LJ Idol - Zero Week - Introduction

[aggienaut]

Instructions:
Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair - just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with the picture.

VOILA:

   For this LJ Idol thing I am supposed to write an introduction. The first thing I feel I should get out there is I have never seen American Idol. Not once, not a minute of it. So the way some of the rules of this thing are explained I feel assumes one is familiar with that show, and I am not at all (what in the name of cthulhu is "the green room"?!), so bear with me.

   I don't believe in telling you who I am. I am more interested in who you decide I am after your own observation. In fact that fascinates me.

   But some basic facts. I graduated UC Davis two years ago with a degree in International Relations (emphasis on Peace & Security, Russia / Eastern Europe), and minors in Communications, History, and Poli Sci. I am presently putting this education to good use working full time as a beekeeper.

   I am currently located in Orange County, California, but constantly plotting to get out. Latest plots: (1) State Department job app has made it through the first round of screening, if it goes through I'll be sent to a random embassy and moved around constantly, sweet! (2) If that doesn't go through I've got a Peace Corps app going on and they're desperate for beekeepers so I'm optimistic I'll get in, will probably be sent to Malawi to live in a mud hut for two years, which sounds like a jolly adventure! (3) In the mean time after my recent epic roadtrip I'm applying for jobs around the Portland area because it seems awesome up there.

   Otherwise I like photography, travelling, camping, roadtrips, adventure, linking to things, and texting (not while driving trains). It vexes me that my phone ALWAYS capitalizes the 'Y' in "you're" and I also dislike non-indented first lines of paragraphs and non-justified alignment of pages of text. (=

   I'm presently counting down until Epic Roadtrip 2009 (appx 49 weeks to go!) and 30 in 30 VI.

There will be pictures.

In this case I had the opportunity to catch a photo of the city of Newport Beach getting nuked.

Comments

[quoting-mungo.livejournal.com]

Hello, nice to meet you!
I take you're a fan of Gnomes too, given the picture?

Good luck in the contest!


-Alexandra

Gnomes

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

And here you said in your intro you weren't good at saying hi! (=

I think gnomes are neat in general, but if by Gnomes you mean a specific multimedia occurance of them I'm not familiar with it. I just pulled this picture off the net after considering various other monsters I found err I mean took my own picture just this moment! (=

Re: Gnomes

[quoting-mungo.livejournal.com]

I'm not! It's all malicious lies! Cake lies, I tell you!

I was talking about this book (http://www.librarything.com/work/52277/book/31358685) (was also made into a cartoon movie which is a pain and a half to get a hold of nowadays because rights aren't quite clear), it's a really beautiful piece of work and if you get a chance you should check it out.


-Alexandra

Re: Gnomes

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Ah no I'm not familiar with that book but it sounds interesting.

Gnomes are neat but if I turn my head ninety degrees I have "A Time for Trolls" on my bookshelf, which is of course a book of Norse myths and folktales about trolls.

Re: Gnomes

[quoting-mungo.livejournal.com]

Oh, neat! I love folktales/myths, and this area is, indeed, ripe with them.


-Alexandra

Re: Gnomes

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Aha, du bor i sverige! Jag borte i sverige for ett år (1998-1999) i varmlands (Kristinehamn, nästa till Karlstad). Tjenare!

Re: Gnomes

[quoting-mungo.livejournal.com]

Jodå, kallt och jävligt är det också. :P
Får jag fråga, hur lärde du dig svenska?


-Alexandra

Re: Gnomes

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Jag var en uttbyter student nar jag vär femton (=

Re: Gnomes

[quoting-mungo.livejournal.com]

Då var du en bättre utbytesstudent än italienskan vi hade i min klass andra året på gymnasiet. Hon tyckte det var för jobbigt att försöka lära sig svenska så hon envisades med att prata engelska hela tiden.


-Alexandra

[lilmissmagic71.livejournal.com]

*grin* I look forward to reading more of you... welcome aboard!

Re: welcome aboard!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks! (=

[crowblood-heart.livejournal.com]

....either I'm incredibly dense or you're obscenely creative, maybe both are true.

It didn't even occur to me that this was an introduction until I reread it and saw the title (obviously I'm always on the lookout for weird memes, though I'm not fond of the 'take-a-picture' variety).

Nice to meet you and this was an eye-opener of an intro. I like your style, even though it's not exactly my cup of tea.

Cups of Tea

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hahaha thanks.

I'm always interested in constructive criticism, what exactly about it isn't your cup of tea?

Re: Cups of Tea

[crowblood-heart.livejournal.com]

to be honest, it's more me than you with what i don't like (whee bad break-upline usage). I think it's mostly that I have a hard time recognizing humor over the net. [Amazingly I can still find more positives than negatives!]


+ covers everything
+ well-organized
+creative/unorthodox method
-like i said not fond of meme format, though I admit it's creative
- took me a while to get the end picture and caption (i blame the fact that i can't connect separate objects as related generally speaking)

Re: Cups of Tea

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah I hate memes too but the idea to post the troll was too funny to pass up, and then it occured to me it would be a great lead-in to an intro.

And I dunno _I_ think the sun looks totally like a nuclear mushroomm cloud in the picture, but no one has commented positively on that so I may be the only one on that. (=

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!!

[kittenboo.livejournal.com]

actually ljidol is nothing like american idol, except that people vote and the people with the lowest votes are eliminated.

the green room refers to the backstage room people wait before going out on stage (could be tv or theater).

:)

Green Room

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

And in the context of LJ Idol the green room is ... official entries set aside for discussion in the comments instead of links to submissions?

