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Poll answers!
The answers to that poll I posted concerning Fun Facts About ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
telophase! If you're just getting to this and haven't seen the poll yet, you really, really want to go vote in it before you read this. Trust me, it'll be much more fun that way.
...it is on her PERMANENT SCHOOL RECORD that she is deficient in fruit-identification skills. TRUE
In first grade, just a couple of months after we'd returned from two years in Africa, I was involved in some sort of psychological or IQ testing. I don't know what for - it culd ahve been routine testing, but my school also cooperated a lot with the Texas A&M School of Education, and so occasionally classes would be held at A&M and we'd be observed by students through a mirrored wall, or they'd come to school and do whatever.
Anyway, I and a black girl in a wheelchair (these things stick in your head when you're six) were being tested - the researcher held up flashcards and we had to name the object on them. She held up one with a round orange fruit on it. I knew immediately what that was, and said "Tangerine." The researcher said, "No. Try again." I said "Tangerine." She said "No." I insisted it was a tangerine. I was obviously too stupid to get it right, so she gave up on me and turned to the other girl and asked her what it was. She said "Orange." The researcher said "Very good."
I was furious - it was obviously a tangerine, and we were asked to name the fruit, not to name the color, and everyone in the entire place was obviously an idiot.
...Yeah, I'm still kinda hacked off about that one.
...she was suspected of being a terrorist in Gatwick Airport on account of camera equipment. TRUE
Went with my dad to a conference in Nairobi in Januray 1991. After the conference we were going to go into Tanzania and do some photography, and we hauled along this enormous 500-mm lens. With a big lens, you ahve a problem with shaking, because it's very sensitive, so if you don't ahve a tripod, you ahve to have some way of steadying it. My dad had bodged together a shoulder mount out of an aluminum rod with a pistol grip mounted on it, and a remote shutter release cord wound around it and taped to the handle.
It was in my carry-on. And need I remind anyone that early January 1991 was immediately before the first Gulf war broke out?
As we were going through Security in Gatwick - our plane connected through London ... actually, I take it back. It was Heathrow, not Gatwick, because we landed at Gatwick and then had to transfer to Heathrow to catch the flight to Nairobi, so it's technically false. Anyway, going through security, I got pulled aside and frisked and they pulled my bag and ran it through teh Extra Speshul X-Ray Machine that had a color display, and gathered around it and hemmed and hawed a lot. We explained what it was and offered to take it apart, and eventually they asked us to do so, to show them the individual components, and then apologized for the inconvenience and wished us a nice trip.
You're not going to get that from American security guys at airports.
...there is a street named after her in Kerrville, Texas. TRUE
My mother's father was a manager at Foxworth-Galbraith, which served as a contractor for a subdivision in Kerrville, Texas. They named all the streets after the granddaughters of the managers. :D
...she has a great-uncle who was a wax smuggler in West Texas. TRUE
Yup! Wax smuggling across the border from the Chihuahua region of Mexico into the Big Bend area was fairly big business in the early and mid century. You can read a whole lot about it here. If you search in the page, you'll see a segment on J.E. Casner, who was my mom's great-uncle (so technically my great-great uncle, known as Uncle Jim), and who was a major wheeler-dealer in wax. Mom thinks he might have made a bundle of money on the black market with automobiles during and right after WWII. Mom's Uncle Alonso also did a lot of wheeling and dealing with Uncle Jim. :D
The best family story of this Mom found out in Africa. We were hosting Dr. Lon Garrison and his wife, of A&M's Wildlife and Fisheries Department, of which my dad was a grad student. We were at the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, in some dumpy little motel because the big lodges were all full that night, sitting around and talking. Dr. Garrison had been the director of the Big Bend National Park in the early 1950s. One day, my mom's Uncle Jim had come to him with a proposal. Uncle Jim told Dr. Garrison that if he wanted the Mexican part of the Big Bend to be part of the park, Uncle Jim could get it for him. Provided that no questions were asked about any trains of burros seen wandering through the park late at night. XD
Dr. Garrison did not think highly of my mom's family. :D
At any rate, if you look at the above link, there's a woman identified as "Mrs. Walker" who ran a general store in Candelaria. Mom can't ID her, although we've got to be related in some way - my mom's mom was a Walker - but she's going to ask her cousin Gwen if we can figure out who the woman is. I'll let you know what I find out.
...a relative of hers was killed by terrorists in Indonesia. TRUE
Yes. One of the four Americans killed in the nightclub bombings in Bali in 2003 was Karri Casner, a cousin of some ilk of mine (second cousin? Not sure). Not that I knew her - if we'd ever met it was in passing at a family funeral, but it feels rather strange to have a personal connection of that sort.
...she was diagnosed with malaria as a child. TRUE
Yup. Lived in Tanzania. The doctor said it was either heatstroke or malaria, and when I threw up all over her, she said malaria. Never had a relapse though, and after 12 years without a relapse, you're considered cured.
