Alternate universes
Jan. 29th, 2006 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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sanj to outsidetheparty to me.
What would your life be like if it hadn't happened the way it happened? Tell me about 5 of your alternate selves.
1. I lose part of a finger after my sister drops a brick on it when I am two. Four years later, when my mother decides she wants everybody to take piano lessons, having only 9.5 workable fingers means I can only get so good. I continue to be a math/science geek through college, eventually graduating as a Math Major, as my occasionally oblique approach to problem-solving comes in surprisingly useful. I drift into a Master's degree, getting into a solid, if not exceptional, program, and find myself drawn to cryptography after reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and various books on WWII codebreaking. With the pending advent of quantum computers, I start taking computer science and physics courses in an effort to fill those gaps in my knowledge. Last you heard, I am currently on a team working on methods for quantum encryption and decryption, and am waffling heavily between taking my knowledge and skills to the NSA or the EFF. Of course, last you heard from me was six months ago.
2. The cover band I join in high school turns out to be reasonably good, and takes off to a small extent, playing gigs in local clubs and entering Battle-of-the-Bands-type events. We break up after graduation, but one of the first things I do in college is try to start my own band. Tired of performing other people's music, I decide to try to start writing my own songs, but my lyrics suck. I don't play well with others, so collaborating with a real writer is implausible at best. Discouraged, I start focusing on the technology of music-making, become more facile with mikes, mixing boards, and my growing array of synthesizers. Having majored in Physics to gain a better understanding of my equipment, I temp for semiregular money and freelance as a recording engineer and nightclub DJ. I've put out a couple of EPs of my electronica to critical (if not [even relatively] commercial) success, have begun playing the festival circuit, and am planning a full-length CD.
3. My parents bring me to Mets games on a regular basis from an early age, and I become hooked on baseball enough to get heavily involved in Little League, baseball camps, etc. I become a solid catcher and develop a spectacular batting eye, though my untallness means I'm mostly limited to hitting singles and doubles. I play through college, and am signed as an undrafted free agent my senior year. However, the unimposing nature of my physical frame keeps me from getting much further past A ball. This offseason, after seeing no more than a total of two months in AA ball and enduring over five years of 16-hour bus rides, being paid in wood shavings, and working crappy jobs in the offseason, I'm strongly considering becoming a coach, perhaps eventually a manager, with the encouragement of my organization.
4. Rather than remain in the US after they finish their residencies, my parents move back to the Philippines. I am raised surrounded by my extended family, and pressured into at least going through the motions at church on Sundays. With both parents and three grandparents doctors, everyone assumes (including myself) I will go into medicine; and I do. My fascination with the brain, grace under pressure, and high Dexterity lead me into neurosurgery. Desperate to escape the stifling social atmosphere of the Philippines, I, like my parents, take my residency in the States but, unlike them, decide to stay. I miss all of my family a lot, and occasionally get phone calls begging me to come home, but life here is too exciting.
5. At a summer program during grade school, I take a science fiction writing class for fun. The teacher tends to read my stories out loud during class, and privately encourages me to keep it up. I become a better and more confident writer through high school, contributing regularly to our little lit magazine. I pick a college with a strong Creative Writing program and, even though most of the teachers there don't quite get what I'm doing, I am able to at least hone and polish my skills. As I am more of a concept- rather than character-driven writer, I tend to stick to short stories that I send out to various publications. By the end of my college career, I've sold a couple of stories, and am trying to figure out where to go from there. I find a dull job somewhere to pay the bills while working on my stories when I can, selling them often enough to keep me from getting completely discouraged. After encountering Tim Powers's work, I am inspired to change the focus of my writing to hidden worlds inside the modern, grit my teeth, and write a full-length novel. After countless revisions, I'm finally pleased enough with it to start shopping it around.
(I'm embarrassed at how much likestealthmuffin this sounds.)
6. Doctors are able to salvage my finger, though there will always be a visible kink to it. Even though I excel at the piano lessons my parents force me to take, I hate practicing -- which has the odd side effect of making me a good sight-reader. Despite feeling like a circus animal whenever my parents tell me to play for their friends, I eventually grow to enjoy it, and am proud that playing the piano is a part of me, if not the focus of my life. I play in the Jazz Band in high school, and dick around as part of a cover band with my classmates. When choosing classes for my freshman year, for shits and giggles, I decide to balance Bio 101, Chem 103, and Math 105 with the course on Music Theory Mom's always nagged me to take. Towards the end of my first semester it becomes obvious that I can't get enough of my music class, and hate working on Bio and Chem, though Math is still fun...right up until I can't get my head around limits. My roommate Kian offhandedly asks me why if I don't write music if I love it so much. I didn't know why not either.
Unlike many of the others who have done this, I find myself more interested in what might have happened to me professionally rather than personally and emotionally. Hm.
