Questions for Avril! The Ozblog

[Tyler]

1. Were you as good a writer as Scott or Apprenti when you were their age?
2. Would you ever want to work in the movie industry? If so, what aspect of it?
3. How does the typical Austalian cuisine differ from that of North America's?
4. How tall are you?
5. You do not speak of your daughter much. Are you not close?
6. Do you regularly paint your fingernails?
7. Do non-Austalians sound like they have accents to you, and Australians just sound natural and normal?

[Avril]

1. Were you as good a writer as Scott or Apprenti when you were their age?
I was an English Lit and Drama Major at Uni, and wrote reams of plays and poetry and short stories (and even a novel, long since lost in the bottom of some trunk) but I'm sure I was far more pretentious, pedantic and precious than either of those two elegant wordsmiths. Not that you'd ever suspect that now, would you, since apparently hard work at self improvement actually pays off.

2. Would you ever want to work in the movie industry? If so, what aspect of it?
If I had the energy and the technical knowledge and heaps of independent funds I might direct movies, since in writing for film it's hardly ever one's own work that ends up on the screen. And of course, your implication that writing film reviews is totally redundant to the industry is quite accurate.

3. How does the typical Austalian cuisine differ from that of North America?
Not a great deal, though I think we probably eat smaller portions (doesn't everyone?). Commercially, there are Maccas everywhere, ditto Pizza Hut and KFC, Texas Ribs Joints and Steak Houses. We have Wendy's and Subway, Muffin Break, Starbucks, Gloria Jean's and as well we have a lot of char-grilled, Portuguese and BBQ Chicken shops, and Fish and Chip shops (not as many as we used to). We have heaps of Chinese takeaways, Korean, Japanese Sushi, Vietnamese and Indonesian cuisine, Pad Thai and Thai restaurants, Mexican, Russian, Lebanese, French, German, Italian Pizzerias, Pasta and Gelato Bars, Greek restaurants, Turkish pide and kebabs, seafood restaurants, Indian curry houses and the odd African, vegetarian, Tibetan, Buddhist or macrobiotic restaurant. At home the TV ads tell us to eat Lean Cuisine from the microwave and personally I do a lot of oil-free stirfry with tamari.

4. How tall are you?
5' 2". (I've shrunk half an inch already.)

5. You do not speak of your daughter much. Are you not close?
One of the legacies of bringing up my daughter to be very independent is that she runs her own life and has been living in her own place now for about five years. Though it's always warm and fun when we see each other and we keep in contact mostly by phone, email or SMS, recently she's been making an effort to come around more often for dinner or to use the sauna or both and we often meet up for fish and chips on Maroubra Beach where she lives. She and I are close without being suffocating and share with each other the important things. She's decided this year to go back to Uni, to study History and Philosphy of Science, Psychology, Music and Spanish. She's frequently an amazing person, very stable emotionally and sensible but attracted to the unusual. She's a Lilith kind of person, runs her own race and determines her own values, a great organiser, trainer and boss, with a wild sense of fun.

6. Do you regularly paint your fingernails?
I've probably painted my fingernails not quite as often as I have fingers to paint and I rarely use cosmetics.

7. Do non-Austalians sound like they have accents to you, and Australians just sound natural and normal?
Everyone has an accent to me, since I originally come from a British colony (Zimbabwe) where a lot of people were teddibly Bwitish. Australians' accents can be both broad and cultured, and since how they speak says a great deal about a person, I do listen for accents.

[Tyler]

5'2! Man everyone is turning to be tiny here! First Archie and now you!

So you have an English accent then? I didn't know that.

Yeah, when you're daughter was here, she sounded VERY independant.. like she can handle herself in any situation... Archie and I didn't scare her one bit!

[Avril]

I can do everything tall people can do, I just have to bring a ladder. On the other hand I can do lots of things tall people can't, like slip through a crowd without being seen except by children in prams.

The Zimbabwean accent is a little more like the South African accent than British (and which British, anyway - northern or southern English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, south London, BBC, Sloan Ranger, Cockney, Liverpudlean, to name a few). But I still got accused of having a plum in my mouth when I arrived in Oz as a 10-year-old. So I guess my accent is more Australian and less noticeably different now, though people still pick it up occasionally.

Yeah, Sarah doesn't scare easily.

[PigsnieLite]

Avril is Mini-Me. Hahahaha! At least, I will still grow until Im 25. I hope.

