Hello, my name is Dichroic and I am a procrastinator. I tend to get behind on things and lose track - or not lose track and then there's always that niggling guilt. It's even stupider when it's a pleasant task I procrastinate on.
All of which is to explain why I'm only now writing an entry to say why Keilyn rocks. I'm tempted just to write, "Well, duh." Obviously I think she's got great taste, because we have so many of the same interests - that's why she started commenting here in the first place. Of the things we don't have in common, some of her hobbies (like the SCA) are ones I've always had a tangential interest in and I think some of mine (rowing) are ditto for her. I've only recently started reading her LiveJournal (which I won't link because she hasn't linked it here) and she seems to be an interesting person in the view I get from that, as well. Also, once she commented here we corresponded a bit and found the coolest coincidence I've seen all year: we'd never met but her junior high best friend was one of my best friends in high school.
A lot of people seem to look back on their youth as a time of idiocy. In a recent comment on WeirdJews, someone wrote (not to me), "You are a goddamned idiot. Now, let's prove this mathmatically: take your age- subtract 10 from it. Were you a goddamed idiot back then? Of course you were! And you're just as big of a goddamed idiot right now - it'll just take you 10 years to figure it out." (That would be why I just set up an age poll on that community. I had a feeling few people past their 20s would write that.) Anyway, my first reaction was, "But I wasn't an idiot at nearly 28." On the other hand I don't think I was an idiot at nearly 18, or nearly 8, either - inexperienced, but not stupid or even terribly thoughtless. And I don't think my friends then were either - we might have been intense and inclined to take everything with the Utmost Seriousness, but no, not stupid, and not totally devoid of judgement either.
Wheer I'm going with this is that my high school friend certainly had good judgement in people; at last report she's still married to her boyfriend from back then - who incidentally may be the single smartest person I've ever met and who was also good friends with Keilyn. And good people don't generally age into not-good people - I suppose it could happen, but I think it would be fairly visible if it did. So despite a very slight acquaintance, I know Keilyn rocks, because I knew M and J and they knew her - and thought she rocked. Good enough evidence for me.
Maybe someday we can dig up M and J and all get together on one of my infrequent East Coast trips - now that would really rock.
Posted by dichroic at January 20, 2005 12:34 PMI agree with you on the not thinking I was an idiot ten years ago. Painfully naive, maybe, but not an idiot. I think I've been getting wiser, but not smarter. Also, despite my frequent protestations that neuroscience isn't as scary as people seem to think, I don't think it's possible to be both an idiot and a grad student in neuroscience.
(I've been reading through your archives to find the children's book entry you mentioned in your list of 93, and I found something on which I wanted to comment...)
Posted by: Naomi at March 11, 2005 03:07 PM