Posts (page 2)
What was the first movie you remember seeing in a movie theater?
Question submitted by mainmor.
Well, I vaguely remember getting four of us in the back seat in order to see The Lion King when I was quite young, but this might just be a story I remember, and may not have even been that film.
That is my only real memory of cinema before I moved to Qatar. I remember the cinema very clearly. I'm pretty sure that in the two years I lived there they only showed about two films, one of which I believe was Space Jam. The one that I really remember first was that classic, The Brady Bunch Movie.
I remember the seats and being really near the back with my sister, even though we were quite possibly the only people there. I don't think I remember all that much of te film from then because I've seen it many times since and so my memories of the actual plot are probably more recent. Although thinking about it, Jan's single curler might be something I still rmember from then.
Having an older sister who was oh-so-brilliant sister, I did quite empathise with her plight. Plus, her name scans to 'Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.'
The attitude to films there was interesting. There weren't any real copyright laws there at the time, so the rental shop was full of copies, and so not bothering to give the films back was not much of a big deal. I know we certainly took We're Back (a classic film) and we meant to take Camp Nowhere, although we never got around to that. That was quite possibly the best film ever!
This, especially my first proper cinema experience, probably says a lot about me, but I'm not sure if it is good or bad...
Do you have any tattoos? If not, if you were going to get inked, what would you get?
Whenever the subject of tattoos comes up I always remember something my friend Dave once said. 'I wouldn't want to live in a bedroom decorated 20 years ago, so why would I want to live in a body that was?' That's really the main problem. If I really truly decided I wanted a tattoo, I would have to believe I would continue wanting it just as much in 30 years, and I doubt that will happen.
The only thing I've ever really wanted was the dragon design on a top I used to have. If was a chinese style dragon that I thought was very cool. I wouldn't want that now though, because it never actually meant anything to me anyway.
Besides, the way skin moves around you never know how such things will become distorted, anyway.
I just felt the need to share this piece of messenger insanity that just occured:
[15:00] raft_tree: mime's down
[15:00] raft_tree: *mine's done
[15:00] andrew_january: lol
[15:00] andrew_january: 64%
[15:00] raft_tree: Mime's down could be a band
[15:01] andrew_january: lol
[15:01] andrew_january: or something the judge says at a mime weighing contest
[15:01] andrew_january: or it would more be a "guess the weight of the mime" competition
[15:01] raft_tree: or to some people attempting to use a mime as a weapon
[15:02] andrew_january: "Well I eat a banana at you"
[15:02] raft_tree: It could be a competition to see who weighs the fastest
[15:02] raft_tree: 'I weigh faster then you!'
Don't you just love typos?
Go here to see my post on being considered attractive.
Self esteem in a curious thing. Vanity is generally considered to be a bad thing, is one of the 7 deadly sins in fact, and people can frequently confuse high self esteem and vanity. Mix this with the self-deprecating nature of British culture, and I'm sure many others, and it's bad to have good opinion of yourself.
On Scrubs once, I remember Carla said, 'I can look at my naked body for ten seconds before I have to look away, that's more then most women.' And while this can be viewed as an amusing comment on the way things often are, it's also self-fulfilling. It tells woman that they shouldn't be happy looking at their bodies.
I am not normally one to go in for this sort of talk, about the images portrayed by the media and their influence, etc. but it felt relavent to what I was saying. There has recently been a show on called 'How to Look Good Naked.' which, much like What Not to Wear concentrates on wearing the right clothes, and is very good in that it's actually gives women confidence without telling them they need to change themselves completely. I've heard a lot of people mention it, because it really does work for other women too.
Anyway, as to myself. I have had quite good confidence about how I look at certain points, but it fluctuates a lot. I sometimes think I look brilliant, sometimes awful. It does not even relate to an actual change in how I look, either. I can be primped as much as I ever get and think I look awful, or make completely no effort and think I look great. It really is a state of mind thing, with me at least.
I can know I have good breasts, brilliant hair when I look after it, not too bad legs (although I vary more on this), etc. But if I feel bad about myself, all these things look bad to me.
Clothes are very important. I hate wearing trousers because of how I percieve myself to look in them. Someone else with exactely my body could probably wear them and have me think they look good, but not for myself. I can be very specific in what I like and sometimes I will think I look wonderful and my mother will tell me the opposite.
