Ten things (why not?)
Feb. 7th, 2018 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mafiefFilled out the ten things about me meme that’s floating around. Not going to tag anyone.
1) I’m married to a guy and we have two boys (three and five-year-olds).
2) I’m a scientist (geneticist). I decided I wanted to be a scientist by the third grade and been slowly settling down on what type of biology I like (which is really a lot of it). I prefer the overlooked organisms like plants, fungi, lichens, and herps (reptiles and amphibians) and much prefer to be an indoor biologist where I can carefully control conditions. The idea of setting up traps far off in the mountains to collect bobcat poop holds no appeal to me. However, I will willingly jump in a mucky pond or tide pool after a random organism. And I’ve licked a salamander (there were good reasons).
3) I’m terrified of moths. I don’t like insects that sporadically fly around and hit my face.
4) I’m mildly dyslexic. I have a hard time differentiating between my left and right hand and lowercase b’s and d’s (still). I call things by the wrong name even thought I know what it is. An example is calling an object orange and even though it is yellow. In the lab, I’ve had to overcome my tendency to flip the order of things and thus have had to devise systems to keep everything in order. One of my projects involved determining left-handed twist from right-handed twist and it took a ridiculous amount of mental effort to keep everything straight. Reading aloud is stressful. I will do it and sound very awkward but reading to the kids is an absolute must. Writing, spelling, and word pronunciation have always been a struggle for me. Because of this, I am more comfortable producing things with my hands than expressing myself through writing.
5) Teaching. Despite the dyslexia thing, I enjoy giving presentations and I’m rather good at it. I usually find myself in a position where I’m teaching whether that be through 4-H clubs, agricultural displays at county fairs, ski instructing, teaching assistantships, or teaching college level classes. Because of my experience with dyslexia, I know what it is like to struggle in school (I am not naturally gifted, but I am persistent as hell) and can often guide students through their struggles.
6) When I was 5 or 6, I had a severe allergic reaction to a medication which caused Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. I had extensive blistering on my lips, eye lids, and mucus membranes. My case was mild, which was good because I wouldn’t be here today filling out this get-to-know-you-thing. I was left with messed up eyelids and eye lashes that used to rub against my eye until corrective surgery fixed it. Also, the tissue scaring on my mucus membranes have limited my sense of taste and smell to the point that I can barely smell anything and my sense of taste is limited to what I can detect with my tongue. Thus, I don’t drink tea because it’s just hot/lukewarm water with no flavor.
7) I’ve semi-recently figured out I am gray asexual. It’s a big deal for me since I’ve thought something was wrong with me for a very long time. I do not find random folks hot or visually appealing which made conversations with other high school girls very awkward. I’m really only attracted in that way to my husband. So, yah, I’d have no problem living in a monastery being a nun.
8) I am not lefthanded. I’m predominately right, but I can write and perform tasks with some level of proficiency with my left.
9) My high school graduating class totaled 9 people. I was not the valedictorian.
10) I had an extensive hobby as a kid. My mom and I learned how to spin fibers and weave it into cloth. We wanted to keep a wool producing animal, so we settled on angora rabbits instead of sheep or llamas. I kept the average of twenty angora rabbits (max was forty) for their wool and eventually brought them to rabbit shows. The super fluffy bunny with long fluff on the face is an English angora and the type I raised. Unlike most hobbies, I could fund it by breeding the rabbits and selling the kits. I essentially had a small business as a kid. The inheritance of rabbit coat (fur) color has been worked out and I was fascinated by it. My first introduction to genetics was when I would analyze the parent’s history (pedigrees) and predict the coat color of the babies.
1) I’m married to a guy and we have two boys (three and five-year-olds).
2) I’m a scientist (geneticist). I decided I wanted to be a scientist by the third grade and been slowly settling down on what type of biology I like (which is really a lot of it). I prefer the overlooked organisms like plants, fungi, lichens, and herps (reptiles and amphibians) and much prefer to be an indoor biologist where I can carefully control conditions. The idea of setting up traps far off in the mountains to collect bobcat poop holds no appeal to me. However, I will willingly jump in a mucky pond or tide pool after a random organism. And I’ve licked a salamander (there were good reasons).
3) I’m terrified of moths. I don’t like insects that sporadically fly around and hit my face.
4) I’m mildly dyslexic. I have a hard time differentiating between my left and right hand and lowercase b’s and d’s (still). I call things by the wrong name even thought I know what it is. An example is calling an object orange and even though it is yellow. In the lab, I’ve had to overcome my tendency to flip the order of things and thus have had to devise systems to keep everything in order. One of my projects involved determining left-handed twist from right-handed twist and it took a ridiculous amount of mental effort to keep everything straight. Reading aloud is stressful. I will do it and sound very awkward but reading to the kids is an absolute must. Writing, spelling, and word pronunciation have always been a struggle for me. Because of this, I am more comfortable producing things with my hands than expressing myself through writing.
