Some of this is true.
Apr. 29th, 2003 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rsadelleFISH! The Powers That Be at my (paying) job have decided that we ought to adopt the FISH! Philosophy. We had the last of our series of occasional presentations about it at our weekly staff meeting this morning. This morning we did a little exercise to get to know a bit about each other. I've faithfully reproduced the exercise below.
A Five-Step Psych Test
There are five things going on simultaneously which need to be taken care of:
6. The telephone is ringing.
7. The baby is crying.
8. Someone knocks at the front door or rings the doorbell.
9. There is laundry hanging on the line outside and it begins to rain.
10. The water faucet in the kitchen is running.
In what order do you take care of the problems? Jot down your order.
We don't know why the five things are numbered 6 through 10 either. Just prioritize them before you take a look at the supposed interpretation.
Here's how it supposedly breaks down:
I know you're dying to know, so here's the order in which I chose them: baby, visitor, laundry, running water, phone. No one in the whole staff meeting chose the phone as their first priority, but four or five of us chose it last. My (partnered lesbian) boss chose laundry last, and only one person chose the laundry first.
I find the whole thing a bit suspect. If asked, I would probably say friends, sex life, family, money/wealth, job/career. But, see, I don't want to be a child abuser by neglecting the baby! Maybe if it were phrased differently.
Don't read this book. The book in question is Edward Windsor: Royal Enigma by Wendy Leigh. She seems to like him at the beginning, but she seems to detest him by the time she finished the book. Sophie doesn't come out looking very good either. Leigh has a dozen different people describing Sophie in the exact same words.
Of course, one of the real problems with the book is that Leigh is trying very hard to make it exciting and suspenseful, yet it's not. And since I've been reading a whole bunch of stuff at Crime Library over the past couple of weeks, I kept imagining the pseudo-suspenseful parts being narrated by Bill Kurtis from American Justice. This is how I see it:
Bill Kurtis: It would take a New York evening to bring the rumors out. And out they would come with a vengeance. (Cut to commercial.)
Bill Kurtis: At the Aspects of Love premiere in New York on April 8, 1990, Edward met Stewart Dickson, a reporter for London's Daily Mirror. (Still image of Edward talking to Dickson. Video of generic people in fancy dress, none shown above the neck.) Dickson watched from across the room until Edward seemed more approachable. (Still photo of Edward drinking.) Then Dickson approached Edward a second time. (Different still image of Edward and Dickson.)
(Video of Dickson repeating to the camera his question to Edward that evening.)
Stewart Dickson: In London there are a lot of rumors that you are gay. Are you?
Bill Kurtis: Dickson had asked the unaskable, and now the issue was out in the open. (Still image of the Daily Mirror dated April 10, 1990 with the headline, "Queen's Son Pours His Heart Out to the Mirror; I'm Not Gay.")
At which point I, and the rest of the audience, say, "So what?"
Even if you, as Molly did, find a bargain basement copy of the book for only a dollar, don't buy it. Now if only I could make it all the way through Christopher Anderson's Diana's Boys.
Scene from an unwritten movie.
(Background. The first piece of the movie is a standard high school Pygmalion--like She's All That, but with someone nicer than Freddie Prinze Jr. Just at that point where everyone's supposed to live happily ever after, things don't go quite as expected.)
HIM: I'm sorry. I can't do this.
HER: You did this! You made me into this person. You made me like you. And now you can't do this? Why not? What's wrong with me?
HIM: Nothing's wrong with you.
HER: Then what's wrong with you?
The silence draws out as they stand there looking at each other. Finally HIS shoulders drop.
HIM: I'm gay.
(And that provides the force of the movie. She, as the only person who knows his secret, struggles against her wish for revenge, and he lives in fear that she'll tell all to the wrong people at the wrong time.)
My subconscious writes an Outer Limits episode.
We gather inside the Cathedral, a mixed group of young people. We stand around the open doors and watch as it happens. Flashes of light that turn into blackened crisps that used to be human beings. One singed person stumbles toward us. We don't leave the safety of the building. One of the flashes comes from a car stopped at a corner across the plaza in front of the Cathedral. Later I will think of the bumper sticker: "In case of rapture, this car will be driverless."
