it's meme-tastic

[lotusbiosm]

1. What was the first car your family had?
Oh, gods, I don't know. We were always a two car family. The earliest car I remember is a convertible that broke down a few times. I think it was Dad's, I don't remember what car my mom had at the time. Then Dad had a station wagon and Mom had a minivan, and then Mom got a Dodge Shadow convertible and Dad got a Dodge Intrepid that later became mine, and he got a Dodge Stratus that he's driving now and Mom's Shadow got beat up in an accident (not her fault) and now she has a Neon. Which is more than you asked for.

2. What was the name of your first pet and why?
Oh, crap, I know we had a dog when I was super little, but that's not something I remember. It was a boxer, but I've forgotten the name. Then lots of fish at various points, and a dog named Patches who was half German Shepard and half Old English Sheep Dog, and too big for our house, so we took her back to the Humane Society and she got adopted the same day by a family with a farm. That was the name she came with, AFAIR. And I had hamsters and gerbils and chameleons at various points, but I don't remember the order of them, and I don't remember them having names. We got Smokey the Cat when I was 11.

3. What did you want to be when you grew up?
At one point, a waitress, and then a teacher. I started wanting to be an anthropologist in 7th grade though, which I think impressed my teachers since most 12 year olds don't know what an anthropologist is.

4. What was the name of your elementary school?
Eliot R. Hughes Elementary School, New Hartford, NY

5. Who was your first best friend?
Farrah. We've known each other since we were 6.

6. Are you still friends today, and if not, what happened?
Yep. Not as close as we once were, which is what happens when you grow up and go off to college.

7. What was your favorite board game?

I didn't really play a lot of board games when I was a kid, not at home. I think we played Trouble a lot at my neighbors' house though. That's the one with the die in the bubble, right?

8. Did you play house or other make believe games?
I was an only child. Doesn't this quesion kind of answer itself? Yes, absolutely. By myself and with the kids next door, and with my cousins. House, school, all kinds of random things too. And of course playing with Barbies and other dolls and legos also requires a great deal of imagination.

9. Were you a Dungeons and Dragons geek?
Nope.

10. Did you sleep with stuffed animals as a kid?
Yep. Chocolate.

11. Do you still sleep with stuffed animals?
Yep! Not as much as I did, because he's kind of beat up, but yes. Chocolate accompained me to college, and is here now in DC with me. He's in my bed, but I tend to use pillows more for the actual cuddling bit.

12. Who was the first person you looked up to when you were younger?
Probably my Dad. I wanted to be like him.

13. Who was your favorite relative?
I don't know. My Great-Grandmother, who I'm named after, while she was still alive. And then probably my Granma. Now my Aunt Josephine (all this obviously excludes my parents, who are teh awesome).

14. Were you short or tall in elementary school?
Tall! Center of the back row in basically every class photo. I was 5 feet tall in 4th grade, which I know because I was the same height as my teacher.

15. Were you teased in school?
Yep. On the bus more than in actual school, but yes. Well, made fun of, which is different than teasing, because teasing is good-natured and what your friends do. My teachers all liked me, but I was the smart know-it-all who was not all that up on pop culture (I started listening to the same station everyone else listened to in 4th grade so I'd have some idea of what music was popular), and I certainly wasn't fashionable (I wasn't hideous or anything thoug). That was more in elementary school, and a bit in Jr. High. In High School I certainly wasn't popular, but no one made fun of me to my face. It was actually a problem, because there were boys who I think were actually trying to be friendly to me in Jr. High, but they were cool, so I thought they were doing that thing where they pretend to be your friend only to make fun of you later for being so stupid to think they actually liked you, which I'd seen happen to people.

16. What was the name of your favorite teacher?
Mrs. Janick was my Latin teacher from 8th grade through 10th (3 years), plus she tutored me privately after that for a year. She was awesome. I don't know who my favorite elementary school teacher would be though (though I know who wasn't). I also loved Mr. Whitton (AP European History and AP Comparative Gov't) and Mr. Goodfriend (Anatomy and Physiology). I had a lot of really awesome teachers though, and I got along with all of them. And it just occured to me that a number of these questions sound suspiciously like password retrieval questions.

17. What was the name of your least favorite teacher?
Toss up. Mrs. Nevin in 2nd grade who was mean to everyone and I think really didn't like children. She used to pull the hair of one of the boys in our class. Mr. Hagerty in 6th grade, which is ironic because he was supposed to be the coolest teacher, but I don't think anyone in my class actually liked him. Mrs. Wrate, 10th grade English, also ironic because she was beloved by most, but she's a terrible teacher and incredibly arrogant. Mr. Snizek, 12th grade AP English, also not a good teacher. He taught us using notes he'd taken in lecture, and when we asked him to back up statements he'd made he often couldn't. He seemed more concerned with being liked than actually teaching us anything.

18. What was your best subject in school?

Latin? I don't know, I was good at everything. Well, I didn't do fantastically on my Physics Regents exam, but I don't know that I had a best subject. I guess Latin came easiest though.

19. What was your worst subject in school?
I don't know. Math and Spelling, because they required rote memorization. I was good at math, but I still haven't fully memorized my times tables, so that kind of impacted my grade (at least in elementary school, I was in advanced math in Jr. High/High School). I was also in advanced spelling, but my grades weren't great unless I actually remembered to study (I would pass the advanced test because I was such a good reader that there were lots of words I knew how to spell, but I didn't really need to study for the rest of my subjects, so motivating me to study spelling was tricky). When I did study, even just briefly, I'd do well.

