Privilege Meme

Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 9:11 pm (about me, figure skating, grad school, memes)

Watershed posted this on her blog recently, and I thought it sounded neat, so I’m going to do it too. I think I’ll get a pretty high score, because I was raised in a solid middle class home, and I’ve only gone down in class since leaving my parent’s home.  I thoroughly expect to go back up after I finish my schooling and Husband’s business plays itself out.
Watershed asked for credit to be given to the authors of the exercise:

This is based on “From What Privileges Do You Have?,” an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University.

Like watershed, I have made bold and green for those which I answer yes.

1. Father went to college And he was at Duke, so check plus here.

2. Father finished college

3. Mother went to college

4. Mother finished college

5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. Yes, but not one I’ve ever met. Only a slightly more distant relative that I’ve heard of, because he won a Nobel Prize.

6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers

7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home

8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home. I don’t think so, but it may well have been over 300, so I could be wrong.

9. Were read children’s books by a parent I only remember mom ever doing it, though.

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 Oh yes. 3 hours a week in private figure skating lessons. Another hour of private choreography lessons to go with that. And 3 or 4 more hours of group classes, both on-ice (power skating or edges) and off-ice (ballet, jumps, calisthenics, cardio exercise).

11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18. If you count other group lessons and extracurricular activities from my younger years, before skating was my one and only, there was also soccer, tap dance, gymnastics. And the girl scouts.

12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively. They are, however, nearly always much thinner.

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18. Got my first credit card at 18, I think. But it might have been late part of being 17.

14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs. But there were many things that all of my ivy-league peers’ parents paid for that my parents did not. They stopped buying me clothes except as presents, they didn’t pay for most of my food after Freshman year, and senior year I had to take out a non-federally subsidized 20k college loan. I also had the max in federally subsidized aid every year. Overall if you add it all up I’d say they paid for the majority, but it might only be the plurality if you include grant money from the school that paid for parts of my tuition.

15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.

16. Went to a private high school. Nope. And I hope to send my kids to public school. If we’re still in NYC, that may not work for grade school, but I will want them in a public magnet high school before I’d want them in private high school.

17. Went to summer camp. Not usually things that were called “summer camp” or that involved sleeping away from home, but my intense summer skating training program was essentially a training camp.

18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18. Never needed one.

19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels. Occasionally, for Disney land or greater family events. Our yearly vacation was at a time-share that we owned. I imagine that counts as yes.

20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18. We didn’t have close family friends or relatives who had a girl within more than 5 years of my age, so it wouldn’t have been an easy option, but my mom loved to shop so I had a lot of clothes growing up. I have much, much less now. Especially jeans. I tend to have 2-3 pairs of pants at a time nowadays, and usually at least one of them will need some sort of mending. I really could afford to have more pants, but it’s not a priority I suppose - I’d rather buy electronics than clothes.

21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them. For the first year after I got my license I shared with my mom the Ford station wagon. Then my parents bought me a used Toyota Corolla, and I began driving myself to all my skating. My mom was then able to take on a better paying job because she didn’t need to be constrained by my chauffeuring needs. They didn’t buy my brother a car that wasn’t a hand-me-down until he was going to college.

22. There was original art in your house when you were a child. Nothing famous, but we had some paintings that I remember touching the texture of the oil brush-strokes. Just two, one in the master bedroom and one in the den.

23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.

24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home. But we did move to a smaller house before I left home.

25. You had your own room as a child. Not always though. My brother and I shared a room until he was 10 and I was 8.

26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18. I never had a house line in my room, but I got a cell phone at 16 when I started driving myself sometimes.

27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course. Didn’t need one.

28. Had your own TV in your room in high school. But we had two family shared tv’s, one of which was in the playroom. So we weren’t all fighting over one tv, either.

29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college. My parents were always very financially responsible with whatever their income level was, and some of this was instilled in my brother and me. My brother opened an IRA before he even got to college! Despite the fact that Husband and I have a hard time managing our spending impulses but a low drive for the high-paying jobs that we could both attain if we wanted to, one thing we did right is that I began putting some of Husband’s and my money into a mutual fund and some into a Roth IRA I think during my senior year of college.