...she volunteered with the Civil Air Patrol in highschool and is just a few hours' short of her pilot's license. FALSE
Nope. My sophomore-year college roomate was in the CAP, though, and had just gotten her pilot's license. :)
...an SF author borrowed her name for a character. TRUE
Lois McMaster Bujold borrowed my last name for the insane Count Vorfolse in A Civil Campaign. I was on the Bujold mailing list at the time, and she emailed me, saying she was always looking for unusual last names to use, and would I mind if she used mine? Oh hell no! So the character bears no relation to mecue cries of "But you said he was insane!", but it's my name. Whee. :D
...she is in possession of an award for being in the top 15% nationally in business math. TRUE
Yes. From the Office Education Society of America in highschool, which is now known as the Future Business Professionals of America. I was in it solely because my comptuer teacher desperately needed people to be in the chapter, so she shanghied her Computer II class into being in it. I couldn't make it to the State competition (dude, I had tickets to Sting! I was not about to go to some dumb competition!) so what I did was make a notebook for the class and entered it in the Notebook Competition. It was pretty spiffy - had my homework and tests, with the corrections worked out and explained, ripped a few articles out of journals and wrote summaries, had all my programs in it, etc.
I won first place, and thus the school paid for me to go to Nationals. There was no Notebook COmpetition at Nationals, so it was basically five days of vacation in Louisville, KY for me. I had to attend the opening and closing ceremonies, and take a couple of tests - business math and business etiquette - and after that, me, the teacher, and the other two students that went just acted like tourists. And I was in the top 15% of the competitors on teh business math test, so I got an award. Which is in a box somewhere in my mother's attic, which should show you exactly how much it meant. :)
...she was stepped on by a horse at Girl Scout Camp and as a result is now phobic of them. FALSE
Nope. Went to Girl Scout Camp. Learned to ride horses. Hated it - more due to the camp counsellors than the horses. Was not stepped on by any of them. Am nervous around horses because they're so damn big, but am not phobic, and was not injured by any of them.
...she is a sad, sad Sanzo fangirl. TRUE
We all knew this already.
...it is a trick question and all of them are false. FALSE
...it's a trick question and all of them are true. FALSE
Both self-evident by now.
...she is smart enough to realize that the more detail an item has, the more plausible it sounds. TRUE
Put tha tin to throw you off, because I was POSITIVE that everyone would peg the wax-smuggling story as being true, since it was so off-the-wall that nobody could have made it up! But it seems that more people thought I was mistaken for a terrorist than thought I was related to a wax smuggler. More fool you.
...Mello loves you. FALSE
Duh. Mello always hates you.
telophase! If you're just getting to this and haven't seen the poll yet, you really, really want to go vote in it before you read this. Trust me, it'll be much more fun that way....it is on her PERMANENT SCHOOL RECORD that she is deficient in fruit-identification skills. TRUE
In first grade, just a couple of months after we'd returned from two years in Africa, I was involved in some sort of psychological or IQ testing. I don't know what for - it culd ahve been routine testing, but my school also cooperated a lot with the Texas A&M School of Education, and so occasionally classes would be held at A&M and we'd be observed by students through a mirrored wall, or they'd come to school and do whatever.
Anyway, I and a black girl in a wheelchair (these things stick in your head when you're six) were being tested - the researcher held up flashcards and we had to name the object on them. She held up one with a round orange fruit on it. I knew immediately what that was, and said "Tangerine." The researcher said, "No. Try again." I said "Tangerine." She said "No." I insisted it was a tangerine. I was obviously too stupid to get it right, so she gave up on me and turned to the other girl and asked her what it was. She said "Orange." The researcher said "Very good."
I was furious - it was obviously a tangerine, and we were asked to name the fruit, not to name the color, and everyone in the entire place was obviously an idiot.
...Yeah, I'm still kinda hacked off about that one.
...she was suspected of being a terrorist in Gatwick Airport on account of camera equipment. TRUE
Went with my dad to a conference in Nairobi in Januray 1991. After the conference we were going to go into Tanzania and do some photography, and we hauled along this enormous 500-mm lens. With a big lens, you ahve a problem with shaking, because it's very sensitive, so if you don't ahve a tripod, you ahve to have some way of steadying it. My dad had bodged together a shoulder mount out of an aluminum rod with a pistol grip mounted on it, and a remote shutter release cord wound around it and taped to the handle.
It was in my carry-on. And need I remind anyone that early January 1991 was immediately before the first Gulf war broke out?
As we were going through Security in Gatwick - our plane connected through London ... actually, I take it back. It was Heathrow, not Gatwick, because we landed at Gatwick and then had to transfer to Heathrow to catch the flight to Nairobi, so it's technically false. Anyway, going through security, I got pulled aside and frisked and they pulled my bag and ran it through teh Extra Speshul X-Ray Machine that had a color display, and gathered around it and hemmed and hawed a lot. We explained what it was and offered to take it apart, and eventually they asked us to do so, to show them the individual components, and then apologized for the inconvenience and wished us a nice trip.
