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the 366 meme, part twenty: May 13-19
May 13: What’s something you were afraid of as a child? Are you still afraid of it? As a very small child, I was terrified of guns, to where when my dad showed me a vacuum tube component called an electron gun, I completely freaked out. (I was also utterly terrified of seeing Star Wars because of "war" in the title. In retrospect, I may have picked up more about the Vietnam War from the news than I consciously remember.) As an adult, I'm not afraid of guns -- they're a specialized tool that can harm or kill you or others, but as standalone objects they're no more scary than circular saws. Many of the people into guns, now? Them, I'm afraid of.
May 14: What compliment do you receive most often? "Wow, you're smart!" (Not particularly. I'm just really really good at solving certain kinds of problems.)
May 15: Are you right- or left-handed? How competent are you with your non-dominant hand? Left. Competence depends on the task. I can cut things out with my right hand (by necessity; so few places make *good* left-handed scissors), but if I were doing scherenschnitte or cutting out Hardanger, I'd want to use my left hand. Writing? I can make a few barely legible letters with my right hand.
May 16: Which Muppet are you most like? Statler. I still aspire to be Gonzo (in daringness if not in willingness to be hospitalized for my art).
May 17: What are the people around you doing right now? Stalling on going to bed by talking to me; stalling on going to bed by playing with Legos; watching a car modding video on the other computer.
May 18: Do you give up easily on things when they get tough, or are you a stick-to-it person? Can you think of examples when your usual approach was the wrong thing to do? If I believe deep down that I can do the thing and I think it's worth doing, I'll stick to it. Prime example: sweaters that have taken me 10+ years to finish knitting -- but I did finish. I'll also stick with something if I'm enjoying the overall process. I knew by high school that I was never going to be a good enough clarinetist to go pro, but I enjoyed playing enough that I still kept it up through high school and college.
If I'm not convinced the thing is worth doing in the first place, I give up at the first sticking point. This is why it's hard to get me hooked on a TV series; I'll hit something in episode 1 or 2 that annoys or bores me, and I'm out. The TV series doesn't matter in the long run. (I'm more likely to stick it out if I'm watching it with a good friend who's interested in it; the TV show doesn't matter, but the friendship does.)
And if I think I can't succeed, I'll bail, or more likely never to make the effort in the first place. This is why I didn't major in engineering -- not because I didn't think I could do the schoolwork, but because I didn't think I'd be able to manage an engineering career and eventual parenthood. It's also one reason I've never worn makeup, other than a little experimentation in high school -- makeup might make me look better, but it's not going to push me over the border into "attractive", so since I don't enjoy it for its own sake, why bother?
I can think of a few past relationships where stick-to-it was absolutely the wrong approach. And in retrospect, bail was the wrong decision on organic chemistry; it was the first time I'd ever hit a class that was genuinely hard, and I still got a B+. I could've made it through the second semester. Pre-bail was probably the wrong decision on engineering, given what I know of myself now.
May 19: You’ve just been chosen as the eighth dwarf. What’s your name? Apathy.
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I am at the stage with a cross stitch (re: May 18): do I try to fix it (there are some mistakes) or do I start over? But it doesn't look like what it's supposed to look like, so part of me wants to abandon it. Not an exact parallel to your examples but I am debating whether to cut bait and or not. For now, it's just gathering dust.
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