August 2025 Prompts
Sep. 26th, 2025 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fauxklore1. What do you think your life will be like ten years from now? Hopefully, not a lot different than it is now. Though I am contemplating moving to somewhere without stairs.
2. Where would you travel, if you could go anywhere? I’d love to take a cruise through the entire Northwest Passage.
3. Explain how you chose your career path. I started college intending to major in chemistry but didn’t like organic chemistry my freshman year. I read something about the Boston Arm, which was one of the earliest prosthetic limbs attached to the body’s nervous system and was intrigued. That led me to the mechanical engineering department. One of the two classes I took first semester sophomore year in that major was Intro to Systems Engineering, which really clicked with me. People told me if I liked that, I should take Control Systems and that’s what I ended up doing and going to graduate school for. When I was job hunting, I found that there were a lot of interesting controls problems in the aerospace industry, so most of the jobs I interviewed for were in that area. It worked out well for me.
4. Write about the last time weather scared you. Probably the last time I got caught driving through a severe thunderstorm.
5. What animal do you identify with most closely? Probably bears. I’m chubby and hairy, but still very cute.
6. What kind of jobs have you had in the past? In high school, I got paid for tutoring, primarily for math and science New York State Regents exams. I also was a summer camp counselor the summer after my freshman year of college. I worked desk at my dorm at MIT. I particularly liked doing the mail because I got paid for a full hour for it, but it generally took me less time than that. I also did that during the summers, as well as doing maid work when the dorms were used to house conference attendees. Most of those jobs reminded me that I was in school so I didn’t have to do jobs like that for the rest of my life. On a more occasional basis, I got paid for being a test subject for research projects. I only did one psych experiment that I can remember, but I did a lot of experiments for people who were working on speech processing. Those basically involved reading sentences into a tape recorder. The only requirement was being a native speaker of English and, for some reason, they thought New York qualified. You could only do two hours at a time, but you got enough money to afford to go out to dinner at Joyce Chen’s Monday night vegetarian buffet.
7. What is one skill you wish you had and how would that make your life different? I wish I had a long enough attention span to get my condo organized.
8. Have you ever had an incident because you overslept? I’ve sometimes missed an event I planned to go to because I overslept, but I’ve never had anything happen with real consequences.
9. How much was Gas the last time you filled up? I think I paid $2.79 a gallon near the Myrtle Beach Airport a couple of weeks ago.
10. What kinds of activities when on at the kitchen table at home when you grew up (eating doesn't count)? I did most of my homework at the kitchen table. I also spent time there drawing and coloring. And we played board games there a lot - everything from Candyland when my brother and I were little to countless games of backgammon with my mother and scrabble with my father later on.
11. What is the biggest risk you have ever taken? Probably going to Berkeley to go to grad school. Moving to California triggered a lot of culture shock.
12. When was the last time you sent or received a card from someone? My brother sent me a birthday card.
13. If money were no object, what would you spend your days doing? I’d fly in business class a lot more.
14. What is one thing in your life that requires immediate attention? I need to go grocery shopping.
15. How do you feel about change and uncertainties? I like change. I like to go to places I haven’t been to before, for example. And I usually like meeting new people.
16. Which foods do you remember eating often as a child? I’ve told this story before but it is worth repeating. My mother once bought 12 cases of bottled borscht, 24 bottles per case, as part of our local public television station’s annual fundraising auction. She gave some of it away, but we did eat borscht for dinner at least once a week for ages. Borscht with sour cream and boiled potatoes is still one of my favorite hot weather dinners. (We usually had a second course of tuna croquettes.) When my mother died (many many years later), my uncle and I found one bottle of borscht in the pantry and we joked that it was the last one from that purchase.
17. What kind of art is your favorite or least favorite? Why? When it comes to painting, I generally prefer modern art to old masters, though there are exceptions. I am often impressed by how a given painter uses color to invoke mood. I also like photorealism, including works by Edward Hopper and Richard Estes. I tend to prefer figurative sculpture to abstract sculpture, however. As for “why,” I suppose some of it is familiarity, but I’d also say there have been works of art I’ve seen that I made me see the world in different ways. Those range from Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” to Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase” (which captures movement more effectively than any other painting I’ve seen) to Faith Ringgold’s story quilts.
18. What do you think makes a happy family? I think families are happiest when their members respect one another, including accepting their differences.
19. How do you decide if you trust a person or not? Frankly, I find trust to be mostly a matter of instinct. I have been fooled by people who I thought were good people who turned out to be deceitful users, but, for the most part, I trust my judgmement.
