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The Friday Five on a Sunday

How far back can you trace your family tree?
That depends on which side of the family (maternal or paternal) we’re talking about. I have distant relatives who have done a lot of work tracing back the ancestry of various people from my grandparents’ generation to the late 1700s / early 1800s. However, there are also substantial gaps, particularly on the paternal side. I couldn’t tell you the names of my great-grandparents on that side.
What is the most interesting (or strange) thing you've heard about one of your relatives?
I knew that one of my great-grandparents had been a chemist at Eastman Kodak, but until recently I hadn’t gone and looked up the various patents he filed in the mid-20th century.
How do you feel about legacy names like John Henry Smith IV or naming children after other relatives?
I think whatever other people choose to do about naming their children is their business, although if you name your child something like “SanDeE*” I may have to fight the urge to judge you for overcomplicating the administrative burden they’ll endure for the rest of their lives.
Would you consider yourself and/or your family to be traditional?
Not really. I think the absence of religion in our lives probably affects this. We do like traditions that involve food, though, like Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) and Easter.
What is one tradition you have passed on to your children and/or plan to pass on to them?
I have passed on the following to them:
- It is OK to put shoyu (soy sauce) on anything.
- Rather than have the argument over pumpkin pie v pecan pie for Thanksgiving dinner, it is best to make both. Also, it is OK to celebrate Thanksgiving at the weekend, since it is not a thing in the UK.
- There is no such thing as “quickly” popping into the bookshop. Or the library.

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Random cat photo

This photo of Comet on the bookshelves in my office made me laugh when I ran across it today, so I'm sharing.

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The Friday Five on a Sunday

Did the house where you grew up have a newspaper delivered regularly?

I grew up in a lot of different houses. The only one where a newspaper was delivered regularly was my grandparents’ house, who read the local version of the Times on Sundays. I used to read the entire thing, starting of course with the comics.
Have you ever subscribed to an actual print newspaper?

Yes, and still do. We also have print magazine subscriptions, because it keeps us from being distracted from things on our phones.
When was the most recent time you physically picked up and read a newspaper?

Yesterday. It was the most recent edition of “The New European”.
Do you pay for news online now?

Yes, I do. I have a paid subscription to “The Guardian”. The academic institution I work for also provides a paid subscriptions to “The Financial Times”, and I read both regularly.
Do you have any saved newspaper clippings?

Yup! Mostly stuff about various space missions I worked on.

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1SE for February 2025

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A short but busy month, with trips to Wales and the USA. My face makes an appearance in there.

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The Friday Five on a Saturday

Do you like your birth-name? Why?

Yes. It is reflective of my birthplace and my parents. It's unnecessarily long. It is unique.
If you could change your name to anything else, what would it be?

When I was younger I sometimes wished I had a more Anglo name. I always liked Selene and Natasha. But I have no interest in renaming myself now.
What names would you consider giving your children?

Been there, done that! I think Keiki and Humuhumu's actual names suit them well. Sometimes I wish we'd given Keiki an additional Hawai'ian middle name, Keikani, but overall I think we got it right. Who knows what they'll think themselves when they're adults!
If you had a band, what would you name it, and why?

Sliced Bread (as in, best thing since).
Is there a name that you completely hate? Why?

I'm not very fond of Chad. It's a name I associate with bone headed twerps from my teenage years. Sorry to all the nice Chads out there.

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The Friday Five on a Sunday

Of the various cultures, ethnicities or nationalities you belong to, which most strongly do you consider yourself?

My childhood, teenage years and young adulthood were approximately equally divided between Hawai’i, the Pacific Northwest, and California. All of these were very formative to my character and beliefs in different ways.
Is there a culture you cannot claim heritage from but which you feel quite close to?

I have lived in the UK for over 20 years now and taken British citizenship. My partner and children are British. Although I wasn’t born here I do live as a Brit on a day-to-day basis. Probably the most significant milestone, in my opinion, is that when I’m travelling and I get homesick, it’s for the UK, not anywhere else. I’d struggle to pinpoint exactly when that happened, but I have no doubt about it now.
What's one language you wish you knew fluently?

Tagalog, so I could talk to my dad in it.
If you could move anywhere in the world and be guaranteed a job, etc., where would you go?

I’m pretty happy here, but if I could spend some time in the English-speaking* southern hemisphere with the family , I would live there for a few years.
If you had a time machine, and could witness any one event without altering or disturbing it, what would you want to see?

I would love to witness the formation of the first life form on Earth.

* I’m too old and too occupied with raising children and an extremely demanding job to properly learn a new language.

