Personal Skills

[cacian]

what do you say are you other personal skills apart from writing and of course your job.
what can you do that is extra?

for example:
I can crochet. It is a skill I learned when I was very young.
I can ride a bike and can translate/interpret few languages.


how about you?

[Pompey Bum]

I'm a skilled intermediate genealogist.

[MANICHAEAN]

An interesting question.
I can cook. Not that I was ever taught as such. In fact my entire repertoire when I first married was cheesy scrambled eggs on toast. If my wife was ill, she got that for breakfast, lunch & dinner until she got out of bed.
But then once I started working overseas, (mainly on a bachelor basis), then I developed the passion both from a practical & a creative point of view. With unbecoming modesty, I’m a dab hand at dishes from; the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Spain, Turkey, Nigeria, China, Jamaica, the Middle East, and India. Luckily, both my daughters are accomplished cooks as well, so something must have rubbed off.
Other skills. Public speaking does not faze me, but then it is one of those things, that the more you do, the easier it seems.

[Pompey Bum]

I can clean fish. It's gross, and I haven't done it for years, but I know how. I can also cut women's hair, although I've only tried my wife's. I can do a stylish job without ever having studied. I asked a professional women's hair stylist about this once, and she told me it's like being able to draw--some people can just do it. "Beauty school" she said teaches nothing--you have to be born with it. And perhaps she's right since my maternal grandfather (the man, incidentally, who taught me to clean fish) was a professional barber.

[cacian]

I can clean fish. It's gross, and I haven't done it for years, but I know how. I can also cut women's hair, although I've only tried my wife's. I can do stylish job without ever having studied. I asked a professional women's hair stylist about this once, and she told me it's like being able to draw--some people can just do it. "Beauty school" she said teaches nothing--You have to be born with it. And perhaps she's right since my maternal grandfather (the man, incidentally, who taught me to clean fish) was a professional barber.

what a brilliant story. To be able to cut hair without training is impressive.
I guess it is a bit like singing you can either sing or you can't. You are born with it.
But hairdressing!!! that is new to me ;)
how lucky you are because you can start your own salon and make a living out of it.

[cacian]

I'm a skilled intermediate genealogist.

I had to look up genealogist sorry about this haha.
what is intermediate?
and how do you go about being one if you do not mind me asking :)

[Pompey Bum]

what a brilliant story. To be able to cut hair without training is impressive.
I guess it is a bit like singing you can either sing or you can't. You are born with it.
But hairdressing!!! that is new to me ;)
how lucky you are because you can start your own salon and make a living out of it.

Thanks, Cacian. It saves us some money. That's nice. And people always ask who does her hair, which makes both of us laugh. She has nice, thick hair--very easy to work with. But it's probably just my grandpa's DNA working through me.

I think this topic leads to a more philosophical question. You say being able to cut hair is impressive, and thank you--but really, why should it be if it's an inborn skill? I'm much more proud of being a reasonably good genealogist. It requires requires deduction, judgment (in the sense of testing hypotheses), and good detective work. It's something I apply myself to--I try hard to do it well. But cutting hair is just something I am able to do. So my question is whether "talent" (in the sense of a gift) is really more laudable than interest and effort. I'm not sure what the answer is.

[Pompey Bum]

I had to look up genealogist sorry about this haha.
what is intermediate?
and how do you go about being one if you do not mind me asking :)

Well, first of all it's a hobby for me. Advanced genealogists are often professional consultants. Also, I am primarily an American genealogist. European genealogy is much harder because of the age and scarcity of records (and the many false claims people used to make to associate themselves with the aristocracy). I do sometimes cross the Atlantic (figuratively) to research my immigrant ancestors and their/our ancestors, but I trust very little before 1600 and virtually nothing before 1500. An advanced genealogist, however, can swim in those waters. So in the schema beginner-intermediate-advanced, I consider myself a strong intermediate genealogist. I think Tailor is in the game, too.