30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. We did drive to our family vacation, but we took planes based on frequent flyer miles from our credit card spending (which my dad promptly paid off each month) for special things like family weddings or deaths. Once or twice we flew to FL to go to Disney.

31. Went on a cruise with your family. And no international trips either. I never left the US until I did so on my own.

32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.

33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up. We had a family membership to the Boston Museum of Science. I loved it, and my brother did too. Every July 4th we’d go into Boston and spend the day at the museum, go to a show in their OMNI imax theater, and then spend the evening on the roof we’re we’d watch the fireworks while they played the Boston Pops. Now that I think about it, it was one of my favorite family traditions.

34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. My dad would turn the heat down a lot to save money, but my mom always turned it back up and I got the impression he was just being stingy.

Ok, so I got a 25.

1 Comments

Lists of 8 Meme

Sunday, December 30, 2007 at 11:50 pm (about me, books, memes)

So I’m finally doing the lists of 8 meme that EcoGeoFemme over at The Happy Scientist tagged me for, a bit of a while back. Except I think I might split it into pieces, because I like to add comments…

8 passions

  1. Loving, giving, and taking care of people
  2. Babies
  3. Cats
  4. Figure skating
  5. New York City (and cities in general)
  6. Learning, reading, doing experiments!
  7. Crafts - sewing, knitting, soon to be quilting!
  8. Baking! I love to decorate cakes, make cookies and pies, and even make candy!

8 things I often say

  1. I love you. Mostly to Husband, but in recent years I’ve added it in to occasional conversations with other close friends and family.
  2. You have to take turns. I’m always saying this, or some variation on it, to the toddlers I take care of.
  3. Bye girls. Be good! I say this to my two kitty cats when I leave them in the morning. They usually are in the entry way watching me go.
  4. I just want to stay home all day. Ok, I don’t know exactly what counts as “often” but this is a sentiment I feel all the time.
  5. Do you want your juice? Again, to the toddlers.
  6. I’ll have a large tea with skim milk and sugar. My order at Dunkin Donuts, the local delis, or the carts on the side of the street. Sometimes I swap “tea” for “Earl Gray.” Mmmm, Earl Gray.
  7. Look how cute [Fluffy/Feisty] is right now! (Fluffy and Feisty are the pseudonyms for our cats.)
  8. I’m sleepy.

8 books I recently read
If you’re interested in what I’ve been reading, you can always check out my readings page where I list books I’ve read and sometimes comments or links to posts about them.

  1. His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass), by Philip Pullman (OK, not that recent…but within the last 6 months)
  2. The Family Track: Keeping Your Faculties while You Mentor, Nurture, Teach, and Serve, by Constance Coiner and Diana Hume George
  3. The Ivy Chronicles, by Karen Quinn
  4. The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien
  5. Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities, by Alexandra Robbins
  6. Complete Book of Quilting, by Maggi McCormick Gordon
  7. Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers, by Mary Ann Mason
  8. Who’s Afraid of Marie Curie?: The Challenges Facing Women in Science and Technology, by Linley Erin Hall (currently reading this one)

8 songs that mean something to me
Just 8? I love music too much, picking only eight is hard. This is in no way a comprehensive list.

  1. If I Aint Got You, by Alicia Keys - This song makes me think of my Husband. In particular because we’re both so non-materialistic.
  2. Imperfectly, by Ani DiFranco - This is just the most genius of a song. To me, it’s really empowering.

    We get a little further from perfection
    each year on the road
    I guess that’s what they call character
    I guess that’s just the way it goes
    better to be dusty than polished
    like some store window mannequin
    why don’t you touch me where I’m rusty
    let me stain your hands

  3. Icarus, by Ani DiFranco - This one captures my outlook on the world so well.

    bad dreams like this roll in like a cold front
    thunderous thunder and lightning in tow
    and your tiny little life gets even smaller
    as you heed the heavens’ mighty show
    i don’t mean heaven like godlike
    cuz the animal i am knows very well
    that nature is our teacher and our mother
    and god is just another
    story that we tell

  4. Acoustic #3, by the Goo Goo Dolls - This one reminds me of my parents’ relationship - or it did, before my mom finally moved out about two years ago. The whole song speaks loads about how I felt growing up as a teenager.

