Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Random Dozen

I've never participated in this before, but I keep reading The Jo's Know's weekly posts, and enjoy them so much.  So today, I need something like this.



1. I've always wondered why we were taught both printing and cursive. Do you prefer to print or write cursive? (Keyboard is not a choice.)
Printing.  I hate cursive.  Maybe I'll learn to like it eventually in teaching my kiddos.
2. Are you a dreamer or a realist?  Uhhh, probably a realist.
3. Billy Joel or Elton John?  While I like some individual songs, I'm not a fan of either of them.
4. What is the scariest movie you've ever seen? Not just horror flicks but also ones where the tension or suspense is killer, for example, Flightplan (2005): A bereaved woman and her daughter are flying home from Berlin to America. At 30,000 feet the child vanishes and nobody admits she was ever on that plan.

Well, I'd have to say The Killing Fields.  I went with a friend of mine in high school.  Neither of us had the first clue what it was about, nor would it have occurred to me that there would be a problem had I known.  My friend really tensed up shortly after the movie began, and got more and more stressed as we watched.  I had no idea why.  It was after the movie that was scary.  He was so shaken up.  So, while chain smoking about a pack and a half of cigarettes, he told me about his father.  I had no idea his "dad" wasn't his father, or that his sister was his half-sister.  His mom remarried when he was only a toddler.  His father was killed in Cambodia when he was a baby.  He told me all kinds of things about what little he knew about it, and I ended up shaken up.  I mean, in history class we always stopped at the Baby Boom.  I vaguely knew about a war in Korea (you know, because of MASH), and even more vaguely about a war in Vietnam.  I kinda sorta remember seeing war protests on tv news.  And I vaguely knew that lots of soldiers had died.  But that was truly the first time it occurred to me that those soldiers had families, and that they left kids I knew fatherless.  I didn't know that I had family members who had served in 'Nam.  It had never crossed my mind that my father was one of those people worried about the draft board.  Mostly because I knew virtually nothing about anything that happened in this country after 1950, because we hadn't been taught that in school.  Even my 20th Century History course spent about three weeks on the Great Depression and how FDR saved our country, half of the semester on World War II, and about a week each on every other decade through the 1970's.  The only thing we learned about the Vietnam War was about the protests, and how it was all Nixon's fault.  Anyway, probably not the answer people expect... but this movie still reminds me that it is real people fighting and dying not just then, but now.  And it is worse now, because the side I didn't recognize back when I first saw The Killing Fields is that those soldiers have mothers and fathers and brothers too.  And grandparents.  
5. Now what is the scariest real-life moment you've had?
Hmmm.  Not sure I'm willing to blog about the scariest moment.  But very close to the top would be when I realized that Connor was not expected to live long enough for them to perform an emergency c-section.  I didn't exactly grasp it as it was happening, but as I woke up in the recovery room all I knew was that my baby was gone.  And I vaguely recalled that there wasn't enough time to give me a spinal and they had to knock me out.  And I vaguely recalled how incredibly serious everyone had been, gradually realizing that they were all expecting to be removing a dead baby.  And over that haze, I heard a nurse saying, "She's coming to.  Someone get her husband." and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was never going to be a mother of living, breathing children... 

Of course, the nurse came over, told me it was a boy, and that he was in NICU (whatever NICU was, I had no idea).  Dale came, gave me the vital stats (3 lbs, 6 oz, 15.5 inches).  Everything eventually worked out.  But that barely conscious time was horrible.  
6. What word do you misspell without fail?  Pretty much anything with more than three syllables.
7. Name something you like to do but are not really talented or good at?  Sing.
8. Do you get your emotional/mental batteries recharged by being around people or by having alone time?  It used to be from being around people.  Now it is by being alone.
9. Have you ever been on TV?  I think so.  Part of an orchestra, maybe?  I remember needing to figure out how to set the VCR to record (VCRs were incredibly high tech devises then!)  I don't remember what it was for though.
10. Apple or pumpkin pie? (Don't be greedy.)  Apple.  I only make pumpkin pie because my family thinks it is essential for Thanksgiving.  I like pumpkin cheesecake though.
11. How many magazine subscriptions do you have?  Ummm.  I don't think I have any currently.  Received my last issue of Answers.  Received my last issue of Bible Study Magazine.  OH!!!   The Old Schoolhouse!!!  So I have 1.
12. What lesson do you have to keep re-learning?  That when I don't have enough time to pray, I really don't have enough time not to pray.

2 comments:

Johanna said...

I'm with you on number 12. Somehow it seems to get squeezed out when it really, really needs to be added in extra! I'm glad you played along this week! Joanna's will be up at our place tomorrow, too.

Tess said...

Number 5 made me cry.... I don't know if was for you or for me... Why is it that as mothers, are scariest moments relate to the health, safety and well-being of our children?

Ditto on number 12!