bagheera_san: (cornfield)
[personal profile] bagheera_san
Tagged by [livejournal.com profile] tasabian

List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.

1. I'm deadly afraid of any blinking lights in my room at night. Particularly red or orange ones. Once I had a digital alarm with red numbers, and I had to turn it to face away from the bed each evening.

2. I don't wear make-up, earrings, rings, or boots with heels, and you'll see me in a dress or a skirt or wearing a necklace about once or twice a year.

3. I've managed to go through most of puberty without ever fanning on any musician or band. Then, with seventeen or eighteen, I went through a Nirvana phase, where I actually bought a CD and a Cobain poster (and a guitar. I still can't play a single... thingy. What you call those things you play on guitars. Accords?) Similarly, I have zero interest in celebrities. The music I listen to is what I gather together at random from people on my flist who're kind enough to upload samples of their favourite music.

4. Although I care badly for them, and few survive it for longer than a year, I need at least one plant in my room at all time. Otherwise it feels naked. My father religiously cultivates his plants. He also goes to the greenhouses at the botanical garden, to, um, "liberate" layers and seedlings. And he grows hemp plants from birdfood, although thankfully only a few.

5. I sing, badly, but not in the shower. Most often, I sing when I'm walking the dog in places where we're unlikely to meet someone (the forest for example) or when I'm cycling home at night. Often it's just nonsense, because the only lyrics I can currently remember well are a few lines from Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress". Still, I think that poem would make a most splendid rock song. "And while your willing soul transpires, at every pore with instant fires -" can't you just hear the electric guitars? No?

6. Thrown into new social groups of people my age, I usually keep to myself or approach people who seem similarly socially impaired, or geeky or quiet. I hate the flocking mentality of many first and second semester university students (aged about 19, here), who, torn out of their highschool contexts, cling to the first best people they find. But then, I've always been a loner. I think it even translates into my LJ behaviour.

7. I have a bad case of arachnophobia (amongst a bunch of other phobias: heights, deep water, objects in the sea/in lakes - I hate swimming in general, most kinds of insects...), complete with screaming and trembling and running away in panic, but all summer long this spider has been living on the outside of my windowpane. It's quite big, has a nest and a web and I've watched it crawling around and catching flies every evening. I think it might have eggs or little spiders soon. (It's definitely a girl spider. I have decided so.) Today my Mom cleaned the window (yep, it hasn't been cleaned all summer long, shrink away in horror at our housekeeping skills) and I asked her not to kill the spider. Even though the spider will probably not survive winter.

I tag [livejournal.com profile] satora_chan, [livejournal.com profile] attaccabottoni, [livejournal.com profile] slinkling, [livejournal.com profile] enderwiggin24, [livejournal.com profile] venilia

Date: 2007-09-14 04:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] satora-chan.livejournal.com
5. I love singing gibberish! I do a lot of random simple rhymes, even though the sentences don't make sense together. And my mind convinces itself that I'm not completely tone deaf (how'm I supposed to know that I sing sharp and flat and never the correct note? Anything within three half-steps all sounds the same to me (>__________>) )

7. At least the spider's been paying rent.

Date: 2007-09-15 06:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bagheera-san.livejournal.com
The spider has been paying rent very dutifully and she stays outside. Unlike the icky bugs and beetles who just crawl around and do nothing and then die one day and stick to your boot like chewing gum... in the last week I removed at least three beetles from my room.

Date: 2007-09-14 07:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hoperoy.livejournal.com
1. I'm deadly afraid of any blinking lights in my room at night. Particularly red or orange ones. Once I had a digital alarm with red numbers, and I had to turn it to face away from the bed each evening.

Ah! Me too! I'm not sure what it is, but it creeps me out.

6. Thrown into new social groups of people my age, I usually keep to myself or approach people who seem similarly socially impaired, or geeky or quiet. I hate the flocking mentality of many first and second semester university students (aged about 19, here), who, torn out of their highschool contexts, cling to the first best people they find. But then, I've always been a loner. I think it even translates into my LJ behaviour.

Same here. I detest that group mentality. It's like they're not comfortable with themselves.