Re: Green Room

[kittenboo.livejournal.com]

in lj idol the green room is simply a name given to posts where contestants can talk to each other, discuss their day, what entries they like, what's going on in their life. it's just discussion in general, a way to socialize and meet people.

there is usually a green room every day, although not always on weekends.

[finding_helena]

I've never watched American Idol either, and don't intend to.

I sort of envy you for going to UCD. Davis is my late hometown (well, in a vague sense) and I've spent just enough time hanging around there to think it's super-cool! I wish I lived in an area that was more conducive to biking. Le sigh.

Beekeeping... awesome!

Good luck in the contest.

Davis

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah Davis is really delightful. After five years there for college I was like "I need to get out!!" but I'm already thinking of moving back. I could run a few hundred hives in a field on the outskirts of town...

[jenandbronze.livejournal.com]

Great intro! *LOVE* the monkey pix... That was just too funny, I cracked up laughing! Good luck to you this season!

[darktruth.livejournal.com]

how do we vote for you, broseph?

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I believe you join the therealljidol community (it only carries like a post a day tops) and when the time comes they'll post an entry with a poll in it. I suppose I'll link to it at that time so those who want to support me know its up.

Thanks for your support! (=

[med-kitty.livejournal.com]

Very cool, well I look forward to reading more and seeing what opinions I form of you as the weeks go by.

[kenakeri.livejournal.com]

Nice intro. I added you back BTW.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks (=

[ahavah]

Very nice post! And you're cute, too. Look forward to seeing more.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Admittedly I got lucky and the meme caught me on a good day ;D

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

I believe I've seen that troll before in the Gnomes "fieldguide" that came out a number of years ago. I still have my copy of it around here someplace :)

I like this intro very much in that it's not what one expects to read. That, in and of itself, says a lot about its author.

Welcome to Idol!

Gnome Fieldguide

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Someone else (quoting_mungo) in the comments above was telling me about that book. It is a neat book?

Also, thanks! (=

Howdy!

[(Anonymous)]

I noticed that you friended me today so I thought I'd drop in for a spell. How nice to meet another civilized human being with a pleasant personality! (You know you had that coming after posting a picture of a TROLL on your journal! *G*) There are several other folks on LJ that also either like bees (like me) or they keep bees (squid_ink). Do you have any experience with the Africanized bees?
So you're thinking about joining the peace corps. There's a book entitled "Living Poor" that you might want to read first. It was written by a man who joined the peace corps and was sent to South America. Sometime during the past couple of years I looked the book up on Amazon.com and someone had posted a favorable comment about the man who had known him during his peace corps stay.
Best of Luck with LJIdol!
:)

Re: Howdy!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hm do you have an lj anonymous sir/madam?

Yeah there are a lot of africanized bees here.. in fact the official studies say 70% of the feral bees here!! But its not all the media makes you think.. they aren't all flying around looking to sting people!

But there's a very noticable difference between the temperment of domestic (European) bees and feral bees here. I can open up my hives without a suit and just some smoke, but I definitely wouldn't mess with a feral colony without at least putting a veil on! and then they ram into it constantly making it sound like its raining (but I've found all bees are relatively unlikely to go for the arms and legs.. they home in on the carbon dioxide one exhales, as that it the only vulnerable place on the furry animals that are their most common predator).

I'll check out that book, thanks!

and thanks for saying hi!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Oh I didn't realize it was doing that. a /font or two at the very end of my entry should do that.

I'm so accustomed to starting entries with [p align=justfy][font face="courier new"] etc that I don't even notice I'm doing it! I should probably do away with the courier font (at least for this thing) I've heard in the past it annoys people. /=

[java-fiend.livejournal.com]

That's quite the interesting skill set you have there. Very interesting stuff. What exactly does a beekeeper do?

I would love to travel around the world... though living in a mud hut might be stretching things a bit. It would be too cool for a while, but 2 years? Yikes. lol...

Glad to hear I'm not the only one yearning to get the hell out of So Cali. Maybe I'm not as crazy as some folks think. :-)

Welcome aboard and best of luck this season!

Re: What exactly a beekeeper does.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

In addition to hanging out in clouds of bees and getting stung in the face, I probably spend more time buiding equipment (hammering boxes and frames together) and then there's other random things.. like today I went out and looked at some land in a new location to potentially put some beehives on. And then there's ample downtime. When I told people I was going on a two week roadtrip they were like "you must have a really flexible job!" yes I do, and I wouldn't want in any other way. I love to just get up and go, and my boss (he owns the hives, I just work them) likes to go boating so frequently I'll spend a weekday "working" by being out on a boat. Its pretty much the life.

Yeah two years is kinda a scary commitment but hey there's worse things to do for two years (like, in my opinion, 9-5 5 days a week in a law office).

My friend Janelle's friends kept asking her why she was leaving. After seeing the Up North with her I could only ask her why she hadn't left much much sooner!!

Re: What exactly a beekeeper does.

[java-fiend.livejournal.com]

Well, it's certainly an interesting existence you have. That's very awesome. Except for the whole getting stung in the face part. lol..

[agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com]

I've never seen American Idol either, but I console myself with the fact that I have seen some episodes Idool 2004 in Flanders, as well as various episodes from various seasons of Star Academy and La Nouvelle Star, which is more then enough to send me over the edge I could've had on others!

Lovely intro, by the way ;)

In the Beginning...

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Just happened to be revisiting here and realized I never replied to this comment! :D