    Your voice is small and fading
    And you’re hiding here alone
    And your mother loves your father
    Cuz she’s got nowhere to go
    And she wonders where these dreams go
    Cuz the world got in her way
    What’s the point in ever trying?
    Nothing’s changing anyway

  5. The Times They Are A Changin’, by Bob Dylan
  6. Let’s Stay Together, by Al Green - This is what Husband and I used for our first dance at the wedding. We really got into it and he pretended to sing to me and it was fun!
  7. Galapagos, by The Smashing Pumpkins

    And rescue me from me and all that I believe
    I won’t deny the pain, I won’t deny the change
    And should I fall from grace here with you
    Will you leave me too?

  8. Einstein on the Beach, by Counting Crows

8 qualities I look for in a friend

  1. Compassionate
  2. Intellectual
  3. Fun
  4. Accepting/Nonjudgmental (not only of me but also of people who look/think/act differently, etc.)
  5. Independent
  6. Creative
  7. Understanding
  8. Liberal

8 people who’s blogs I enjoy and who may consider themselves tagged if they wish

  1. Rebecca at Adventures in Applied Math
  2. Jenny F. Scientist at A Natural Scientist
  3. Sciencewoman
  4. Jane at See Jane Compute
  5. Watershed
  6. ScienceMama at Mother of all Scientists
  7. Zoe at A Family Affair
  8. Nicole at Just Crazy Enough to Try

2 Comments

Probably

Wednesday, July 18, 2007 at 9:26 pm (Yawns, about me, memes)


You Are 34 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.
13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.
20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what’s to come… love, work, and new experiences.
30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You’ve had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!
40+: You are a mature adult. You’ve been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

I may be in the low 20’s in years lived, but I am the only one among my closest friends who is married, although I have multiple friends in the larger circle who are engaged and a few who are married. I talk about wanting babies even though most of my friends are still thinking about getting their careers off the ground. I am happy with the career track that I am on. Although I seem to know what I want and be on the way perhaps stronger and further than many of my friends, I am still passionate and excited about what lays ahead, and in that respect I might be retaining my youth a little below 34.

Comments

I was tagged

Thursday, July 5, 2007 at 2:43 pm (about me, bulimia, eating disorders, memes)

So Rebecca over at Adventures in Applied Math tagged me for this meme. I’m finally getting around to doing it.

Here are the rules:

  • I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
  • Each player writes eight random facts/habits about themselves.
  • People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
  • At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
  • Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Okay, so eight random facts/habits about myself. What to share? I feel like it should be something I haven’t shared yet…but maybe I’ll allow myself a little detail on things I’ve only mentioned in passing. I tend to be a pretty open person, so expect some of these to be pretty personal!

  1. Last summer I was diagnosed with skin cancer. It was on my face, so I had to get a special surgery called Mohs surgery. Actually, I could really write a lot about this, so I think maybe I’ll write a separate post on it.
  2. As a kid and teenager I was a very competitive athlete. I trained over 20 hours per week from when I was about 10 until I was 17, when I decided to stop competing in the sport.
  3. Perhaps the largest reason I stopped competing at 17 was because I had been bulimic for many months, and I thought that if I stopped competing and removed myself from the pressure of the sport, I might be able to get better more easily. It took me another three years to finally rid myself of the bulimia, so sometimes I wondered about whether stopping competing was really the right thing. But I think, these days, that it was helpful for me to start learning how to be much easier on myself. I think about the way the thoughts in my mind went back then, and I seem like a stranger to myself.
  4. I have gained weight steadily since I stopped being bulimic, at about 20 pounds a year. Or maybe it was 30 for the first two and then not much this last year. Anyhow, I’ve been bulimia-free for 3 years and I weigh 60 pounds more than I did when I was a competitive, eating-disordered athlete. I am definitely overweight now, but I try to work out and exercise. I am scared of becoming too concerned about my physical appearance again, because I still have those feelings sometimes. At the same time I want to lose at least 20 lbs before I try to get pregnant, because I know that being overweight leads to more complications in pregnancy.
  5. My parents are getting a divorce, right now. They just sold their house last week. I am really happy for my mom, for whom the relationship hadn’t been working for over a decade. I am sad for my dad, who may have been a bit clueless about how my mom was feeling, and is now kind of surprised, and definitely lonely.
  6. Husband and I have a lot of credit card debt. This was really hard for me to accept when we first got into it, because I had grown up in a very comfortable upper middle class family, and we had always paid all our balances in full each month. I had been raised to respect money and savings and not to spend money I didn’t have, and I felt ashamed that we had gotten into this debt. Over time, I’ve learned to deal with it and accept it as a function of the stage of our lives we were in at the time - we are both trying to follow our dreams for what we will do with our lives, but neither of our dream pursuits make much money at this early stage of the career.
  7. I adopted Fluffy when I lived in the dorms. At the time I had a walk-through double, and my roommate said it was ok. Cats are most definitely not allowed in the dorms, but I had met someone else who kept a cat, and I longed for a cat quite strongly. So I went to the ASPCA and adopted Fluffy, who was three years old at the time. I had been deciding between her and another cat, and when I picked her up again, she put her paws on either side of my neck and cuddled her head against me, and I was won over. To this day she sometimes gives me these “cat hugs.” I adore her!
  8. I am a very picky eater. When I was a kid, my mom told me that she had been a picky eater too, and that her family told her having me was her punishment for being so hard to feed (jokingly). I live in the very multicultural NYC, but I won’t eat Indian, Ethiopian, Thai, or sushi. Or nuts. Or any seafood. And the list could go on…

