Yourself

Week 2 -- 13 July 2007

I find describing myself to others hard, even thought I know a lot about me. I'm sure many others do, too. I dislike the question, "Tell me/us something about yourself?" You're put on the spot and frantically thinking for one or two things about yourself that will make you sounds like an interesting person to know or a good candidate for the job, school, or office of an organization.

A couple of weeks ago, we were talking about our looks, habits, and personalities in a forum I belong to. It was odd to think of and truthfully post my flaws in character. This is what I wrote.

"Gosh, this is actually turning out to be a tough question once I started thinking about it. Describing one's own personality. hmmm.

I am the good friend type to friends, family, and boyfriend. I'm always there to listen and help out. I'm bad at saying no to those close to me. Which can be a fault as sometimes I end up doing things and being places I'd rather not be. Like you, I smile and say hi to people I walk by. I will strike up conversations with strangers. I have a wide variety of interests and tend to want to learn everything. I am passionate towards life. I can be a bit of a perfectionist in my work and studies. My apartment can get messy at times. I worry a bit too much sometimes. Also, my areas of concentration/interest in grad school were oncology also and neurology. "

But, this is not the whole of who I am. I love art and music. I nearly always have the radio on at home and in the car (or a cd or my iPod). I love writing and reading. I'll read nearly any fiction. I love to travel and I love to learn. If I won millions of dollars in the lottery, I'd be a permanent student. I enjoy crocheting and crafts. I never miss an episode of my favorite soap, Days of our Lives. I want both children and a successful career and believe I can have both. My family and friends are everything to me. My mom is my hero and my best friend. This is still not the whole of who I am.

Zoo

Week 1 -- 6 July 2007

Phrases like "This place is a zoo" or "He/she lives in a zoo" come to mind before the idea of the place the zoo where animals are kept for people to see. I wonder how many other people wouldn't think of the place the zoo when given the word zoo and asked what came to mind first. I, for one, haven't been to the zoo since I was an elementary school-aged child.

My father, way back when he enjoyed having children, used to take my sister, Mary, and I to the local zoo in Orlando, FL several times a year. I remember the animals and the heat. There were some elephants, a few hippos, and several otters in a pool with cement islands. After visiting the Miami zoo, which had natural looking habitats, our local zoo's animals seemed too caged and uncomfortable. I don't remember the lions, tigers, or other big cats, if there were any. These are my favorite animals now. Oh yeah, I also oddly remember a machine that would made a plastic animal for you in front of you for a few coins. I don't even remember the last time I went to the zoo. My father must have stopped taking us as we grew older.

By high school, our lives were a zoo. Three kids and two parents in a modest-sized house. Friends were often over and relatives lived just around the corner. College and dorm life were, of course, zoo-like. Then on to adulthood with it's frantic, hectic zoo-like pace and volume. Is it any wonder that this is now the type of zoo I think of instead of the place I visited as a child where animals were kept?

Consider "Five" a Word

Five. Five cents. A nickel. It's not a lot of money. Many people consider nickels quite useless alone, kind of like pennies. But, like pennies, necessary when making change.

Change. Change for a dollar. Change over time. Not even a hundred years ago, one could buy things with just a nickel. Candy, or even several pieces of candy. A gallon, give or take of gasoline. Or an ice cold Coke-a-Cola.

A nickel is commonly used to make sixty-five cents, along with two quarters and a dime. Since a vending machine won't take pennies, a nickel is necessary to make sixty-five cents. Sixty-five cents buys a Coke-a-Cola now and one still needs to use a nickel.

And the practice word is... Birthday

There are all the usual things one considers when merging two lives, two apartments full of stuff, two cats, two homes. Then, there are the things that arise which one did not consider, which annoy one but one can live with. For my live-in boyfriend of 5 years (live-in of 2 years) and I birthdays fall in the second category.

My Italian family celebrates all events and celebrates big. So, it should came as no surprise that birthdays were a big deal growing up and still are. It is much like being princess for a day or even a weekend. Nice dinner, cake of your choice, lots of presents, a day you planned and picked out, and all the family shows up. You are made a big deal of.

Chris, my boyfriend, doesn't celebrate birthdays. His family never really did much for them. Birthdays were acknowledged, but not made much of. So, you could imagine my surprise when the first few years we were dating, I didn't even get a card. Oh, he didn't forget my birthday. But, he'd tell me Happy Birthday and that was about it. As time went on, with coaxing, he started giving me cards.

You might ask why this is what I chose to write about for the topic of birthdays. I could have simply chosen to describe one of many special birthdays I've had with my family. But the differences in lives and how we were brought up intrigues me. And we're still figuring this birthday thing out.

Last year for Chris's birthday (since it comes first), we went out to dinner at our favorite restaurant which I planned and surprised him with and I gave him a book he wanted (he reads, too!) and a couple of CDs. And we had dinner and cake at my parents with the rest of my family later in the week. And went out for burgers and beer with my sister, Mary, and her husband, Richard, another night.

My birthday, less than a month later, we didn't celebrate. No presents. No special birthday plans. He knew about it. We went to the party my parents threw me the weekend before.

Our birthdays are still coming up this year. I've been thinking about possible plans and gifts for his. Has he been thinking about mine? We'll just have to see what happens.

Purpose

I'm joining the Weekend Wordsmiths and I need a place to write.

What is a Weekend Wordsmith, you ask? According to Bonnie, the originator of the challenge, "Weekend Wordsmith is a blogspot for would-be writers to pick up the Word of the Week as a challenge to write-write-write!"

The official start of the challenge is in 11 days, on July 6th, but we've been issue a practice word. The practice word is birthday. Expect a post with that theme in the next day or so.

I am horrible about getting things done on time, so I am not giving myself a deadline. Hopefully, this actually allows me to produce something in a timely manner.

Also, allow me to say that I am not professional writer or a semi-professional writer or even a blogger (at least, not recently). I haven't written much for pleasure since high school (about 9 years ago), but I enjoyed writing very much then. So bear with me as I start out writing again.

I intend to write from the top of my head on each week's word and keep the writing in a rough draft form. I can be a perfectionist when I polish formal writing and I'm doing this for fun only so I don't want to get caught up rewriting again and again.

I do ramble on.

I meant this post mostly to see how I liked the template of the blog and to begin.