Past Present and Future Meme

[eredien]

My memories between the ages of 5-14 are dependent on me correctly calculating which year in school I must have been in, and working from there--I don't remember things by calendar year, and can't correctly remember or estimate exactly what grade seven-year-olds ought to be in. So some of this may be a bit shaky.

15 years ago, in 1989, when I was 7:
I was in second grade, being bored out of my skull because all of my classmates were not as fast at reading as me, and so I could finish three stories in the time it took them to read one paragraph. I sang in my church's children's choir and thought that the sixth graders were immensely tall and scary. This was the year before I learned long division and the year in which I ought to have learned how to tell time on a clock, but didn't because I was sick that day. To this day I have to stop and think about it, and wear an analog watch to keep myself in practice. Tanya Huffsmith and Heather, two of my close childhood friends who later dropped off the face of the earth, were still around.

10 years ago, in 1994, when I was 12:
I was in seventh grade, and rather miserable except for my writing, which I had started two years earlier and was beginning to get decent at. Classes were nothing spectacular, except for English classes, which were awful because for some reason our junior highschool system had no advanced English classes again until the 9th grade, although it had advanced Math and Science courses, so I was stuck feeling like I was in third grade again as the class plodded through Julie of the Wolves, which was at a fourth grade reading level. I was angry at my mother and at the counseling office; through a series of misunderstandings on both sides, I had not signed up in time to take the advanced science courses which I qualified for because I had been mistakenly told that I also had to take the math courses, for which I did not qualify (I had gotten a C in math the year before). This was the first year I was introduced to mathematics that did not involve workbooks, venn diagrams, dots, and colored lines making equations--so math finally made some sort of sense. I had no classes with friends from elementary school. On the other hand, I think this was the first year I was friends with lotusbiosm. This was also the year our girl scout troop broke up because there were no more troop leaders.

5 years ago, in 1999, when I was 17:
I was a senior in highschool. This was a rough year. I hated much of the year due to the college application process(until I found Bryn Mawr, I was convinced I wasn't really right for any place I'd visited). I helped to take care of the multitudinous animals that were in the Ecology classroom and learned to paddle a canoe courtesy of the amazing Ecology teacher, Mr. Pens, who'd taught for 30 years. This was the year I stopped talking to the person who'd been my best childhood friend. This was also the year I got accepted to Bryn Mawr, if you count '99-'00 as a year, as I do.

3 years ago, in 2001, when I was 19:
This was my...freshman year of Bryn Mawr. I was really happy. Had trouble with Russian, but fixed it, and was really, really happy. Busy, but happy. This was the year I resolved to myself that I'd tell anyone who asked that I was a dragon. Went to my first science-fiction convention with Trifles. I still remember you all holding up your lanterns in the Goodnight Line of Lantern Night for me, and this memory basically covers tne entire feeling of that year for me.

1 year ago, in 2003, when I was 20:
Junior at BMC. Really getting into all my cities classes; meeting new freshmen, hanging out with the previous year's freshmen (you'll always be...) and going through the wonderfulness of thinking about a thesis. Getting serious about my poetry. Gradually becoming a more well-informed anime fan and going to Otakon. Somehow managing to hole myself up in my room in the Pems for most of the last semester. Got the best summer job ever at Guild, getting to design websites. Starting the martial arts club with Kitten.

Yesterday:
Spent most of yesterday morning looking at apartments with Phoenix (of ghosts_phoenix); ate spicy spicy thai soup for lunch and then spent much of the afternoon working on my new resume and then going with midnight_phoenix into Boston and registering with a great temp agency. Read two collected volumes of the excellent comic book Fables, which is a modern fantasy piece.

Today:
Slept late. Spent much of the morning dealing with starting the process of changing my old email over to the new email addresses. Emailed a bunch of professors talking about cities major options (yes, again!) and uploaded my resume to many different places. Called Gallian. Also helped clean L'ignota's apartment and then Lywen came over....we're planning on going to the Japanese food market just as soon as midnight_phoenix finishes what he's doing in the next room. Later on in the evening I am planning the Macho Women with Guns one-shot and posting Day 3 of the story I have been putting on my journal.

Tomorrow:
Ought to call Rabidfangurl.
Finishing up more resumes and employment ads.
Printing out directions from Boston to home.
Working on thesis.

Four bad habits:
1. Being constitutionally unable to plan things that are between one and three months away from the current date. Anything more than three months away or less than one month away is capable of being understood and handled.
2. Not exercising enough even when I know I ought.
3. Sleeping in too late and staying up too late.
4. Listening to snippets of coversations between people I do not know, while on the train or other forms of public transport. It keeps me interested but I have to fight the urge to interject opinions or facts.

Interests at the moment:
Music
HTML and CSS and Flash programming
Mongolia
Italo Calvino
Yeats' Poetry
Shading pictures on the computer
The Oxford English Dictionary's etymology section
Sculpture
Body Modification Surgery and Tattoos

Places I've lived:
Three towns in Central New York State.
For a week in Copenhagen, Denmark.
A suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

My Top Four Biggest Worries at the Moment:
1. Phoenix's grad school situation, which determines much about my life for the next six months. (Phoenix, isn't it utterly silly to have two people worrying over the same thing? But I can't help it. But it's not your fault. I just worry a lot.)
2. Will I get a job?
3. Recently I have been realizing that I have begun to spend too much time alone again.
4. Being a Senior at Bryn Mawr and All This Entails.

My Top Four Biggest Joys at the Moment:
1. My Friend-Family. I love you all.
2. Books; Rediscovering the Joys of the Russian language.
3. Working on my thesis and starting to become really happy with it
4. I am starting to force myself to make time to write fiction and soon I will have even more time!

Comments

[kaypendragon.livejournal.com]

Did you see the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen? We were just talking about that in another community.

"4. Listening to snippets of coversations between people I do not know, while on the train or other forms of public transport. It keeps me interested but I have to fight the urge to interject opinions or facts."
Glad to know I'm not the only one who does this. I bring blank notebooks and jot down what I think. I find that it helps.

[eredien]

Yes, I did. It's not smaller than the photographs show it, but looks it because it's way way out on this one rock.