The Friday Five, Dray-style!
Aug. 29th, 2026 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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thefridayfive questions, just for funsies:
1. What chores did you have to do, growing up?
- It varied, but was not strictly regimented. Generally, so long as I left spaces roughly as clean as I found them and didn't leave anything on the floor, it was considered acceptable.
2. Which chore do you hate doing the most?
- Emptying the cat's litter box was an overwhelming sense-sensation, and pulling stuff out of the kitchen sink drain similarly gave me such a case of the 'yucks' as a kid that I usually tried to escape doing them. I had a distinct moment in my early teens when I was able to confront the kitchen sink gunk with a certain level of equanimity and felt like a 'real adult' for a moment.
3. Which chore do you actually enjoy doing?
- During winter, I'd shovel our section of the walkway, and I loved it so much that I'd shovel out the neighbours' too, energy permitting. One year when a neighbour got a snow blower, he was peeved that his sidewalk had already been cleared before he could play with his new toy! Woops!
4. Did you receive an allowance when you were growing up?
- Not in any regimented way. I'd occasionally get some money, but usually very little (we're talking loonies and those old paper two-dollar bills with the robins on them!) Once, my grandfather told me that if I could tell what bird was on our then $50 bills, I could have the bill. I turned around and told him "snowy owl" on the spot and he looked at the back of the bill, looked at me, and gave it over so regretfully. Sir: I loved birds, I loved money, and I didn't realize you didn't think I'd know the answer! You should have been more prepared!
5. What was (or is) your favorite subject in school?
- I didn't really enjoy much of anything in school, looking back on it with fresher eyes. I tolerated a lot, but while I got good grades, I did not excel-- It was more like I shotgunned all the classes to 'get through them' faster. (I was a pretty miserable kiddo, but that's another can of worms.)
- The first class I remember really enjoying was the stoichiometry unit in Chemistry 20 or 30. The equivalence and balance in chemical reactions, really learning and understanding how something could change from one compound into another and still retain its mass (or if it didn't, where did the remainder go, or how did the new stuff accrete?), that stuff fascinated me in a way that no other science could. Even though I loved biology, zoology, and prehistoric creatures, those were never taught in a way that caught my mind like stoichiometry was taught. Later, in my first year of university (before I pivoted into the arts) I ate up organic chemistry in the same way. I loved learning about chirality and organic compounds, and that was probably the first place that I started being very curious about where real life and theory danced together to produce new and cool molecules. (I was terrible at the maths, calculus, etc. that would be needed to really excel in organic chem, and I also hated the thought of going into oil or pharma, so in terms of IRL capitalistic pursuits it was a dead end... but it sure did stoke my imagination!)
thefridayfive questions, just for funsies:1. What chores did you have to do, growing up?
- It varied, but was not strictly regimented. Generally, so long as I left spaces roughly as clean as I found them and didn't leave anything on the floor, it was considered acceptable.
2. Which chore do you hate doing the most?
- Emptying the cat's litter box was an overwhelming sense-sensation, and pulling stuff out of the kitchen sink drain similarly gave me such a case of the 'yucks' as a kid that I usually tried to escape doing them. I had a distinct moment in my early teens when I was able to confront the kitchen sink gunk with a certain level of equanimity and felt like a 'real adult' for a moment.
3. Which chore do you actually enjoy doing?
- During winter, I'd shovel our section of the walkway, and I loved it so much that I'd shovel out the neighbours' too, energy permitting. One year when a neighbour got a snow blower, he was peeved that his sidewalk had already been cleared before he could play with his new toy! Woops!
4. Did you receive an allowance when you were growing up?
- Not in any regimented way. I'd occasionally get some money, but usually very little (we're talking loonies and those old paper two-dollar bills with the robins on them!) Once, my grandfather told me that if I could tell what bird was on our then $50 bills, I could have the bill. I turned around and told him "snowy owl" on the spot and he looked at the back of the bill, looked at me, and gave it over so regretfully. Sir: I loved birds, I loved money, and I didn't realize you didn't think I'd know the answer! You should have been more prepared!
5. What was (or is) your favorite subject in school?
- I didn't really enjoy much of anything in school, looking back on it with fresher eyes. I tolerated a lot, but while I got good grades, I did not excel-- It was more like I shotgunned all the classes to 'get through them' faster. (I was a pretty miserable kiddo, but that's another can of worms.)
- The first class I remember really enjoying was the stoichiometry unit in Chemistry 20 or 30. The equivalence and balance in chemical reactions, really learning and understanding how something could change from one compound into another and still retain its mass (or if it didn't, where did the remainder go, or how did the new stuff accrete?), that stuff fascinated me in a way that no other science could. Even though I loved biology, zoology, and prehistoric creatures, those were never taught in a way that caught my mind like stoichiometry was taught. Later, in my first year of university (before I pivoted into the arts) I ate up organic chemistry in the same way. I loved learning about chirality and organic compounds, and that was probably the first place that I started being very curious about where real life and theory danced together to produce new and cool molecules. (I was terrible at the maths, calculus, etc. that would be needed to really excel in organic chem, and I also hated the thought of going into oil or pharma, so in terms of IRL capitalistic pursuits it was a dead end... but it sure did stoke my imagination!)
