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Yeah, I know. I've been here how long, and I'm introducing myself? And this will hardly be news to several reading (at least parts of it). But others don't know as much about me, and hey, I can steal a good idea from my friends list when I see it.
In college, I had a poetry professor (who is a published poet, and I own some of his books). He told me to stop trying to imitate Frost; then he told me to write what I know.
In short, he confused the hell out of me, and frustrated me to no end. Perhaps if I could have taken him on a quick tour of my life and my home, he would have understood.
Then again...knowing his biases about poetry, I'm not sure of that. And not sure he would not have, either.
I'm an only child; my parents are still married, and I had a nice, quiet home life of the type that someone periodically tells me doesn't exist any more. I was, in short, very lucky. ;)
I was actually born in California, but we moved when I was less than two, to a small town in Oregon. We moved again the summer before I turned five, to a house in the countryside of Oregon (on a dirt-and-gravel-road) where my parents still live.
I grew up in that house; rode my bike on the road, fell down and gouged rocks into my leg on the road, was dragged by the dog along the road.... I was allergic to almost everything in the area and in the summers my eyes would swell up and lock shut. Of course, if I didn't love to run and play in fields full of grass, and instead had taken care to avoid them, perhaps that wouldn't have been the case.
Houses are far apart out there (the area is actually zoned for farmland, 40-acre plots, but ours was smaller - it predated the 40-acre zoning). But the house just down the road from us had kids (not the same kids, I admit) the whole time I was growing up, basically.
My dad? Is retired now, but worked for a printer company (actually, a printer division of Tektronix) that was later acquired by Xerox. I was playing on a computer from young enough that I don't really remember exactly when I started.
I do remember being told not to play the program tapes in the living room stereo to see what they sounded like again, though. Strange how that happens.
I was a "gifted" child, but for all that, remarkably clueless. I think it's because I tended to want to follow other people around. Hey, I got to dissect owl pellets one year. (And was fascinated by it. Heh.)
Athletic? No, definitely not. I was hyper enough to get exercise, but with asthma and allergies, and a dislike for organized sports.... (Actually, I think my main problem may have been shoddy depth perception. I also used to almost walk into things.)
I've been wearing glasses from age six or so, speaking of vision. I think I was astonished at how clear things were, and trees having leaves, at the time, though the memories are vague. I was terrified of being called four-eyes and scorned; I'd read books that included that sort of thing. Of course, it didn't actually happen. Gee, all worry, no result. Imagine that.
I went to public schools from kindergarten through seventh grade, except for home-schooling in fourth; from then until I graduated from high school, I went to a Catholic school. (I'm not Catholic, nor are my parents, but it was a good school. That's worth a lot.) If I'm feeling talkative, maybe I'll explain the local school district and my fourth grade year at some point. Mmmf.
I went to college in Iowa. When I went, I thought I was going to be either an English teacher or a programmer. Yeah, I know, the two are so similar. So the first year I was there, what did I do? Acquire fully half the credits required for a Spanish major, of course!
I had to take the intro to literature course if I wanted to be able to take lit courses - and after four years of Spanish in high school, I bloody well did. Then I took interesting sounding lit courses. I also took the Religions of Mesoamerica class. Technically, as a 300-level class with a prerequisite I couldn't take in time, I should not have been able to take it. However, I had taken comparative religions in high school - and that was the prereq. They let me in. I had to do a bit of extracurricular reading (high school comp. rel. does not exactly match the college course, needless to say!) but I caught up and aced the class. (Why did I take it then? Because it was offered every third year - and every other time was in Guatemala. It would next come around my senior year, and be in South America. First, cost. Second, I couldn't handle a month in Guatemala, my body does not adapt kindly to strange food or oddities in the water, and my nerves don't either.)
Somewhere in there I came, yet again, to the "realization" (recollection) that I don't really like children. I don't know how to relate to their world enough - I barely did when I occupied it, after all - and I find them frustrating. I like children fine, as long as they're someone else's responsibility and I can walk away when they're being frustrating.
I also learned that while I like reading literature, I hate analyzing it. (In English. It doesn't bother me half so much in Spanish. I have no clue why.)
Right. English teacher, scratch that. Sophomore year, I looked at my credits, decided it would be stupid not to since there were at least two more Spanish literature classes I wanted to take, and declared a double computer science/Spanish major.
My advisors, needless to say, did not work well together. Then again, my advisor my freshman year had been an English professor. A very nice fellow, very helpful, but I think he was disappointed I didn't stay with my originally-intended focus.
I met a lot of really cool people in college, and a few annoying ones. I discovered that crafts were fun, and spent way too much on beads. I got an after-hours pass for the English department building during a poetry course and stayed there until three am one night, writing in a space where no one could interrupt me, dammit.
I failed to find the backbone to explain to my poetry professor that, yes, in fact, I'd grown up in a place that was just like that, and no, I didn't know a damned thing about the big city, or the other stuff he wanted me to write about.