It's some time later. The Cathedral has become a commune of sorts, one complete with a nightclub lit in red. I wander among the fangirls seated in two neat rows of tables, but I can't find whomever it is I'm looking for. I head out of the club and into the back areas. I knock on the metal shutter that comes down over a back window for the kitchen. It opens, but what I'm looking for isn't there either.
It's later still. I'm sitting on the counter in the kitchen. There are other people there, and we talk about needing some gadget. One of the other people opens a hidden cupboard and pulls out just the thing we need. There's also a large green jar full of coins. There's another half-full jar in the open, but we pull out the one in the cupboard.
There's a commotion in the kitchen with a blond boy in the middle. "The army is coming for him," someone tells us. Later I will think to wonder how an army survived the Apocalypse. There are hugs all around and he leaves for one of the other communes. I stand at the window for a moment and look out over empty fields.
Then I'm back on the counter. At the table in front of me are Dara and three or four other people. Misha sits on Ruth Gifford's lap in the chair next to me. It's Dara's birthday, but she refuses to let me do anything for it. I have an idea, but she won't let me tell her what it is. I start to write it down instead, when Misha says, "We should have a birthday party for everyone." I say, "That's exactly what I was thinking!"
Reality intrudes. One of the stories I've been working on has Hermione having an abortion at age 16 and it being a traumatic experience for her. I've been highly influenced by Inga Muscio's "Abortion, Vacuum Cleaners and the Power Within." Unfortunately for the plot, although fortunately for women there, abortion is a much simpler thing in the United Kingdom than here.
People in the UK become adults at age 16. Mifepristone has been approved for use in the UK since 1991. According to The Harry Potter Lexicon's timeline, Hermione would have been 16 in 1996. And to make matters even worse for the story, I read this today, which tells me that in the UK, women over the 16 can get the "morning-after" pill from a pharmacist without a prescription.
I think I may be able to work around it. Suppose Hermione gets pregnant. She's upset and worried about other things, so she doesn't even think about it within 72 hours, the window of time during which the "morning-after" pill is effective. She only realizes she's pregnant a week or two later. She goes to a clinic where she finds out that it's an ectopic pregnancy, which means that mifepristone is not an option for her. That would let her have the more invasive sort of abortion which would leave her traumatized in the right kind of way for the story to work.
Any thoughts, especially from those of you who may be British, would be greatly appreciated.
There are five things going on simultaneously which need to be taken care of:
6. The telephone is ringing.
7. The baby is crying.
8. Someone knocks at the front door or rings the doorbell.
9. There is laundry hanging on the line outside and it begins to rain.
10. The water faucet in the kitchen is running.
In what order do you take care of the problems? Jot down your order.
We don't know why the five things are numbered 6 through 10 either. Just prioritize them before you take a look at the supposed interpretation.
Here's how it supposedly breaks down:
phone = job, careerNow some of them I can understand, but how does laundry equal your sex life? I mean, perhaps if it's your sheets on the line, but even then all it shows is that you have no imagination when it comes to sex.
baby = family
visitor = friends
laundry = sex life
running water = money, wealth
I know you're dying to know, so here's the order in which I chose them: baby, visitor, laundry, running water, phone. No one in the whole staff meeting chose the phone as their first priority, but four or five of us chose it last. My (partnered lesbian) boss chose laundry last, and only one person chose the laundry first.
I find the whole thing a bit suspect. If asked, I would probably say friends, sex life, family, money/wealth, job/career. But, see, I don't want to be a child abuser by neglecting the baby! Maybe if it were phrased differently.
Don't read this book. The book in question is Edward Windsor: Royal Enigma by Wendy Leigh. She seems to like him at the beginning, but she seems to detest him by the time she finished the book. Sophie doesn't come out looking very good either. Leigh has a dozen different people describing Sophie in the exact same words.
