a meme from Bluestocking79:

[mary_j_59]

Comment on this post and I will:

1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, a word etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favourite user pic of yours.
7. In return, you must post this in your LJ/IJ.

Comments

[bluestocking79.livejournal.com]

It's your turn now! :-)

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

1. I friended you because you were nice enough to friend me, and you liked my stories.)

2. I'm afraid I associate you with the Harry Potter fandom, to be glaringly obvious! Also the color blue and the moon - don't know why.

3. Your ability to use words and your sense of humor!

4. Laughing helplessly as I read your description of a defective bundt pan - this was one of the funniest things I've ever read!

5. Well, we haven't known each other very long, so - I know you love to bake. Do you also like music, and if so, what kind?

6.Userpics? Don't know, but I think the person with green hair.

[bluestocking79.livejournal.com]

Why, thank you for such kind words! You've already made me feel very good today. :-)

Do you also like music, and if so, what kind?

I adores music actually, and my taste is very broad and eclectic. I'll listen to almost anything that interests me, no matter the genre, but I do have a fondness for classical/opera (when I'm feeling refined or I'm writing) and classic rock, when I just want to smile and feel good.

Singing is actually one of my hobbies. I've been singing and performing since I was 7 years old, and I really enjoy the experience of losing myself in the music. I've been with several different chorales and choruses, but at the moment, I'm very happy in my church's choir. There's something about singing with a group and the sound of the acoustics in a church... it feels very Divine to me. There's something miraculous about that process.

[anne-arthur.livejournal.com]

Oh good, another meme! I'll post it now. Slightly different userpic, for your consideration . . .

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Well, Anne, I'm doing really badly at the staying away from the internet thing! In any case, I consider that answering people isn't quite the same as posting, so here goes:

1. Why did I friend you? You know! I liked what you had to say about my stories on whysnape, and also what you had to say on the books - you struck me as a very thoughtful and courteous person. I also *really* liked the story you wrote about young Severus, his grandparents, and Augusta Longbottom. So, when you asked about livejournal as a forum for your writing, I encouraged you to join, and then friended you.

2. I associate you with Balliol college - Lord Peter Wimsey and Oxford!

3. Something I like about you - see above! You strike me as careful, thoughtful, ethical and very intelligent. And you write well.

4. Perhaps your asking me whether you could cite me in your wonderful essay, "Virtue and the Viper". Your comparison of Snape to Dante, and your wonderful Miss Climpson voice.

5. You're in a pretty intense and (if you don't mind my saying so) obscure field. How did you end up working on your present project? Or you can tell me anything of your choosing!

6. I like all your icons, but I have to admit I especially like romantic Snape.

[anne-arthur.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like Romantic Snape! I've been using him for a bit, but he doesn't seem to have got much comment. And I'm very flattered at being associated with such a prestigious and academic college as Balliol! But I'm not a member of any college, although I'm teaching for St Peter's, and my boss is hoping to get us membership there. I would like that - it's not one of the famous colleges, but it's lively and very friendly.
How did I get into this job? I was lucky enough to be able to study Latin at school, and I loved it. But all the time I was told, especially by careers advisers, that it was useless, and that I would do better to concentrate on my modern languages (French and Spanish). So I went to St Andrews University to study languages, but needed a third subject for my first year, continued with Latin for just one more year - and loved it so much that I dropped French at the end of that year instead! I then specialised in medieval options in both Latin and Spanish, did a PhD in medieval Latin in Cambridge, spent several years doing odd teaching and translating jobs there, and was then appointed by St Andrews (again!) to be part of a team producing a new edition of the records of the English parliament. After that I worked in York, firstly on the heresy depositions, and then producing a catalogue of petitions presented to the kings of England; and now I am in Oxford, working on the Dictionary. So the careers advisers were wrong - you can base a career on Latin. But in a sense they were right, as these have all been short-term contract jobs (the present one will, I hope, be more secure). However, I think I have been very lucky. I can remember a few years ago, walking back to my B&B after a day in the National Archives in London, reading a dozen or more little scraps of parchment from the 13th-15th centuries, each containing some quite ordinary person's complaint about some official, some powerful neighbour, some injustice, each asking the king to intervene on his or her behalf - each quite individual and idiosyncratic - and thinking with wonder that I had been able to hear these voices, coming through the ages, and to enable others to hear them too. And I am still amazed and grateful that I should be able to do anything so marvellous! If the careers advisers had told me that, I would never have believed them . . .