1. Did the Tsunami change Sarah & thats why shes making an effort to visit more often?
2. Whut is the difference between Pad Thai & Thai? I thought Pad Thai wuz just cheaper.
3. Isnt Lilith the Evool First Wife of Adam? Eeek!

[Avril]

1. Did the Tsunami change Sarah & thats why shes making an effort to visit more often?
No, 'twas before the tsunami.

2. Whut is the difference between Pad Thai & Thai? I thought Pad Thai wuz just cheaper.
Yep that's basically the diff, only we seem to have a huge gap between Pad Thai (noodle bars) and Thai restaurants with their silver dishes and bronze cutlery and elaborately ornate decor.

3. Isnt Lilith the Evool First Wife of Adam? Eeek!
Lilith was indeed the the first wife of Adam. From the first version of the Creation in Genesis (there are two conflicting versions, check them out, though the whole story has since been expurgated and relegated to the Apocrypha) she was created equal from the dust of the earth, and left Eden of her own free will when God required her to serve Adam, her equal. Eve was then born of Adam's rib and supposed to be more tractable. Big mistake! Lilith has been the icon of feminists everywhere since.

[PigsnieLite]

Hurmmm, I thought Lilith later became a demoness who wished harm upon Eve or something.

I saw a shadow in the house today. It was attached to no one. It wuz in the dining room. I had been throwing a lot of old mystical type books out.

[Avril]

I haven't heard of any demonic doings of Lilith.

The unattached shadow....was that your Peter Pan persona's? (See, I THOUGHT throwing out old stuff would help you grow up.)

[Sunfrogolin]

I thought there was an adam & eve before adam and eve and they turned out rotten.

Questions for Avrilly

1. Did you see the movie White Noise? If so what did you think of it?
I was rather disturbed by the bad guys being able to mingle with the good guys in the afterlife. I don't like the thought of that.

2. What is your favorite scary movie?

3. Have you ever had an embarassing moment involving nachos?

4. Are you good with computers? I bought some more memory off the internet and it just arrived in the mail. I'm going to install it after I finish this post. This is sort of a question.

5. Have you ever been stung by a jelly fish?

[Avril]

Originally Posted by Sunfrogolin

I thought there was an adam & eve before adam and eve and they turned out rotten.

According to some scriptural beliefs there were the too-powerful Asuras, the Titans and then the Angelic Hierarchy. Then God made mankind, supposedly only making a mistake with the female in expecting she would be tractable. In both Lilith and Eve, that expectation wasn't realised. Creation myths, like creations themselves, however, tend to take on a life and mind of their own, but I hadn't heard that both original humans, having fallen of their own free will, were made over, as such.

Originally Posted by Sunfroggers

Questions for Avrilly

1. Did you see the movie White Noise? If so what did you think of it?
I was rather disturbed by the bad guys being able to mingle with the good guys in the afterlife. I don't like the thought of that.

White Noise won't be released in Oz till May, but if I'm very unlucky I'll be offerred a preview in March or April. For your next point, mon grand grenouille, what makes you think that spirits in the afterlife are segregated? Even when they're in bodies it's frequently hard to tell good and bad apart, non? Outside of bodies, spirit is non-dimensional (which is why they can possess ambivalent living bodies, computers, vacuum cleaners and answer phones or theoretically anything with an electrical charge.) As above, so below. Recognising this is the symbolic tessellated pavement (black and white squares) of the Templars. For the Apocalypse, one must either be black or white, and not ambivalent or luke-warm, or who knows what malevolent spirit will parasitise one.

2. What is your favorite scary movie?

It's probably between Shaun of the Dead and Nosferatu. Hard to choose. On the other hand when I saw The Exorcist when it first came out, I wouldn't let my escort go home for eight months.

3. Have you ever had an embarassing moment involving nachos?

With the salsa, yes. I was wearing a white shirt. Disaster. White attracts salsa, it's a law of nature.

4. Are you good with computers? I bought some more memory off the internet and it just arrived in the mail. I'm going to install it after I finish this post. This is sort of a question.

Nope, don't ask me!

5. Have you ever been stung by a jelly fish?

Yes, a few times by bluebottles (very common in Oz; rub wet sand immediately on the sting and head fast for the Lifesavers' First Aid room) and once by a box jellyfish so long ago I've forgotten everything else about it.