Six questions, six answers
Mar. 6th, 2015 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12I was given these six questions by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
christinafairy as part of a meme. Answers are behind the cut.
1. What city did you enjoy more, Canberra or Sydney?
It depends when we're talking about. I loved Canberra when I lived there as a child and teenager. My life was full and busy, packed with gymnastics training, piano lessons, schoolwork, weekend jobs, surrounded by green spaces. My world was circumscribed by bus routes, and life seemed to happen in these interstitial, unnoticed spaces: the food court of the local shopping centre, swing sets at austere suburban playgrounds, the path worn across the grass by a thousand teenage feet walking from my high school to the bus stop in Manuka, the benches in Garema Place, bus interchanges. I knew the bounds of my world, shop-keepers knew my name and those of my parents and sister. In other words, Canberra made me feel known, and thus I knew who I was. In those years, I loved it.
When I went back there to work in 2007...not so much.
Sydney, weirdly, never felt like home when I lived there. It took moving to the other side of the world for me to feel like I was anything other than a guest there. But it is a truly wonderful city. I love its fierce energy, I love how every neighbourhood has a subtly different feel, I love that it is nothing like any Northern Hemisphere city I've ever visited. I love the blue of its sky and sea.
When I think about Canberra, I associate it with childhood and feel this aching sense of loss. For all that I went back as an adult, I feel that it's a space I can never go back to, because Canberra, to me, is an age and not a place, and that age is now unreachable.
2) Who is your favourite academic, and why?
That's a really interesting question. I'm a huge fan of John Carey because he approaches medieval Irish literature in a way that makes sense to me, and has written perceptively on what I consider to be some of the most beautiful, powerful texts in the world. I also find him something of an academic rarity, in that his writing is both clear and pleasing (in an aesthetic sense) to read. His book A Single Ray of the Sun is one of my favourite pieces of writing of any genre.
3) For someone visiting Cambridge, what would you recommend seeing/doing?
It depends on the weather and the amount of time you're here. If it's a clear day, I would always recommend taking the opportunity to view the city from the tower of Great St Mary's or (if you're lucky enough to know a member of a college) the roof of a college chapel such as that of St John's or King's. I would also encourage walking along the river either to Grantchester (where there's an excellent tea-room in an old orchard) or the other direction towards Fen Ditton. Both the chapel towers and the river are a good way to get a different perspective on the city.
It's a bit of a cliche, but I do think visiting the various central colleges is worth it simply for the beautiful architecture and grounds, but it's best to go with someone who studies at or works for the university as that way you get in for free. There's also several university-affiliated museums which are worth checking out.
I'm a massive foodie, so most of my other recommendations involve going to very specific pubs, cafes or restaurants, as my first concern in any new place is finding the best food!
4) What is your favourite Aussie animal?
I love that Australian animals are so bizarre, the result of millennia of genetic isolation, and as a result they don't conform properly to the specifications of being mammals. The stranger the better in my opinion, and thus my favourites are probably echidnas and platypuses for the sheer headtrippery of being the only monotremes in the world. Not only do they look like they shouldn't exist, they lay eggs, but feed their young milk like mammals. Seriously weird.
5) Name 3 novels you could not live without.
I can't limit this to novels because so much of what I read is trilogies or series. Therefore, I name three series: The Pagan Chronicles by Catherine Jinks, the Romanitas Trilogy by Sophia McDougall and His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. If I'm only allowed to pick a single book from each series I would choose Pagan's Vows, Savage City and smoosh the three His Dark Materials books into one giant mega-book because I really can't separate them out!
6) What is your favourite country, and why?
I've visited lots of countries, but I don't think you necessarily get an accurate picture of what life in them is like as a tourist, so that limits me to the four countries in which I've actually lived: the US, Australia, the UK and Germany. The US I must discard, as I only lived there until I was two years old. The other three have their advantages and disadvantages.
Australia has landscapes of great natural beauty, and it will always have what I perceive to be the right 'look'. (I don't really know how to explain this, just that the Australian versions of cities, suburbia, rural areas, coasts, wild nature look normal to me and everywhere else seems like a startling departure from this norm.) Its beaches are without compare, and it has the most amazing food and cafe culture which I miss enormously. However, I don't like how far away it is from everywhere else, and that unless you live in certain parts of Sydney or Melbourne having a car becomes essential. I also find its antintellectualism, xenophobic politics and lack of forward-thinking among its politicians to be troubling and unpleasant.
