Saturday, May 29, 2010

Geek Girls Unite! blog award

I know I just posted about my first blog award, but I've actually just been given a second blog award. It's the Geek Girls Unite award from RAY J at Point Me to the Sky Above, an awesome geek girl who I only recently discovered as she was doing a giveaway on her blog to celebrate five years of World of Warcraft playing (a real veteran!). As a proud geek girl, I am very honored! The award was just created by Angela of High on Life, another geek girl I recently found--see, we geek girls are uniting!


And here are the rules:
List ten geeky facts about yourself and...
Pass this award onto your favorite female geeks!

Now my geeky facts. Some of these I've talked about on my blog before (one of my blog's themes is celebrating my geekiness, after all) but some are new little geeky gems!

1. I didn't start loving to read until I read Brian Jacques' Redwall series about woodland animals who (mostly) live in an abbey and take up swords and slings and bows and arrows when their peace is threatened by cruel invaders. It was my invaluable introduction to fantasy.
2. I've always enjoyed math and science. Now I'm working towards a PhD in physical oceanography (i.e., the physics of the ocean). Field work is all well and good, but what I really like is modeling--and I don't mean strutting down the runway. Computer programming is fun!
3. I can speak a little bit of Quenya (one of Tolkien's Elvish languages). Not much, but more than just direct quotes from Lord of the Rings; I know some grammar and a small vocabulary and can make my own sentences. What's more, I learned it for a self-tailored high school project which culminated in a presentation to my class. (All the gory details can be found here.) And I can write in the tengwar script.
4. Of course, my high school classmates already knew I was a geek. I was the president of my high school's Fantasy Reader's Guild. I even got our guild's picture in the local newspaper as we stood in line, in costume, waiting to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
5. I love musicals and I love memorizing songs from musicals. I can sing from memory all or most of the songs from Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Into the Woods, Wicked, Avenue Q, Guys and Dolls...
6. I'm a huge fan of Firefly, among many other sci-fi- and fantasy-related TV shows. In college, I got a bunch of friends hooked on Firefly, and when we watched the movie Serenity, I threw a theme party with Chinese food, ice-planets, and costumes. (I did a post on that one here.)
7. In my Ivy League civil engineering course called Mechanics of Solids, I did my term paper on The Bridge of Khazad-dûm: A structural analysis of a bridge of Dwarven engineering (that is, the bridge that Gandalf and the fiery Balrog fall off of in LotR). I got an A+. (Find the full story here.)
8. Up until I was 24 years old, the only boyfriends I'd ever had were non-player characters in my computer games: Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect. (Get the juicy details here.)
9. Once I did get boyfriend, I proceeded to geekify him. So far we've covered Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Horrible, Fringe, and The Guild, and our current projects are Big Bang Theory and Pushing Daisies.
10. Last but not least, what has been until now a closely guarded secret: When I was in 9th grade, I was in a youth bowling league. Not geeky enough? We named our team the Rolling Voltorbs. Yes, a voltorb is a Pokémon. Shaped like a ball. We were clever.


Now, I bestow this noble award upon these lovely geek girls:

Hezabelle - A Canadian studying towards a master's degree in the U.K. and enjoying her travels in Europe, she knows a lot about Greek history and mythology. She's also the only other girl I know who says she knows a tiny bit of Elvish.

Holly of Sorcery and Glue - Another girl who shares my love of BioWare games, she makes awesome costumes related to her favorite geeky things. Current projects: Mass Effect N7 armor and a Grunt costume with animatronic head!

Megan of Hollywood Jane - A fantasy and sci-fi fan and Joss Whedon lover trying to make it as a writer in L.A. She has a funny web series called "Quest for Comic-Con."

Geek Girl Diva - She keeps us geek girls updated on news to make us squee and geeky merchandise to make us drool.

16 comments:

Megan Christopher said...

Aw, thank you so much! I'm very honored - this is my first blog award :D

Soph! said...

9. Fringe is on my to-watch list! I just started Big Bang Theory. I'm on the first season.

10. Rolling Voltorbs. Brilliant!

Eleni said...

