Interest Meme!

[lady_sarai]

Snagged from ilyena_sylph:

Comment and I will pick seven of your interests for you to elaborate on!

Fishing industry: This--might require some explanation. ;) I have lived in southern Maine my whole life, never more than half an hour away from the ocean. My grandparents lived in Portland, which is still a large fishing community--the "working waterfront" is part of the tourist appeal. (It's also the largest city in the state.) You can't go far here without seeing places to buy fish or lobster (especially in the summer), and a lot of homes have buoys or lobster traps just--in the yard. Casco Bay has lots of islands, where a lot of lobstermen have lived for generations. (It is becoming more and more difficult to be a fisherman or lobsterman in Maine, and to live on an island or the coast while doing those jobs is even harder; a lot of those properties are owned by out-of-staters who come up for the summer and leave. ::sigh:: ) Anywho. The ocean and lighthouses and the waterfront have always been places I love; I feel better--calmer, more centered--when I can see and hear the ocean.

On top of all that, my Norwegian grandfather (mom's dad) served in the British Royal Navy during WWII before finding a job as a ship's engineer after the war. He wound up moving to Maine with his family when my mother was 8. He continued working on the waterfront and eventually became the Norwegian Consul for the state; he used to do a lot of work on Scandinavian ships coming in, especially as a translator and legal adviser. Very often, he would get paid or thanked for these things in... fish. Shrimp. Lobster. He used to put lobster at the foot of the stairs and let them crawl around and call my mom and aunt to come down the stairs, just to be funny. He had a lot of friends and contacts at the fish markets and wharfs--I remember going with him to get fish or shrimp at the docks when I was little. We didn't buy fish in fish markets or the grocery store until I was a teenager and he couldn't go get it for us anymore.

Before him, my great-grandfather (my grandmother's father--mom's mom's dad! Heh) was a whaling captain. A pretty successful one, too, I guess--there is a replica of his ship in the whaling museum in my grandmother's hometown (we went to visit Norway last summer and got to see it). And one of his much older brothers (he was one of 18!) was the first human to set foot on Antarctica.

I think I'm predisposed to love all things marine. ;) Some of my favorite things are lighthouses, fishing boats, lobster traps and buoys. My family and cultural histories just never gave me a chance. It's not really surprising that one of my favorite television shows is Deadliest Catch, or that my friends have LONG teased me that my Dream Man is a lobsterman. ;) My mother has a Thing for cowboys--I have a Thing for fishing. (Commercially, though. Recreational fishing does less than NOTHING for me. Go figure!)

Founders: By Founders, I mean the Founders of Hogwarts, in the Harry Potter books. I'll talk about HP in a minute, but my interest in fandom shifted between books 6 and 7; I think most everything about the trio and their generation--and MWPP's--had been said, as far as what I wanted to read/say. Or--I wanted to know how things ended, but I didn't want things Jossed, so I resisted writing future fic. So I started focusing on the Founders--especially after HBP, there was (and IS!) so much we don't know about them. The idea that they were all friends and had a horrific falling out... I am still intrigued. I have a bunch of unfinished Founderfic on my harddrive, including a whole epic spanning decades about Helga Hufflepuff. (Are we surprised that the Hufflepuff was obsessed about Helga? ;) Heh.) My favorite obscure and impossible pairing remains Helga/Salazar. I think it was doomed and tragic, but I love it. They're not as opposite as they seem.

I even cast them--see?



I call them my OTP of Doom.

Harry Potter: Oh, HP. I really do love those books--even the last, and the epilogue. I started reading them when I was 14 (I think--maybe closer to 15) and they were such a huge part of my high school and college years. It was my main fandom for so long, and I did love it. I went to four midnight release parties for the books, and for three of the movies. (Now, when I say it was my fandom, I mean I lurked. ;) I read a TON and wrote some--one my favorite fics remains one I wrote about the Fat Friar and Ernie MacMillan after Cedric's death. But I didn't really *interact* with the fandom--it grew around me and became frightening. But I was reading fic back before GoF was published. Oh, back when FF.Net was not The Pit.) I still read minisinoo and xenokattz HP fic, but for the most part, I've moved on.

Hector: Gah, Hector! That pic may say it all. ;) Honestly, though--Eric Bana played him in Troy and he was easily my favorite. I know the movie is horrible if you try to take it seriously from a historical or literary standpoint, but the eye candy is so nice. ;) This take on Hector hits so many of my buttons--a family man, protective brother, wants to live up to the expectations everyone has of him, wants to make his father proud, honorable, intelligent... And it's Eric Bana. I love him. He's my favorite part of the movie.

Pictures: I *adore* pictures and photography. Gah. I take far too many pictures when I get my hands on a camera, and I love it. I justify taking so many by the philosophy that it takes ten bad pictures to take one excellent picture. ;) I'm especially fond of candids and interesting compositions. One thing I really regret is never being able to take a photography course in HS or college--maybe someday I'll take one, anyway.

Raoul: From The Phantom of the Opera. I first discovered Phantom--and musicals--when I was 11. There was never a question of which leading man I liked better; the Phantom was a creepy, murderous stalker. ;) (And my favorite love song for ages was "All I Ask of You." When the movie came out--which I love--the sheer number and insanity of the mass of Erik/Christine shippers scared me. Yes, Gerard Butler is pretty and Michael Crawford's voice is that of an angel, but Erik the Phantom is a creepy, murdering, obsessive stalker. He scares me--like he's supposed to. (Probably doesn't help that I've read the novel.) Anyway, I like Raoul. ;) Particularly his movie incarnation.

UMF: Ah, UMF! The University of Maine at Farmington, where I graduated with my BS in Elementary Education in 2006. I loved it there. Although--our mascot? Was the Beaver. (Whatever joke you are thinking, I have heard it. ;) Particularly as women outnumbered men 3 to 1--half the school's population majored in Education.) It's in Farmington, Maine (duh) which is about two hours north-west of where I live. It's up by the mountains; I actually did my student teaching in the shadow of Sugarloaf, which is the biggest ski resort in the state. :) I'm a bit irked that I wasn't better prepared for how hard finding a teaching job would be--the school really made it seem like it would be a lot easier--but I have fond memories of my time there.

Also--the Olympics are here! YAY!!! I *adore* the Olympics and all things about them. They give me warm fuzzies and happy feelings.

Tonight, there is men's swimming and men's gymnastics.

Let's just say that I have most definitely found my Happy Place.

Yum.

ETA: DUDE JUST SAW A COMMERCIAL FOR HEROES AND O_O!!!! THAT GIRL!! SHE'S A SPEEDSTER!!!!!!! ::makes Bart/Flash noise::

Comments

[lady-sarai.livejournal.com]

Hee--I get what you mean about the farming, despite the love of land; ironically, I get horribly seasick. (I love farming, too--our second biggest industry is farming, after fishing.)

And now... classic movies, d/s, forgotten realms, honor harrington, paganism, role-playing, sephiroth. :)