Of course, one of the real problems with the book is that Leigh is trying very hard to make it exciting and suspenseful, yet it's not. And since I've been reading a whole bunch of stuff at Crime Library over the past couple of weeks, I kept imagining the pseudo-suspenseful parts being narrated by Bill Kurtis from American Justice. This is how I see it:
Bill Kurtis: It would take a New York evening to bring the rumors out. And out they would come with a vengeance. (Cut to commercial.)
Bill Kurtis: At the Aspects of Love premiere in New York on April 8, 1990, Edward met Stewart Dickson, a reporter for London's Daily Mirror. (Still image of Edward talking to Dickson. Video of generic people in fancy dress, none shown above the neck.) Dickson watched from across the room until Edward seemed more approachable. (Still photo of Edward drinking.) Then Dickson approached Edward a second time. (Different still image of Edward and Dickson.)
(Video of Dickson repeating to the camera his question to Edward that evening.)
Stewart Dickson: In London there are a lot of rumors that you are gay. Are you?
Bill Kurtis: Dickson had asked the unaskable, and now the issue was out in the open. (Still image of the Daily Mirror dated April 10, 1990 with the headline, "Queen's Son Pours His Heart Out to the Mirror; I'm Not Gay.")
At which point I, and the rest of the audience, say, "So what?"
Even if you, as Molly did, find a bargain basement copy of the book for only a dollar, don't buy it. Now if only I could make it all the way through Christopher Anderson's Diana's Boys.
Scene from an unwritten movie.
(Background. The first piece of the movie is a standard high school Pygmalion--like She's All That, but with someone nicer than Freddie Prinze Jr. Just at that point where everyone's supposed to live happily ever after, things don't go quite as expected.)
HIM: I'm sorry. I can't do this.
HER: You did this! You made me into this person. You made me like you. And now you can't do this? Why not? What's wrong with me?
HIM: Nothing's wrong with you.
HER: Then what's wrong with you?
The silence draws out as they stand there looking at each other. Finally HIS shoulders drop.
HIM: I'm gay.
(And that provides the force of the movie. She, as the only person who knows his secret, struggles against her wish for revenge, and he lives in fear that she'll tell all to the wrong people at the wrong time.)
My subconscious writes an Outer Limits episode.
We gather inside the Cathedral, a mixed group of young people. We stand around the open doors and watch as it happens. Flashes of light that turn into blackened crisps that used to be human beings. One singed person stumbles toward us. We don't leave the safety of the building. One of the flashes comes from a car stopped at a corner across the plaza in front of the Cathedral. Later I will think of the bumper sticker: "In case of rapture, this car will be driverless."
It's some time later. The Cathedral has become a commune of sorts, one complete with a nightclub lit in red. I wander among the fangirls seated in two neat rows of tables, but I can't find whomever it is I'm looking for. I head out of the club and into the back areas. I knock on the metal shutter that comes down over a back window for the kitchen. It opens, but what I'm looking for isn't there either.
It's later still. I'm sitting on the counter in the kitchen. There are other people there, and we talk about needing some gadget. One of the other people opens a hidden cupboard and pulls out just the thing we need. There's also a large green jar full of coins. There's another half-full jar in the open, but we pull out the one in the cupboard.
There's a commotion in the kitchen with a blond boy in the middle. "The army is coming for him," someone tells us. Later I will think to wonder how an army survived the Apocalypse. There are hugs all around and he leaves for one of the other communes. I stand at the window for a moment and look out over empty fields.
Then I'm back on the counter. At the table in front of me are Dara and three or four other people. Misha sits on Ruth Gifford's lap in the chair next to me. It's Dara's birthday, but she refuses to let me do anything for it. I have an idea, but she won't let me tell her what it is. I start to write it down instead, when Misha says, "We should have a birthday party for everyone." I say, "That's exactly what I was thinking!"
Reality intrudes. One of the stories I've been working on has Hermione having an abortion at age 16 and it being a traumatic experience for her. I've been highly influenced by Inga Muscio's "Abortion, Vacuum Cleaners and the Power Within." Unfortunately for the plot, although fortunately for women there, abortion is a much simpler thing in the United Kingdom than here.
