No, ninja_kat, I didn't forget :)

[ciroccoj]

You all know the drill for this meme:

-Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
-I will respond by asking you five questions.
-You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
-You'll include this explanation.
-You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

Here's my interview from ninja_kat:

1. 
   
   Antartica. I wanted to go even before I read Kim Stanley Robinson's book by that name. I'd love to see what it's like to never have the sun go down, and be on a continent without legitimate land claims. And for fun, I'd like to go to the part of Antartica that Chile claims it owns.
   
   
2. 
   
   I spent most of my childhood wishing I was named Violet or Cindy. Or Cindy Violet. Why? I wish I knew.
   
   As for what I would name a daughter, I always planned to name a daughter Julia, after my mom. When I was pregnant with Daniel, the name we'd picked for a girl was Julia Katherine Chinook, and with Justin it was Julia Megan Chinook. It would've been cool, too, since they were both due in the dead of winter, when a nice warm Chinook is quite welcome.
   
   
3. 
   
   Um, no. Can't narrow it down to one.
   
   OK, here's a shot:
   
   Alessan and Catriana in Tigana, Lisseut and Blaise from A Song for Arbonne, Ellen, Jack or Aliena from Pillars of the Earth, Nirgal from the Mars books, Cirocco Jones from Titan (mostly because I've worn her name for so long), Rey Curtis, Lennie Briscoe, and Abbie Carmichael from Law & Order, Tim Bayliss and Mike Kellerman from H:LOTS, but not slashed together because, um, yuck, Harry Kim from Voyager, Jean-Luc Picard from ST:TNG, Worf from TNG and DS9, Jadzia Dax from same, um... Aragorn or Legolas from LOTR-movie, Frodo from LOTR-books... Oh dear. I seem to have gone on a bit.
   
   OK, one favourite character. ::closing my eyes and jabbing at a random point on the screen:: Blaise from A Song from Arbonne, because of how he grows to understand and appreciate Arbonne. I was with him every step of the way - wholeheartedly agreeing that it was "a patently silly culture" at the beginning, reluctantly gaining respect for it as the book progressed, and in love with it at the end.
   
   
4. 
   
   Oh, to the time of interstellar travel. Partly to see cool things, but mostly to find out if humans will ever stop being idiots.
   
   
5. 
   
   Um. Well.
   
   Mostly just to consider what it means and why you want/don't want to have kids. I'm a firm believer in childfreedom, because IMHO children are not a guarantee of anything good. If you're having kids because you want love, security in your old age, status, somebody to look up to you... don't. Kids won't necessarily give you any of that. They will, however, suck up every bit of energy you have, steadfastly refuse to live up to your expectations, be unbelievably ungrateful and selfish and break your heart... and that's all part of the package that you sign up for when you decide to have them.
   
   Mostly I think people should not have kids if they want their kids to fill in an empty space in themselves. Love, security, fulfillment, self-esteem - that's all stuff you need to get from elsewhere. It's too heavy a burden to demand that your kids provide you with it.
   
   And if you do decide to have them, don't cling to your hopes/plans/expectations, because your children are not responsible for any dreams you may have had for them. From before they're born, they assert their own personhood, and trying to mold them to fit your dreams is a pretty sure ticket to misery - both yours and theirs.
   
   Reading this over, it sounds like my advice to anybody considering parenthood is, "Don't." Which, no, it's not. There's some good reasons why I had two kids, and still wanted more. I'm not quite the idiot that I seem to be ;)
   
   The pros are many. Yes, parenthood is an incredible responsibility, but there's also an incredible amount of joy and wonder to it, if you can let yourself see it. And most of the time it's very much tied to all the negative stuff. You learn things about yourself and your endurance/patience that you wouldn't learn otherwise. You learn just how much you can and will do for another person - stay up night after night, put up with screaming, tantrums and spit-up, walk up and down the stairs for hours because it seems to ease your child's colic.... and you learn none of that will kill you. That at the end of the day, as tired as you are, it's still worth it.
   
   You learn a lot about what's truly important to you - like, for example, the fact that you don't have to look good and be spit-up free to feel good about yourself. Or that you can feel joy and triumph over the simple fact that your child is able to nurse, or smile, or say Mama. And it feels infinitely better than earning an A or even getting a degree.
   
   You see the world from a different point of view. Your kids teach you so much more than you teach them, about curiosity, about letting go of assumptions, and life in general. As long as you can set yourself aside enough to see, they can introduce you to all sorts of stuff you wouldn't experience otherwise. My kids are responsible for me becoming physically active, loving camping, learning about geology, and a whole lot more.
   
   And it's an honour to be held in such high regard by another person. When Daniel was a baby, Chris used to call him our "small adoring fan," and he really was. We could explain the world to him, give him just about everything he needed, and take away just about any hurt with a kiss. It was a rather humbling feeling, to know that we could be that important to him, for no reason other than the fact that we were his parents. It made us even more determined to do this job right, and to live up to his expectations of us instead of the other way around.
   
   Well. That turned out a lot longer than I wanted it to.

Comments

I think I want to try this

[animaltalker.livejournal.com]

so I'll offer to be an interview subject

ps. your answer to the last question kind of choked me up, being a parent especially a step-parent like I am isn't easy but it's the most worthwhile thing I can imagine doing.

Re: I think I want to try this

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

being a parent especially a step-parent like I am isn't easy but it's the most worthwhile thing I can imagine doing.

I can't imagine the challenges of raising a step-child. My hat goes off to you for tackling the job with good will and patience.

OK, the interview: here goes!

1. What got you writing fan fiction?
2. If you could solve one problem in the world, what would it be?
3. What would be your dream vacation?
4. Pretend you have to fill out the following form (don't actually fill it out, just think about it):
Name:
Age:
Marital Status:
Profession:
Socio-economic class:
Religion:
Political affiliation:
Ethnic background:
Which answer would you least want to change on the form, and why?
5. Who's your favourite fictional character, and why?