Tag You're It! -- BEDA #7

I have temporally lost access to my file of potential BEDA topics so today you get a tag game modified from its original vlog tag format. I tag all of my fellow BEDA-ers in crime.

1. Name a book you would take on a long flight? The next book in the Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire.
2. What is your guilty pleasure? America’s Next Top Model
3. Name three characters from any book, you wish you could be friends with? Bridget Jones, Luna Lovegood, Finnik Odair.

4. What's your shoes size? 7/8
5. If you could write your own book, name the title, and a brief synopsis.  Nerds (in your pants): The true story of Nerdfighting, youtube and world suck.
6. What's your favourite flavor of ice cream? Old fashion vanilla
7. What book are you currently reading? Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
8. Best YA series you've ever read? The Hunger Games (though that is also the only YA series I’ve ever read)
9. What is your best physical attribute? My eyes.
10. Do you like manga or comics, if so name your favourite series? Nope.
11. Do you sleep on your side or your stomach? Side.
12. Favourite book mark? I’ve misplaced it at the moment but I have a Harry Potter one which my sister gave me which is designed to look like the parchment the DA members signed in OoTP
13. What song are you currently listening in your Ipod? The entire Norah Jones catologe , Rosie’s Lullaby is currently playing.
14. Worst summer job you've ever had? I once worked part time cataloguing books for a library his was building in Africa. It was basically hours of entering data by myself in my employers basement.

15. What's your favourite band, or type of music? My favourite artist is Ani Difranco. For type of music I’d have to go with Ani’s folk-y style, also anything with an acoustic guitar.

Also I keep forgetting to add this in. My friend Luke wrote a great Friday parody about VEDA be sure to check it out:  ttp://www.youtube.com/user/w1zzwizzurd#p/u/2/n4EzEqIqLNU

How I first discovered HP – BEDA #6

I’m having a bit of a bad day combined with some BEDA burnout but the lovely Christina was kind enough to give me a topic today so I will soldier on.  So the story of how I first discovered Harry Potter is not that interesting, I saw some news coverage of either the 3^rd of 4^th book release and decided I wanted to read the series but the part that comes next is kind of interesting.  My parents didn't want me read the books. I should mention here that I was only about 10 or 11 at the time. At the time my dad’s argument against me reading the books was something along the lines that there had to be a reason for the books to be that popular and that reason was that the books actually taught spells. To which I responded in disbelief “Dad, do you think magic is real?” In retrospect I doubt he thought that magic was real, he probably just thought that reading the books would get me interested in the world of the occult which would lead me down a bad path, or something. So I didn't read the books for a few years. Finally, the first movie came out. My sister and I hatched a plan to take my parents to go see the movie. It worked, while I don’t think my parents particularly enjoyed the movie they did get the message that Harry Potter was harmless. After that they were fine with me reading the books, hell they even spotted me some money to buy the later books when I was an unemployed high school student. The rest as they say is history.

Sorry for the rambling post. I’ll pull it together for tomorrow. I have some interesting blogs planned so I hope you’ll stick with me. As always I'd love to read your Harry Potter discovery stories either in the comments or on your own blog.

Question Tuesday -- BEDA #5

Thought I’d do something a little more laid back today after yesterday’s mammoth post. Seriously, I have written essays shorter than that post. So considering today is Tuesday I decided to go with a Question Tuesday type deal except in blog form meaning there won’t be any jump cuts, sorry. If you really want jump cuts you can blink repeatedly while reading this post.

The questions were collected from Twitter. If you missed the call for questions and want me to answer your questions leave them in the comments and I’ll do another one of these later. God knows I’ll probably run out of ideas before the 31^st.

Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 years/10 years?

A:  I combined these two into one question because I honestly don’t know where I’ll be in 1 year. In the grand scheme of things I’d like to be living somewhere other than my hometown, working in job that I enjoy and most importantly be happy.

Q: What do you look for in a guy?

A: Funny. Nerdy. Smart. Educated.

Q: Favourite book?

A: It’s so hard to pick just one! I have a bunch of favourites (that I will not list here and save for a future BEDA post when I run out of idea. If I had to pick just one though I’d have to say Paper Towns.

Q:  Advice for 16 year old you?

A:  

Be nicer to people, especially her. She just wants to be your friend. You’re friends are not going to ditch you for her, relax.

Don’t feel like you have to pick sides when your friends break up. You don’t, and you will regret it if you do.

Enjoy all your time with Beth. 

Be nicer to your parents. They are wonderful people.

Be more open to making new friends.

You will get over him.

Do something with your damn hair, woman.

Have more fun.

Q: What should my next vlog be about? (This comes from Christina)

A: How awesome I am and your summer plans. Also you should probably mention that you’re doing BEDA.

Q: When are you coming to Houston?

A: I thought we agreed to meet in New York on some over pass Christina?

Q: How is the job hunt going?

A: ...It’s going.

Q: When are you going to start making videos?

A: When I discover a magical pill that makes me less awkward.     

Q:  Design your own question.

