angeeela

1. I seem to attract people who like to tell me that they are afraid of/dislike/uncomfortable around black people. I really wish they would stop doing so. From our department's Filipino file clerk to my niece who lives in and has never been out of China, who informed me  laughingly, that a friend of hers often gets into fights with black people. I know it's cliche of me to do this, but I always say the "I have  black friends" line, even though it's not really true, because then at least they stop saying that stuff in front of me.
2. I'm kind of a picky eater, but I try not to be. I'm not as enthused by seafood as most I know people seem to be (excepting sushi), and there are certain things I just don't like - like olives. Olives are one of Mark's favorite things, and I've tried a bite of every single one he's brought home, and the strong taste and equally strong aftertaste are just not very appealing to me. That being said, I think I'll try things at least once before I reject them.
3. I have a bad habit of not backing Mark up when I should. Over the years I've witnessed friends in deteriorating relationships "stand by their man" no matter what horrible thing the boyfriends did, and it influenced me a lot in the way I treat him in front of other people.  I'm working on it, though.
4. In my head I retain a lot of the stuff that I've read over the years. It includes a lot of stuff that I shouldn't have been reading at my age. For example, the Movieline stuff in my previous post? Movieline also put out an Annual Sex Issue, and I read that stuff around the age of 11, I think. Of course I had no idea what they were talking about until I was a lot older. I retain other things, too, like the fictionalized biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. I just remember that her older sister scolded her for writing poetry, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with that. Another book I remember reading was a person's account of his journey around the world, and in his chapter on China, he started out with "In China, they do everything backwards. They wear pajamas in the day..."
   
5. I don't pronounce certain words correctly because I read them more than I say them. For the longest time, I kept thinking that the word "examine" was pronounced "ex-a-MINE" instead of "ex-AM-in".
6. To elaborate on 4 - the advent of the Internet also resulted in me learning a lot of stuff that you wouldn't otherwise think I would know. I got to explain to Mark exactly what "polyamory" was and how it was different from polygamy, and I also got to put the knowledge to good use at a bachelorette party.
7. Everyone knows I love free stuff. But I really like getting quality free stuff. I'm always on the lookout - in addition to the apartment book fairy, I took advantage of an offer to get mailed a manga from a publisher named Vertical. I hadn't realized that they published Osamu Tezuka's stuff. I mean, he's like the Japanese Walt Disney! Anyway, I just received it yesterday, and it's on really good quality paper - definitely worth paying money for.
   
8. I have a really hard time accepting money from my parents (except around Chinese New Year). I didn't even like borrowing money for my car, and I paid them back as soon as I could afford it.
   
9. I think I would be devastated if I were ever forced into a position where I was completely dependent on someone else's income.
10. I can't watch stuff like The Office because my office IS kind of like that. Oh, no one says completely outrageous or racist things like they do, but we do stuff like put on karaoke at the Christmas party and some of the management dress up as Sonny and Cher and sing songs from their archive. I think maybe I'm just not used to corporate culture - it took me the longest time to figure out that "Hump Day" meant Wednesday, that if you make a mistake, you're supposed to say "I'm having a senior moment" and make really bad jokes. They're not bad in a hurtful way - they're just bad.

LJ Interests meme results

1. art history:
   I have always loved art, and am fascinated by the different movements. My favorite period is the turn of the century, when Impressionism became the catalyst for ever more radical changes and perceptions. I'm not going to start calling a blank canvas art, though. For me, art has to be both aesthetically pleasing and have really strong ideas.
2. books:
   Where to start? I love books. I always have. They kept me sane, let me escape from a boring life, and gave me ideas I would never have dreamed of. They challenged me, and gave me satisfaction that I could never find anywhere else.
3. cooking:
   I only started cooking in college, and then only very rarely. Before, I had my dad. Lately, with the help of Mark, we've been experimenting with different recipes, different ingredients. It's kind of fun and easy once you get the basics down.
4. drawing:
   I used to draw a lot more, when I was in high school and college. My specialty is anime girls. I should have cashed in a few years ago; then maybe my stuff would be plastered all over Giant Robot walls and I could quit my day job. Anyway, drawing kept me from falling asleep in classes; it reflected my moods and helped me sort stuff out.
5. hip hop:
   I'm from Oakland. :P
   
   Seriously, I need to get some more CDs. I'm pretty selective about my stuff, and can't really stand anything on the radio. I love Jurassic 5 and even got to see them free at a concert, which was the best thing ever.
6. identity:
   Ok, so this one is kind of tricky. I normally hate identity politics; I think that it's really limiting, but I can't seem to get away from obsessing over it. I think the sort of discourse I've seen over the years has been really limiting, from the whole "I just wanna be white" (which, yuck) to the "The Man is the source of ALL our oppression" perspectives. I'm not even calling for a middle ground; I want an alternate way of looking at things.
7. languages:
   I am so sad that my Chinese is wasting away, because no one ever talks to me in it anymore, and I get embarrassed by my accent. When I was younger, we discovered that I and my sister both had mild hearing losses and there was the possibility that we would be deaf. So we started learning a bit of sign language. In high school I took French, because everyone else was taking Spanish, and even though they were all like "But it'll be useful", I knew I would forget anyway. Then in college I really got into anime, and I learned some Japanese.
8. mind-fuck movies:
   Donnie Darko, Mulholland Drive. Um, I like movies where things aren't always as they seem, and that evoke mysterious moods. Does the Matrix count?
9. politics:
   Feminist, left-ish politics. I hate conservatism, right-wing racists.
10. reading:
    See the entry on books.

Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list.