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Ask gwen Anything!
gwen has been a member since May 12th, 1999.
# Asked: 127 -- # Answered: 795
Average: 0.65 -- Average: 4.67
Rank: 118 -- Rank: 111
6.14.00 - i'm in too. ask me anything at all.
worst case scenario i tell you what you can do with your question, but
you still get rated a 4. reeeeal good questions get 5. so shoot.
btw, this is gwen
Swillpig on 6.14.00 - Why are you jumping on this "band waggon"?
why did i jump on this band wagon? i dunno, seemed like fun. and besides, it's a good way for kpers to get to know me (and for me to know you too).
obi-wan on 6.14.00 - Gwen, where are you from? Do you like it there? What kinds of cool places are there to hang out where you are?
obi-wan
well, i like in the outskirts of a big town called
Porto, in Portugal, Europe. i like it where i live but not the town. too
crowded, too noisy, too poluted. where i live i can hear the ocean roaring
into the night if there's a storm and i get to see a huge rock owl every
now and then (told you about that in a soap). so i have all the benefits
of a big town and all the beauty of nature withing reasonable distance.
cool places to hang out? well, usually i hang
out at cool places like my brother's bedroom where i sit at a desk and
stare at a comp all afternoon. but when i can't do that, there are beautiful
places, like the beach and a few good parks where i can do my favorite
thing - watch nature at work. occasionally i go to the movies. the one
place i DO hang out in most of the time is an icecream place. they have
the most delicious icecreams i have ever eaten in my life. and the place
is small enough (and low profile enough) not to get crowded. there are
beatiful hand made drawings of the town on the walls and beautiful music
playing - very often kenny g :)
i also like to hang out in a couple of used book
stores where i have found my treasures (the story is kinda long but if
somebody asks i'll tell it). and that's pretty much it. there are loads
of bars and discos and that kind of stuff but i couldn't tell you about
them cause i never go there.
heyteach on 6.14.00 - What kind of translation work are you interested in AND how did you develop that unusual interest?
laurie
well, ever since i was a kid i've loved english.
i think because it was my best defense against the world. i told you i
used to be bullied all the time but i'd just start off in english and they'd
never know if i was begging for mercy, insulting them or just praying.
so as a defense machanism, english was very helpful. those guys just stared
at me like some marcian had just taken over my body. and they left me alone.
i started reading a lot in english because books i wanted to read were
cheaper in their original versions. so my english developed and i became
so good at it that teachers came to me with questions sometimes.
as a teenager i didn't know what i wanted to do
with my life, i just knew it had to be something with english in it. i
liked it and it was safe. nobody knew more about english that i did. i
was in control.
then when time came to go to college, i naturally
chose letters, to take a language and literature course (english again).
still didn't know exactly what to make of it. and on my first year, i met
this little old lady.
i was just walking down the street, wearing my
formal academic dress (kinda like a school uniform except all the colleges
in Porto wear the same, the only difference is in the color of the accessories)
and this little old lady stopped me and asked what i was studying. i told
her letters. she seemed disappointed. told me that she had never had a
chance to go to school or even learn how to read. she could spell her name
and recognise some numbers but that was it. and she told me that she had
always wanted to go to school and learn languages, because it must be awesome,
to go abroad, and know exactly what people are telling you. that's when
i settled on translation.
it had never occured to me that speaking this
other language so well was truly awesome. when noone else got the joke
they heard in the movie, i did. i was the one who always picked up the
apalling mistakes in translations i saw.
i wanted to take this old lady by the hand wherever
she wanted to go and be there to make sure she understood anything anybody
had to say.
you might ask, why not teach english then? for
some people, it's too late to learn, for a number of reasons. but i can
be there to translate. so that's how my interest in translation was born.
in the third year i had to chose a branch of my course (it was research,
teaching or translation) and i had no doubt in my mind. i chose translation.
jmkm on 6.14.00 - Why are you so snarky to me with your riddle answers??
jim
oops, sorry. it's not something i do intentionally.
but your riddles kinda work like martinis.... for every riddle i get right
i feel as if i'd just drank another one.... don't know why..... maybe because
i've been told so many times i was wrong about everything (still am told
that, actually). so to be right for a change..... it's a rush....
and when i find riddles easy, the effect doubles.
when i can just see the answer my ego glows. after a while i'm so "drunk"
i just have to gloat a bit.
i hadn't really stopped to thing that it might
be really annoying to you, to say the least. does it bother you? cause
if it does, i can restrict myself to just answering the riddles, making
no remark whatsoever.
Kilnamar on 6.15.00 - gwen, we've talked quite a bit (although not recently. :( )
You have mentioned being very intuitive. You are also very big on nature--saving the rain forest, studying animals, etc. Do you think your gift of intuition relates to why you care so much about the earth and its creatures? Why or why not?
killy
very good question, glad it came from you :) i
think that it's kinda the other way around. maybe my strong intuition is
the reflection of the way i keep in touch with nature. my version of animal
instinct. ever since i can remember i've felt "wild"... like i belong in
nature, as part of a whole, with the seagulls and dolphins and yes, with
the sharks too. the ocean..... it has always been home. i usually say i
was a mermaid in another life :) i can't really explain that very well,
but i never seem to feel quite as good, safe, happy, as when i'm under
a storm, or up to my neck in sea water. that's where i find my place in
the world.
Swords on 6.16.00 - Did you know when you jumped on the "Ask me Anything Band Waggon" that Swillpig would ask you, "Why are you jumping on this bandwaggon of "Ask Me Anything"?
swords,
let's just say i had good reason to believe he
would :)
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