Memeage

[lederhosen]

Did this one a while back, but there are a lot of new people on my friends list since then... re-ganked from sapia. People who've played before are welcome to play again.

I want everyone who reads this to ask me 3 questions. Ask me anything you want, I will answer honestly.* Then go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends (including myself) to ask you anything.

*Passwords and credit card numbers might be pushing it, though.

Comments

[djfiggy.livejournal.com]

1. Would you ride through Texas on a pink tricycle?
2. Would you wear hot pink press-on nails to a job interview?
3. Would you pick up a tarantula?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

#1 and #2: Only if I was paid to.
#3: If I had a good reason to, I guess. Not something I'd be likely to do just for fun.

[glompbot.livejournal.com]

2. What is the industry you work in?
1. Why do you work in the industry you work in?
3. Are you HAPPY in the industry you work in?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

2. Vision science, more specifically contact lens R&D. I'm somewhere between programming, mathematics, engineering, and optics, and I work for a Cooperative Research Centre, which is 'academia' or 'industry' depending on what's more convenient at the time. My business card says I'm a 'research scientist'.

1. Controlled drift, I guess.

I'd finished a degree in mathematics, and decided I wanted a slight change in direction. A friend of the family suggested I look at biomedical engineering, she introduced me to a guy in UNSW's Biomed Eng. department, it looked interesting, and they had a CRC-funded scholarship available for a project on contact lenses. That seemed as good as any other project, so I took it.

The director of the CRC was interested in my work, and they were short on mathematicians, so when I finished he offered me a job. And here I am.

3. Pretty much, yeah. I bitch about stuff now and then, but I'd be hard pressed to find a better job. The work environment's pretty good, the pay's reasonable, and I'm left to do my job as I see fit. (Not least because there are only two other people there who understand much of what I do.)

The commercialisation side annoys me now and then, because IP law hurts my brain and I don't enjoy writing patent apps. Or having to keep silent about some of what I do. OTOH, it does mean less penny-pinching than if I was working in regular academia.

Of course, there are some sides of me that I don't get to express much through my work, but that'd happen in any job. If it's a choice between being an scientist who daydreams about writing for a living, and a writer who daydreams about science, I'll stick with the former... after all, I can still write as a hobby. And it's bloody hard to make a living as a writer.

'Course, when I can combine the two and write about science, I'm a very happy camper. As long as it's not a patent application :-)

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

What's your favourite scent or smell?
Why? What does it remind you of? (Given how much smell is connected to memory, that counts as one question)
How do you react when you smell it?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Difficult to answer this one... I've heard smells are closely linked to memory for some people, but it doesn't happen so much for me. My reactions to smell are based more on what the smell means now.

My favourites... hmm. Aside from food smells (obvious motivation there :-) I'm very fond of the smell of silk, probably because I like working with the stuff - it feels good, it holds lovely strong colours, and it sews well, although I haven't done that for a couple of years ago.

But my favourite is a bit of an odd one - the smell of a certain person's hair. Smelling that reinforces the friendship I have with her, and makes me feel relaxed and comfortable.