I took the senior seminar for Spanish two years running: my junior year as a senior seminar, because I was afraid that it would land on top of a required comp. sci. course my senior year and mess me up; my senior year, as a junior seminar, because you can only take it as senior sem once, but the topic was interesting.
Yes, the professor was amused. Heck, so was I.
By this time, my asthma had gotten rather better; in fact, I haven't had to use my inhaler in something like 6 or 7 years. (I still keep a current prescription for it. My doctor agrees. I like breathing, and I like to know I have the tools needed to keep doing so. But I don't tend to get short of breath too much, so it's probably over-caution. Better than under!)
It was in my sophomore year of college that Scott and I started dating. Given that we're still together and happy, I think that was a good decision. When we graduated, we went up toward where he was raised - Wisconsin. Lovely area, really, but I wanted to be home. He wanted to be near his family. And I decided that was more important, because Wisconsin was beautiful.
The job market didn't agree. We tried the whole state, and Minneapolis/St. Paul. No one was biting. So we came out to the west coast, and stayed with my parents while job-hunting. That worked much better, though I imagine they were tired of us by the time we found something. We're both still with the companies that we took jobs with at the time, too.
Scott's moved from sysadmin/support duties to the programming job he really wanted. I've moved from a programming job to the design/programming job I really wanted, and then into a manager role I didn't really want. Ah, well, only a few parts are annoying, and I am pretty good at it, even if I do stress. I've worked on the same product from six months after I was hired (and those six months were spent learning on the most similar product the company has, in terms of both coding style and appearance, deliberately).
I was very, very lucky. The company hired me for a research & development position even though, instead of 3 years experience with C under Windows, I had a few college courses in C++ under Unix -nothing else. I thought I'd work this job till I paid off my loans and/or found one writing games, which is what I thought I wanted to do. Instead? I turned out to be totally suited for and good at this job, and I love it. I love knowing I make a difference.
I live in the middle of a city, too. We got an apartment that's on a major road, a block off the highway, and just another block down that highway to a freeway onramp. And I'm comfortable here, though I didn't think I would be at first, being so used to the country.
Ironically, I might well be able to write poetry more like what my professor wanted, a while ago. I don't know if I will, or not, though.
And that is more than enough babble for one post. Oh, but if you're not sick of reading, try these posts - bits and stories from my childhood:
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=kyrielle&itemid=56726
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=kyrielle&itemid=56896
In college, I had a poetry professor (who is a published poet, and I own some of his books). He told me to stop trying to imitate Frost; then he told me to write what I know.
In short, he confused the hell out of me, and frustrated me to no end. Perhaps if I could have taken him on a quick tour of my life and my home, he would have understood.
Then again...knowing his biases about poetry, I'm not sure of that. And not sure he would not have, either.
I'm an only child; my parents are still married, and I had a nice, quiet home life of the type that someone periodically tells me doesn't exist any more. I was, in short, very lucky. ;)
I was actually born in California, but we moved when I was less than two, to a small town in Oregon. We moved again the summer before I turned five, to a house in the countryside of Oregon (on a dirt-and-gravel-road) where my parents still live.
I grew up in that house; rode my bike on the road, fell down and gouged rocks into my leg on the road, was dragged by the dog along the road.... I was allergic to almost everything in the area and in the summers my eyes would swell up and lock shut. Of course, if I didn't love to run and play in fields full of grass, and instead had taken care to avoid them, perhaps that wouldn't have been the case.
Houses are far apart out there (the area is actually zoned for farmland, 40-acre plots, but ours was smaller - it predated the 40-acre zoning). But the house just down the road from us had kids (not the same kids, I admit) the whole time I was growing up, basically.
My dad? Is retired now, but worked for a printer company (actually, a printer division of Tektronix) that was later acquired by Xerox. I was playing on a computer from young enough that I don't really remember exactly when I started.
I do remember being told not to play the program tapes in the living room stereo to see what they sounded like again, though. Strange how that happens.
I was a "gifted" child, but for all that, remarkably clueless. I think it's because I tended to want to follow other people around. Hey, I got to dissect owl pellets one year. (And was fascinated by it. Heh.)
Athletic? No, definitely not. I was hyper enough to get exercise, but with asthma and allergies, and a dislike for organized sports.... (Actually, I think my main problem may have been shoddy depth perception. I also used to almost walk into things.)
I've been wearing glasses from age six or so, speaking of vision. I think I was astonished at how clear things were, and trees having leaves, at the time, though the memories are vague. I was terrified of being called four-eyes and scorned; I'd read books that included that sort of thing. Of course, it didn't actually happen. Gee, all worry, no result. Imagine that.
I went to public schools from kindergarten through seventh grade, except for home-schooling in fourth; from then until I graduated from high school, I went to a Catholic school. (I'm not Catholic, nor are my parents, but it was a good school. That's worth a lot.) If I'm feeling talkative, maybe I'll explain the local school district and my fourth grade year at some point. Mmmf.
