Ask Me No Questions, I'll Tell You No Lies

Gwynne did a little interview meme thingy the other day and then solicited for other folks who might feel the need to do a little interview meme thingy themselves. As you have probably noticed, things around the Sleepy blog are, well, sleepy these days, so I went ahead and raised my hand. Now, let me just say, these are not the questions I was expecting.

I was thinking something along the lines of this:


But instead we have serious questions that clearly are the product of much thought and contemplation. I wish I could tell you the answers lived up to that standard.

1)When you were a child, what job did you most want to have when you grew up? At what point, did you decide to go into computer science? And lastly, what are your plans once you earn your PhD? For bonus points, what was your first job ever (besides chores at home)?

First, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's like four questions all posing as one and there are only supposed to be five in the first place. BUT...pushing that aside...

What I wanted to be varied with my age. For the longest time I wanted to be a vet. Right up until I realized that doing so would involve putting animals down and sometimes standing by, helpless, when they were suffering. That rid me of those aspirations. Then I wanted to be a pediatrician. I'm not sure what killed that idea, honestly. But I do know that if I hadn't already long since abandoned the thought, 9th grade biology would have taken care of it. Bleh. Dissection is not my thing. Then I wanted to be a senator. Sometimes I still want to be a senator - though I would be eaten up and spit out by the politics. However I do still think that people need to get involved in the issues and help their elected officials understand that government is about more than pork. Finally I settled on being a computer science teacher. I came to this conclusion in 10th grade - during my first programming class. As I went through college I solidified "The Life Plan(tm)" which involved getting married, being a high school or college level computer science teacher for 5 years, then being a stay-at-home mom to at least 2 kids until they were both (all) in school full time, at which point I would return to teaching. Ah the cluelessness of youth.

Once I have my PhD I plan to have a party. I will probably say "WooHoo!" an awful lot at first as well. Beyond that, I have no plans. (Seriously, I'm getting this degree cause I decided I wanted to. Maybe at some point I'll get back into college level teaching, at which point it'll help, but that's a really out there maybe.)

First job ever? Um, I'll discount babysitting and summer filing jobs for my mom and go with being a lab assistant in the computer labs in college. This involved helping people reset their passwords and so forth. Got a lot of homework done for $4.10 an hour.

2) Which three verses of the Bible do you think everyone should know by heart?

I'm extending this to include "passages", not just single verses. Even so, this is challenging, because there's a difference to me between verses that I consider very meaningful to me (life verse, etc.) and verses that I think everyone should know by heart. So, in keeping with the idea of things I think everyone should know by heart, I'm going with:

John 3:16-21 (particularly v. 16, but I would call the whole passage important)
1 John 1:8-10 (again, particularly v. 9, but the surrounding context makes 9 all that much more)
Psalm 4:8 (This is one that crosses into something very meaningful for me - it's the only thing that will help me after waking from a nightmare. Especially if there were s-n-a-k-e-s.)

3)What is the most important lesson you have learned that you wish to pass on to everyone else?


Proverbs 16:9 "In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps."

I had so much of my life planned out - reference "The Life Plan(tm)" - with how things would be and rough timeframes (I was being generous by allowing some leeway here and there) and just knew that this is how it would be. And so very little of my life today is what I actually planned. So at the end of the day, I'm learning to let go and bloom where I've been planted, despite the fact that I had planned to be an orchid but am really just a plain ol' daisy.

And it's rough going, this lesson, because for now I've swung the opposite direction and have given up dreaming altogether, because dreams lead to plans, which lead to disappointment. And most days I just wish that God would let me know what the steps are going to be so that I could modify my plans to suit, but that removes the whole need for things like faith.

4) What is one item you own that you really should throw away, but probably never will? Besides family and pets, what one item would you try to save if your home were on fire?


I'm not sure if these are separate questions, but I'm treating them as such because while what I probably should throw away but never will is the tattered remnant of my blankie. And yes, just to annoy my mother, I actually put it in my suitcase when I left on my honeymoon. I still have it, still know what box it's in, but I would most likely not hurry for it in the event of a fire. It's led a long, well-loved life and is basically now just the satin ribbon that went around the edge with a few tatters of faded, threadbare blankie here and there.

As for the item to save...that's tough (though it's good you excluded family and pets, because the dogs were the very first thing I thought of. Honestly if we were all safe I would get over the loss of the "stuff" eventually - might be a while, but safety is definitely my primary concern.) I think probably the artwork featured below. It was given to us on our wedding day by the mother of my bestfriend growing up. She made it all - from the frame (from a tree we used to play in that got hit by lightning) to the paper (she's an incredibly talented craftswoman) and she did the calligraphy.



The middle says: "Come let us join ourselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten."

Around the edge says: "I shall give them singleness of heart and one way of life for their own good and the good of their children after them. It will be a joy to me to do them good and faithfully with all my heart and soul I shall plant them in the land."

The text is taken from Jeremiah 32 and 50.

5)If you could be a character in any TV show, what character (and what TV show) would it be?


Aha! Levity at last! Though it's a tough question, for all that it's fluffy. I guess I'd have to go with Samantha Carter from Stargate SG-1. She's smart and witty and tough but still very feminine.

The lastest portion of the interview meme thingy is to solicit participation...so, if you would like to be interviewed (by me) let me know in the comments or via email (if you leave a comment make sure there's a way for me to email you questions) and I will try to come up with specially tailored questions, just for you.