Interviewed By Motherdear
There has been a rash of these recently including me getting into a chain meme where I had to ask people 5 questions, and let me tell you I found it tough to come up with interesting questions.
I saw Motherdear's questions on Callie's blog, and they were so well written I asked for some too, and as you can see, she did me proud.
Q1.As someone who has had the courage to pull up stakes and live and work in another country, what are the qualities you needed to make new friends and a new life for yourself?
Not sure about courage so much as sheer determination. On the friends side, I was lucky, in that the people I was coming to work with, were known to me for upwards of 4 years. Whilst that did not automatically make them friends, it certainly gave me an "in". I simply make a point of being forward, ie organising golf outings and inviting people to them, organising nights out and inviting people, that sort of thing. Most people who know me, would not think me shy, but I am painfully so, so it takes a real big effort for me to go out with strangers.
On the new life side, perseverance really is the key. Keep banging that same door, harass people till you get your answer and try to work the system to your advantage. There have been significant hurdles in getting credit, buying a car, etc..but you gotta just break it down.
Q2.I've never been to Scotland, and sadly, will never get there. It was always my dream to go...my grandfather was from Alexandria, Dumbartonshire (Clan MacKinnon). If I were to fly over Scotland on my way to purgatory, what would I see? What would you want me to see? What picture should I take with me as my one and only view of the country of my forbears?
Sorry to hear you will never make it to my country and the birthplace of your family. On a flight over Scotland, outside of the major centres, you would mostly see farmland in the middle, and beautiful hills and lochs on the West coast. If you flew up the east coast you would see the Forth Road and Rail Bridges, then the Tay Road and Rail Bridges.
On up into the highlands, you would see more lochs and some fantastic waterfalls, my favourite being Bruar in Perthshire. Note the brown "peaty" water which you will see in almost every river or stream in Scotland, which of course gives our whisky it's distinctive flavour.
I would like you to take the picture of the rugged isolation with you as your lasting memory. Perhaps a hawk silhouetted against a snow covered mountainside.
Q3.You have been given the gift of being able to taste, smell, and see in color, the emotions that you have. What color is "loneliness" for you? And what does "love" taste like? And how does "happiness" smell like to you?
Loneliness would be colourless or at best white, almost like the scene in the Scrooged where Bill Murray is in the corridor leading down to one of the flashback scenes, everything except him is white.
Love tastes like the sweetest chocolate. The type you can eat over and over and never tire off. The kind of chocolate that you miss when you don't have it, and when you get it again, you realise just how much you really did miss it.
Happiness smells like a crisp fresh day. This can be winter after a fresh snowfall, or any day after a heavy rainfall. The smell is difficult to describe, other than as a concept, but it is definitely a fresh smell.
Q4.You have the ability to fix or cure what you consider to be the greatest, saddest, or most pressing problem on the Earth. What is the problem? How will you fix / cure it? (Your solutions can involve common sense or you may use your superpowers...just let us know which superpower you possess.)
So many problems, it is difficult to pick just one. I suppose it would be the old favourite "world peace", and I think I would definitely need superpowers to do it. I would start by erasing the prior conflict from people's minds, ie why are we fighting in Northern Ireland (although that is abating), or Iraq or Palestine. Then I would ensure that every country in the world had sufficient resources so that no one had any reason to attack another country or be dissatisfied. Lastly I would either remove religion, the cause of a significant number of conflicts, or at least rewrite a component of it, to ensure that there was no conflict of beliefs?
Of course that would all last for about 10 minutes until people got bored and found something else to fight about!
Q5.I've always thought that children should be given a number at birth, and then allowed to pick their own names when they got to be 21. (They seldom like the names their parents pick for them...) It's your 21st birthday, number 29847...what name will you choose for yourself? And why did you pick this name???
An interesting concept, but truly I don't have a problem with my name, and I suspect, apart from going through the rebellious phase, most people don't really mind their name. Unless it happens to be something ridiculous like Tulula Belle, although some unusual names are pretty cool and work well, like River Phoenix. Not sure I would have chosen Gordon, but then I can't think of anything else I might have, so I will stick with it :-)
I saw Motherdear's questions on Callie's blog, and they were so well written I asked for some too, and as you can see, she did me proud.