A: That’s not a question. Questions have question marks at the end. Ok fine I’ll do it. What is your favourite joke? Two muffins are in an oven. One muffin says “Wow it’s hot in here” and the other muffin replies “Holy crap! A talking muffin!” That joke was told to me by someone who was trying to tell me how lame of a sense of humour their sister had. I thought it was hilarious.

The Story of How I broke My Arm When I Was 9 and Hid it for An Entire Weekend, or I Used To Be A Badass -- BEDA #4

When I was younger I was in Brownies (which is what you go into before you are old enough for Girl Guides*). In Brownies we had weekly meeting, learned skills which would get us badges and once or twice a year we’d go on a weekend camping retreat. We called it camping but there were no tents, we all slept indoor is one giant cabin because really who wants to deal with a bunch of primary schoolers setting up tents.

Now for this story to make sense you should know that my parents were rather overprotective. I generally wasn’t allowed to go to many sleepovers unless my parents were close with my friend’s parents and I never got to go to any other sleep away camp other than that glorious weekend Brownie camp once or twice a year. Naturally 9 year old Sue super excited for these weekends. They were an entire weekend of campfires, skits, and best of all, no parents to look forward to. When it came time for camp I excitedly packed up my weekend bag and air mattress. Actually in retrospect considering I was 9 and not particularly responsible (as this story will prove)  I probably just danced around with excitement while my parents packed for me.  I (My parents)  also made sure to pack lots of Mr. Noodle’s packets. I was the only vegetarian kid attending camp and I would get the cooks to make me Mr. Noodles every time they were serving meat. In retrospect, I am a bit concerned that my parents were fine with me surviving off basically just Mr. Noodles, smores and toast for an entire weekend. Of course 9 year old me didn’t care, 9 year old me was too excited about camp to care also I rather liked Mr. Noodles and wasn’t at an age where I questioned the nutritional value of my food.

When it came time to leave for camp we all packed into the car along with my clothing/ Mr. Noodles bag and my inflatable mattress and made the one hour trek to the place where camp was being held. Once we arrived my parents inflated my mattress and got me settled in and then left.  I was FREE at last! I ran around talking to my friends and doing all the things that 9 year olds do.

And that’s when it happened.

High on my freedom I decided to skip rope with my friend. We were doing that thing that kids do where two people jump the same rope at a time. Now it should be said that 9 year old Sue, much like adult Sue, was a klutz. We ended up getting tangled in each other’s legs and falling. When I fell I managed to land with all my weight on my left arm and since I was the one skipping behind, my arm ended up taking not only my weight but also that of my friend who landed on me. With my arm hurting a lot I decided to sit out the next few rounds of skip rope figuring my arm would stop hurting eventually.  

I didn’t.

In fact, later that night while during a fire drill and while running back into the building one girl tripped and fell over. This caused the girl behind her to trip, and the one behind her, and so on. In the end we basically ended up have a 10 kid pile up.  In our defence, it was dark out so we couldn’t see that other kids that had fallen already. When I inevitably tripped up on the pile of girls on the ground my body’s defence mechanisms kicked in and my arms automatically reached out so to protect me from falling face first into the gravel. I ended up falling with my weight on my arm again. Once our troop leaders got us untangled and got us all inside my arm really hurt like hell (or heck, as I would have said in those days).  

Now this is where we really distinguish the thought processes of adult Sue from 9 year old Sue. Adult Sue tends to over react to injuries and is a bit of a whiny bitch when it comes to these things. For example, just today I cut my hand on the inside of a can while cooking and my thought process went a little something like this:

If adult Sue had hurt her arm as badly as 9 year old Sue had she would have whiney about it to anyone that would listen and demand to be taken to the hospital, or at least to given some painkillers and ice.

But 9 year old Sue’s mind didn’t work like that. 9 year old Sue was focused on camp. She realized that if she told anyone about her arm, or if anyone caught on her parents would be called and she would be sent home, missing the rest of camp.  It went down a little something like this:

My arm hurt like hell the entire weekend. I remember I couldn’t even sleep that night because of the pain. I just lay on my inflatable mattress looking out the window waiting for daylight. But my mind was made up. I loved camp. I wanted to stay at camp and I actually managed to avert detection all weekend**.  I did, however, manage to bang my arm another time before the end of the weekend.

When my parents finally arrived to pick me up after camp on Sunday I told them about my arm and they immediately drove me to the ER at the local children’s hospital. All the while lecturing me about calling them when I hurt myself. At the ER I was informed I had chipped a piece of bone off of my arm and was fitted with a cast which I had to wear for a few weeks. Every time someone saw my cast and asked me what had happened I’d get to tell them the story of how I broke my arm at camp and hid it for the entire weekend. And every time I felt like a badass.

Surprisingly, I was allowed to go to go to subsequent weekend Brownie camps after the incident but I was required to call home every night and check in so my parents would be sure I wasn’t hiding more injuries.    

*Girl Guides is similar to Girl Scouts if you are unfamiliar.

** It should be noted here that it wasn’t a clean break so the arm wasn’t dangling at an awkward angle. This would explain why the adults leading the camp didn’t notice.