5) Teaching. Despite the dyslexia thing, I enjoy giving presentations and I’m rather good at it. I usually find myself in a position where I’m teaching whether that be through 4-H clubs, agricultural displays at county fairs, ski instructing, teaching assistantships, or teaching college level classes. Because of my experience with dyslexia, I know what it is like to struggle in school (I am not naturally gifted, but I am persistent as hell) and can often guide students through their struggles.
6) When I was 5 or 6, I had a severe allergic reaction to a medication which caused Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. I had extensive blistering on my lips, eye lids, and mucus membranes. My case was mild, which was good because I wouldn’t be here today filling out this get-to-know-you-thing. I was left with messed up eyelids and eye lashes that used to rub against my eye until corrective surgery fixed it. Also, the tissue scaring on my mucus membranes have limited my sense of taste and smell to the point that I can barely smell anything and my sense of taste is limited to what I can detect with my tongue. Thus, I don’t drink tea because it’s just hot/lukewarm water with no flavor.
7) I’ve semi-recently figured out I am gray asexual. It’s a big deal for me since I’ve thought something was wrong with me for a very long time. I do not find random folks hot or visually appealing which made conversations with other high school girls very awkward. I’m really only attracted in that way to my husband. So, yah, I’d have no problem living in a monastery being a nun.
8) I am not lefthanded. I’m predominately right, but I can write and perform tasks with some level of proficiency with my left.
9) My high school graduating class totaled 9 people. I was not the valedictorian.
10) I had an extensive hobby as a kid. My mom and I learned how to spin fibers and weave it into cloth. We wanted to keep a wool producing animal, so we settled on angora rabbits instead of sheep or llamas. I kept the average of twenty angora rabbits (max was forty) for their wool and eventually brought them to rabbit shows. The super fluffy bunny with long fluff on the face is an English angora and the type I raised. Unlike most hobbies, I could fund it by breeding the rabbits and selling the kits. I essentially had a small business as a kid. The inheritance of rabbit coat (fur) color has been worked out and I was fascinated by it. My first introduction to genetics was when I would analyze the parent’s history (pedigrees) and predict the coat color of the babies.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-07 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-08 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-08 06:42 pm (UTC)Re no. 6 - what an awful thing for you to have to go through. I'd never heard of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome before - even if your case was 'mild', the end results seem a lot to have to put up with.
And no. 9 - my primary school year had only 9 or 10 pupils in it but my secondary school year was somewhat larger ^___^ I always tend to think of US high schools as being enormous - it's surprising to hear of such a small graduating class.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-09 05:05 pm (UTC)6) I really feel bad for my mom and dad who had to go through the situation as parents. It was triggered by an antibiotic that was supposed to make me better.
It’s a rare condition and when I talk to doctors about it they either have never heard of it or are really excited to meet someone with the condition.
9) Is that typical of UK primary schools? I’m still figuring out UK education system. :)
Oh gosh, yes, most US high schools are huge! My school was a very small, Christian private school which is not the norm that most students experience.
Do you normally fill these memes out?
no subject
Date: 2018-02-10 11:39 am (UTC)4) I am not dyslexic, but I have been laterally confused all my life. Finally the difference between left and right clicked for me more when someone told me “you can read, right? Well, you read left to right!” And from then on it clicked for me a lot better—I still have to think about it, but it’s a frame of reference I can lay over anything inside my head rather than having to check my hands. I very much admire your persistence in the left and right twist. Seriously, in awe.
6) How very traumatic as an experience: I am glad you made it out okay.
7) I relate to this so very much, particularly in the thinking something was wrong with me my whole life. I could never work out people’s motivations for pretending to react to other people that way. It never occurred to me that they actually did, I just thought I wasn’t getting the joke! Not sure if I’ve mentioned this to you before, but for myself, I’m pretty sure I’m entirely asexual. The world makes so much more sense now!!
10) Seconding smallhobbit’s comments that plotbunnies are the next inevitable phase!
no subject
Date: 2018-02-10 10:55 pm (UTC)Specifically numbers were so small because as the village had got larger other schools had opened too, but then the number of children per family had gradually gone down and not so many places were needed - the local authority finally closed my school about 10 years after I left.
Do you normally fill these memes out? I do fill some of them out when I feel I have something interesting to say. But I don't think I do on this occasion - in real life I'm unmarried, childless, didn't go to university, and I'm currently a middle-aged shop assistant ^___^
no subject
Date: 2018-02-13 02:32 pm (UTC)4) I completely understand finding a frame of reference. Sometimes they stick for me and other times causes more confusion. Someone’s suggestion to figure out left/right was that the left hand makes a capital L with the thumb and pointer. That’s great, except both hands make a capital L to me.
That project wasn’t the best for a dyslexic! ;) To reduce confusion, I had a piece of lab tape with drawn figures attached to my computer for years.
7) “people’s motivations for pretending” Yes! I thought they were pretending as well. I know it’s a label, but sometimes a label is comforting.
10) Lol, the bunnies are after me!
no subject
Date: 2018-02-16 05:05 pm (UTC)You forgot who is very clever and has a wonderful sense of humor. And I find those facts about you interesting as well. :)