face that visited sometimes and brought Smarties and the smell of Brut aftershave with him.

He was an awesome cook.

He’d pick my sister and I up from the train station and take us home and then we’d wait for the call to start walking to his house a few blocks away. I digress. He passed away in 1997. I never really made my peace with that. After reading Bones, I wrote a huge stream of consciousness that went for pages and pages in a notebook. It settled my soul.

To be honest, I think I need to do that again.

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” — Natalie Goldberg

6. What qualities are you most proud of or glad you have?
I’m a curious sort. I’m one of those people who needs to have at least three different programs open on the computer and about umptymillion tabs open in a browser. I like to seek information for information’s sake. I like to watch things because, while it might not be important to my life at that particular moment, it doesn’t hurt to fill up the brain with information from time to time.

I mean… seriously! I know how to skin and gut a wolf. That’s an important life skill.

I can also now make microwave chocolate fudge, a Mandrake cake and steampunk style spats for my boots.

How many people could say the same?

7. What qualities do you value most in others?
Sincerity. I know loads of people would say “truth” but I don’t really care for it. I’d be the biggest hypocrite in the world to expect truth from everyone I know. But I do expect sincerity. If you say you love me, mean it. If you say I shit you up the wall and three shades of green, mean that too. Act with integrity. That is what I respect the most, even if you’re wrong (or I think you’re wrong which means you may OR may not actually be wrong) and it’s what allows me to be friends and remain friends with a very broad range of people – even though those people would kill each other if I put them together in the same room.

“If thou dost love, proclaim it faithfully.” – William Shakespeare

8. What’s your thing that you always go back to that calms you down or brings you peace of mind?
Doing something that engages both my hands and my mind. I think that’s why I enjoy making jewellery and doing digital art as much as I do. I am completely focused on the process of creating. I don’t think anyone can truly create without being present in THAT moment. The art can represent your current state of mind, naturally, either in colour, materials or scene but you still have to be totally present in order to create. Writing, whilst enjoyable, makes me focus in a different way that isn’t so calming so I cannot include in that category of things that brings be peace of mind. It often focuses my pain and makes it sharper… moar hurty. Sometimes a break in that thought process is necessary – hence the artistic endeavours.

9. What is an emotional fear of yours?
Failure. Being nothing. Ending up with nothing. Losing everything. Being unimportant; a failure.

At the moment, I think I am living my fear.

10. What is the hardest lesson you are currently learning in your life?
I need to be braver. I need to be proactive. I am neither of these things. Fact of the matter is, for all the bravado I present to the world, I am scared of mostly everything. New people, new things, new ideas. Most of the time I need someone to hold my hand for those first few steps and then I can run with it – whatever IT happens to be. Sadly, as an adult, hand-holders are in short supply.

11. What is your fave non-social media website?
Is there such a thing as non-social media? I’m going to narrow the social media sites down to Youtube, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. I don’t do stuff like Reddit or Digg anyway so not counting those. I would say that deviantART is one of my favourite websites. Yeah, it’s a site where you share your work in a public forum and it’s an inspiring website because of that same art but it’s not what I would consider social media… it’s sort of a community within itself. There are some truly amazing and talented individuals that I am a fan of there.

Altar of Contemplation by =Renilicious on deviantART

12. Describe yourself in 3 words.
Emotional, Fragile, Awesome.

13. How do you wish people would perceive you, in 3 words?
Intelligent, Witty, Sexy.

14. What are your allergies?
I am allergic to cats.
Therefore we have two.

15. If you could jump into any painting, which would it be?
This one:

The Lights by `alicexz on deviantART

Because why the fuck not?!

16. What is your favorite sight / smell / taste / touch / sound?
Sight: Puppies.
Smell: Vanilla and sandalwood.
Taste: Mac n’ Cheese (home-made, not a box).
Touch: My mother’s fingertips brushing over my cheek.
Sound: Mike Oldfield, Music of the Spheres.