People in the UK become adults at age 16. Mifepristone has been approved for use in the UK since 1991. According to The Harry Potter Lexicon's timeline, Hermione would have been 16 in 1996. And to make matters even worse for the story, I read this today, which tells me that in the UK, women over the 16 can get the "morning-after" pill from a pharmacist without a prescription.
I think I may be able to work around it. Suppose Hermione gets pregnant. She's upset and worried about other things, so she doesn't even think about it within 72 hours, the window of time during which the "morning-after" pill is effective. She only realizes she's pregnant a week or two later. She goes to a clinic where she finds out that it's an ectopic pregnancy, which means that mifepristone is not an option for her. That would let her have the more invasive sort of abortion which would leave her traumatized in the right kind of way for the story to work.
Any thoughts, especially from those of you who may be British, would be greatly appreciated.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-29 10:49 pm (UTC)Ahh, but if you opened the door first, said "Hang on", picked up the phone, said "Hang on", and turned off the water, that's like, five minutes max. In the five minutes, the person at the door might be gone, the person on the phone would be, and well, the water- it takes 2 seconds to turn off a faucet. And in that time, unless the baby stops crying, you don't have to worry about the kid. It hasn't died from starvation, it hasn't. Well, it hasn't done anything. At worst, it's five minutes more hungry and it's been sitting five minutes longer in a dirty diaper. That's hardly child neglect.
I rather think the entire think is so much hooey. Who would take down laundry before they answered the phone? And who would take down laundry before they let down their visitor, who is also getting wet in the rain? Well, I guess people who really like laundry, but I don't think people who really like sex really like laundry.
Er, sorry. I was reading my friends friends page, and these sorts of interpretive psych surveys have always fascinated me. I'll just be on my way, now.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-29 11:01 pm (UTC)I don't think much of these things either, but this one caused a great deal of hilarity in the meeting this morning. (We were all in quite a mood anyway.) I think it was actually meant to be part of the "Have Fun" aspect of FISH!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-29 10:54 pm (UTC)I don't see how this means money is most important to me, really. And does this mean I foist my family off on my friends in order to have time for my sex life?
Really, I was just being practical: shut off the tap because wasting water is bad for the encironment, get the baby because I hate screaming babies and I want it to shut up, open the door to the visitor because I don't want to leave people out in the rain (whoever's on the phone can ring back if need be), etc. Feh on tests like that, man. I had the same thing with the animals in the desert test
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-29 11:07 pm (UTC)I tend to think the phone can wait. Either you have an answering machine or they'll call back. And the water, well, it can be turned off in just a second at any time, so it's not a priority the way the crying baby, laundry getting wet, and person at the door are. Of course, I don't hang my laundry on the line outside, and if I'm half-napping, I answer neither the phone nor the door, but if I had a crying baby to deal with too, I'd be more likely to
Re:
Date: 2003-04-30 02:23 am (UTC)Exactly, the phone can wait, the only reason I would have a tap running would be if I was standing next to it (I'm really anal about preserving water) so it'd make the most sense to turn it off to a) preserve water and b) prevent flooding while I was there anyway, and I would pick up the baby because you can carry it with you while taking care of the visitor, who is standing out in the rain. The laundry can also kind of wait, because you can always wash it again, or dry it in the dryer.
I think your comment got cut off there, btw.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-30 07:27 pm (UTC)Only the period got cut off.
Re:
Date: 2003-05-01 01:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-01 07:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-17 09:29 am (UTC)Hope to hear from you,
Liz
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-17 09:48 pm (UTC)I have, however, been halfway thinking about writing Fele Martinez/Edwardo Noriega RPS.
Re:
Date: 2003-06-18 02:49 pm (UTC)I glady acknowledge my ignorance... what's a RPS?
Have you seen "Habla con Ella"? I watched it twice looking for Fele and then finally looked up who he was. Imagine my surprise at finding him in such an unlikely place (if you haven't seen it--see it!) That was a bold move to say the least.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-06 03:33 pm (UTC)I haven't seen Habla con ella yet. I'm not that big an Almodovar fan.