I went to college in Iowa. When I went, I thought I was going to be either an English teacher or a programmer. Yeah, I know, the two are so similar. So the first year I was there, what did I do? Acquire fully half the credits required for a Spanish major, of course!
I had to take the intro to literature course if I wanted to be able to take lit courses - and after four years of Spanish in high school, I bloody well did. Then I took interesting sounding lit courses. I also took the Religions of Mesoamerica class. Technically, as a 300-level class with a prerequisite I couldn't take in time, I should not have been able to take it. However, I had taken comparative religions in high school - and that was the prereq. They let me in. I had to do a bit of extracurricular reading (high school comp. rel. does not exactly match the college course, needless to say!) but I caught up and aced the class. (Why did I take it then? Because it was offered every third year - and every other time was in Guatemala. It would next come around my senior year, and be in South America. First, cost. Second, I couldn't handle a month in Guatemala, my body does not adapt kindly to strange food or oddities in the water, and my nerves don't either.)
Somewhere in there I came, yet again, to the "realization" (recollection) that I don't really like children. I don't know how to relate to their world enough - I barely did when I occupied it, after all - and I find them frustrating. I like children fine, as long as they're someone else's responsibility and I can walk away when they're being frustrating.
I also learned that while I like reading literature, I hate analyzing it. (In English. It doesn't bother me half so much in Spanish. I have no clue why.)
Right. English teacher, scratch that. Sophomore year, I looked at my credits, decided it would be stupid not to since there were at least two more Spanish literature classes I wanted to take, and declared a double computer science/Spanish major.
My advisors, needless to say, did not work well together. Then again, my advisor my freshman year had been an English professor. A very nice fellow, very helpful, but I think he was disappointed I didn't stay with my originally-intended focus.
I met a lot of really cool people in college, and a few annoying ones. I discovered that crafts were fun, and spent way too much on beads. I got an after-hours pass for the English department building during a poetry course and stayed there until three am one night, writing in a space where no one could interrupt me, dammit.
I failed to find the backbone to explain to my poetry professor that, yes, in fact, I'd grown up in a place that was just like that, and no, I didn't know a damned thing about the big city, or the other stuff he wanted me to write about.
I took the senior seminar for Spanish two years running: my junior year as a senior seminar, because I was afraid that it would land on top of a required comp. sci. course my senior year and mess me up; my senior year, as a junior seminar, because you can only take it as senior sem once, but the topic was interesting.
Yes, the professor was amused. Heck, so was I.
By this time, my asthma had gotten rather better; in fact, I haven't had to use my inhaler in something like 6 or 7 years. (I still keep a current prescription for it. My doctor agrees. I like breathing, and I like to know I have the tools needed to keep doing so. But I don't tend to get short of breath too much, so it's probably over-caution. Better than under!)
It was in my sophomore year of college that Scott and I started dating. Given that we're still together and happy, I think that was a good decision. When we graduated, we went up toward where he was raised - Wisconsin. Lovely area, really, but I wanted to be home. He wanted to be near his family. And I decided that was more important, because Wisconsin was beautiful.
The job market didn't agree. We tried the whole state, and Minneapolis/St. Paul. No one was biting. So we came out to the west coast, and stayed with my parents while job-hunting. That worked much better, though I imagine they were tired of us by the time we found something. We're both still with the companies that we took jobs with at the time, too.
Scott's moved from sysadmin/support duties to the programming job he really wanted. I've moved from a programming job to the design/programming job I really wanted, and then into a manager role I didn't really want. Ah, well, only a few parts are annoying, and I am pretty good at it, even if I do stress. I've worked on the same product from six months after I was hired (and those six months were spent learning on the most similar product the company has, in terms of both coding style and appearance, deliberately).
I was very, very lucky. The company hired me for a research & development position even though, instead of 3 years experience with C under Windows, I had a few college courses in C++ under Unix -nothing else. I thought I'd work this job till I paid off my loans and/or found one writing games, which is what I thought I wanted to do. Instead? I turned out to be totally suited for and good at this job, and I love it. I love knowing I make a difference.
I live in the middle of a city, too. We got an apartment that's on a major road, a block off the highway, and just another block down that highway to a freeway onramp. And I'm comfortable here, though I didn't think I would be at first, being so used to the country.
Ironically, I might well be able to write poetry more like what my professor wanted, a while ago. I don't know if I will, or not, though.
And that is more than enough babble for one post. Oh, but if you're not sick of reading, try these posts - bits and stories from my childhood:
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=kyrielle&itemid=56726
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=kyrielle&itemid=56896
cluelessly interested
--tim (do you use salutations and closings?)
Re: cluelessly interested
Re: cluelessly interested
Re: cluelessly interested
no subject
That must have been the tapes from the Radio Shack Color Computer which used a standard audio tape recorder. I got that when I started mentoring Jon. I still have one in the attic.
(no subject)