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December 25: Tell us a story about you from your childhood/adolescence that we probably don't know.
So! It is Christmas day! I had a nice quiet Christmas at not-home, and got a ton of things that are mostly book. I got 7 books (one is more of a booklet, but it came with a CD of Insmouth Sea Shanties)! Also a swift and some hand-quilted ornaments! And I think some other things on the way as well - at least one other thing, anyway!
I will make a squeeful Yuletide Post later, probably in my writing journal proper. This might be the year that I try to make a proper recs post! maybe. There are some things that I definitely want to make sure people read!
Hem! Anyway! I was asked (by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fishmalk) about stories from my misguided youth that you might not know about. Actually I am going to tell you a story from my fairly explicitly guided youth - a story from my Sea Cadet days!
What's that, you say? You were a Sea Cadet? What's a Sea Cadet? It is like being in scouts but with more boats and marching. I was in the band. I started in Junior High for Reasons I entirely forget. I think I had a friend who was in it? But I can't remember who now. Possibly Jill?
We met every Wednesday night - we got into our uniforms, got inspected, did a march around our parade grounds, and then broke up into classes. There was band stuff (I was a drummer. I like hitting things with sticks and I'm good with patterns), drill, seamanship stuff, leadership stuff and other things I'm forgetting. We had weekend things (we did winter camping at least once, had a thing where we rode around in APCs which is the reason I can't handle strong mint gum anymore - permanent association with strong motion sickness, even now), and we did competitions and stuff for band and drill. We had a pretty strong corps!
I had a weird relationship with it - I was very conscious that I was Learning Useful Life Skills, but also I felt very disassociated from a lot of the people there. I went away for 6 weeks every summer for camp from about grade seven until grade 10 I think? My last summer, I was gone for 8 weeks, and I was hired as staff to teach band stuff. That summer I realized that return was really not worth the investment for me anyway, so I quit when I got home, and everyone was apparently very surprised. I do think it did me a lot of good, in terms of self-discipline and self-awareness, as well as giving me some random practical skills. It is also the reason I keep my hair long. In grade 9, in the summer before I went away, I decided it would be easier for camp to get my hair cut short. My mom went with me, and spent the time telling the hairdresser that I was going away to military camp. My hair was unspeakably awful. Never again.
That is not the story I was going to tell you though! Think of it as bonus material - the cadets stuff is all just background ;)
So, one of the other things we did with Cadets is exchange programs. I got to go on two, one to Ottawa and one to Charleston. I have much more distinct memories of the Charleston trip (the Ottawa thing may have been a band thing, actually, now that I think of it. What I do remember is flying in harness seats in the cargo belly of a C130 Hercules and impressing everyone with the fact that i slept through the entire thing :p).
Anyway - Charleston! I had never been that far south before, and it was super exciting! I was actually too young to go. We were supposed to be 16, but when my CO applies for me, she put the dates down Canadian style and it looked like I was born in June instead of October. Score! She totally knew, she just liked me ;) She was an excellent cranky commander, just the right amount of scary and affable. If I ever new her first name (I'm sure I did?) I totally don't remember it :p (ETA on preview, i do remember, it was Cynthia).
Charleston was great! I was there for a week, staying on the navy base there. We got a tour of an American ....corvette? maybe? I forget. This was 20 years ago, cut me some slack >.> They tricked us into manual labour - I got to help the crew restock the kitchen. Other people got to help repaint the ship. Yay menial sailor chores! If you saw my 'Tom of Finland Sailor' costume from Hallowe'en, this is where I got the hat. I have a lot of fun anecdotes from that trip, like how I forgot that I wasn't supposed to take a picture of the submarine and totally took a picture of the submarine, how I was in my gothy phase (i.e. a teenager) and badgered people into going to see The Crow with me, how I bought a plain black cotton broomstick skirt (see above) and wore it on one of those human gyroscope things where you spin upside down, how I first encountered fire ands, how we were in the historical (slave) market district in the middle of a summer downpour and I got to experience my first warm summer rain and the nonchalance of people who deal with foot-deep street floods on a regular basis, how we did the navy obstacle course and I was terrified of the zip line (I don't remember if I actually did it, but I think yes?), and got to go through the 'fix the holes in your ship when it is taking on water' simulation, which was awesome. Life skills! This is all still just preamble.
