Meme-ish

[liv]

I saw this meme chez la_marquise_de_ following links from elsewhere. And I can't quite be bothered to do the whole countdown, but they are some cute questions, so I'll do one of each.

1. Random fact about yourself
   The title of my PhD contains the word "surgical", so on some level I can count myself a doctor of surgery, though I am neither a physician nor a surgeon.
   
   
2. Thing you do everyday
   Drink tea.
   
   
3. Thing that annoys you
   Manifestations of the pattern of thought that goes, I'm good at abstract reasoning and academically prestigious subjects, therefore I'm cleverer than everybody else, therefore I'm morally superior to everyone else. I was somewhat susceptible to this myself when I was much younger, and like many people I'm more prone to be annoyed by flaws that I almost share.
   
   
4. Fear / phobia
   Getting pregnant. I'm not exactly tokophobic, but something along those lines, I obsess way more than is rational about how much it would mess up my life if I became pregnant. I'm not usually bothered by other people being pregnant or by reading about pregnancy etc but, yeah.
   
   
5. Song that you’re addicted to
   I normally don't get addicted to songs, but one that I keep replaying every time it comes up on shuffle is The Imagined Village: Tam Lyn Retold with Benjamian Zephaniah.
   
   
6. Thing you can’t live without
   It's obvious, but probably my smartphone.
   
   
7. Memory you won’t forget
   A Friday night musical celebration at Hengrave Hall during an interfaith event twenty years ago, singing bits of text from Song of Songs and feeling deeply connected to everything, and a glimpse of J striding past the window, vigorously eating a banana and Not Doing Religion.
   
   
8. Word you can’t go a day without
   Actually, I'm afraid. I am sure that says bad things about me but it's one of my most consistently over-used adverbs...
   
   
9. Thing you wish you could do
   Sing in tune.
   
   
10. Person you can trust
    I'm fortunate to have quite a few people I can trust, but the first who springs to mind is angelofthenorth.

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

Awwwww

Thank you :)

[liv]

I was reminded because we'd just recently had a conversation in which you brought up something that's a bit difficult to talk about, and we talked about it and mostly dealt with the issue. But in general I really admire the way you say what's actually true as you see it rather than what you think people want to hear.

cw: rape

[ayebydan]

I did not realise that tokophobia was a real thing. I am looking it up now and fascinated by the accounts and articles. I think I may have it or at least a mild form of it. I don't want children in that I genuingly can't imagine myself raising a small human. I will stick to my small dog. The idea of falling pregnant is just horrifying to me. I mean, one of my thoughts concerning birth control to control my edometriosis is 'well at least if I get raped I can't get pregnant' and...that is just not a normal thought process. It is nice to have a word to go and investigate. I think seeing a video of a woman giving birth as part of sex ed in p6(age 10) did not help. I mean, lights off, woman screaming, blood everywhere birthing video. I have 3 brothers at least 10 years younger than me but never touched my step mother's stomach when I knew she was pregnant. I just couldn't do it.

So yeah, not what you expected to bring up in your post but hey. Talk is good right? :)

Re: cw: rape

[liv]

Thanks for talking, and I'm really glad that my casual mention of my irrational fears was useful to you. And yeah, during phases of my life when I'm not sexually active with people who produce sperm I do worry about getting pregnant through rape, which is probably even more unlikely than my really reliable contraception failing, but it does keep me awake at night sometimes. The birth video sounds like a really inappropriate way of handling sex ed, I'm sorry you were put through that.