I've loved living in the UK so far. I like how close everything is to everything else, and I love the sense of history being written into the landscape and architecture. When I studied at Cambridge, my college was older than my country by a good 500 years (although nowhere near as old as the culture of those who first inhabited - and continue to inhabit - that land). I like the weather in the UK (yes, really), and I love London so much it's almost physically painful. I love living so close to so many places in Europe, as it makes visiting them very cheap and easy. I don't like the current wave of xenophobia sweeping through the UK, and I think the current government has made a difficult situation worse by systematically going after the most vulnerable, doing irreparable harm.
I only lived in Germany for a year (and then in a somewhat artificial situation as an exchange student) so I know it less well, but I appreciated its low cost of living, its beautiful Christmas markets (and indeed its whole approach to winter) and the way everyone decamped on summer afternoons to outdoor cafes to drink iced coffee, beer or sparkling wine in the sunlight. I liked the people's blunt practicality, even if it sometimes seemed more like rudeness to me, coming from a country where equivocating and circumlocution are more common. Again, Berlin was such a fabulous city and I want to go back there and explore it some more. Things I didn't like about Germany: the bureaucracy. When it worked, it was a marvel, and when it was bad it was a nightmare.
I can see I haven't really answered this question, but it's so hard. I don't think I've lived in enough places to be able to name my favourite country.
Please comment if you would like six questions of your own.
christinafairy as part of a meme. Answers are behind the cut.1. What city did you enjoy more, Canberra or Sydney?
It depends when we're talking about. I loved Canberra when I lived there as a child and teenager. My life was full and busy, packed with gymnastics training, piano lessons, schoolwork, weekend jobs, surrounded by green spaces. My world was circumscribed by bus routes, and life seemed to happen in these interstitial, unnoticed spaces: the food court of the local shopping centre, swing sets at austere suburban playgrounds, the path worn across the grass by a thousand teenage feet walking from my high school to the bus stop in Manuka, the benches in Garema Place, bus interchanges. I knew the bounds of my world, shop-keepers knew my name and those of my parents and sister. In other words, Canberra made me feel known, and thus I knew who I was. In those years, I loved it.
When I went back there to work in 2007...not so much.
Sydney, weirdly, never felt like home when I lived there. It took moving to the other side of the world for me to feel like I was anything other than a guest there. But it is a truly wonderful city. I love its fierce energy, I love how every neighbourhood has a subtly different feel, I love that it is nothing like any Northern Hemisphere city I've ever visited. I love the blue of its sky and sea.
When I think about Canberra, I associate it with childhood and feel this aching sense of loss. For all that I went back as an adult, I feel that it's a space I can never go back to, because Canberra, to me, is an age and not a place, and that age is now unreachable.
2) Who is your favourite academic, and why?
That's a really interesting question. I'm a huge fan of John Carey because he approaches medieval Irish literature in a way that makes sense to me, and has written perceptively on what I consider to be some of the most beautiful, powerful texts in the world. I also find him something of an academic rarity, in that his writing is both clear and pleasing (in an aesthetic sense) to read. His book A Single Ray of the Sun is one of my favourite pieces of writing of any genre.
3) For someone visiting Cambridge, what would you recommend seeing/doing?
It depends on the weather and the amount of time you're here. If it's a clear day, I would always recommend taking the opportunity to view the city from the tower of Great St Mary's or (if you're lucky enough to know a member of a college) the roof of a college chapel such as that of St John's or King's. I would also encourage walking along the river either to Grantchester (where there's an excellent tea-room in an old orchard) or the other direction towards Fen Ditton. Both the chapel towers and the river are a good way to get a different perspective on the city.
It's a bit of a cliche, but I do think visiting the various central colleges is worth it simply for the beautiful architecture and grounds, but it's best to go with someone who studies at or works for the university as that way you get in for free. There's also several university-affiliated museums which are worth checking out.
I'm a massive foodie, so most of my other recommendations involve going to very specific pubs, cafes or restaurants, as my first concern in any new place is finding the best food!
4) What is your favourite Aussie animal?
I love that Australian animals are so bizarre, the result of millennia of genetic isolation, and as a result they don't conform properly to the specifications of being mammals. The stranger the better in my opinion, and thus my favourites are probably echidnas and platypuses for the sheer headtrippery of being the only monotremes in the world. Not only do they look like they shouldn't exist, they lay eggs, but feed their young milk like mammals. Seriously weird.
5) Name 3 novels you could not live without.
I can't limit this to novels because so much of what I read is trilogies or series. Therefore, I name three series: The Pagan Chronicles by Catherine Jinks, the Romanitas Trilogy by Sophia McDougall and His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. If I'm only allowed to pick a single book from each series I would choose Pagan's Vows, Savage City and smoosh the three His Dark Materials books into one giant mega-book because I really can't separate them out!