My Username Explained – BEDA #3

I’m always curious to hear the stories behind other peoples usernames so today I’m going to make you sit through mine...actually I can’t make you as I have no control over your computers. If you want to hear the story keep reading otherwise feel free to wander over to the other areas of the internet you frequent.

Most of you know I go by joyfulgirl42 most places on the internet (expect youtube because they don’t allow you to change you username *rant rant rant* ... right moving on). We’ll start with the 42 first. I mostly just use it because straight up words and phrases tend to be taken on most websites. Most of you know it is a reference to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  In the book 42 is the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything.  I mostly just chose it because I don’t like picking random numbers and I didn’t really want to splash my birth year all over the internet. The part of the username that is actually significant is joyfulgirl. This is a reference to the Ani Difranco song Joyful Girl. I feel like this song simultaneously represents the person I wish to be and the person I currently am.   

Lyrics:

I do it for the joy it brings

because I’m a joyful girl

because the world owes me nothing

and we owe each other the world

I do it because it's the least I can do

I do it because I learned it from you

and I do it just because I want to

because I want to

everything I do is judged

and they mostly get it wrong

but oh well

'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged

and the woman who lives there can tell

the truth from the stuff that they say

and she looks me in the eye

and says would you prefer the easy way

no, well o.k. then

don't cry

I wonder if everything I do

I do instead

of something I want to do more

the question fills my head

I know there's no grand plan here

this is just the way it goes

when everything else seems unclear

I guess at least I know

I do it for the joy it brings

because I'm a joyful girl

because the world owes me nothing

and we owe each other the world

I do it because it's the least I can do

I do it because I learned it from you

and I do it just because I want to

because I want to 

How I Became a Nerdfighter – BEDA #2*

Seeing as I’m only doing BEDA because I was introduced to the idea by fellow nerdfighters I thought it only fair that one of my first BEDA posts should be about how I stumbled onto this wonderful thing know as nerdfighteria.  In October of 2009 youtube spotlighted (or maybe featured) a vlogbrothers video, it was one of John’s birthday videos. I had heard of John from his career as an author. I’d actually been meaning to borrow Paper Town from the library for some time but it was always taken out or on hold. Since the first vlogbrothers video I ever watched was all about John I assumed that the channel was just a gathering place for John’s fan club**. It’s been a while but I’m pretty sure the first time I saw the video I though “oh this guy Hank must be the president of his fan club or something”***.  I proceeded to check out the channel starting with John’s video about Presidential last words.  I've always been a huge politics nerd**** so I kind of just fell in love with the channel and haven’t looked back since. I did eventually work out that nerdfighteria was more than just John’s fan club, that John and Hank are brothers, and that Hank is awesome in his own right. I managed to watch all the videos on the channel at the time in about two months though me being me I didn't watch them in order so I’m not positive I saw them all. I still hope that someday I’ll stumble onto a super old video I haven’t seen.

I'd love to hear about all of your nerdfighteria discovery stories either in the comments below or in your own blog post and as they say in my hometown DFTBA.

* I was repeatedly delayed while trying to write and post this. I haven’t gone to bed yet so I’m still counting this as my post for the 2nd, expect another post tomorrow. Also it’s still the 2^nd somewhere (most of North America)

** Sorry Hank

*** Sorry again Hank  

**** More BEDA posts on that later


EDIT: I forgot to mention two more of my friends have decided to do this whole BEDA deal. Show 'em some love:
Margo: http://wrockingawesome.blogspot.com/
Emily: http://justanothercrashlanding.wordpress.com/

It’s BEDA Bitches! (#1)

Yes you read that right I am going to be doing BEDA (that’s blog everyday in April for those of you uninitiated). You may say to yourself “but Sue you’ve only ever blogged twice how do you expect to blog every single day in April?” I don’t deny that fact of the fact that I will most likely fail but I will try dammit! I have a roughly sketched out list of topics and that will hopefully stop my blogs from turning into something like “today I ate an apple.”

I’m currently on job hunt and those of you who have been unemployed in this job market know that some days when you can’t find any jobs to apply to or don’t have any applications due you start to feel a bit useless. I figure doing BEDA will at least give me something to show for every day in April. Huh...that was supposed to sound less depressing haha. Anyways, here’s a list of some BEDA/VEDA blogs/ channels I’ll be following if you want to check them out.  If you know of more I’d enjoy leave them in the comments.

BEDA

Noxy http://msnoxy.blogspot.com/

Christina http://christinarockstheworld.blogspot.com

Keshara http://kesharab.blogspot.com/

Alan Lastufka/Distro http://alanlastufka.com/blog/

VEDA

Luke Merren http://www.youtube.com/w1zzwizzurd

Luke Conard  http://www.youtube.com/lukeconard2

Jason Munday (!) http://www.youtube.com/moreJason

Alex Carpenter http://www.youtube.com/ AlexCarpenterTwo

See you all tomorrow, same BEDA place, same BEDA time (...actually the time will probably vary)