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1SE for January 2025

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Trips to Nottinghamshire, Germany, and London feature here, along with time spent at the bouldering gym, on culinary experiments, and serving our lords and masters, the cats.

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What do we want? Attitude data! When do we want it? Now!

This week so far, I've been in Germany for a workshop. On attempting to get a regional train from Darmstadt to Frankfurt, I learned two things:

1) If you observe everyone standing on the main concourse rather than waiting on the platforms for trains, there's probably a good reason.

2) The reason is that the train to the destination you want is likely to appear on a platform for which it is not advertised on any display boards, and at a departure time that is not listed.

Conclusion: There is a German train controller somewhere cackling satanically whilst stroking a long-haired white cat and watching the commuter lemmings scurry down several flights of stairs, via the security cameras.

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The Friday Five on a Monday

If you could go back and relive one moment or day from your life, without changing anything, what would you re-experience?

If you could witness a moment in history, again without changing anything, what would you want to see?

f you could talk to a younger version of yourself, what age would you visit and what message would you give?

If you could choose one moment that would be guaranteed to happen in your future, what would it be and when would it happen?

Pretend you left a time capsule for yourself 5, 10, 15, 20 or more years ago. You just opened it. What three things from your past are you now holding and what age were you when you buried them?

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The Friday Five on a Sunday

1. First time you cooked for someone else?

I don't remember. I would have been an adult. My family didn't teach me to cook. I could bake a cake or cookies by the time I left home, but I couldn't make a meal. It was likely to have been something very simple, like pasta with sauce, or a grilled cheese sandwich.

2. First time you threw up in someone else's toilet?

I haven't thrown up very many times in my life, and have mostly done so at home, once or twice outside. I really hate vomiting.

3. First time you did anything illegal?

This will be something very boring, like breaking the speed limit.

4. First time you saw snow/the ocean (whichever is more exotic)?

Lol, I grew up next to the ocean. I was eight when I first saw snow, at my maternal grandparents’ house. It was magical. The flakes were huge and diverse, and I can remember marvelling at the silence as they fell.

5. First thought when I say "crumple-horned snorcack"?

My brain conjures something that looks a bit like Allie Brosh's Alot.

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1SE for December 2024

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Bookended by new whiskies. Plenty of cats, food, and family in between.

Happy New Year!

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The Friday Five on a Sunday

1. What is the most adventurous food you've ever tried?

For me, learning to enjoy spicy food has been the most adventurous activity. I used to flinch at the mere sight of a chilli flake. These days I can eat a madras curry.

2. What is the most adventurous food you'd be willing to try?

I haven't tried much in the way of cooked insect, but I've read that they are crunchy and delicious, so would like to try them someday. Keiki and I once saw an old video of David Attenborough eating a honeypot ant, and we'd both like to try that too.

3. Would you have a problem eating dog meat and why or why not?

Context is important here. If I needed protein and it was the only option, I'd eat it. Or if it would be culturally offensive to refuse something I was being served by my hosts. I don't draw the line on any particular food solely because of its source.

4. For the most part, do you consider your diet to be balanced?

Yes, although my portion sizes tend to be too large, so I'm working on reducing them.

5. Which is more appealing: being a vegetarian for the rest of your life or being a strict carnivore for the rest of your life?

Definitely the former. I would not like to experience the state of my digestion with the latter. With veg, fruit, grain and pulses, there is a lot more readily available variety, and if eggs and milk are allowed I would miss very little apart from seafood. The veggie substitutes for meat items these days are genuinely amazing, unlike twenty years ago.

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The Friday Five on a Sunday

1. What is the oldest object in the room with you?
Probably the walls. This is an 18th century house.

2. What is the newest?
A book I was recently gifted.

3. What is your favorite object in the room with you?
At the moment, the Christmas tree.

4. What is the most valuable object?
Humuhumu's electric guitar would be up there. The television probably was when we bought it, but it's a few years old now.

5. What is the ugliest object?
Me, I've got a cold and am all drippy. Bleh.

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The Friday Five on a Monday

1. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Lots of things, including most unrealistically, Olympic gymnast and dressage champion. The ones that lasted the longest were veterinarian, astronaut, and Nobel-prize-winning chemist.

2. Did you follow through? If not, what happened?

Reality? I mean, I don’t particularly like taking massive physical risks with my body, and I have rarely ever ridden a horse. I did eventually become a PhD chemist, but I don’t rate my chances of winning a Nobel prize in that or anything else very highly.

3. Is your life turning out the way you thought it would when you were a kid? If not, is it better or worse?

It’s definitely better, and certainly not as I envisaged. As a child, I didn't think I’d spend most of my adult life living in another country, didn’t dream of becoming an academic, and was fairly convinced from the point at which it became an option that I’d never have kids.