I said I was in a gothy phase. I'd brought my tarot deck, and I did readings for some of the other girls. I.... vaguely remember some of them, still. I don't have my pictures here to help. There was one girl - Jennifer? who was... pregnant? I remember she had to leave early because of medical things? I think? Or some family emergency? I remember it being somewhat upsetting at the time. There were a bunch of Quebequois girls there too - this is where I first encountered the name Marie-Eve, which I do still really like. We all did dinners with local navy families, and Marie-Eve and I went together. The people had a tiny tiny dog (still the tiniest dog I have ever met), and they asked us if we have our own language in Canada or if we mainly speak English. We exchanged a Look, and tried to explain that we have two official languages.... Bonus Content!
Anyway - doing tarot is actually important to the story I am going to tell you!
Somewhere on our trip, we picked up a hanger-on. An American Sea Cadet whose name I forget. He was supposed to do/be something else, but missed his boat, so to speak, and I think they stuck him with us for lack of anything better to do. We were being supervised, so it was good enough, apparently.
This guy was *really* annoying. Over-confident, and stupid and obnoxious abut it to boot. He was also, as it turned out, very gullible. We were on the ship I spoke of. I don't remember what we were doing - some kind of super exciting manual labour I'm sure. Dude was being super annoying, and wouldn't leave some of us alone. One of the girls I was closer with on this trip - I think her name was Mandy? Maybe? Anyway, I had said something, and the guy was back talking like a fool. And she pipes up with something along the lines that i was a witch! And was putting a curse on him, and something about the voices in my head? Twenty years ago! Details are fuzzy! I don't remember. Anyway, I gave him my best Wednesday Adams looks and let her go on, being silent (ETA2: Actually I think *I* was the one who said something about voices in my head wanting to hurt him or...something?) and, I presumably hoped, intimidating. He laughed it off, but he did also go away. Success!
What is better is that he came back several hours later, clearly shaken, and *begged me to rescind it*. Literally begged, desperately. This part I do remember. I magnanimously agreed.
And lo, did young Lannie learn the potency of the power of suggestion!
(Or - maybe I *am* a witch....)
I will make a squeeful Yuletide Post later, probably in my writing journal proper. This might be the year that I try to make a proper recs post! maybe. There are some things that I definitely want to make sure people read!
Hem! Anyway! I was asked (by
fishmalk) about stories from my misguided youth that you might not know about. Actually I am going to tell you a story from my fairly explicitly guided youth - a story from my Sea Cadet days!What's that, you say? You were a Sea Cadet? What's a Sea Cadet? It is like being in scouts but with more boats and marching. I was in the band. I started in Junior High for Reasons I entirely forget. I think I had a friend who was in it? But I can't remember who now. Possibly Jill?
We met every Wednesday night - we got into our uniforms, got inspected, did a march around our parade grounds, and then broke up into classes. There was band stuff (I was a drummer. I like hitting things with sticks and I'm good with patterns), drill, seamanship stuff, leadership stuff and other things I'm forgetting. We had weekend things (we did winter camping at least once, had a thing where we rode around in APCs which is the reason I can't handle strong mint gum anymore - permanent association with strong motion sickness, even now), and we did competitions and stuff for band and drill. We had a pretty strong corps!
I had a weird relationship with it - I was very conscious that I was Learning Useful Life Skills, but also I felt very disassociated from a lot of the people there. I went away for 6 weeks every summer for camp from about grade seven until grade 10 I think? My last summer, I was gone for 8 weeks, and I was hired as staff to teach band stuff. That summer I realized that return was really not worth the investment for me anyway, so I quit when I got home, and everyone was apparently very surprised. I do think it did me a lot of good, in terms of self-discipline and self-awareness, as well as giving me some random practical skills. It is also the reason I keep my hair long. In grade 9, in the summer before I went away, I decided it would be easier for camp to get my hair cut short. My mom went with me, and spent the time telling the hairdresser that I was going away to military camp. My hair was unspeakably awful. Never again.