Do your own if you want.
sanj to outsidetheparty to me.What would your life be like if it hadn't happened the way it happened? Tell me about 5 of your alternate selves.
1. I lose part of a finger after my sister drops a brick on it when I am two. Four years later, when my mother decides she wants everybody to take piano lessons, having only 9.5 workable fingers means I can only get so good. I continue to be a math/science geek through college, eventually graduating as a Math Major, as my occasionally oblique approach to problem-solving comes in surprisingly useful. I drift into a Master's degree, getting into a solid, if not exceptional, program, and find myself drawn to cryptography after reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and various books on WWII codebreaking. With the pending advent of quantum computers, I start taking computer science and physics courses in an effort to fill those gaps in my knowledge. Last you heard, I am currently on a team working on methods for quantum encryption and decryption, and am waffling heavily between taking my knowledge and skills to the NSA or the EFF. Of course, last you heard from me was six months ago.
2. The cover band I join in high school turns out to be reasonably good, and takes off to a small extent, playing gigs in local clubs and entering Battle-of-the-Bands-type events. We break up after graduation, but one of the first things I do in college is try to start my own band. Tired of performing other people's music, I decide to try to start writing my own songs, but my lyrics suck. I don't play well with others, so collaborating with a real writer is implausible at best. Discouraged, I start focusing on the technology of music-making, become more facile with mikes, mixing boards, and my growing array of synthesizers. Having majored in Physics to gain a better understanding of my equipment, I temp for semiregular money and freelance as a recording engineer and nightclub DJ. I've put out a couple of EPs of my electronica to critical (if not [even relatively] commercial) success, have begun playing the festival circuit, and am planning a full-length CD.
3. My parents bring me to Mets games on a regular basis from an early age, and I become hooked on baseball enough to get heavily involved in Little League, baseball camps, etc. I become a solid catcher and develop a spectacular batting eye, though my untallness means I'm mostly limited to hitting singles and doubles. I play through college, and am signed as an undrafted free agent my senior year. However, the unimposing nature of my physical frame keeps me from getting much further past A ball. This offseason, after seeing no more than a total of two months in AA ball and enduring over five years of 16-hour bus rides, being paid in wood shavings, and working crappy jobs in the offseason, I'm strongly considering becoming a coach, perhaps eventually a manager, with the encouragement of my organization.
4. Rather than remain in the US after they finish their residencies, my parents move back to the Philippines. I am raised surrounded by my extended family, and pressured into at least going through the motions at church on Sundays. With both parents and three grandparents doctors, everyone assumes (including myself) I will go into medicine; and I do. My fascination with the brain, grace under pressure, and high Dexterity lead me into neurosurgery. Desperate to escape the stifling social atmosphere of the Philippines, I, like my parents, take my residency in the States but, unlike them, decide to stay. I miss all of my family a lot, and occasionally get phone calls begging me to come home, but life here is too exciting.
5. At a summer program during grade school, I take a science fiction writing class for fun. The teacher tends to read my stories out loud during class, and privately encourages me to keep it up. I become a better and more confident writer through high school, contributing regularly to our little lit magazine. I pick a college with a strong Creative Writing program and, even though most of the teachers there don't quite get what I'm doing, I am able to at least hone and polish my skills. As I am more of a concept- rather than character-driven writer, I tend to stick to short stories that I send out to various publications. By the end of my college career, I've sold a couple of stories, and am trying to figure out where to go from there. I find a dull job somewhere to pay the bills while working on my stories when I can, selling them often enough to keep me from getting completely discouraged. After encountering Tim Powers's work, I am inspired to change the focus of my writing to hidden worlds inside the modern, grit my teeth, and write a full-length novel. After countless revisions, I'm finally pleased enough with it to start shopping it around.
(I'm embarrassed at how much like
stealthmuffin this sounds.)6. Doctors are able to salvage my finger, though there will always be a visible kink to it. Even though I excel at the piano lessons my parents force me to take, I hate practicing -- which has the odd side effect of making me a good sight-reader. Despite feeling like a circus animal whenever my parents tell me to play for their friends, I eventually grow to enjoy it, and am proud that playing the piano is a part of me, if not the focus of my life. I play in the Jazz Band in high school, and dick around as part of a cover band with my classmates. When choosing classes for my freshman year, for shits and giggles, I decide to balance Bio 101, Chem 103, and Math 105 with the course on Music Theory Mom's always nagged me to take. Towards the end of my first semester it becomes obvious that I can't get enough of my music class, and hate working on Bio and Chem, though Math is still fun...right up until I can't get my head around limits. My roommate Kian offhandedly asks me why if I don't write music if I love it so much. I didn't know why not either.
Unlike many of the others who have done this, I find myself more interested in what might have happened to me professionally rather than personally and emotionally. Hm.
Do your own if you want.
