Happy Birthday, Sleepy!
An interview with SleepyWitch:
1 - How did you come about this site and what makes you keep coming back?
aaaargh, I forgot. I think someone on another forum recommended lit net.
I keep coming back to pick fights with Uncle Virgil , to kill time, to talk to other geeky people and occasionally even to talk about books.
2 - Have you visited other countries than your own and what did you like about it or not like?
Italy - Tuscany: liked: the food, the landscape, the sea, the scent of pine trees, the fig tree in the garden, the fact that my dad was able to ask a policeman the way to the museum in LATIN and was understood, didn’t like: don’t remember
Austria - Vienna and Alps: liked: the Alps, hated Vienna, except for the cakes
Czech Rep - Prague and some smaller places: liked the beer, the food, the cakes, the whole post-socialist atmosphere, the fact that everyone speaks English or German, learning to say “please change here for line C” in Czech with my best friend
Slovakia - Bratislava: ditto, minus the Czech
Sweden - caravan tour, don’t remember where we went, liked: the weather, the landscape, the lakes, the sea, the cakes
France - Provence, Paris: the Garrigue
England: I lived there for a year, liked the same things as everywhere else. diskliked: “Can’t be bothered.”
Scotland: the mountains, nature in general, etc
Wales: the hills, the sea, the accent
Mongolia: how the sky looks higher and bluer there and you can go for 70 miles without meeting anyone, the post-socialist atmosphere, the food, Mongol’s attitude: funny, childish, laid-back, but very dignified if the need arises
Greece - Athens and all the ancient sites (school trip):
3 - What are your favorite hobbies ?
swimming, reading, youthwork
4 - Do you have any pets?
nope.. er yes, my husband, the Beany Bear. I used to have two hamsters. We also had a cat when I lived with my parents, but he ran away.
5 - What makes you happy?
simple things like chestnut trees, squirrels, ducklings, sunshine, swimming in a stainless steel 50 m pool because the light gets reflected at the bottom and makes little ripples,
talking to optimistic, ambitious, disciplined, dorky, modest, humanistic people… or even better: listening to them
watching my husband sleep, shave, take a shower, copying out the names/numbers of all European motorway exits in a notebook
6. How can you get away with being online at work?
I’m a student
7. What is mankind's biggest achievement, and its greatest downfall?
biggest achievement: that humanity still hasn’t managed to wipe itself off the surface of this planet although we’ve sure tried very hard
greatest downfall: besides really serious problems like starvation, dictatorship, child-labour, exploitation, cancer, aids, Paris Hilton etc: that people just won’t stop bothering each other
8. If you had a long day of hard work ahead of you what music would you be playing on your mp3, while working?
I don’t own an mp3
probably some 60s on the internet…
9. If you could take one book, music album and one video with you to a desert island, what would they be?
coulda, woulda, shoulda, but didn’t sorry I’m not good at answering hypothetical questions
10. Which actress should play you in a movie based on your life?
why would anyone want to base a movie on my life?
11. What makes you smile? (Activities, people, events, hobbies, projects, etc.)
cf. question 5
12. What were your favorite things to do the past? What about now?
as a child: watching ants, reading, hiding in the cupboard, dreaming of living like in the Stone Age, building tree houses with my guy friends, sitting around in willow trees with my guyfriends or girlfriends, spying on people
as a teenager: reading, watching Sky News and CNN, cycling, swapping journals with a friend, watching Star Trek
now: swimming, reading, going for walks with my hubby, watching Star Trek, watching films in English, eating fruit salad, anything dorky, having saunas
13. What activities make you lose track of time?
reading, playing DOS-games, corpus research (=dorky linguistics stuff)
14. What makes you feel great about yourself?
pushing myself to the limit, being useful, doing the right thing when it would be easier to run away and scream (nope.. not really, that makes me feel miserable and whiny)
15. Who inspires you most? (Anyone you know or not. Family, friends, authors, artists, leaders, etc.) Which qualities inspire you, in each person?
no one, really. I do have role models, e.g. my ex boss or sometimes even my parents, but in general I’m too stoic to be “inspired” by anyone, plus I see no point in expecting others to define my aims and aspirations for me or to be superhuman heroes.
16. What are you naturally good at? (Skills, abilities, gifts etc.)
flirting with old men, getting on people’s nerves, explaining things to others that I don’t even understand myself
17. What do people typically ask you for help in?
advice on academic matters; advice on relationships; agony aunt
18. If you had to teach something, what would you teach?
English; linguistics; German
html (would have to learn it myself first)
19. What would you regret not fully doing, being or having in your life?
When I’m 120 I want to sit on a bench outside my house, next to my hubby, surrounded by my 7 dorky children, 49 dorky grandchildren and 343 dorky great-grandchildren and look back on my not-really-brilliant career as a German teacher in England and Lingusitics professor in Germany and be sure I’ve had a positive influence on a handful of people and no one was jealous because of me or tried to backstab some rival or other to impress me.