That is not the story I was going to tell you though! Think of it as bonus material - the cadets stuff is all just background ;)
So, one of the other things we did with Cadets is exchange programs. I got to go on two, one to Ottawa and one to Charleston. I have much more distinct memories of the Charleston trip (the Ottawa thing may have been a band thing, actually, now that I think of it. What I do remember is flying in harness seats in the cargo belly of a C130 Hercules and impressing everyone with the fact that i slept through the entire thing :p).
Anyway - Charleston! I had never been that far south before, and it was super exciting! I was actually too young to go. We were supposed to be 16, but when my CO applies for me, she put the dates down Canadian style and it looked like I was born in June instead of October. Score! She totally knew, she just liked me ;) She was an excellent cranky commander, just the right amount of scary and affable. If I ever new her first name (I'm sure I did?) I totally don't remember it :p (ETA on preview, i do remember, it was Cynthia).
Charleston was great! I was there for a week, staying on the navy base there. We got a tour of an American ....corvette? maybe? I forget. This was 20 years ago, cut me some slack >.> They tricked us into manual labour - I got to help the crew restock the kitchen. Other people got to help repaint the ship. Yay menial sailor chores! If you saw my 'Tom of Finland Sailor' costume from Hallowe'en, this is where I got the hat. I have a lot of fun anecdotes from that trip, like how I forgot that I wasn't supposed to take a picture of the submarine and totally took a picture of the submarine, how I was in my gothy phase (i.e. a teenager) and badgered people into going to see The Crow with me, how I bought a plain black cotton broomstick skirt (see above) and wore it on one of those human gyroscope things where you spin upside down, how I first encountered fire ands, how we were in the historical (slave) market district in the middle of a summer downpour and I got to experience my first warm summer rain and the nonchalance of people who deal with foot-deep street floods on a regular basis, how we did the navy obstacle course and I was terrified of the zip line (I don't remember if I actually did it, but I think yes?), and got to go through the 'fix the holes in your ship when it is taking on water' simulation, which was awesome. Life skills! This is all still just preamble.
I said I was in a gothy phase. I'd brought my tarot deck, and I did readings for some of the other girls. I.... vaguely remember some of them, still. I don't have my pictures here to help. There was one girl - Jennifer? who was... pregnant? I remember she had to leave early because of medical things? I think? Or some family emergency? I remember it being somewhat upsetting at the time. There were a bunch of Quebequois girls there too - this is where I first encountered the name Marie-Eve, which I do still really like. We all did dinners with local navy families, and Marie-Eve and I went together. The people had a tiny tiny dog (still the tiniest dog I have ever met), and they asked us if we have our own language in Canada or if we mainly speak English. We exchanged a Look, and tried to explain that we have two official languages.... Bonus Content!
Anyway - doing tarot is actually important to the story I am going to tell you!
Somewhere on our trip, we picked up a hanger-on. An American Sea Cadet whose name I forget. He was supposed to do/be something else, but missed his boat, so to speak, and I think they stuck him with us for lack of anything better to do. We were being supervised, so it was good enough, apparently.
This guy was *really* annoying. Over-confident, and stupid and obnoxious abut it to boot. He was also, as it turned out, very gullible. We were on the ship I spoke of. I don't remember what we were doing - some kind of super exciting manual labour I'm sure. Dude was being super annoying, and wouldn't leave some of us alone. One of the girls I was closer with on this trip - I think her name was Mandy? Maybe? Anyway, I had said something, and the guy was back talking like a fool. And she pipes up with something along the lines that i was a witch! And was putting a curse on him, and something about the voices in my head? Twenty years ago! Details are fuzzy! I don't remember. Anyway, I gave him my best Wednesday Adams looks and let her go on, being silent (ETA2: Actually I think *I* was the one who said something about voices in my head wanting to hurt him or...something?) and, I presumably hoped, intimidating. He laughed it off, but he did also go away. Success!
What is better is that he came back several hours later, clearly shaken, and *begged me to rescind it*. Literally begged, desperately. This part I do remember. I magnanimously agreed.
And lo, did young Lannie learn the potency of the power of suggestion!
(Or - maybe I *am* a witch....)
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