You're not going to get that from American security guys at airports.
...there is a street named after her in Kerrville, Texas. TRUE
My mother's father was a manager at Foxworth-Galbraith, which served as a contractor for a subdivision in Kerrville, Texas. They named all the streets after the granddaughters of the managers. :D
...she has a great-uncle who was a wax smuggler in West Texas. TRUE
Yup! Wax smuggling across the border from the Chihuahua region of Mexico into the Big Bend area was fairly big business in the early and mid century. You can read a whole lot about it here. If you search in the page, you'll see a segment on J.E. Casner, who was my mom's great-uncle (so technically my great-great uncle, known as Uncle Jim), and who was a major wheeler-dealer in wax. Mom thinks he might have made a bundle of money on the black market with automobiles during and right after WWII. Mom's Uncle Alonso also did a lot of wheeling and dealing with Uncle Jim. :D
The best family story of this Mom found out in Africa. We were hosting Dr. Lon Garrison and his wife, of A&M's Wildlife and Fisheries Department, of which my dad was a grad student. We were at the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, in some dumpy little motel because the big lodges were all full that night, sitting around and talking. Dr. Garrison had been the director of the Big Bend National Park in the early 1950s. One day, my mom's Uncle Jim had come to him with a proposal. Uncle Jim told Dr. Garrison that if he wanted the Mexican part of the Big Bend to be part of the park, Uncle Jim could get it for him. Provided that no questions were asked about any trains of burros seen wandering through the park late at night. XD
Dr. Garrison did not think highly of my mom's family. :D
At any rate, if you look at the above link, there's a woman identified as "Mrs. Walker" who ran a general store in Candelaria. Mom can't ID her, although we've got to be related in some way - my mom's mom was a Walker - but she's going to ask her cousin Gwen if we can figure out who the woman is. I'll let you know what I find out.
...a relative of hers was killed by terrorists in Indonesia. TRUE
Yes. One of the four Americans killed in the nightclub bombings in Bali in 2003 was Karri Casner, a cousin of some ilk of mine (second cousin? Not sure). Not that I knew her - if we'd ever met it was in passing at a family funeral, but it feels rather strange to have a personal connection of that sort.
...she was diagnosed with malaria as a child. TRUE
Yup. Lived in Tanzania. The doctor said it was either heatstroke or malaria, and when I threw up all over her, she said malaria. Never had a relapse though, and after 12 years without a relapse, you're considered cured.
...she volunteered with the Civil Air Patrol in highschool and is just a few hours' short of her pilot's license. FALSE
Nope. My sophomore-year college roomate was in the CAP, though, and had just gotten her pilot's license. :)
...an SF author borrowed her name for a character. TRUE
Lois McMaster Bujold borrowed my last name for the insane Count Vorfolse in A Civil Campaign. I was on the Bujold mailing list at the time, and she emailed me, saying she was always looking for unusual last names to use, and would I mind if she used mine? Oh hell no! So the character bears no relation to me
...she is in possession of an award for being in the top 15% nationally in business math. TRUE
Yes. From the Office Education Society of America in highschool, which is now known as the Future Business Professionals of America. I was in it solely because my comptuer teacher desperately needed people to be in the chapter, so she shanghied her Computer II class into being in it. I couldn't make it to the State competition (dude, I had tickets to Sting! I was not about to go to some dumb competition!) so what I did was make a notebook for the class and entered it in the Notebook Competition. It was pretty spiffy - had my homework and tests, with the corrections worked out and explained, ripped a few articles out of journals and wrote summaries, had all my programs in it, etc.
I won first place, and thus the school paid for me to go to Nationals. There was no Notebook COmpetition at Nationals, so it was basically five days of vacation in Louisville, KY for me. I had to attend the opening and closing ceremonies, and take a couple of tests - business math and business etiquette - and after that, me, the teacher, and the other two students that went just acted like tourists. And I was in the top 15% of the competitors on teh business math test, so I got an award. Which is in a box somewhere in my mother's attic, which should show you exactly how much it meant. :)
...she was stepped on by a horse at Girl Scout Camp and as a result is now phobic of them. FALSE
Nope. Went to Girl Scout Camp. Learned to ride horses. Hated it - more due to the camp counsellors than the horses. Was not stepped on by any of them. Am nervous around horses because they're so damn big, but am not phobic, and was not injured by any of them.
...she is a sad, sad Sanzo fangirl. TRUE
We all knew this already.
...it is a trick question and all of them are false. FALSE
...it's a trick question and all of them are true. FALSE
Both self-evident by now.
...she is smart enough to realize that the more detail an item has, the more plausible it sounds. TRUE
Put tha tin to throw you off, because I was POSITIVE that everyone would peg the wax-smuggling story as being true, since it was so off-the-wall that nobody could have made it up! But it seems that more people thought I was mistaken for a terrorist than thought I was related to a wax smuggler. More fool you.
...Mello loves you. FALSE
Duh. Mello always hates you.