20. What song is in your head at the moment?
there’s a headache in my head at the moment
21. The last book you bought/borrowed from the library?
don’t remember
22. Which book are you reading at the moment?
at the moment I’m only reading text books and academic articles .. hang on, I’ve started re-reading “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov
23. The last book you finished reading?
don’t remember… I’m in the middle of exam preparation and don’t really have time to read.
24. Favorite food?/ Comfort food?
Chinese, Indian, salads, goat’s cheese, black Turkish olives, natural (organic) yogurth, fair trade nuts, dark chocolate
Mongolian food with lots of mutton, potatoes, carrots, onions, noodles/ rice
comfort food: veggie Döner Kebap; cheese on toast with peas; sultana scones without cream and strawberry jam, dipped in tea; white bread with salted butter and orange/lemon/lime marmalade, cherry bakewell tarts
25. Favorite outfit?
anything that would get me an anti-social behaviour order for public scruffiness in England.
26. What are you wearing at the moment?
men’s cargo trousers of undefinable greenish-kaki colour, knitted hoody with stripes of various blue shades, adidas sneakers, on my left wrist: the bottom part of black tights cut off and with a whole for my thumb (like a gauntlet/ glove/ thingy) with a garish bracelet on top.
27. Favorite poem?
I don’t really read poems
28. First novel you remember reading on your own?
probably some book or other by Astrid Lindgren
29. Favorite TV shows?
Star Trek: TOS, TNG, DS9, Simpsons, The Nanny, I don’t really watch TV, though
30. Which LitNet members would you like to meet in person if you could?
Nighty, Uncle Virgil, Scher, papaya, Niamh, Schoko, PrinceMyshkin, fifthelement, kiz,
kratsy, Aimus, Countess, SweetsAmerica, Baki, blp, .. most of the veterans, really.
31. Favorite post on the Forum?
dunno
32. Favorite thread?
dunno.. general chat and personal poetry, maybe “Write a really bad poem”
33. Last food did you have?
muesli
34. Last words you said out loud?
“Hello.”
35. Last person you hugged/kissed?
my hubby.
36. What do you do (for a living) to be able to keep your LitNet addiction going?
nothing I’m a student; I used to work as a student tutor teaching English linguistics
(I think it’s the same as a college teaching assistant, cf. Quark’s interview, but I’m not sure.)
before that I worked at a baker’s and at a supermarket
37. Are you happy with your chosen profession?
yes
38. What would you like to be if you could change your profession?
social worker; civil engineer working in the developing areas; play school teacher; organic farmer; tramp
39. Least favorite book/song/movie?
dunno
40. The most generous thing you have done?
dunno
41. What is your most outstanding feature?
probably my hair and my eyes
my two braincells, they can talk to each other for hours without getting bored
42. If you could change one thing about the way you look, what would that be?
my eyes could be a little bigger and rounder, that would save me the trouble of putting on tons of make-up
43. Which book do you wish you had written?
I’ll tell you once I’ve read all of them
44. What is your favorite book cover?
the glossy one of The Chronicals of Narnia.. the only with the lion
45. Most and least favorite characters from books?
most favourite so far: Gandalf, Mr Darcy, Jane Eyre, Heathcliffe (sp?) , Tess Durbeyfield, R. Daneel Olivaw (Asimov), Lord Henry Wotton, most (main) characters in John Irving’s books, the guy who murders Caesar in Shaky’s Julius Caesar.. whatsname? Brutus?, the guy who plays Thisbe in the play within the play in Midsummernights Dream, the cheeky parrot in Love in the Time of Cholera, Hassan in The Kite Runner; Ulysses (the Greek hero), most main characters in Philip Roth’s older books up to the Human Stain
least favourite: Alec D’Urberville (as in: extremely well written, the archetypical villain/ seducer; least favourite = I hate his guts)
46. What would your biography be titled?
She came, she saw, she left
47. What should you be doing at the moment instead of answering these questions?
studying grammar (syntax, the role of type and token frequency in regular and irregular morphology
)
48. Wonderful Superman or depressing Batman?
eh? never heard of them
49. When are you going to visit Ireland?
When Niamh is ready to give me a tour
50. Are you married?
yes.. goes to check.. no.. I’m in a long-term relationship but I call my boyfriend “hubby” because we’d like to marry some day. maybe next year or the year after. our first-born son will be named “Lenny” after Leonard Nimoy (Mr Spock).
51. One final word of wisdom for LitNet users?
Floss!
plus: consummerism and materialism are the root of all evil !!! people should be more creative and produce things themselves! and besides, this world is going to the dogs and we are all going to diiiiiieeeeee!
having said that, I read more than I write, I watch more footie than I play, I drink more than I pee and on a good day I listen more than I speak.
*joking*
52. What would you like to ask to the person to be interviewed after you?
who is the next person to be interviewed after me? (My Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language by Quirk et. al. 1985 and the British National Corpus tell me that should be either
ask without
to or
ask of as in expect them to do sth
So I'd like to ask
of them to be a little less smug and nitpicky/nitpickerish? than me
)
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