Megan - My pleasure! Your videos prove you're a very well-qualified recipient :)

Soph - It took me a little time to get completely sold on Fringe. I always enjoyed it, but it wasn't until maybe the second half of the first season that I started really loving it.

And thanks. I was just remembering how sometimes, when throwing the ball down the lane, we'd even say, "I chose you--Voltorb!" You know, for good luck or something.

Cassey said...

With you on the musicals. Awesome name for a bowling team :)

Unknown said...

Yay!!! Thank you!!! :)

Holly said...

Yaaay!! Thank you so much for the award! I love your blog, and now I have a few others to follow too! I think I'll answer the same questions, but you're the only blog I have right now to award it back to! So consider it shared ;D

Also, as far as the Elvish goes, my senior quote was in elvish. It was awesome. No one got it. (And I went dressed up to all LOTRs and the first three Harry Potter movies....)

It's good to be a geek. And you have to admit, the bioware guys weren't really bad boyfriends, despite the whole not existing thing....;D

Eleni said...

Cassey - Musicals are awesome. I actually just took my boyfriend to his first live musical, an amateur production of Guys and Dolls. He got really excited when he realized there was a live orchestra (so cute).

Hez - Of course! Well earned indeed.

Holly - Aw, thanks! I love your blog, too!

So what was the quote? I never had a Harry Potter costume, unfortunately. Maybe I could put one together in time for the last movies.

Yeah, the BioWare guys are pretty hot, but don't tell my boyfriend that. When I admitted to my "affair" with Thane while he was away on spring break, he said he was going to have to teach Thane a lesson, haha. Wouldn't have stood a chance...except for the whole Thane not being real thing.

Cassey said...

Yay for getting him to go with you, now to get him to sing-along to your cd's ;)

rachaelgking said...

The month or so we spent watching BSG? One of the best of my life. No lie.

Sebastian Anthony said...

(I knew there was a reason for my heretofore irrational love for you, Lilu!)

You have a copy of the photo from #4, right?

Email me... please... (I will grovel.)

Eleni said...

Cassey - Yup, that's the idea. Or at least he can appreciate it when I sing songs from the musical, or quote it.

Hi Lilu - That must have been one intense month! I think it took us a few months to get through it. But yeah, I can definitely understand what you mean.

Seb - Hmm, I will have to look around. Not sure I have one of the copies here in Hawaii...

Megan Christopher said...

I totally forgot to mention that Redwall was one of my absolute favorite series when I was in middle school. I loved any of the stories about the Long Patrol.

Kara said...

You're such a deserving recipient of the geek girl award! I'm so glad you are in the process of geekifying the boyfriend. Hope you send him off on his expedition with a few thoughtfully hidden DVDs of BBT, BSG, etc. in his luggage!

And OMG! The Rolling Voltorbs?! Brilliant. That takes the cake.

Eleni said...

Megan - The hares in the Long Patrol were awesome! I love how Jacques writes all the different accents for the different animals, wot wot.

Kara - Thanks! That's a great idea--I'll find something for him. Maybe give him a game or two for his computer. He actually just did Portal yesterday and loved it--and promised to learn to play the song on his guitar for me :)

Amelia Tyler said...

Congratulations, everyone, and good luck, Eleni - I've just forced my other half to finally start playing 'Portal' and, to his surprise, he's loving it!

Luckily it's a puzzle so not as scary as when he tried his hand at 'Bioshock'. Turn around WHILE you're walking forward, man! Not AFTERWARDS! Christ, that kind of behaviour is almost enough to give me a heart attack...

Love to all you fellow geek girls out there! Milly x

Eleni said...

Hi Milly!

Portal really is a great game. I was a little concerned my boyfriend would get stuck because he doesn't have much experience with video games, but it's structured perfectly to teach you what you need to know, and it's just the right difficulty so it's a challenge without being overly frustrating. My next plan is to try him on Diablo II (one of the few games his video card will run--he had to borrow my computer for Portal). We'll see how that goes.

Always nice to meet another geek girl :)