Introduce yourself

[jedusor]

imagines is doing this 30-day meme, and it looks like a few topics could yield good LJ entries for me, so why not?

Day 01 - Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Your first love
Day 03 – Your parents
Day 04 – Your music
Day 05 – Your definition of love
Day 06 – Your hobbies
Day 07 – Your best friend
Day 08 – A precious item
Day 09 – Your beliefs
Day 10 – An inspiration
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – Your mode of transportation
Day 14 – Where you live
Day 15 – Something you love about yourself
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – Your morning routine
Day 21 – Your job and/or schooling
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – Your sleeping habits
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your favorite foods/drinks
Day 30 – Your aspirations

My name is Julia. I have other names, and I experimented a lot with them in my early teens, but by now I've mostly settled on Julia. The main exception is the National Puzzlers' League, wherein I am known as Hooligan. The NPL is important to me, both intellectually and socially. It's how I met a lot of people who are close to me, including Mike, the person with whom I currently share a home. Another of my social hobbies is juggling; although I haven't gone to juggling gatherings regularly in a long time, it's how I met some of my oldest and dearest friends. Other hobbies and interests: writing, motorcycles, slash fiction, and Go. My true passion is cognitive and behavioral neuroscience, and that's what I hope to spend my career studying. I like to think, and I like to learn how other people think.

A brief history of me: I grew up in a hippie college town in California, where I spent most of my childhood reading, fighting with my two brothers, going to renaissance fairs and juggling festivals with my mom, and occasionally inflicting my violin on my family and neighbors. My first independent research experiments took place at a park near my house when I was eight, and involved the local flora and fruit snacks provided by my best friend Emily. I was homeschooled until fifth grade, when I attended a private school and was expelled near the end of the year for attempting to hold the teacher to the same standards of respect to which she held the class. I started taking community college courses a year before moving to Kansas City, where I plowed through adolescence in five years before hopping a plane back to California. I lived there with my grandparents for a year, working retail and establishing dominion over the goat population of Sonoma. Then I moved to Massachusetts for two years to finish up my bachelor's degree in psychology. Two weeks ago I road-tripped to Seattle, where I am now settling into a year of working in neurophysiology research (and retail) before hopefully starting grad school next fall. Somewhere in there was a stepdad, an additional brother, four boyfriends, two girlfriends, an extremely interesting visit to a haunted house, a Caribbean cruise, a few experiences with death, brief complete social ostracization, some fun and some not-fun with alcohol, and work as a babysitter, a writing tutor, a grocery bagger, a psychic secretary, a mailroom attendant, a speechwriter, and a production assistant for Jonathan Coulton. (Okay, that last one wasn't paid, but boy howdy was it work.)

The older I get, the more comfortable I feel with who I am, and the harder it is to describe who I am. I guess I've moved away from defining myself through labels and more toward using labels to help other people understand what I already know about myself. "Female" is kind of complicated, but everyone is struggling with other people's stereotypes about their gender, and it's mostly not too much of a problem for me. "Bisexual," that's an easy one. "Vegan," that's pretty easy too. "Liberal" is harder. I know myself well enough to know that I haven't gotten my political views completely worked out yet; in general I'm a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, but I am deeply intrigued by the Libertarians and I want to learn more. "Polyamorous," that's the hardest one, because it's no fun to watch people slide my relationships into their mental boxes, but I'm starting to accept that it's okay for other people to make whatever assumptions they want as long as they're not affecting me, and as long as the people who matter have taken the time to talk to me and understand how I function. (A couple of people have actually asked whether Mike and I are thinking of getting married, and let me tell you right now, there is not enough NO in the world to express how NO the answer to that question is.)

I'm a very recent grownup--just had my twentieth birthday last month--and that's relevant to how I think. It's still a little odd to me to have adults choose to interact with me on my own merits, rather than because of my mom or because of my potential to become someone they would choose to interact with. I'm trying to become a person I would want to hang out with if I were someone else. I'm not all the way there, but I'm getting closer.

Comments

[42itous.livejournal.com]

I figure "polyamorous" has as many definitions as it has proponents. As for people making assumptions, let me use one of my favorite lines: "That is not a Poly problem." People make all sorts of erroneous assumptions about monogamous relationships too.

I've pretty much thought of you as a grownup in your own right since I met you six years ago. I'm glad you spent some time in Massachusetts and hope you'll come back to us some day.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

People make all sorts of erroneous assumptions about monogamous relationships too.

Oh, absolutely. People also make erroneous assumptions about the labels "straight," "gay," and "conservative." They're just different erroneous assumptions.

I'm glad to hear that! I was definitely still working my shit out when I was fourteen. (I mean, I'll always be still working my shit out, but there was an especially large pile to work through at fourteen.)

I'd like to go to Boston for grad school, but there's surprisingly little behavioral neuroscience research going on in Boston universities, and almost none in my specialty. There's MIT, which is still on my potential list, but there are a lot of problems with that, so we'll see. I can certainly see myself living there someday, though.

[imagines.livejournal.com]

an extremely interesting visit to a haunted house

AHAHAHA. OH MY GOD. I REMEMBER THIS.

I guess I've moved away from defining myself through labels and more toward using labels to help other people understand what I already know about myself.

Okay, I like how you said this, because I am noticing that I've lately shied away from the labels I used to love. I don't want to define myself, but I do want to help people understand. Hrm. I think I started off using labels as a comfort, like: "Look, here are others who are like me even though I am the WEIRDEST EVER!" And now I am mostly content to be whoever I am, so I don't have to try so hard to Be Something.

(If this comment shows up three times, it is NOT MY FAULT.)

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

I think that was my biggest realization about relationships--not that they don't fit into any preconceived boxes, but that it's okay if they do, as long as you don't force them to. I didn't realize until I experienced both how very different it is to go into a relationship expecting and trying to conform to A Relationship As Defined By Culture than it is to spend a lot of time with a person and eventually realize that the relationship has turned into A Relationship As Defined By Culture.