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greerwatson
greerwatson
22 January 2024 @ 01:21 am
Fandom Snowflake Challenge #4 "Tell Us About Yourself"  
Snowflake Challenge promotional banner with image of gingerbread Christmas trees, a silver ball, a tea light candle and a white confectionary snowflake on a beige falling-snowflakes background. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

IceBreaker Challenge! Tell us about yourself.

Assorted miscellaneous facts:

  • I was born in England; but my family came to Canada when I was not yet six. So I grew up in Toronto, went to school here (except for going off to grad. school), and still live here.

  • When I was in junior high, my parents allowed me to watch two extra hours TV per week provided I read a non-fiction book every day. (My choice, but duplicates didn't count.) Over a period of about five years, that adds up to an awful lot of books. It's fair to say I read pretty fast, since the non-fiction was vastly outnumbered by the fiction I also read!

  • Lasting interests from back then: anthropology, archaeology, history, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, paleontology.... Alas, I don't read as much today as I used to: there are too many distractions. Still, there's always Nova. And Wikipedia: the links are the closest thing I know of to flypaper-to-catch-humans.

  • I've collected superhero comics since the late '60s.

  • I love sudokus, especially the "jigsaw" ones.

  • I read the Toronto Star. Yes, a daily subscription to a real paper newspaper.

  • I love Christmas trees, and have a large collection of glass ornaments—more than I'll ever be able to fit on the one I own. It's a 6-foot artificial tree, bought back in the late '80s. The secret to keeping glass ornaments safe is using an artificial tree, since they don't dry out, droop, and drop bells and balls as the needles go. It takes so long to dress, that I usually keep it out till the end of January.

  • The first fanfic I wrote was a Star Trek K/S pon farr novel. I did it on an electric typewriter in the late '80s; and, as I wasn't in fandom back then, it's never been published. I still have it in a box somewhere; but I haven't looked at it in literally decades.



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switchbladeeyes[personal profile] switchbladeeyes on January 22nd, 2024 03:00 pm (UTC)
I usually keep it out till the end of January.

Glad I'm not the only one! We just took ours down yesterday and I'm kind of bummed about it. I like to get nearly 2 months out of the tree :-D It goes up right after American Thanksgiving and comes down mid/late January.

I still have it in a box somewhere; but I haven't looked at it in literally decades.

Do eeeeet! It's a surreal but fun feeling :-)
greerwatson[personal profile] greerwatson on January 23rd, 2024 03:37 am (UTC)
I may fish that story out some time. We'll see!
tjs_whatnot[personal profile] tjs_whatnot on January 22nd, 2024 07:14 pm (UTC)
I ❤️ Toronto!

So cool that you read so much non-fiction at a young age! I can't imagine what my life would be if I knew what you knew from the beginning. ❤️
greerwatson[personal profile] greerwatson on January 23rd, 2024 03:39 am (UTC)
I was well-bribed, really. We had a limit of seven hours TV per week (i.e. an average of an hour a day); so two extra hours was fantastic. Oh, I dare say I'd still have read quite a bit of non-fiction. Not a book a day, though!