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More questions
Feb. 6th, 2004 11:51 amThis time from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jasonlblair.
1. Upon meeting someone for the first time, what do you look for in order to have a positive impression of them? Negative?
Initial positives are someone who makes eye contact and is able to focus their attention on our conversation. Really strong positives are when someone actively moves to make the people they are with more comfortable, such as noticing someone else's emotional state, positioning themselves so they can hear you better in a crowded room, and otherwise being generally willing to spend time on someone else.
Negatives? Seeming oblivious to context, being aggressive in dealings with others, bad or non-existant grooming, and just about any "ism" you care to name. Hatred and ignorance are ugly, ugly things.
2. Pick a famous literary icon that everyone gushes over and tell me why that person is a hack.
Hmmm. Robert Jordan? Nah, too easy. :) In modern fiction, I'd have to say Anne Rice. She can be a decent storyteller, but her writing is so florid you could practically stick it in a vase and have done. She has little to no sense of pacing or action, and her dialogue... ugh. Her books need a plot and a keeper, for as it is they ramble hither and yon like an Edwardian heroine out for her daily constitutional.
For Literature, I'd have to say James Joyce. I know many people are fond of Joyce, but I am not one of them. He could tell a good story now and then, but it was a rare and wonderous thing when he found his way out of the labryinth of his own writings to do so. What I have read of his work left me utterly cold, and made the class a complete chore to me. What others see as being artistic and breaking out of stale literary conventions of the time, I see as being needlessly obtuse and pointless. No Joyce for me, thanks.
3. You are the lead character in a film. Write the scene that introduces you to the audience.
A great sword fight rages between outrageously dressed characters, against the backdrop of a ruined castle wall. The action is furious, back and forth, and then a woman's voice rings out across the scene, "Gerald raced toward Stephen, their blood mingling as they thrust at one another passionately? What the hell is this shit?"
The actors look confused and stop fighting, with the two principal male figures eyeing one other provocatively. The scene cuts to a woman with wild hair sitting at a computer, cursing under her breath and mumbling "thrust at one another with their swords, the blades ringing in the heat of battle" as she taps the keys on the keyboard. She then pushes her bangs out of her face, shaking her head. she picks up her empty water bottle and heads off to refill it.
4. Do you believe in intelligent life on other planets? Why or why not?
I believe there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in Horatio's philosophy (or mine, really), so I wouldn't be surprised at all. Heck, I had SETI installed on my computer for a while, about three moves back. I don't expect we'll find it in my lifetime, though. Interplanetary travel on any meaningful scale is quite a ways off, and interstellar travel is little more than a pipe dream. Until we have those, I don't think we'll be finding anything, because the odds that it'll find us instead are even more miniscule.
As to why, it's because the odds are simply too good for that we aren't an anomoly. We know what conditions best suit life as we recognize it, and we have a number of possibilities for replicating those conditions (albeit they're all too far away to actually check out). That doesn't even count the idea that life exists in forms we don't understand and can't account for (say, under conditions that aren't optimum for us).
5. When you picture an illegal activity, what usually comes to mind?
Theft. Typically from stores or homes rather than muggings.
jasonlblair.1. Upon meeting someone for the first time, what do you look for in order to have a positive impression of them? Negative?
Initial positives are someone who makes eye contact and is able to focus their attention on our conversation. Really strong positives are when someone actively moves to make the people they are with more comfortable, such as noticing someone else's emotional state, positioning themselves so they can hear you better in a crowded room, and otherwise being generally willing to spend time on someone else.
Negatives? Seeming oblivious to context, being aggressive in dealings with others, bad or non-existant grooming, and just about any "ism" you care to name. Hatred and ignorance are ugly, ugly things.
2. Pick a famous literary icon that everyone gushes over and tell me why that person is a hack.
Hmmm. Robert Jordan? Nah, too easy. :) In modern fiction, I'd have to say Anne Rice. She can be a decent storyteller, but her writing is so florid you could practically stick it in a vase and have done. She has little to no sense of pacing or action, and her dialogue... ugh. Her books need a plot and a keeper, for as it is they ramble hither and yon like an Edwardian heroine out for her daily constitutional.
For Literature, I'd have to say James Joyce. I know many people are fond of Joyce, but I am not one of them. He could tell a good story now and then, but it was a rare and wonderous thing when he found his way out of the labryinth of his own writings to do so. What I have read of his work left me utterly cold, and made the class a complete chore to me. What others see as being artistic and breaking out of stale literary conventions of the time, I see as being needlessly obtuse and pointless. No Joyce for me, thanks.
3. You are the lead character in a film. Write the scene that introduces you to the audience.
A great sword fight rages between outrageously dressed characters, against the backdrop of a ruined castle wall. The action is furious, back and forth, and then a woman's voice rings out across the scene, "Gerald raced toward Stephen, their blood mingling as they thrust at one another passionately? What the hell is this shit?"
The actors look confused and stop fighting, with the two principal male figures eyeing one other provocatively. The scene cuts to a woman with wild hair sitting at a computer, cursing under her breath and mumbling "thrust at one another with their swords, the blades ringing in the heat of battle" as she taps the keys on the keyboard. She then pushes her bangs out of her face, shaking her head. she picks up her empty water bottle and heads off to refill it.
4. Do you believe in intelligent life on other planets? Why or why not?
I believe there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in Horatio's philosophy (or mine, really), so I wouldn't be surprised at all. Heck, I had SETI installed on my computer for a while, about three moves back. I don't expect we'll find it in my lifetime, though. Interplanetary travel on any meaningful scale is quite a ways off, and interstellar travel is little more than a pipe dream. Until we have those, I don't think we'll be finding anything, because the odds that it'll find us instead are even more miniscule.
As to why, it's because the odds are simply too good for that we aren't an anomoly. We know what conditions best suit life as we recognize it, and we have a number of possibilities for replicating those conditions (albeit they're all too far away to actually check out). That doesn't even count the idea that life exists in forms we don't understand and can't account for (say, under conditions that aren't optimum for us).
5. When you picture an illegal activity, what usually comes to mind?
Theft. Typically from stores or homes rather than muggings.
