On-line personality

[Lacewing]

Popularity and connection are fine things, but so are freedom and independence. It's not easy to balance those qualities, and any such harmonious balance there would seem inherently unstable and need tons of effort to maintain.

Yes, indeed!

Greta... your imaginations of people were great fun.

LW, I imagine you as tending towards a gypsy look, jewellery and retro gear bought from second hand shops. Younger and much more attractive lol.

Yes... to the gypsy look... sometimes a bit medieval.
Limited jewelry most of the time... as I have goats and chickens and a wilderness life that isn't gentle on jewelry.
I like and tend toward "stylish hippie" clothing, even though they often end up with grasses, and seeds, and fragments of hay on them.
I am very young-spirited, but I am over 50. People have always guessed me to be younger than I am.
5'2"... long brown hair (which is turning gray!)... brown eyes. Usually smiling... and often laughing.
Approachable, friendly. Usually sweet, kind, and gentle... but fierce when inspired to be (as perhaps most here might think of me).

My friends gave me the name "Lacewing" when they were drunkenly trying to come up with "bug names" for each of us. I lucked out with that name. One of the girls was "Praying Mantis".

I will fondly envision you, Greta, in your socks and sandals! Very stylish! I'm typically in flip-flops.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

You left out 'modest and humble'.

[Lacewing]

You left out 'modest and humble'.

What's the matter Veggie... feeling crabby today?

I was just trying to give a more balanced view (as my friends know of me) than probably most people here would guess. I imagine we all feel a bit misunderstood in this medium. I didn't mean to come off as conceited. I'm not.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

You left out 'modest and humble'.

What's the matter Veggie... feeling crabby today?

I was just trying to give a more balanced view (as my friends know of me) than probably most people here would guess. I imagine we all feel a bit misunderstood in this medium. I didn't mean to come off as conceited. I'm not.

I'm always crabby. That's what makes me so irresistible.

[Greta]

... I have goats and chickens and a wilderness life

Nice! I wouldn't have the courage to be so far from doctors at this age (a tad older than you ) but fortunately there's some bush and water walks nearby.

I like and tend toward "stylish hippie" clothing, even though they often end up with grasses, and seeds, and fragments of hay on them. :)

Hah! Hippie gear is inevitable for those of our generation who preferred pot's mind expansion to booze's mind constriction.

I am very young-spirited, but I am over 50. People have always guessed me to be younger than I am.
5'2"... long brown hair (which is turning gray!)... brown eyes. Usually smiling... and often laughing.
Approachable, friendly. Usually sweet, kind, and gentle... but fierce when inspired to be (as perhaps most here might think of me).

We are very different. In a way my screen personality is opposite to online, where I am (over)active. In real life, while I love people and other organisms (and rocks, for that matter, vastly underestimated IMO) I find they are most appealing at a safe distance. I love the Sun too, but I have no desire to come closer than 150 million kms to it.

In this, I take after Mum, who tended to be a homebody, avoiding public appearances and spotlight, usually furiously writing letters to a large menagerie of correspondents between writing stories that seemed to be appreciated more by the literati than the public. All the while she'd be chainsmoking cigs and going through crates of beer, sherry and whisky. I do the same. Replace writing with cartooning (sadly with only a small fraction of Mum's skill and talent, and which I've also tailed off with age). Replace letters with forums, and cigs and booze with weed. History repeating .........

My friends gave me the name "Lacewing" when they were drunkenly trying to come up with "bug names" for each of us. I lucked out with that name. One of the girls was "Praying Mantis".

Was she a theist?, a lanky ectomorph, or both? :)

[Lacewing]

...while I love people and other organisms (and rocks, for that matter, vastly underestimated IMO)...

Rocks are wonderful!

In this, I take after Mum, who tended to be a homebody, avoiding public appearances and spotlight, usually furiously writing letters to a large menagerie of correspondents between writing stories that seemed to be appreciated more by the literati than the public. All the while she'd be chainsmoking cigs and going through crates of beer, sherry and whisky.

Hee hee... I can see it!

I do the same. Replace writing with cartooning (sadly with only a small fraction of Mum's skill and talent, and which I've also tailed off with age). Replace letters with forums, and cigs and booze with weed.

You sound like fun!

One of the girls was "Praying Mantis".

Was she a theist?, a lanky ectomorph, or both?

There might have been some subconscious connection regarding her relationship with her mate. I didn't want to probe for her reasons.