Now I am supposed to tag people, but I don’t really want to. If you are reading my blog and you want to do this meme too, consider yourself tagged!

5 Comments

I’m a FREAK!

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 at 11:45 am (about me, memes)

And somehow, this didn’t surprise me at all. I took the Brutally Honest Personality Test over at OkCupid!, after having seen it at propterdoc’s.

Your Score: Freak- INFJ

33% Extraversion, 73% Intuition, 40% Thinking, 53% Judging

Well, well, well. How did someone like you end up with the least common personality type of them all? In a group of 100 Americans, only 0.5 others would be just like you. You really are one of a kind… In fact, I do believe that that’s one of the definitions for the word “FREAK.”

Freak’s not such a bad word to describe you actually.

You are deep, complex, secretive and extremely difficult to understand. If that doesn’t scream “Freak!” I don’t know what does. No-one actually knows the REAL you, do they?

You probably have deep interests in creative expression as well as issues of spirituality and human development.

You’ve probably even been called a “psychic” before, because of your uncanny knack to understand and “read” people without quite knowing how you do it. Don’t fret. You’re not actually psychic. That would make you special and you’ll never accomplish that.

You’re also quite possible the most emotional of them all, so don’t take this all too hard. Nevertheless you most definitely have the strangest personality type and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

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If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, check out this.

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The other personality types are as follows…

Loner - Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Pushover - Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Criminal - Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Borefest - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Almost Perfect - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Loser - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

Crackpot - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Clown - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Sap - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Commander - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Do Gooder - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Scumbag - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Busybody - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging

Prick - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

Dictator - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Link: The Brutally Honest Personality Test written by UltimateMaster on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

So I also wanted to read more about being an INFJ.  I’d taken tests like this in the past, but the last time I think was in high school, and to be honest, I’ve changed some since then and I can’t remember what I had gotten anyhow.  So here is a portrait of an INFJ, called “The Protector.”

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I’m Hermione!

Thursday, May 24, 2007 at 2:36 pm (about me, memes)

I wanted to be Dumbledore, but I was pretty close on him too. I did this test after seeing it at Propter Doc.

You scored as Hermione Granger, You are Hermione. You are academic, intelligent, and reasonable. On top of this, you are highly concerned with justice, scorn the small-minded prejudices of others and work hard to defend the under dog. Many times you may find that your heart and mind are constantly at war with each other.

Hermione Granger
84%
Albus Dumbledore
72%
Neville Longbottom
72%
Remus Lupin
63%
Harry Potter
59%
Bellatrix Lestrange
56%
Luna Lovegood
50%
Draco Malfoy
47%
Severus Snape
41%
Oliver Wood
41%
Percy Weasley
38%
Sirius Black
34%
Lord Voldemort
28%
Ron Weasley
28%

Harry Potter Character Combatibility Test
created with QuizFarm.com

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