I went to a state school - I thank my lucky stars that the one I went to was as good as it is. It's the only high school dedicated to languages and multiculturalism in the state and I took Mandarin Chinese for three years and French for four. At the time I was there (as it's a loooooong time ago now hahaha!) it's fair to say there was, in the student body and the teachers themselves, no minority group. There was an equal mix of race, culture and religions. It was almost a Utopian bubble in a sense - we were educated in languages and cultures and our social groups weren't predominantely White or Chinese or Serb; they were groups of kids who hung out together because they were friends and had things in common, not based on anything else. My best friends were Cantonese, White Australian, Aboriginal Australian, Hawaiian, Ukrainian, Greek and Serbian - it never really hit me how horrible humans could be to each other because of prejudice until I graduated high school and went to university. Educationally, it was one of the top three schools in the state, so we all got an amazing learning environment as well. Friends who have kids who go the school now have the same multicultural and educational experience. I wish there were more schools like it.
From that, I went to uni and did a BA in film making and history. History is my main love, particularly medieval and Byzantine. Post uni, I wrote a thesis on women's clothing in the 12th and 13th centuries which was peer reviewed and has been used in a lot of things, from TV documentaries to historical reenactment of the period, the latter being something I loved doing until several years ago when the disabilities grew worse and put a major kaibosh on *all* activies.
I feel your pain with the knee issue - joints are awful when they're damaged. I don't blame you at all for fighting the surgery as long as possible, I'm in a similar situation and baulking because I had two surgeries on my left wrist - which is now totally unusable - that went wrong. My mind set atm is that I'd rather deal with the pain as best I can and have the limited mobility that I do than go through surgery and risk it not working because of my experiences with my wrist.
That is an amazing amount of writing you've got lined up, I'm in awe that you're able to get it done in that time! Who do you publish with? I'm a sucker for angel-based fiction, so I'll be making a note of your Angelic Prophies novel for when it comes out.
I can understand the concern - the time and energy that work takes up and then figuring out how much of both is left over at the end of the day for writing is sometimes like juggling greased juggling balls. Which part of the US are you in? I visited for the first time last year and saw Oregon, Washington state, DC, Maryland and parts of Philadelphia and LA and Canada - I loved it, such a beautiful country and everyone was so warm and friendly and welcoming. It was a wonderful experience and I'd love to go back.
I am on Facebook, though I don't use it much. Most of my social networking is done on Twitter and here on LJ. I never thought I'd have much use for Twitter and now I'm addicted to the thing!
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Date: Wed, Apr. 27th, 2011 02:24 am (UTC)From that, I went to uni and did a BA in film making and history. History is my main love, particularly medieval and Byzantine. Post uni, I wrote a thesis on women's clothing in the 12th and 13th centuries which was peer reviewed and has been used in a lot of things, from TV documentaries to historical reenactment of the period, the latter being something I loved doing until several years ago when the disabilities grew worse and put a major kaibosh on *all* activies.
I feel your pain with the knee issue - joints are awful when they're damaged. I don't blame you at all for fighting the surgery as long as possible, I'm in a similar situation and baulking because I had two surgeries on my left wrist - which is now totally unusable - that went wrong. My mind set atm is that I'd rather deal with the pain as best I can and have the limited mobility that I do than go through surgery and risk it not working because of my experiences with my wrist.
That is an amazing amount of writing you've got lined up, I'm in awe that you're able to get it done in that time! Who do you publish with? I'm a sucker for angel-based fiction, so I'll be making a note of your Angelic Prophies novel for when it comes out.
I can understand the concern - the time and energy that work takes up and then figuring out how much of both is left over at the end of the day for writing is sometimes like juggling greased juggling balls. Which part of the US are you in? I visited for the first time last year and saw Oregon, Washington state, DC, Maryland and parts of Philadelphia and LA and Canada - I loved it, such a beautiful country and everyone was so warm and friendly and welcoming. It was a wonderful experience and I'd love to go back.
I am on Facebook, though I don't use it much. Most of my social networking is done on Twitter and here on LJ. I never thought I'd have much use for Twitter and now I'm addicted to the thing!