Q1.As someone who has had the courage to pull up stakes and live and work in another country, what are the qualities you needed to make new friends and a new life for yourself?
Not sure about courage so much as sheer determination. On the friends side, I was lucky, in that the people I was coming to work with, were known to me for upwards of 4 years. Whilst that did not automatically make them friends, it certainly gave me an "in". I simply make a point of being forward, ie organising golf outings and inviting people to them, organising nights out and inviting people, that sort of thing. Most people who know me, would not think me shy, but I am painfully so, so it takes a real big effort for me to go out with strangers.
On the new life side, perseverance really is the key. Keep banging that same door, harass people till you get your answer and try to work the system to your advantage. There have been significant hurdles in getting credit, buying a car, etc..but you gotta just break it down.
Q2.I've never been to Scotland, and sadly, will never get there. It was always my dream to go...my grandfather was from Alexandria, Dumbartonshire (Clan MacKinnon). If I were to fly over Scotland on my way to purgatory, what would I see? What would you want me to see? What picture should I take with me as my one and only view of the country of my forbears?
Sorry to hear you will never make it to my country and the birthplace of your family. On a flight over Scotland, outside of the major centres, you would mostly see farmland in the middle, and beautiful hills and lochs on the West coast. If you flew up the east coast you would see the Forth Road and Rail Bridges, then the Tay Road and Rail Bridges.
On up into the highlands, you would see more lochs and some fantastic waterfalls, my favourite being Bruar in Perthshire. Note the brown "peaty" water which you will see in almost every river or stream in Scotland, which of course gives our whisky it's distinctive flavour.
I would like you to take the picture of the rugged isolation with you as your lasting memory. Perhaps a hawk silhouetted against a snow covered mountainside.
Q3.You have been given the gift of being able to taste, smell, and see in color, the emotions that you have. What color is "loneliness" for you? And what does "love" taste like? And how does "happiness" smell like to you?
Loneliness would be colourless or at best white, almost like the scene in the Scrooged where Bill Murray is in the corridor leading down to one of the flashback scenes, everything except him is white.
Love tastes like the sweetest chocolate. The type you can eat over and over and never tire off. The kind of chocolate that you miss when you don't have it, and when you get it again, you realise just how much you really did miss it.
Happiness smells like a crisp fresh day. This can be winter after a fresh snowfall, or any day after a heavy rainfall. The smell is difficult to describe, other than as a concept, but it is definitely a fresh smell.
Q4.You have the ability to fix or cure what you consider to be the greatest, saddest, or most pressing problem on the Earth. What is the problem? How will you fix / cure it? (Your solutions can involve common sense or you may use your superpowers...just let us know which superpower you possess.)
So many problems, it is difficult to pick just one. I suppose it would be the old favourite "world peace", and I think I would definitely need superpowers to do it. I would start by erasing the prior conflict from people's minds, ie why are we fighting in Northern Ireland (although that is abating), or Iraq or Palestine. Then I would ensure that every country in the world had sufficient resources so that no one had any reason to attack another country or be dissatisfied. Lastly I would either remove religion, the cause of a significant number of conflicts, or at least rewrite a component of it, to ensure that there was no conflict of beliefs?
Of course that would all last for about 10 minutes until people got bored and found something else to fight about!
Q5.I've always thought that children should be given a number at birth, and then allowed to pick their own names when they got to be 21. (They seldom like the names their parents pick for them...) It's your 21st birthday, number 29847...what name will you choose for yourself? And why did you pick this name???
An interesting concept, but truly I don't have a problem with my name, and I suspect, apart from going through the rebellious phase, most people don't really mind their name. Unless it happens to be something ridiculous like Tulula Belle, although some unusual names are pretty cool and work well, like River Phoenix. Not sure I would have chosen Gordon, but then I can't think of anything else I might have, so I will stick with it :-)
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