You’re It!

I’ve been tagged by the lovely Kate from The Phoenixplains! There’s nothing I love more than answering seemingly random questions. It’s fun playing ‘It’ – I remember running around the playground tagging people and getting tagged.

Anyway – the rules:

1. You must post the rules.
2. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
3. Tag eleven people and link to them on your post.
4. Let them know you’ve tagged them!

I don’t know if I’ll manage 11 people – I think I’ll think of some questions and then let anyone and everyone answer them as and if they please – just send me the link in the comments when you’re done so I can see the answer to your questions…

1. What one ‘need’ and one ‘want’ will you strive to achieve in the next twelve months?

Well, I need to save money, so I will be attempting to do so over the next twelve months. My want is to build up my portfolio of writing, to finish at least one novel by the time the year is out…

2. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?

I would have done deaf studies for a degree or an MA degree. I think, although I loved doing Women’s Studies, I would have liked to have gone that route. But I’m not really the kind of person who regrets things – I don’t regret the way I went, its taken me longer to get where I am, but I’m not going to look back with regret.

3.What three words would you use to describe the last three months of your life?

An enlightening struggle. I’ve learnt that even when I feel like I’ve lost stability, I can pull myself upright and get on with it – get on with writing, even when my financial situation is threatening to tip me over the edge. If I had allowed myself to lose hope, I wouldn’t be in this place right now – writing and doing what I love doing and making myself a career.

4. What makes you weird/interesting/different?

Ha, I don’t know! I guess I’m a bit of a contradiction – I look a bit like a girly girl, with my fetish for cute dresses and outfits, but I’m pretty sure that my interests are geeky (books, sci fi, fantasy etc etc). I like to challenge stereotypes, I make it my mission to surprise people, and change their perceptions of certain stereotypes.

5. If you could do it all over again, would you change anything?

Maybe. I might change where I went to secondary school, because it was one of the hardest experiences of my life, and I think I’m still a very shy and socially reticent person because of that. At the same time, I always think that if I hadn’t gotten through it, I wouldn’t have met Dan, I wouldn’t have gone to York, I wouldn’t be who I am today. Getting through it gave me the strength of character to rely on myself and trust myself.

6. What small act of kindness were you once shown that you will never forget?

An old friend of mine, when we were at Primary School, took me under her wing when I fell out with the gang of girls I had been with all the way up to the last year (Year 6). I spent a few weeks just trying to deal with it myself and reading in the playground, but I think she eventually twigged that I could do with a friend. They turned out to be big bullies, so I’m glad she showed me that not all girls were like that.

7. If you were forced to eliminate every physical possession from your life with the exception of what could fit into a single backpack, what would you put in it?

Ugh. Err. If I had a Kindle, I would put that into it (seeing as books would take up too much space). My laptop, phone and charger. My little camera. A small assortment of cosmetics (only the bare essentials). A couple of notebooks and pens. Underwear, a couple of my favourite dresses and cardigans, comfortable shoes. I don’t know if anything else would fit into it, depends how big the backpack is! I imagined a kind of ‘camping’ backpack…

8.What have you read online recently that inspired you?

I’ve been reading this fantastic new website called The Limping Chicken. It has a collection of articles, comment pieces and reviews by deaf people, and it’s becoming my first blog news source of the day. It inspires me because until recently, I haven’t read so many deaf focused blog posts in one place, and it makes me see the differences and similarities between my experiences and other people’s experiences.

9. If you could take a single photograph of your life, what would it look like?

It would look like a sunrise, the glimmers of possibility. Something new coming.

10.What are you most grateful for?

Family, Dan, friends. I’m grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had and have taken. People who have come into my life and changed me, even if they’re gone from my life now. I’m grateful for getting a chance to do what I love doing, and to try and make it work for me.

11. What is the simplest truth you can express in words?

Life is art.

Okay, so I’ll try and come up with 11 questions:

1. What inspires you to create?

2. What makes you want to get up and face the day?

3. What was your Primary School/First school experience like?

4. Who makes you laugh and why?

5. Do you remember a time you became fixated on a particular foodstuff? What was it and why were you obsessed with it?

6. What is your guilty pleasure?

7. Do you remember the first time you went to the cinema without a parent? What was the film? How did you feel?

8. What is the best thing you’ve read this year so far – a book, a blog post, an article?

9. What fills you with confidence?

10. What is your idea of the perfect day?

11. If you had to stay in for a whole day, what would you do?

If you want to answer them – go ahead – consider yourself tagged!