That's right, kids...it's meme-time!
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your livejournal/website with the answers to the questions and leave the answers as comments here (or at least provide a pointer to your site).
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
(If by chance a bunch of people want to be interviewed, I reserve the right to only ask questions of the first two or three.)
The following questions are courtesy of
Jason Erik Lundberg.
1) What's your favorite fruit?
Nectarines when they're in season and pineapple the rest of the time.
2) How has becoming a mother changed your life?
I think the question implies how this particular child has changed my life; the big changes are due to the very nature of who my first son is at his core. When my second son is born at the end of the month, I suppose he'll also change my life and in different ways than his brother did.
I can't think of anything about my life that my son hasn't influenced. Some things could be viewed as being negative (e.g. my husband and I can't just run off alone together on the spur of the moment without figuring out what to do with the kid), some things are positive (e.g. there's nothing better than to wake up almost every morning to another person with a big grin running into your bedroom saying excitedly, "It's a Mama!" like you're the best thing in the world), and some things are just different (e.g. an extra little body to cook for at dinner and if he's not into tequila lime chicken you end up making a peanut butter sandwich in addition to whatever else you're cooking).
This all being said, let's just hit a couple of high points.
First of all, and I don't entirely understand how this worked, the birth of my son opened my writing floodgates and got me writing fiction again -- fruitfully for the first time in about a decade. I've been doing it quite regularly ever since and that has been a big change.
There is nothing that changes you like having another person love you unconditionally and completely and loving them unconditionally and completely in return.
I am a braver person. I am more patient in some ways and less in others. I am more flexible in some ways and less in others.
He has changed the way I understand the relationships I have with my family and has given me the experience to interpret and understand and appreciate a great many of the choices they've made and things they've done in a way that could never have happened if I hadn't had them. That alone is life-changing. Also, I have a much better relationship with my in-laws. They have more faith in me and it gives us something to talk about other than how anthropologists don't make a lot of money .
3) Are there any disadvantages for you in living in the midwest?
Yes. And just in case you'd like to know what they are, here we go…
First of all, though there are some lakes, particularly some huge, lovely ones in Northern Idaho (I'm in Southern Idaho), there are no oceans. We do have some very nice mountains, however. Secondly, and this isn't true for all of Idaho, just a good portion of it, we are a bit light on access to good sushi, though many grocery stores are starting to carry things like Nori so one can make their own. Thirdly, it's very difficult for your average person to have any citrus trees in their yard, and I would so like a lemon or orange, or particularly a lemon-orange hybrid tree. Finally, no matter what, the whole state will always vote Republican.
4) Do you write to music or do you prefer silence?
It depends on what I'm writing. A great deal of the time I write to music, but there are moments and pieces that need quiet.
5) What's the most interesting discovery you've made as an anthropologist?
There's a couple of ways that I'm inclined to answer this question. I'll tell you what the most interesting discovery was for me and then an interesting discovery/insight I've had that I think might interest you.
I discovered myself, my history, and who I wanted to be.
As an undergrad, my minor was American Indian Studies. The maternal side of my family is Chippewa (or Ojibwa) with some strong Sioux influences, though this was something that wasn't discussed a lot. My grandmother had been missionized (which involves all sorts of what nowadays would be considered abuse and being told that everything about her was evil -- her language, her beliefs, how she looked, etc.), which left some ugly marks. She was ashamed of who she was and hated her "nativeness", so she tried to hide it. Though she was what would be considered a devout practicing Catholic, she retained a great deal of the Chippewa culture/religion which she passed down to my mother and, in some respects, to me.
During my education and research, I discovered why I had some thoughts or ideas I'd had since childhood, things that seemed strange for a kid reared in Western society. Also, I began to understand why my mother and her mother behaved, and believed some things, as they did. I was given a more complete picture through my studies and piecing things together (e.g. knowing one of the schools my grandmother had been sent to and then hearing others' experiences concerning the abuse all the students endured that my grandmother had never discussed) than my family had ever given me or known to pass along. Some things that they did know they refused to believe because it was such a horrible thing (e.g. a forced march my great-grandmother was involved with). There's a great deal of healing that comes from such revelations.
When in grad school and working, I had some experiences that necessitated my personal evaluation of what sort of person I am and who I want to be, particularly in terms of my personal integrity. Will I lie and cheat and screw over the next guy to get ahead, or will I practice the ethics of the discipline and my own personal ethics/morals? What are these ethics and morals? What is the most important thing that I do with my life? I like who I am and decided to be in terms of these things, and I'm grateful to know that.
In terms of something I think you'd find interesting, I discovered (and this is personal opinion/insight that would potentially offend a lot of people) most disciplines (and maybe to a certain extent all of them) are just telling stories, giving narratives. The social sciences do, the arts do, and in terms of the sciences, I know the biological sciences certainly do. I haven't had a lot of physics and chemistry recently enough to recall, but from what I remember, they had their periods of telling stories, too. Perhaps there's not the beginning, rising action, falling action, denouement, etc., but they're narratives nonetheless. That's what people do -- they just tell stories. Some of us just recognize it and some of us write them down.
I hope you weren't expecting some story about something I dug out of the ground or some dead person and their stuff, though that kind of thing was cool, too.
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