Interview with Me (by Alkelda)

Alkelda the Gleeful sent me this interview meme thingy, and I thought it would be fun to participate. And, since it's been approximately an eternity since my last post (in this age of instant information, anyway) I thought this would be a good way to get back into the posting sphere. Or something. Here are her questions, and my answers:

1 )What fairy tale, myth or fictional story are you most drawn to as your own, and why? Tell me about childhood associations, parallels with your own life, fulfillment of wishes, etc.

Well, it's funny you should frame the question that way, as the stories that most often catch my attention are the ones which, on the surface, have nothing whatsoever to do with me. I have never, to my knowledge, read a myth, fairy tale or fictional story and said "That's just like me," or "that's what I should do." As a young child, I liked the darker type of fairy tale - my favorite collection was a set of four Russian Fairy Tales (The Firebird) replete with blood and guts. To this day, I mostly seek after stories that draw me as far away from the familiar as I can find. Those that relate closely to my everyday life make me uncomfortable, like someone else is spying on me.

2) What story makes you angry? How does it make you angry?

Dumbo, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and other "overcoming abnormality" stories - oh sure, once you're famous everyone loves you. That's supposed to make me feel better about myself somehow? Instead, it increases my desire to make a spectacle of myself in order to win everyone's approval. These stories send an incredibly inappropriate message to children. Instead, all the stupid, blind, prejudiced people should perish because of their ignorance. Who wants those fools fawning all over us because of our special gifts? It's not like groupies can fill that need for genuine companionship. Heroes of those stories end up being broken, unhappy celebrities with empty lives. Dumbo probably becomes a herion addict in the end - now that's flying high.

3) If you could choose three books to be brought back into print, which ones would they be?

Hmmmmm. Three, eh?
1. The Plain Princess by Phyllis McGinly
2. The King's Trousers by Robert Kraus (illustrated by Fred Gwynne)
3. A Retreat for Lay People by Ronald Knox

4) Tell me about the movie you want to see that has not yet been created.

I want to see a Shakespeare movie that I like. It will not star Kenneth Branaugh, Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, Rupert Everett, Mel Gibson or Kate Winslet. It will not try to relate the ideas of Shakespeare to our modern age - Will took care of that himself, that's why his plays are so good. It will not have any sex scenes in it. It will look more like a play than a film. No one will appear naked.

Either that, or one of the above mentioned Russian Fairy Tales brought to life would be pretty cool. So long as the elegant language and glorious pictures are retained.

5) What are your specific views on higher education and how did you come to think the way you do?

By higher education, I am assuming you mean beyond high school. I guess I believe that a college education is unnecessary, and can be a big mistake if embarked upon immediately following high school (if indeed you went to high school, a trial I hope you managed to escape). The High School - College - Employment in your Chosen Field chain can be exactly that - a chain, forged by Other People's Expectations, from which it is frightfully difficult to extract oneself. It's just another way of letting Supposed To Know (or in this case, Supposed To Do) rule your life, and an ever more expensive one at that.

A high school senior of my acquaintance confided these sad thoughts to me a couple of months ago: "I just don't know where I should be going or what I should study when I get there. It feels too early to me to be deciding what I'm going to be doing the rest of my life, but that seems to be what everyone expects. What I'd really, really like to do is study music and drama, but that's so impractical. I guess that kind of fun stuff is going to have to wait until I'm finished doing what I'm supposed to do and I've gotten married and had kids." I fear that many college students go off to classes with this same feeling, perhaps not articulated, but at least in the back of their minds somewhere.

I would be happy if my girls opted for college, but they're going to have to want to go to college because there's some specific thing they love so much and want to learn more about badly enough that they want to pay the outrageous tuition fees. I won't do it. If that means they need to wait until they've saved enough, or until they're old enough to be considered finacially independant in order to get financial aid, well, so be it.

Myself, I opted out of college during my junior year, because I was doing something better with my time - starting my family. At times, I wish I'd finished, but that's more the "I want to finish what I started" bug than any actual desire to know more than I do. When I think about the things I was studying and the things I ought to have studied to prepare me for the course I ended up taking, I realize I was going about it all wrong. Even my second try, during which one would expect me to have a better idea of my own personality and more realistic expectations of the whole experience (I was 25, and had 3 kids by then), I still had it all wrong. I tried majoring in music performance, with the organ as my instrument, when I should have been going for the music education degree. I still had an unrealistic idea of my own talent level, my own desires, and the direction life was taking me.


Thanks for the interview, Alkelda.