Memes

[petronia]

I've reached the point where blogging about my life seems like more of a chore than writing fic, so... I'm writing fic. Maybe I'm turning into one of those people who post nothing but another fic every week or two. Would people like that, I wonder. XD

Very old meme as tagged by ladysisyphus (but I didn't forget!): To play, start by listing 10 weird things/habits/little known facts about yourself. When this is done, choose 10 people to be tagged and write their names at the bottom of your list. No tag backs! Those who get tagged then write their own 10-item list in their own journals. Be sure to include this set of rules.

...See this post for the first five. Those items are still valid. XD

As for the rest:

6) My first memory is of my great-grandmother (who died when I was 2 1/2) feeding me a White Rabbit caramel candy.

7) I don't remember not knowing how to read. Thus I don't remember how I learnt to read either (it happened around the same time as 6, but I only remember events that involve food in some way. This is not a joke). The first two books I can remember reading (age 4) were The Complete Sherlock Holmes and One Hundred Tang Poems, which my grandparents made me memorize. This paragraph sums up everything there is to know about me. >_>

8) Meanwhile, the only poem I have memorized as an adult is the first stanza and a half of "Kubla Khan", which I use as sample text in lieu of "ipsum lorum". I see other people spouting poetry quotes and am baffled as to how they do it.

9) I have this problem whereby if I drink a glass of water (any volume of liquid really), the selfsame glass of water leaves my system after 20 minutes, in the time-honoured manner. Again, no idea how other people manage.

10) One more, er... I like patterned knee socks! As in rainbow horizontal stripes and purple argyle and things. Although that's lasted for a few years and I'll probably be moving onto leggings soon.

Tagging (no idea who's done it already ^^;): arboretum, insaneneko, kuroraka, marej, murinae, saturnoolaa, silvermuse89, sub_divided, woodburner, xparrot.

Also: honesty meme here, why not. XD I've been dead to Livejournal for like ONE WHOLE WEEK and it's important to keep the blood circulating, and by blood I mean comments.

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

You were reading Chinese at age four? In a word- *how*?

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

Ditto that o.o

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

But what I am supposed to saaaaay? No wonder it took you so long to do this meme.

What's horrible is I know I've thought about what I'd say if anyone ever tagged me with this, but now that you have, I can't remember what I came up with. (I'm taking this too seriously! I should just post whatever. Thanks for tagging me by the way.)

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, where Alph the sacred river ran, through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea."

...that's all I remember. I don't get quotation-recitation either, though because we had to memorize it in sixth grade, I can recite the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

My great-grandmother was an imposing woman who chain-smoked from 18 to 80 and still lived to be 94. She once yelled at my brother for wearing a hat to the dinner table, even though he wasn't wearing a hat (her eyesight was bad).

[petronia.livejournal.com]

By family members reading picture books to me and pointing out the words at the bottom as they read until I memorized them (toddlers can memorize anything). Then read other things and figured out the meaning of unfamiliar words through context. Rinse lather repeat. It's how I learnt to read English, for that matter, which I actually remember. XD

The downside of this method with a language like Chinese is that it doesn't tell you how anything is pronounced. So for most of my life I couldn't use the larger part of my vocabulary in conversation. It's getting better now.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

"Twas brillig and the slithy toves/did gyre and gimbol in the wabe/all mimsy were the borogroves/and the mum rathes outgrabe./Beware! the jabberwock, my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch/Beware the jubjub bird and shun the frumious bandersnatch..."

...spelling? may be questionable, but that's okay when I'm babbling it aloud. I can also recite several pieces from Calvin & Hobbes. ("While lying on my back to make an angel in the snow/I saw a greenish craft appear, a giant UFO!..."
I cannot actually memorize a single poem that is meaningful in any way. My general taste in poetry is highly doubtful as I'm still stuck in the preschool doggerel "I like it when it rhymes" stage.

Hmm. It might take me a week or five to think of anything conceivably interesting...

Maybe I'm turning into one of those people who post nothing but another fic every week or two.

Eheheh. *hides in corner* Were I blogging other than fic, that would imply that there was something to my life besides fic. Which, at present, would be a filthy lie.

[dipping_sauce]

9) High school teachers who wouldn't let us go to the bathroom during class.

10) I want to knit these so much (but in different colours), but I don't know if I have the nerve to wear them.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I never had any problems in school that I can remember. I mean, high school classes lasted what, 45 minutes?

Wear'em under a knee skirt, it'd be cute. :) Though by the time you finish knitting them you won't be able to wear them until next autumn.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Eheh, it's the opposite with me - if there's nothing going on I can always make something up, meme or book review or music post or whatever, it's when there's too much going on that I quail at the idea of summarizing it all. XD

Come to think of it "Jabberwocky" has the exact same metre as "Kubla Khan"... I wonder if that was intentional.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I know - I once made up a list of 100 facts about myself (that was a meme, believe it or not), but I don't know where it's gotten to. XD

[troisroyaumes]

I can't memorize poetry (or prose for that matter) for my life either. I always envied characters in books for their marvelous ability to spout off apt quotations in witty conversation.