Ah, I love little things like this. We should do these sorts of things from time to time, given how heated this place gets and how serious the topic matter often is.
1. Do you have a personal ritual you practice if you need calming or comforting or grounding? I wouldn't say it's a "ritual", but anytime I'm stressed out or need something to calm me down or whatever, I always play some music. I usually wait until I have some alone time (which is often late at night), put on my headphones, find a CD from one of my favorite artists, and sit there and just listen to the music for a while, and either cry or let my imagination wander or something.
I also like to watch a funny TV show, and I haven't done it as much lately as I used to (or as often as I should), but I like writing in a journal and venting about whatever's stressing me out, too.
2. When do you lie? When I don't want to get into a long explanation about something, pretty much. I don't tell big lies, because I'm not that great at lying to begin with and try to avoid doing so as much as possible because I always feel bad when I do lie. But I have done the "white lie" thing, definitely. I'm not proud of that at all, but there it is.
3. Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you celebrate or do you despair? I'm a definite optimist. Always have been. I want to try and make people feel better, and given the stuff my family's been through over the years, I think it's a knee-jerk thing with me that while everyone else is worrying and stressing out and upset about this or that, I always wind up being the one who wants to calm people down and tell them things will be okay. Because it's been my experience that things do get better, even if only temporarily, and that good things and people do exist in this world.
Certainly I have my moments where I'm thinking, "We really are all screwed, aren't we?", like anyone else, and my faith in the good nature of the world does indeed get shaken violently a lot. But I just think it's better, for me, at least, to go through life with hope and excitement instead of despair and gloom.
4. In what significant to you way have you made yourself change in the last 5 years? Feeling a bit more motivation and restlessness, as well as trying to stick up for myself more often and be more expressive with my beliefs. The former I think is the result of all the personal stuff that's been going on in recent years-needing to "grow up" a bit more and learn to help take more responsiblity for myself and all that, and the latter is just a thing I've always wanted to fix about myself.
5. Cat or dog person? (or something else) I was always a dog person, because my family had dogs and I was much more used to them. I never had a problem with cats or anything like that, I just never had much experience with them.
But now we've got a cat, and I adore her, she's so cute and so sweet and really well-behaved. I still love dogs and if the opportunity presents itself someday I'd like to get another one. However, I'd say I like both animals about equally.
6. Tell us about your ideal house/home. Have you seen it or have you imagined it? Nothing too fancy. It'd be a modest two story home, I think, and I picked two stories because that way it's big enough for any friends or family to come over (or, should I ever have a family, it's big enough for everyone to fit in), but it's not so big and extravagant that you'd get lost in the place and not even see your family half the time. I don't get the homes where there's, like, 50 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms and that sort of thing-are you ever going to even
use half of those? What's the point, other than showing off how much money you have?
I want the rooms to be big enough that anyone can get through them without having to squeeze by somebody else or feel all crowded in, and there's room for a washer and dryer in the house itself. And perhaps a basement as well, for extra storage and because I live in Iowa and basements are a good thing to have around come tornado season
.
And that's about it, really. Simple but nice and comfortable. That's all I ask for.
7. Who is your favorite fictional character (books, movies, TV, etc.) and what does he/she tell us about you?
Wow. Um. Well, gosh, if I had to come up with an answer...in terms of females, I remember always wanting to be like Lydia from the "Beetlejuice" cartoon as a kid. She was a bit different and she liked weird stuff and hung out with "unusual" people and all that stuff. And I like Britta from "Community" as well, 'cause she's a total dork and she goofs up and yet she's really passionate about things and cares about and wants to help people.
There's male characters I like, too, but in that case it's simply that I have a crush on them. And most of them tend to be nerdy, geeky types with smartass senses of humor.
8. Who do you trust most? My mom and my sister. They're honest with me, I can talk to them about anything, they care about me and look out for me, they're smart and have pretty good judgment about a lot of things.
9. What do you like most about the work you do? What do you hate the most about it? What I like: Being able to help a customer find what they're looking for. When they walk out of the store happy, and they feel they've received good service, I feel good. I also like the people I work with, they're responsible and hard-working and nice and friendly, and the job is pretty easy overall. Shelve books and magazines, look up stuff for customers, clean the store...not exactly back-breaking, dangerous work I'm doing here.
What I hate: When customers are pissed off, sometimes rightfully so (through an error of our store's doing), but often because they just like to be irritating pains and complain about the silliest things. Yes, you need a receipt at our store to return things. And yes, it has to be within 30 days. Yes, we need to see your ID when you give us a check or a card that isn't signed. And so on. I do not make these rules, nor do I want to make anyone's life difficult, I just have to abide by them so I don't get in trouble. For whatever reason, some customers cannot seem to grasp that simple concept and feel the need to argue with me about store policies sometimes. It's annoying and frustrating.
Plus, it could pay better and I'd LOVE to have health insurance through it, but being a part-time job, yeah, that ain't happening.