6) What is your favourite country, and why?
I've visited lots of countries, but I don't think you necessarily get an accurate picture of what life in them is like as a tourist, so that limits me to the four countries in which I've actually lived: the US, Australia, the UK and Germany. The US I must discard, as I only lived there until I was two years old. The other three have their advantages and disadvantages.
Australia has landscapes of great natural beauty, and it will always have what I perceive to be the right 'look'. (I don't really know how to explain this, just that the Australian versions of cities, suburbia, rural areas, coasts, wild nature look normal to me and everywhere else seems like a startling departure from this norm.) Its beaches are without compare, and it has the most amazing food and cafe culture which I miss enormously. However, I don't like how far away it is from everywhere else, and that unless you live in certain parts of Sydney or Melbourne having a car becomes essential. I also find its antintellectualism, xenophobic politics and lack of forward-thinking among its politicians to be troubling and unpleasant.
I've loved living in the UK so far. I like how close everything is to everything else, and I love the sense of history being written into the landscape and architecture. When I studied at Cambridge, my college was older than my country by a good 500 years (although nowhere near as old as the culture of those who first inhabited - and continue to inhabit - that land). I like the weather in the UK (yes, really), and I love London so much it's almost physically painful. I love living so close to so many places in Europe, as it makes visiting them very cheap and easy. I don't like the current wave of xenophobia sweeping through the UK, and I think the current government has made a difficult situation worse by systematically going after the most vulnerable, doing irreparable harm.
I only lived in Germany for a year (and then in a somewhat artificial situation as an exchange student) so I know it less well, but I appreciated its low cost of living, its beautiful Christmas markets (and indeed its whole approach to winter) and the way everyone decamped on summer afternoons to outdoor cafes to drink iced coffee, beer or sparkling wine in the sunlight. I liked the people's blunt practicality, even if it sometimes seemed more like rudeness to me, coming from a country where equivocating and circumlocution are more common. Again, Berlin was such a fabulous city and I want to go back there and explore it some more. Things I didn't like about Germany: the bureaucracy. When it worked, it was a marvel, and when it was bad it was a nightmare.
I can see I haven't really answered this question, but it's so hard. I don't think I've lived in enough places to be able to name my favourite country.
Please comment if you would like six questions of your own.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-03-06 03:38 pm (UTC)Also yay please give me questions, I have wanted to post and have had no idea what to post about, haha!
no subject
Date: 2015-03-06 05:40 pm (UTC)I'm fascinated by people's relationship with place, with land(scape) and identity and history and home. (To the extent that I wrote honours, MPhil and PhD theses on several variations on this theme!) 'Visual signature' is exactly the phrase I was looking for, and it's not something that's limited to Australia of course. Do you feel the same about the look and feel of the Philippines?
I am so glad you asked me about whether I'm in Australia right now, because I also love meeting internet people! Unfortunately, I currently live in the UK (I moved to Cambridge for university about seven years ago and never left). However, I am going back to Australia to visit family and friends in December this year and would absolutely love to meet up with you then! My mum and sister live in Sydney and my dad, stepmother and other sisters live in Melbourne, and I'm likely to be in Melbourne for about five days and Sydney for the rest of the time. If mid-December is going to work for you and your partner, I would love to either meet up in Melbourne or we could come for the day to where you are (I would have my own partner with me). But December is ages away, so let's organise the logistics closer to when I'll actually be there!
Yay, meeting lovely internet people!
Six questions:
1. What is one thing you like about creating art?
2. What is a story (novel-length, short story, piece of poetry with a strong narrative element, whatever you like) that has resonated with you this year?
3. You mentioned Australia's 'distinct visual signature'. What would you say is the 'visual signature' of the Philippines?
4. What is one thing that surprised you about Australia?
5. Which three works of literature from the Philippines would you recommend and why?
6. Not really a question, but please tell me about your RIDICULOUS POMERANIANS!
no subject
Date: 2015-03-06 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-07 03:21 pm (UTC)Do you want six questions of your own?
no subject
Date: 2015-03-07 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-08 10:54 am (UTC)1. Where did you get the idea for your novel, and what was the writing process like?
2. What's one thing that surprised you about living in Sweden?
3. What's one thing you miss about the US?
4. What is one thing that your children have taught you?
5. What are four stories (books, TV shows, films, whatever you like) that really resonated with you?
6. If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go?
no subject
Date: 2015-03-07 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-08 10:50 am (UTC)Let me know if you want to have six questions of your own.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-08 04:15 pm (UTC)