Profile

I've finally set up a Dreamwidth account in August 2017 for two reasons. First to follow the various people who migrated off LJ earlier in 2017 (I was pling there), so if you've arrived here wondering who I am that's just followed you that might answer your question. And second for a slightly less ephemeral place to put some of the things I've been sharing to facebook - posts about places I've been or things I've read etc - most of which will still get cross-posted to facebook but it's easier to find here and I can format them more nicely. I'm currently intending to post publicly so I'm not bothering with the access side of circles - I'll change that if that changes!

So what's likely to end up in this blog? I figured the easiest way to do this was to give a list of "things I am" with brief notes about what may or may not show up here.

Housewife: The "day job". Unlikely to end up here in any form, unless I do some impressive piece of DIY or something like that.
Runner: the hobby I currently spend most time on, running 4-6 times a week. Race reports & social runs (with photos) are likely to end up here.
Learner of Akkadian: Akkadian is a dead language spoken in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq, roughly speaking) from around 3000BCE to 300CE. It's written in cuneiform, one of the first writing systems and I'm currently working through a text book with an online group to learn to read it. Not much is likely to end up here.
Photographer: I got a DSLR back at the end of 2010 and have been taking photos (with a view to making them art rather than snapshots) ever since. Mostly I take photos in museums, of flowers & bugs, or on days out, and that sort of thing all ends up on my flickr account. I'll probably advertise those albums here. For 2017 I have a Photo A Day project going on, which is collected in this gallery on my 500px account, I do advertise those as I upload them on facebook & G+.
Writer: my blog is mostly in hiatus these days, although I do still write articles about the talks I go to at the Essex Egyptology Group. I have some plans for new projects in mind, but I will need to re-prioritise my life before I have time for them. Other than the fact that writing here is writing I'm unlikely to post anything about this aspect of myself here because it's all over there.
Consumer: I try & read some fiction every day, and some non-fiction every week. I listen to music (mostly when I'm running), I watch TV (mostly documentaries). I go to talks & exhibitions. I play computer games (less than I used to). I listen to podcasts (mostly history ones). I've been posting a weekly round-up of what I've consumed over on facebook with brief notes, and those'll end up here as well.
Socialiser: aren't we all? I'll post about social events I've been to, although not all of them by any means.

Some things are almost totally on hiatus, but they're still things I am:

Genealogist: I haven't worked on this for ages, but my father & one of my uncles have picked up the baton and are doing a great job of filling in the branches in the tree (I concentrated on main line ancestry when I was working on it). Not sure anything would end up here even if I was actively working on it.
Painter: I have a couple of books about how to draw the sorts of geometric patterns that are used extensively in the Islamic world (due to their religious prohibition on figurative art), which I've been working my way through drawing & then painting in acrylics. It's been a while since I've had time to sit down & paint, but when I do get the time then work in progress photos will likely show up here.
Embroiderer: I have two embroidery pieces that I've been working on for *mumble* 20 years or so. But I've not worked on either in ages, if I do then work in progress photos will show up here.
Musician: I learnt several instruments as a child: flute (grade 8), bassoon (to grade 5 standard but didn't do the exam), piano (to grade 3 standard but etc), singing, oboe (very briefly), recorder(s). Everything's lapsed, even the bass guitar I started to learn as an adult. Someday I'll pick things up again - well, flute or bass most likely. Can't imagine I'll write about them tho, even if it happens whilst Dreamwidth is still a thing ;)
Coder: I learnt perl some years ago, and have done a few small projects including a log parser for a Quake 4 mod which was actually used by people who weren't me at the time it was relevant. The ongoing project (which I haven't touched in years) is to parse and display graphs/statistics for weather data which my family collected from the 1980s through to sometime in the 2000s (although some of the data may've subsequently vanished). If I get anything going with this again I imagine I'll talk about it.
Gamer: I used to play computer games rather obsessively, but these days running has taken over that slot in my life. Quake 4 and Left 4 Dead (first one, not second one) are my favourite FPS games, Civilization 4 was the best Civ game, Diablo 3 my favourite thump-it-till-it-gives-you-loot aRPG game, Rock Band 4 current favourite music game (and I'm still playing Rock Band 4 and Diablo 3 every now & then with my husband). Unlikely to post about games other than the media roundup posts even if they start to take up more of my life.

And something I'm not any more:

Scientist: my educational background and career (such as it was) were in science - I was a biochemist (mostly), working on the Matrix Metalloproteinases for my PhD ("The Collagenolytic Mechanisms of the Collagenases") and the Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway for a post-doc after that. It's not something I do any more, but the training & the general mindset definitely still inform the way I look at the world around me. There won't be anything here, likely enough, but I mention it for completeness.