Date: 2007-09-15 06:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bagheera-san.livejournal.com
I detest that group mentality. It's like they're not comfortable with themselves.

I talked with my best friend about this recently (she's a group person) and she says that she was/is really afraid of not finding friends quickly and staying as isolated as we were in highschool. But the thing is, the groups that develop often seem far too large to me, and they're usually dominated by one or two girls who set the tone, but unlike similar highschool friendship constellations, they don't have the time to develop organically.

Date: 2007-09-14 09:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] attaccabottoni.livejournal.com
2. I used to have the same fashion sense, until my Mom made me take these image improvement classes that taught me how to apply makeup, the importance of accessorizing, and why eschew casual wear like sneakers and jeans for uncomfortable yet aesthetically coordinated styles. It's only because I'm a dutiful student that I make it a point to apply what I learned, and I keep up at it to make my Mom happy and please my friends. I miss uncomplicated mornings, with just perfunctory glances at mirrors, and the least you have to worry about is not leaving the house without your wallet or cellphone.

4. I need at least one plant in my room at all time. Otherwise it feels naked.
That is a fascinating concept. The longest a plant stayed in our room was a lily I saved from an essential oils distillation project.

My parents dealt with plant life for most of their childhoods (farms and gardens), but the most I ever got to see them take care of are pots of aloe plants. Your Dad is cool too. :D

5. If it were rendered into a song, "To His Coy Mistress" sounds fit for a musical instead. I just don't think I've ever heard a rock song using formal English. Other than that, the sentiment of the poem is really fit for a rock song!

Date: 2007-09-15 06:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bagheera-san.livejournal.com
I just don't think I've ever heard a rock song using formal English.
I don't think there are any (although I'm sure someone must at least have tried something like rapping Shakespeare) which is a crying shame.

It's only because I'm a dutiful student that I make it a point to apply what I learned, and I keep up at it to make my Mom happy and please my friends.
On the one hand, I'd freak if my Mom or my friends tried this with me (but they're all casual dressers, so the danger of that happening is very little indeed), but on the other hand I know what you mean - I always take great care to look proper when I visit my grandma.

Date: 2007-09-14 10:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tasabian.livejournal.com
Marvel is an awesome lyricist - that's the first poem (apart from Lewis Carroll) I ever knew by heart:

"Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him RUN!"

Spiders are remarkably good at hibernating & reclaiming their spots in the spring.

Date: 2007-09-15 05:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bagheera-san.livejournal.com
Spiders are remarkably good at hibernating & reclaiming their spots in the spring.

Good to know. She survived the cleaning efforts and is already moving around again.

Date: 2007-09-15 03:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ion-bond.livejournal.com
I still can't play a single... thingy. What you call those things you play on guitars. Accords?

Chords. (You were close. . .)

Who's that in the icon?

Date: 2007-09-15 05:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bagheera-san.livejournal.com
Ah! Chords.

That's me in the icon. Standing in front of a cornfield and grinning like a honigkuchenpferd for no particular reason.

Date: 2007-09-15 06:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ion-bond.livejournal.com
Lookin' good. *g*

I can play two chords. I think.

Date: 2007-09-17 08:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] venilia.livejournal.com
*growls* LJ just ate my comment! *mutters depreciatingly*

Anyway, I totally understand needing a plant in the room. I have an aloe plant (fantastic for skin! Forget zit cream, buy one of these plants!). I've always thought that hospitals should be more garden-y rather than industrial. Some little fountains, a few rock gardens, potted trees, pretty plants... wouldn't you feel much more relaxed and prone to healing in such an enviroment?

My mom is an avid gardener. A good portion of my childhood was spent running around in the backyard while my mom weeded or planted, or generally puttered around in the dirt with her trowel and mini rake (what are those called, anyway?). Plants don't grow as well where we live now, though, so she's taken to filling the house with plants. We joke about needing a machete to reach the kitchen! I think her current houseplant count is around 25, though that's not including my grandma's plants.

'To His Coy Mistress' would make an awesome rock song!

We used to play with Daddy Longlegs as children, so I've never been afaid of spiders. My friends swore one would bite me and I'd drop dead, but they're nice spiders, very patient with curious children. I used to keep one in my room to kill flies.

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