4. Paradoxes aside, if you could time-travel back to when you were 10 years old, what would you tell your 10-year-old self?

Good job writing that book and getting it printed by your auntie, you’ll be proud of that forever! And yes, you will always have a cat. Sometimes more than one. So don’t worry about that.

5. Do you think the child you were, would like the adult you've become?

I think so. She’d certainly be happy that the adult was still a little bit (okay, a lot) weird.

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The Friday Five on a Sunday

1. If the world were to suddenly end right now, what do you wish you would have done?

Finished my beer. [I filled this in on Saturday night.]

2. How many times do you hit the snooze button before getting out of bed?

None. I get up as soon as the alarm goes, and quite frequently before it. Hello, annoying morning person here!

3. What cartoon do you enjoy watching from the present (or the past)?

I still love watching “Danger Mouse” with the kids.

4. If you could go to any time and/or place in history, where/when would it be?

Uh, nowhere, thanks. Things were mostly crap for women in the past, especially ones who had the audacity to have an interest in science. Also, I don't much fancy living in a time when we did not know about bacteria and viruses, and couldn't refrigerate food.

5. If your life were a movie, what would it be rated and why?

I think it would depend on how the filmmaker decided to approach my young adulthood. If they focused on my daytime existence, it would be terribly wholesome and PG as I made my way through getting good marks at university, doing a PhD, and then going off to a postdoctoral position at NASA. However, my evening hours were quite often spent clubbing in the goth/industrial scene along with associated night-time activities, which would immediately turn it into an 18.

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1SE for November 2024

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I went to Sweden, but even so there are still a good number of cat videos in here.

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The Friday Five on a Monday

1. Do you celebrate or observe Halloween? How?

Carving pumpkins. Roasting pumpkin seeds. Helping the kids pick out costumes and taking them trick-or-treating.

2. What is your favorite Halloween candy?

I love mini Butterfingers, but of course you don’t get those in the UK, so I’ll settle for mini packets of Haribo.

3. Do you get trick-or-treaters on Halloween?

We live in the sticks, so no. We take the children into the nearby town to go trick-or-treating with friends.

4. Do you enjoy dressing up in costumes?

I used to. I’m too tired to do so around Halloween these days as it falls in the middle of the university teaching term. But I used to go mad for it.

5. What is your favorite Halloween memory?

I don’t have a favourite memory, but I do have a favourite costume, which was the time I dressed up as the Annihilation Operator or Â, a superhero of my own invention. I had a spandex outfit, an awesome pair of Transmuter boots, a homemade logo, and a ray gun. What else do you need to go out killing particles?

(My description from 2003, OH LOR how this is 21 years ago?!) I am the Annihilation Operator! The dreaded A-hat! I have the power to destroy electrons on sight. My mortal enemy is my transpose, the Creation Operator. Without him, though, I cannot build a Hamiltonian or see my true love, the Kroneker delta, the only one who doesn't go to zero at the sight of me.

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1SE for October 2024

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My 1SE video is late again! I'm not happy about that, but I am happy about the amount of cats, and about Spooky Season. Will be catching up on all of your videos tonight.

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The Friday Five on a Sunday

1. Do you like soup?

Yes, yes I do.

2. What is your favorite soup?

Saimin. I am also very fond of the classic chicken noodle. As a child, clam chowder with oyster crackers was another favourite.

3. What kind of soup would you like to try, but never have?

It is an unknown soup. One day I will find it on a menu and try it.

4. Is stew just a soup with extra ingredients?

All I know is that stew has to be chonky.

5. If you were a soup, what soup would you be and why?

Something with a lot of noodles and shoyu in it. Also, fishcake. And probably an egg. I'm just describing saimin now, y'all.

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The Friday Five on a Sunday

I quite enjoyed the pleasingly random assortment of questions this week.

1. What's a song you'd enjoy screaming along to as you drove down the highway?

“I love rock n roll” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. I have in fact done this very thing many times.

2. What is your favorite place/type of environment to relax?

Either my sofa being sat on by my cats, or in a nightclub with industrial music at top volume. That latter one hasn't happened for a while.

3. What are the best kind of dreams?

The ones I can't remember. Honestly I just want my subconscious to sort out my neuroses and hangups whilst I'm asleep and not bother me whilst I'm awake.

4. What do you look for in a mate?

A similar work ethic and a ridiculous sense of humour.

5. If you were a crayon colour, what colour would you be and why?

Black. The colour of SPACE. It's my favourite colour anyway.