Which leads to another point. Most people, myself included, get a lot of validation from other people and their comments. But, at the same time, I'm less likely to listen to my mother, because we have very different ideas, and I'm less likely to listen to my step-mother, because while we have similar ideas I just don't believe her. It also depends on mood; having a strange man come on to me in the street is generally not likely to make me feel like I look good, unless I'm in the right frame of mind to think I do.
According to the media, I really shouldn't think my body is alright, but I often do. It might be better for me that I didn't, but when I'm think the right way I do, and when I'm not I'm not generally mentally in a place to do anything about it.
i would find it very interesting to see a male perspective on what is thought to be good, how they react to media, etc. I know every individual is just that, individual, but at the same time there is a distinctly different attitude depending on sex (I say sex here, because I'm talking about physical, rather then mental). Anyone got anything to say?
What are your favorite and least favorite words? Any reasons why?
Question submitted by Byrne.
This is normally, I think, a question I could answer easily. I'm sure I have in the past. I tend to like some words for the sound - I like serendipity both for sound and mean, for example, but while I like the word serenity for meaning and connections I am not a big fan of the actual word.
I frequently don't like short 'harsh-sounding' words. I think I would dislike the word fat whatever it meant. There are certainly some times where I do like such words though, but I cannot think of any at present.
Defenestration is an awesome word because mainly of it's meaning, and I like a lot of words of it's sort. English is really quite an impressively complicated language, and I'm very glad I'm not attempting to learn it, but I do love examining the intricacies of it.
There are I'm sure many other words/sorts of words I do like or dislike, but that's all for now :)
On Tuesday I got back from a week of camping. Since then I have rather been wallowing in self pity, so leaving this house today my hair was (still is) a mess, I'm tired and the was very little thought put into my clothes (although despite this I am colour co-ordinated, and I suppose they aren't that bad). So when walking down the street, thoroughly concentrating on reaching the bus stop it was very unexpected to have a man come up to me and start speaking and tell me I looked good. He disappeared before to long, but it really threw me. As it always does, in fact.
It isn't all that rare for me to get random men talking to me and complmenting me on my appearance etc. although they are pretty much always Asain and not brilliant at speaking English. I can think of a couple of black guys (one on a rail replacement bus in north London who asked if I was Jewish, and if I was reading a love story, one on the tube out of the other side of north london when I had gotten very little sleep), but generally they are Indian, or Sri Lankan, or Pakistani etc.
Maybe this is related to where I live, as white people are probably a minority in my area. I remember discussing this once with a friend after, on the way to her house, a man had insisted on giving me his phone number, to the point where he stopped a random passer-by to get a pen. She suggested that my features might be particularly attractive to people from such backgrounds. It might be related to any English people who did like me being too English to do what these men do.
My hair often seems to get attention, for example when entering one of the portaloos at the camping event I mentioned earlier a woman stopped me to talk about my hair and how she had seen it, during which a random small girl came up and said she liked my hair. This sort of thing seems to happen a lot, which while I sometimes accept my hair is nice, I had years of bullying related to it which takes my confidence down.
The man today was behind me when he started talking, so I don't think he could have seen my chest, which I do tend to think would be only thing impressive enough to lead random men coming on to me.
This has gotten long though, so I will leave it for now and perhaps continue later, with discussion of self confidence.
I've always been useless at keeping any sort of diary. I've tried time and again to keep a regular journal - I believe I once mangaed to do it for nearly a month once, before it collapsed entirely. I got my first blog about 3 and a half years ago, my trusty livejournal. I do not update it very often though, in fact once a month is good for me.
I have another one too, although I pretty much never go there anymore. I actually wrote quite regularly there for a while, although nothing of substance. I think part of the reason for this is that I was not really writing to people who truly knew me, at the same time as having some sort of audience. Some fiction went up there.
Oddly enough, I spend a lot of time blogging in my head. I imagine exactely how I would describe events that happen to me but by the time I get to a computer I cannot be bothered any longer. I also spend time in my head writing up things happening now as they were 10 years ago and I am now a newspaper columnist. It's nice to dream.
I started this blog for a few reasons. I want to keep up with what is written by the people I know here, I want to see how it compares to lj and I'd like to see if I can keep up writing at least semi-regularly and see if that helps me with writing in general. Worth a try, right?