20. Did you do well in Physical Education?
Yes, because I always was on time and I participated. I wasn't particularly athletic, but I had a good attitude and that's what my teachers graded on.

21. Were you clumsy when you were younger?
No. I'm still not. I very rarely fall down. I do bump into things sometimes in moronic ways, but not as often as some peopole.

22. Who was your favorite band as a kid?
I don't know that I had one. I mean, I loved The Monkees because I watched the show (and I couldn't tell them apart from the Beatles on the radio, which isn't all that suprising because early Beatles stuff is pretty much like everything else that was a hit at that point in time). Even though my Dad's a big music guy and I've always played music, I'm not actually a big music person, because I really prefer that my entertainment have a story line, which is why I like showtunes so much. And I generally listend to the Oldies station with my Dad, so while I liked (and still do) that music, I didn't necessarily know who was singing what.

23. What was your favorite movie as a kid?
Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. I also used to watch these Disney videos of Oldies tunes matched up with cartoons that I really liked, and Donald in Mathmagicland. I have the first two and the last one on my movie shelf now still. (Incidentally, Donald in Mathmagicland is one of the most fantastic films ever, and you should all watch it because of the sheer trippyness).

24. Did your parents read to you?
Yes. There are a ridiculous number of books in my house, and my Mom was an English teacher and Dad taught History, so it would be really weird if they didn't read to me. I did learn to read when I was 4, but they kept reading to me I think. Mom and I used to read poems from this book Side by Side, Poems to Read Together, taking turns reading to each other. I have that book still, it's on my bookshelf next to my Shakespeare.

25. Did you have a favorite book?
I used to read Where the Sidewalk Ends over and over again, and we also have 3 volumes of something called something like "A Treasury of Children's Literature" and I used to read that a lot too. Also, there was a book about a girl with a big blue blanket and the story would go and talk about a bunch of different animals asking for a bedtime story, so it was the same lines over and over again, bascially. I don't remember what it was called, I know it was a little Golden book and I can remember what the pictures looked like and I know it's still in my room at home.

26. What was your favorite restaurant as a kid?
I'm gonna guess Ground Round, but I don't really know. I also loved McDonald's, of course, like any good American child.

27. What TV or movie star did you have a crush on?
I had a crush on Jonathon Brandis, because he was on SeaQuest and played a smart nerdy kid with a "pet" dolphin. I rented all his movies. I don't remember having a crush on anyone famous before that, but that doesn't mean I didn't.

28. Do you now wonder what you were thinking?
Sidekicks (with Brandis and Chuck Norris) was on this morning, and he looks pretty terrible in that movie. Of course, some of the hair back then was very wrong. And the crush was really on his character, Lucas from SeaQuest, not on him, and I was smart enough to know that even then.

29. Who was your first crush in school?
I think it was Allen Wilcox, which, when you consider how many girls had crushes on him isn't really that suprising.

30. As a child, what kind of car did you want when you grew up?
I didn't.

31. Did your parents spank you?
No. They didn't really have much call to though. My Dad did swat my bottom once but I don't remember it, because I was a baby and I wouldn't stop standing up while he was giving me a bath.

32. Did your parents fight a lot when you were a kid?
No.

33. Did your parents get divorced or stay married?
38 years of marriage in June.

34. Did you have a computer while you were growing up?
Yep. Dad was always very much a techno geek, and so he had a computer, and I'd play Reading Rabbit and a dinosaur game I forget the name of (I played that a lot). Eventually we had a computer in the guest room which then got moved to my bedroom and then back into the guest room when it became an office.

35. Did you ever run away from home?
Not that I remember.

36. How old were you when/if you first got glasses?
Eighth grade (13), but I only wore them when I was in the back of the classroom and such. Didn't start wearing them everyday until 11th grade, and then I got contacts for senior year. I didn't know I needed them until a routine screening at the nurse's office, because my left eye was 20/20 and compensating for my right, which was emphatically not.

37. Did you need braces or a retainer?
No. They wouldn't fix what's wrong with my teeth, which are actually straight, but my front teeth don't come down all the way as a result of thumbsucking.

38. When did you get your period or hit puberty?
I got my period when I was 11, in 6th grade, but I started puberty before that, since my breasts started growing when I was about 9. I started wearing a bra in either 4th or 5th grade, but I didn't wear it on days I had PE because I didn't want the other girls to see it.

39. Both sexes, when did you start shaving?
Um, I think at some point when I was 11 or so I started shaving my legs. I wish I'd never started.

40. Girls, when did you start wearing a bra?
I started wearing a bra in either 4th or 5th grade, but I didn't wear it on days I had PE because I didn't want the other girls to see it.

. What was your first kiss like?
Now, this is something I remember clearly, because I was 20. (Well, it may be that at some point when I was like 4 or something I had one, but I don't think those count, and I certainly don't recall) We were in the parking lot of the Greece-Ridge mall, and I was leaning up against his car. And man, was I glowing for the rest of the day.

42. What did you do on your first date?
Went to the Sterling Renaissance Faire.

43. How old were you when you first drank?
My first real drink was at the age of 20, in London, where I was legal. And it was paid for by Prof. Mike McDonough.

44. Where was your first house?
The first house I ever lived in was in Utica, but I don't remember it, because we moved to the house I grew up in just before I turned two, and that's the house that's still listed on my driver's liscense. That one's in New Hartford, technically, but the mailing address is Utica. And then I lived in on-campus housing througout college, and now I rent a room in a house in DC.