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questions! sometimes every day!
Aug. 4th, 2020 08:26 pmWell, true to form, I now need to catch up on the question-a-day meme.
August 2: Was there a toy you really wanted as a child, but never got?
I'm sure there were, because we were pretty poor (although my parents usually managed to scrape togetherdecent Christmases for us). But the details are escaping me. I know I eventually got a lot of the toys I wanted, even if I didn't always get them right away. Probably it was a matter of, "Oh, that toy that was popular a year ago and that [Kit] really wanted is now on sale at K-Mart, let's get it!"
Also, I had a bad habit of really wanting something and then getting tired of it quickly. (Or, in the case of things like the chemistry set and the microscope, not knowing how to use them and not finding the limited instructions that came with them all that helpful.) I was a kid who could have benefitted a lot from an internet full of information about how to do science experiments, but alas, I was a kid in the late 70s/80s.
August 3: What hobby or activity would you do more if the internet and TV went down for a month?
Crossword puzzles? I like puzzles and word games and things. Or, if we weren't in a pandemic, I might actually leave the house and go to the local gaming group that meets twice a week. I was trying to get up the nerve to do that when COVID-19 hit.
August 4: Are you a Baby Boomer, Generation Jones, Gen X, Millennial, or younger? What’s a generalization people make about your generation cohort that’s all wrong?
I am Gen X. People used to make a lot of generalizations about us, back in the 90s: we were listless, cynical slackers who only wanted to get high and watch TV, basically. Since I spent most of the 90s getting a Ph.D., I found this irritating.
In recent years, we mostly get overlooked, as millennials have become the target for more abuse. But lately it's revived a bit, though totally transformed. Now some young folks seem to believe the Gen X are boomers lite, sitting on our piles of money and property like aging dragons in old Depeche Mode t-shirts. I don't know how true it is generally, although statistically, Gen X has a lot less wealth than the boomers (and also a lot less wealth than boomers did at a comparable age). It's certainly not true for me! One interesting effect of having spent years in grad school is that economically, I am a millennial. I finished grad school in the early 2000s, during a recession, and recessions seem to have accompanied every major life change since. Be nice to us, Gen Z! (NB: I think generation-blaming is not really useful anyway.)
August 2: Was there a toy you really wanted as a child, but never got?
I'm sure there were, because we were pretty poor (although my parents usually managed to scrape togetherdecent Christmases for us). But the details are escaping me. I know I eventually got a lot of the toys I wanted, even if I didn't always get them right away. Probably it was a matter of, "Oh, that toy that was popular a year ago and that [Kit] really wanted is now on sale at K-Mart, let's get it!"
Also, I had a bad habit of really wanting something and then getting tired of it quickly. (Or, in the case of things like the chemistry set and the microscope, not knowing how to use them and not finding the limited instructions that came with them all that helpful.) I was a kid who could have benefitted a lot from an internet full of information about how to do science experiments, but alas, I was a kid in the late 70s/80s.
August 3: What hobby or activity would you do more if the internet and TV went down for a month?
Crossword puzzles? I like puzzles and word games and things. Or, if we weren't in a pandemic, I might actually leave the house and go to the local gaming group that meets twice a week. I was trying to get up the nerve to do that when COVID-19 hit.
August 4: Are you a Baby Boomer, Generation Jones, Gen X, Millennial, or younger? What’s a generalization people make about your generation cohort that’s all wrong?
I am Gen X. People used to make a lot of generalizations about us, back in the 90s: we were listless, cynical slackers who only wanted to get high and watch TV, basically. Since I spent most of the 90s getting a Ph.D., I found this irritating.
In recent years, we mostly get overlooked, as millennials have become the target for more abuse. But lately it's revived a bit, though totally transformed. Now some young folks seem to believe the Gen X are boomers lite, sitting on our piles of money and property like aging dragons in old Depeche Mode t-shirts. I don't know how true it is generally, although statistically, Gen X has a lot less wealth than the boomers (and also a lot less wealth than boomers did at a comparable age). It's certainly not true for me! One interesting effect of having spent years in grad school is that economically, I am a millennial. I finished grad school in the early 2000s, during a recession, and recessions seem to have accompanied every major life change since. Be nice to us, Gen Z! (NB: I think generation-blaming is not really useful anyway.)
