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What do you love?
It's almost the weekend. As we ease our way through the day, I have a question for you:
Aside from fandom, what are your hobbies? What do you love to do?
I play D&D once a week and have for years. If I had to leave fandom for some reason, I would probably become a lot more active there, running games and writing modules and such.
Also, I'm very interested in the brain and thought and why we do what we do. I read and re-read a lot of books on the subject. A few off the top of my head:
The Geography of Thought : How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why by Richard Nisbett
If you want to read about human thought, read this first. This was really interesting, well-researched, and, most importantly, shows that our assumptions about what "basic human thought" is can be completely wrong. This will help you to evalute the experimental methods and theories in other books. As the author says, "how people think" might really just be "how American college students think" depending on how the studies were conducted.
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee
Ramachandran is a neuroscientist who writes about the phantom limbs of amputees, the paralysis denial of stroke victims, blindsight, and other disorders. It illumnated a lot for me about human consciousness and was very entertaining to boot.
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.
How we make decisions. Gladwell is always worth reading. There wasn't really much synthesis from chapter to chapter (I think they were all separate essays) but the studies he cites were very valuable to me in my other reading and my own over-all synthesis.
Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson
I'm almost finished reading this one and I've really enjoyed it. Temple Grandin is an autistic woman with a PhD in Animal Science. She believes that the way autistic people think is closer to how animals do and that we can use that to gain insight into animal behaviour. This book had so many "of course!" moments for me -- when you read something you never thought of before but realise it makes perfect sense.
Aside from fandom, what are your hobbies? What do you love to do?
I play D&D once a week and have for years. If I had to leave fandom for some reason, I would probably become a lot more active there, running games and writing modules and such.
Also, I'm very interested in the brain and thought and why we do what we do. I read and re-read a lot of books on the subject. A few off the top of my head:
The Geography of Thought : How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why by Richard Nisbett
If you want to read about human thought, read this first. This was really interesting, well-researched, and, most importantly, shows that our assumptions about what "basic human thought" is can be completely wrong. This will help you to evalute the experimental methods and theories in other books. As the author says, "how people think" might really just be "how American college students think" depending on how the studies were conducted.
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee
Ramachandran is a neuroscientist who writes about the phantom limbs of amputees, the paralysis denial of stroke victims, blindsight, and other disorders. It illumnated a lot for me about human consciousness and was very entertaining to boot.
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.
How we make decisions. Gladwell is always worth reading. There wasn't really much synthesis from chapter to chapter (I think they were all separate essays) but the studies he cites were very valuable to me in my other reading and my own over-all synthesis.
Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson
I'm almost finished reading this one and I've really enjoyed it. Temple Grandin is an autistic woman with a PhD in Animal Science. She believes that the way autistic people think is closer to how animals do and that we can use that to gain insight into animal behaviour. This book had so many "of course!" moments for me -- when you read something you never thought of before but realise it makes perfect sense.
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Ooooh. *thinks hard* Well, beyond drawing for fandom, I also love to draw, period. Does this count? XD
I also like to do physical activities, but I dislike ball sports (because I'm absolute shite at them), which is why it's perfectly reasonable that I ended up in a martial art. XD
*thinks some more*
I also like to spend time with the significant other, because lazy afternoons just talking about stuff with him makes me happy. :)
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Temple Grandin
Also: I write and I read, and yes, these are largely fannish pursuits, but I'd do them if there was no fandom left in the world (and of course there will always be fandom-- thank you, North American brains!). I find that when I'm particularly depressed or feeling cornered I play a lot of TextTwist or Bookworm or FF X and Katamari Damacy (man I miss my PS2 like a bitch right now.) Before I moved here, I used to have brunches and my friends would come over and we'd eat quiche and drink mimosas and talk. My friends are all very funny and engaging, and they are very forgiving of my indifferent cooking. I used to go to the movies a lot, and there was a park near my house with swings. Man, I love to swing!
Re: Temple Grandin
Yes. Temple Grandin is great, I really admire her. Both for her work with animals generally, and for making the way her brain works into something so positive.
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I bet your mimosas were fabulous!
I used to go to the movies a lot more than I do now. One summer when I was unemployed and less booked up than I am now, I would go to the uni theatre almost every night.
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I also sometimes get in the mood to cook - from scratch, and maybe trying new things or making up a recipe. I consider this a creative sort of endeavour, and I used to do it all the time. I havne't had a kitchen I really feel comfortable in, in a long time, so I haven't felt much like cooking.
Mostly I love to make things - be it with words or yarn or food or fabric or whatever.
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Thanks for the book recs - the Temple Grandin book looks particularly interesting.
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I also am fascinated by the brain, and if you haven't read William Calvin (http://williamcalvin.com/index.htm)'s books, I recommend them. I have The River That Flows Uphill - you can download it as well, and I think some of his other articles and books are downloadable. I've read some of the essays in The Throwing Madonna.
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I make beaded jewelry. Some of it is fannish, because I'm a giant nerd. I haven't done anything quite as dorky as an InuKai charm bracelet with little snakes and E=mc^2s yet, though. ;)
I'm interested in comparative religion, which is aided and abetted by my belonging to a UU (http://www.uua.org/) church. Sadly, my book-buying is way ahead of my book-reading, and my grand plan to visit interesting churches and see what they're doing is hampered by the fact that they all schedule opposite each other (and opposite my church), expecting everyone to be monogamous. ;)
I enjoy hiking (or just walking in general) and canoeing. I haven't been doing anywhere near as much as I want to, though, and I should change that.
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Umm, I'd say, in order of enjoying-ness- reading and writing (both non-fandom related- I probably have more original work lying around in the computer than fandom stuff), twiddling around with my music, and playing the flute. Oh and the ton of schoolwork. I'd be much more focused on academics without fandom, that's for sure.
And that book by Nisbett looks so interesting, because, like a lot of Asians, I moved to North America when I was young. So I'd actually want to know whether I'm more "American" or "Chinese".
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Alas, I really have very little time to have more than one hobby. Being single mom with two jobs, I barely have time for this one. But if I did have the time, I think I would take up Ancient Greek and Latin again.
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I hack at some Greek now and again, to keep my hand in, but I was never much of a Latinist, even after five years.
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I spend a lot of time with the dog, cuddling or teaching tricks or just having fun. It's surprising how much time I spend with him, really, when you add up all the minutes in a day.
I play video games. PS2 and WoW mostly nowadays, although I just picked up the last chapter in Myst and am looking forward to that.
I also love games, period. When we get together socially as a group, we play Cranium or Taboo or one of a dozen other games.
Sometimes I fool around on my keyboard. Never took piano lessons, but I can learn basic Bach tunes pretty easily. I also have an accordion in the basement that I'm going to spend more time on one of these days. :D And I sing, pretty much constantly.
Makes me a hard person to live with! =D
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I love that you have an accordion. :)
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I'm pretty sure that with your interests you've already read him, but I'll throw a rec for Oliver Sacks out there. After Georgette Heyer and various comics, I probably reread his books the most.
I was a little disappointed by Blink. It wasn't bad and had some interesting thoughts, but it seemed much more fluffy than Tipping Point. But using it for it's refs is a great idea.
I'm still trying to find a "stable" hobby aside from watching anime and reading comics. Does "hanging out with friends" count? So far I've lacked staying power to continue drawing classes, language classes and belly dancing long-term, although I do enjoy all of them. Next up: learning to shoot a gun and/or self-defense.
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Doing bad puns, mainly.