20. How many pillows are on your bed? Generally, two or three. I normally like flat, squishy pillows, unless I have a cold.
21. Tell me about an old friend you've lost touch with. I stayed in touch with my best friend from high school for several years, but we lost touch when she got married to a man who I didn’t much care for.
22. Think of a loved one that you have lost. If you could ask this person one question, what would you ask, and what do you think they would say? There are lots of things I’d like to be able to ask my parents and grandparents. My paternal grandmother was killed in the Shoah and I’d love to be able to ask her what my Dad was like as a child.
23. What would you write in a letter you could send back in time to yourself as a teen-ager? Mostly, I’d like to be able to tell younger me not to take myself so seriously. There are lots of specifics, e.g. focusing on health instead of weight, and learning to deal with my curly hair instead of getting it straightened, etc., but the gist of the message I wish I’d learned earlier was that I’m basically okay.
24. How do you think instant riches would affect your friendships and familial relationships? I’d like to think they wouldn’t affect most of my relationships. Except, I know my brother would always be at my heels, begging for money.
25. Can you buy happiness? Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy things that can distract you from misery.
26. What is a secret about you? If I wrote it here, it wouldn’t be a secret any more now, would it?
27. If you could travel anywhere in the world for a vacation, where would it be and why? Didn’t I answer that already in question 2? Seriously, I’d like to go almost anywhere that: a) I hadn’t already been and b) is not an active war zone.
28. Tell about a story when you got a parking ticket or traffic violation. I got a speeding ticket from a speed camera in D.C. once.
29. Is there a movie that has brought you to tears? Tell about it. There have been several. Let’s go with The Visitor, an exquisite 2007 movie directed by Tom McCarthy about a widowed professor (played perfectly by Richard Jenkins) who finds an illegal immigrant couple living in his apartment. (Note that this is entirely unrelated to the 1979 and 2022 movies by the same name.) This is one of my favorite movies of all time.
30. Name one of the kindest people you have ever met. Why? My friend, Teri, stand out. For example, when we eat out, she gets her leftovers wrapped up and gives them to homeless people.
31. Tell about a time you laughed until you cried. Back in 1998 I was on a trip on the St. Helena mail ship and one night, I was playing Pictionary with a few people. I don’t remember the exact trigger, but it might have had to do with my inability to draw a lamb. At any rate, one of the others said something that started me laughing uncontrollably. I eventually had to go to my cabin to stop.
2. Where would you travel, if you could go anywhere? I’d love to take a cruise through the entire Northwest Passage.
3. Explain how you chose your career path. I started college intending to major in chemistry but didn’t like organic chemistry my freshman year. I read something about the Boston Arm, which was one of the earliest prosthetic limbs attached to the body’s nervous system and was intrigued. That led me to the mechanical engineering department. One of the two classes I took first semester sophomore year in that major was Intro to Systems Engineering, which really clicked with me. People told me if I liked that, I should take Control Systems and that’s what I ended up doing and going to graduate school for. When I was job hunting, I found that there were a lot of interesting controls problems in the aerospace industry, so most of the jobs I interviewed for were in that area. It worked out well for me.
4. Write about the last time weather scared you. Probably the last time I got caught driving through a severe thunderstorm.
5. What animal do you identify with most closely? Probably bears. I’m chubby and hairy, but still very cute.
6. What kind of jobs have you had in the past? In high school, I got paid for tutoring, primarily for math and science New York State Regents exams. I also was a summer camp counselor the summer after my freshman year of college. I worked desk at my dorm at MIT. I particularly liked doing the mail because I got paid for a full hour for it, but it generally took me less time than that. I also did that during the summers, as well as doing maid work when the dorms were used to house conference attendees. Most of those jobs reminded me that I was in school so I didn’t have to do jobs like that for the rest of my life. On a more occasional basis, I got paid for being a test subject for research projects. I only did one psych experiment that I can remember, but I did a lot of experiments for people who were working on speech processing. Those basically involved reading sentences into a tape recorder. The only requirement was being a native speaker of English and, for some reason, they thought New York qualified. You could only do two hours at a time, but you got enough money to afford to go out to dinner at Joyce Chen’s Monday night vegetarian buffet.
7. What is one skill you wish you had and how would that make your life different? I wish I had a long enough attention span to get my condo organized.
8. Have you ever had an incident because you overslept? I’ve sometimes missed an event I planned to go to because I overslept, but I’ve never had anything happen with real consequences.
9. How much was Gas the last time you filled up? I think I paid $2.79 a gallon near the Myrtle Beach Airport a couple of weeks ago.
