Battlechicken’s July Challenge

So the challenge this month is to tell you all something personal about myself…  I’ve been wracking my brains over this and wondering what to tell you about me.  Its very strange as I tend to only discuss gaming related stuff here, so its actually quite hard to write,  so anyway I thought maybe I’d just do a 5 point bullet list and see what I come up with…

1. I’m a trained textile conservator (with very little post-MA experience…)  What IS a textile conservator?  We basically look after all those samplers, tapestries, costumes, flags etc that you see (or don’t see if they’re archived) in museums.  Painstaking and fiddly work.  It doesn’t just involve sewing and dyeing, you also need a good grasp of chemistry as you work with solvents and other chemicals and you need an understanding of the process of decay and how modern materials might interact with the object.  I’m not currently working in that field at the moment because hmm well, its a long story with many factors but… it includes being bullied at a previous workplace (knocked my confidence for a while), getting pregnant, being unable to travel to get the work (and that one is probably the largest factor) plus I don’t feel confident or experienced enough to start up on my own at the moment.  This may change 🙂
2. My life used to revolve around music, pubbing, clubbing and gigging (and some quaffing of pints.. :P).   I had so much fun during my 20s, I’m not sure I’d go back though… rather keep my rose tinted specs on 😉  Especially when you consider my proudest moment was at a gig and someone offered to buy my Monster Magnet t shirt cos at the time it was so rare 🙂 The best gigs I saw were Mercury Rev at Brixton Academy, Fugazi (Town & Country I *think*), Mark Lanegan at the Wedgewood Rooms,  Mudhoney at the Astoria, The Cure at Reading Festival… happy days 🙂  I’m totally out of touch now and I really don’t care 😉
3. I still can’t admit to non-gamers that I game…  I did mention it once to a co-worker and then had to spend half an hour convincing her that I didn’t gamble online :O  Its not that I’m embarrassed about it, its the lengthy explanations and trying to assure people that I don’t run around thinking I’m an elf and then the subsequent weird looks they shoot you when they think I’m not looking…. that’s what I can’t deal with…  Fortunately, many of my friends and family are gamers 🙂
4. I like being a stay-at-home mum, hate the title though 😛 My little boy just kills me laughing, I love going over the park with him, picnics, going down to the beach (oh yeah, I live on the coast!), making stuff and watching kids’ films with him – I think Dimzad and I thought MegaMind was far more hilarious than he did and we loved Kung Fu Panda too.  I made the mistake of letting him watch Austin Powers as he absolutely LOVES it but it wasn’t as erm… suitable as I thought… 😳  He’s great fun to be around and I’m really glad I’m able to spend this time with him.  As he’s at nursery part-time and will be off to school in the Autumn, I also get time to write this blog, nerd up on games and do other stuff too 🙂  Actually, that all sounds very stepford so yes I do have bad days, tired days, bored days, days when I’m glad for a break… but on the whole, its great 😉
5. Ok for the last point…  I totally ran out of inspiration so I found some ‘getting to know you’ questions 😛

• Do you have any pets?  We have two rabbits, named Buzz and Woody (no prizes for guessing who named them :P)
• What was the last book you read? George RR Martin: A Song of Ice and Fire book 5, part 2 and halfway through…
• How tall are you?  5’9″
• Are you a ‘morning’ or ‘night’ person?  definitely a night person
• Which do you prefer, sunrises or sunsets?  sunrises… but seen when you’ve been up all night 😉

So there you have it 🙂

*edit*

I thought of two more things I should have included:

1 – I have a really bad habit of overusing smilies… it got pretty bad in this post – apologies 😛

2 – when I was 3, my imaginary friend was a Dalek… what that says about me, I have no idea!