Five Facts Meme

[mugglechump]

I was tagged by heyurs. Once you've been tagged, you have to write an entry with 5 weird facts/things/habits about yourself, saying who tagged you. In the end you need to choose the 5 people to be tagged and list their names. No tag backs.

1) I remember strange things from my childhood: The phone number of the boy I liked in 7th grade (435-2413). My exact SAT scores (560 Math, 540 Verbal). What I named a puppy that belonged to my great-uncle's neighborhood when I went to Erie in 1983 (Clyde). The name of the stuffed animal I gave Leigh Ann Johnson for her birthday in 6th grade (Fleagle Beagle).

2) I worked as a summer employee at the CIA - twice.

3) I thought I was a liberal until about five years ago.

4) My biggest pet peeve is when people leave out the words 'to be' in a sentence. I've met an ungodly number of people that say things like, "My hair needs washed." Hello? Match your tenses, people! Your hair might need to be washed, or it might need washing, but it definitely does not need washed! Second to this is the unspeakable horror of people spelling the word 'probably' p-r-o-l-l-y. It's more common than I ever would have guessed. *cringes*

5) I am terrible about misunderstanding song lyrics. I can butcher them like nobody's business. Once I know them, though, it really irritates me if other people get them wrong.

Now for the tagging. I apologize, I don't have very many LJ friends, so I always end up picking some of the same people. I tag: chelley3, rainpuddle13, maple_charms, mynuet, and shady121. I've given Lys and Delaney a break this time!

Comments

[stellarlyssa.livejournal.com]

2. The CIA? Really? *has visions of Alias* How neat!

3. What made you realize you weren't? Just curious.

4. Die, prolly, die! That, and your/you're and their/there/they're are my biggest grievances.

Tee hee, thanks for the break. I can be random with the best of them, but I'm horrible at doing it on command!

[mugglechump.livejournal.com]

Yep, the first summer was dead boring, but the second was loads of fun. My duties were not quite as intriguing as Jennifer Garner's. *giggles* Mostly I did random office gophering.

There were a number of things that made me realize I'm more of a conservative. In the end, it really was just a realization that what I believe is right as a person and what is right for government aren't always the same. For example, I'm all for private charities, but I believe government social programs should be dramatically scaled back. I don't think those sorts of programs are what the government is intended for (at least not on such a large scale), and I think people should have much more control over what charities their money supports.

To use a specific example, there was a woman a few years ago, who used government money to fund a piece of 'art' which featured her own aborted fetus. I'm pro-choice generally, but anti-abortion personally. I don't think it's right that I should be forced via taxes to fund something that I find abhorrent, and which really has nothing to do with the government. If a private 'art' charity wants to fund that woman's creations, fine. People donating to a private charity have made the choice to do so. That is not the case with taxes.

I suppose, in the end, I just realized that the left didn't represent what I wanted for my country.

[stellarlyssa.livejournal.com]

*shudders* Ugh. That is abhorrent, I completely agree. Well. Thanks for answering honestly. I often wonder about my political leanings--I'm pretty liberal, but I hate the thought of being that way just because my parents are, so I'm always questioning, both myself and others. It has mostly strengthened my opinions, but the process has been interesting.

[mugglechump.livejournal.com]

That's exactly why I believed I was liberal for so long. My parents are pretty committed Democrats. That's the mantra I heard all my life. It never occurred to me to question it until I was well into adulthood, so good for you for pushing yourself to look at other viewpoints, no matter what conclusions they help you draw.

This will sound really silly, but one of the moments that really made me start thinking about the difference between what is right for me personally and what is right for government was when I answered a poll in a local newspaper. The poll asked:

Should students be required by law to be respectful to their teachers?

I started to click yes, my thought process being that children should be respectful to teachers. Then I stopped and realized that that was not the question. The question was should it be a law. Of course, it would be ridiculous to pass that sort of law. The law is not meant to be an etiquette (sp?) course, that is the job of the parents. So, that started me thinking of other things that I didn't necessarily think were appropriate areas for the government to meddle in.

I'm going to stop now. You get me rolling on politics and I can't seem to shut up. *grins*

[stellarlyssa.livejournal.com]

*grins also* This is why I usually try to avoid political discussions. I can go on and on and on. The Department of Mysteries on the old boards used to suck immense amounts of time from me.

Anyway, your thought processes make perfect sense to me--and not silly at all. Yay for that. So often it seems like when I'm talking to people who don't agree with me politically, I feel like they might as well be speaking Martian.

The thing that made me start questioning myself was during the last big election, when it seemed like everyone had an opinion. I couldn't vote yet (by about 8 months, I was so angry!) but I was in a government class, so obviously stuff came up. And I got so annoyed by people (mostly conservatives, I won't lie) who just spouted back the few things their parents had told them, and couldn't really say why they thought that way. It infuriated me. Then I started to wonder if I wasn't doing the exact same thing, which would make me a huge hypocrite. And so I kind of freaked out and started asking questions, doing random research, even taking online quizzes about which candidate I most agreed with. I was so confused for a month or so. I've got past the confusion, but not the curiosity.

It's hard to believe that one of my biggest personal crises in high school was about my politics. I must be one odd duck.

And now I've rambled on! :-)

[mugglechump.livejournal.com]

Ah, the DOM. It's probably a good thing that they took that away from me. I spent *way* too much time in that forum. As one of very few conservatives on the boards, I always felt like I needed to present an alternate viewpoint so that it wasn't just a matter of one side just ganging up to bash the other and pat themselves on the back. One time I even got a PM from someone thanking me for doing it. That was really cool, but also a little overwhelming. Suddenly it felt like I was speaking for more than myself, and that was a lot of pressure.

I'm sure if my boss realized how much time I spent in the DOM forum, she would be glad it was gone.

[mynuet.livejournal.com]

720 verbal, 610 math. High-fives you for being the only other person I know who remembers such random trivia.

[mugglechump.livejournal.com]

Wow, no wonder you got in Johns Hopkins. Those are impressive scores. High-fives you for stomping my SAT scores into the dirt!

[mynuet.livejournal.com]

I do really well with multiple choice questions - even if I don't know the answer, I can reason my way to a guess that's probably correct. And, well, there's the whole grammar nazi thing...