[Lacewing]

That's what makes me so irresistible.

Nice avatar VT!!

[vegetariantaxidermy]

I am very young-spirited, but I am over 50. People have always guessed me to be younger than I am.
5'2"... long brown hair (which is turning gray!)... brown eyes. Usually smiling... and often laughing.
Approachable, friendly. Usually sweet, kind, and gentle... but fierce when inspired to be (as perhaps most here might think of me).

We are very different. In a way my screen personality is opposite to online, where I am (over)active. In real life, while I love people and other organisms (and rocks, for that matter, vastly underestimated IMO) I find they are most appealing at a safe distance. I love the Sun too, but I have no desire to come closer than 150 million kms to it.

In this, I take after Mum, who tended to be a homebody, avoiding public appearances and spotlight, usually furiously writing letters to a large menagerie of correspondents between writing stories that seemed to be appreciated more by the literati than the public. All the while she'd be chainsmoking cigs and going through crates of beer, sherry and whisky. I do the same. Replace writing with cartooning (sadly with only a small fraction of Mum's skill and talent, and which I've also tailed off with age). Replace letters with forums, and cigs and booze with weed. History repeating .........

My friends gave me the name "Lacewing" when they were drunkenly trying to come up with "bug names" for each of us. I lucked out with that name. One of the girls was "Praying Mantis".

Was she a theist?, a lanky ectomorph, or both?

You are nothing like I thought. For some reason I thought you were a prim, bespectacled psychiatrist. A boozy pot-head is much more appealing.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

That's what makes me so irresistible.

Nice avatar VT!!

Thanks. It's hard to get one the right size, and then it goes blurry.

[Greta]

There might have been some subconscious connection regarding her relationship with her mate. I didn't want to probe for her reasons.

I think you said it all

You are nothing like I thought. For some reason I thought you were a prim, bespectacled psychiatrist. A boozy pot-head is much more appealing.

You are close, Veggie! Although I hardly drink and "prim" is the last word anyone would use to describe me, I am bespectacled and might have been a decent psychiatrist had I not been a high school dropout and unlettered swine whose first contact with academia was in advanced middle age after a boss coerced me into taking a one year, part-time post-grad course in management. I was excited at first, thinking that I was now in the enlightened but intimidating world of higher thought. So, for that first assignment, I researched relevant real-life material from work and the Hansard, putting together what I knew was original research in the field. The work received 50% exactly. If not bottom of the class, surely close to it.

That's when the penny dropped. I told the lecturer (who was not the marker, and who liked my work) that next assignment I would do nothing more than regurgitate course material and see what happened. What was basically a simple rewording of the texts received 80%. It was the most important lesson I learned the whole year.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

'All the while she'd be chainsmoking cigs and going through crates of beer, sherry and whisky. I do the same.'

That's what made me think so. How disapointing. I pictured surrounded by crates of hard liquor with a cigarette hanging from the side of your mouth.
As for the 50% versus 80%. That doesn't surprise me. Academia is full of unoriginal, regurgitating 'scholars'.

[Greta]

Sorry to disappoint you, Veg - you're not the first and won't be the last Very good description of Mum, though.

Booze just doesn't do it for me. Great for loosening up and socialising but nothing else IMO, aside from dehydration.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Sorry to disappoint you, Veg - you're not the first and won't be the last Very good description of Mum, though.

Booze just doesn't do it for me. Great for loosening up and socialising but nothing else IMO, aside from dehydration.

So it's just the weed? Neither really do it for me.

[thedoc]

So, for that first assignment, I researched relevant real-life material from work and the Hansard, putting together what I knew was original research in the field. The work received 50% exactly. If not bottom of the class, surely close to it.

That's when the penny dropped. I told the lecturer (who was not the marker, and who liked my work) that next assignment I would do nothing more than regurgitate course material and see what happened. What was basically a simple rewording of the texts received 80%. It was the most important lesson I learned the whole year.

The same thing happened to me in a history course, I was trying to answer the test questions by thinking about what I had learned, and I wasn't doing very well in that class. I had a conversation with the professor, changed my study habits, and in the next test got a very good grade. The professor said that my test answers read like a tape recorder playback of his lectures, and then I knew that he didn't want original thought, (I don't think he could understand it) he just wanted me to regurgitate what he had said in class.

[thedoc]

VT, your avatar looks like you are leaning on a piano and holding some sheet music. Is that significant?