10. What kinds of activities when on at the kitchen table at home when you grew up (eating doesn't count)? I did most of my homework at the kitchen table. I also spent time there drawing and coloring. And we played board games there a lot - everything from Candyland when my brother and I were little to countless games of backgammon with my mother and scrabble with my father later on.
11. What is the biggest risk you have ever taken? Probably going to Berkeley to go to grad school. Moving to California triggered a lot of culture shock.
12. When was the last time you sent or received a card from someone? My brother sent me a birthday card.
13. If money were no object, what would you spend your days doing? I’d fly in business class a lot more.
14. What is one thing in your life that requires immediate attention? I need to go grocery shopping.
15. How do you feel about change and uncertainties? I like change. I like to go to places I haven’t been to before, for example. And I usually like meeting new people.
16. Which foods do you remember eating often as a child? I’ve told this story before but it is worth repeating. My mother once bought 12 cases of bottled borscht, 24 bottles per case, as part of our local public television station’s annual fundraising auction. She gave some of it away, but we did eat borscht for dinner at least once a week for ages. Borscht with sour cream and boiled potatoes is still one of my favorite hot weather dinners. (We usually had a second course of tuna croquettes.) When my mother died (many many years later), my uncle and I found one bottle of borscht in the pantry and we joked that it was the last one from that purchase.
17. What kind of art is your favorite or least favorite? Why? When it comes to painting, I generally prefer modern art to old masters, though there are exceptions. I am often impressed by how a given painter uses color to invoke mood. I also like photorealism, including works by Edward Hopper and Richard Estes. I tend to prefer figurative sculpture to abstract sculpture, however. As for “why,” I suppose some of it is familiarity, but I’d also say there have been works of art I’ve seen that I made me see the world in different ways. Those range from Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” to Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase” (which captures movement more effectively than any other painting I’ve seen) to Faith Ringgold’s story quilts.
18. What do you think makes a happy family? I think families are happiest when their members respect one another, including accepting their differences.
19. How do you decide if you trust a person or not? Frankly, I find trust to be mostly a matter of instinct. I have been fooled by people who I thought were good people who turned out to be deceitful users, but, for the most part, I trust my judgmement.
20. How many pillows are on your bed? Generally, two or three. I normally like flat, squishy pillows, unless I have a cold.
21. Tell me about an old friend you've lost touch with. I stayed in touch with my best friend from high school for several years, but we lost touch when she got married to a man who I didn’t much care for.
22. Think of a loved one that you have lost. If you could ask this person one question, what would you ask, and what do you think they would say? There are lots of things I’d like to be able to ask my parents and grandparents. My paternal grandmother was killed in the Shoah and I’d love to be able to ask her what my Dad was like as a child.
23. What would you write in a letter you could send back in time to yourself as a teen-ager? Mostly, I’d like to be able to tell younger me not to take myself so seriously. There are lots of specifics, e.g. focusing on health instead of weight, and learning to deal with my curly hair instead of getting it straightened, etc., but the gist of the message I wish I’d learned earlier was that I’m basically okay.
24. How do you think instant riches would affect your friendships and familial relationships? I’d like to think they wouldn’t affect most of my relationships. Except, I know my brother would always be at my heels, begging for money.
25. Can you buy happiness? Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy things that can distract you from misery.
26. What is a secret about you? If I wrote it here, it wouldn’t be a secret any more now, would it?
27. If you could travel anywhere in the world for a vacation, where would it be and why? Didn’t I answer that already in question 2? Seriously, I’d like to go almost anywhere that: a) I hadn’t already been and b) is not an active war zone.
28. Tell about a story when you got a parking ticket or traffic violation. I got a speeding ticket from a speed camera in D.C. once.
29. Is there a movie that has brought you to tears? Tell about it. There have been several. Let’s go with The Visitor, an exquisite 2007 movie directed by Tom McCarthy about a widowed professor (played perfectly by Richard Jenkins) who finds an illegal immigrant couple living in his apartment. (Note that this is entirely unrelated to the 1979 and 2022 movies by the same name.) This is one of my favorite movies of all time.
30. Name one of the kindest people you have ever met. Why? My friend, Teri, stand out. For example, when we eat out, she gets her leftovers wrapped up and gives them to homeless people.
31. Tell about a time you laughed until you cried. Back in 1998 I was on a trip on the St. Helena mail ship and one night, I was playing Pictionary with a few people. I don’t remember the exact trigger, but it might have had to do with my inability to draw a lamb. At any rate, one of the others said something that started me laughing uncontrollably. I eventually had to go to my cabin to stop.
