Who Am I?

So as the main readers of this blog will know, at the beginning of July I was in Perth for an awesome wedding. I was not only lucky enough to be in the bridal party, but to be the Matron of Honour and man did I feel honoured...it was great! As part of my speech I thought it was really important to thank the bride, the lovely Jess, for helping to make me feel comfortable being me and not having to hide the true depths of my geek/nerdiness when I am around her. By default this is also true of Tim, as Tim and Jess are the most awesome kinds of geeks/nerds that I know. The only other people who get to see my real geek/nerdiness is Liz and of course Steve. So this post is homage to the real Sarah, who loves musicals, sci-fi, fan fiction, memorabilia, fantasy stuff etc.

Who am I? No, I’m not Jean Valjean, but hey if you get the reference...awesome! Musicals seem to be one of those things that have come about a bit more in recent times where your everyday movie stars are singing and usually dancing in either a remake or adaptation of a musical story. The two most recent ones that come to mind are The Phantom of the Opera and Mamma Mia. The accessibility of the story coming to film rather than the limited season or expense of the stage has surely reached a wider audience with such wonderful tunes and performances. From a very young age, my parents were generous enough to take my sister and I to see the theatre productions of shows such as The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables (several times), Pirates of Penzance (several times and even buying the VHS), The Mikado and HMS Pinafore. They were somewhat silly in not explaining that each was an adaptation of the original story and so upon viewing of subsequent productions, I know I struggled and still do struggle, to not be critical and place my preference always with the one I saw first and grew up with. We also had a large splattering of Disney movies at our beck and call which are mostly done in a musical style and so music became quite important to telling stories and expressing emotions and feelings. At present I have pretty much all of the ticket stubs from my attendance at various musicals since I became an adult. These range from $200 tickets which were gifts from family and friends to $20 tickets by amateur productions. Now I am very passionate about my two favourite musicals, Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera to the point where I own almost every DVD production, CDs, have seen more than 3 different productions of each and even own some of the sheet music. I also own a Phantom pin/broach which I have had ever since I can remember. I consider this passion to be a firm tick on the geek side as the extreme excitement which I feel when I am able to attend a production and the frequency in which I listen to the music is surely not normal but it gets me through the work day and helps me to relax and feel better when I’m stressed J

When it comes to Sci-Fi and Fantasy, I feel they are somewhat on the same wavelength, although I’m definitely more of a sci-fi girl. During my school holidays when I was younger, I remember watching my dad’s box set of the original 6 Star Trek movies over and over. I always struggled with watching the first one as it seemed to drag its feet and was about as interesting as watching grass grow. This said I’d love to challenge myself to watch it again as an adult and see if I can follow everything properly and not get bored. My favourite was by far the 4^th movie where the crew go back in time to bring a pair of humpback whales to the future. Seems farfetched, but when a random log shaped space probe arrives and your society completely relies on the technology which is subsequently failing and it seems to only speak whale, what else are you to do? I mean when I was younger I didn’t even consider all of the changes they potentially made to the timeline by curing sick patients with medication that is hundreds of years more advanced than current medication or by creating a new type of aluminium that for its strength is much thinner and lighter than it should be...but who am I to argue? I’ll tell you who would argue…Sam Carter…always the voice of reason and lack of affecting the timeline. But it was a fun movie and had a happy ending J From TOS movies to Star Trek: Voyager episodes on Wednesday (later Tuesday) nights from 11pm, I felt pretty committed to my cause at being a lover of sci-fi/fantasy. Sometime during my STV love I did stumble across Stargate SG1. I’m not really sure when I saw my first episode, which as a loyal Stargate fan does dismay me to some extent, but I have vague recollections and have subsequently read articles about some of the differences between what was aired on TV and what was released on DVD. Needless to say, by the time Steve and I started dating, I was more than hooked on SG1 and gave him little choice but to follow suit (or else). This was followed by Stargate Atlantis and then 2 straight to DVD movies and they’re all mine! They are definitely amongst the most watched DVD’s in my house, which is also due to getting my friends hooked on Stargate and being the source by which they currently get their Stargate fix. In return I’ve recently embraced my previous nemesis Doctor Who (there was this whole longest running sci-fi TV show debacle) and of course followed Amanda Tapping to Sanctuary which I LOVE! However I have put a ban on the purchase of the DVD’s as I worry that at the end of the show…hopefully not for a very long time…they’ll bring out some epic box set like Stargate did and because I already own the seasons Steve won’t let me get the cool one too…so I’m learning patience and that following most of the cast, crew and special guests on twitter and facebook means I find out lots of cool stuff anyway! WOO!

My love of sci-fi/fantasy does not stop simply at digital mediums! When I was still in school I also collected many Star Trek novels and even remember receiving new ones when I went to hospital to have my appendix out. I have a few of the Stargate novels, although most are not usually stocked in Australia, limited addition Stargate encyclopaedias (for want of a better word) that are both fan and studio commissioned (limited edition), a replica zat gun (THANKS JESS), a limited edition Sam Carter coin (from my first ever convention just after we got married), I’ve read hours of fan fiction and even written some of my own, I used to troll the internet for pictures of my favourite characters from various episodes and I have hundreds of favourite youtube videos which I have collected to support what I’m now seeing may be an addiction...But it’s not my fault that all the music attached to the various videos I’ve seen on youtube now remind of the fanvids they’re attached to! I also love engaging with all sorts of different types of sci fi/fantasy media from mutants, to magic, to mythology, to anime, to futuristic, to completely green screen and to embracing anything and everything that catches the part of my imagination that dances around in the presence of sci-fi/fantasy. If I could, I would go to sleep listening to audio books of wonderful ‘far off places, daring sword fights, magic, a prince in disguise’ (guess the quote) or really anything that I’ve been gushing over above. I mean one of my alarm sounds is a recording of the locket tune from Sailor Moon!

The internet is of course my friend in that when it comes to all the stuff I like, I’ll go looking for all manner of information, whether it’s a bit of behind the scenes footage, the Wikipedia page or watching episodes online because I hate cliff hangers, don’t have pay TV or just don’t own the DVD’s yet. See I also love crime shows. I’ve never really watched The Bill, Inspector Rex or anything high brow like that but I’m a total Law and Order: SVU addict, love Criminal Minds, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Monk, The Mentalist, Harry’s Law and some of the CSI stuff. There was a time when I even bought true crime books because I just found the intricacies of the stories completely encapsulating. I also discovered after going to England that the royal families are messed up! Their family history is as crazy as mock-turtle soup...which by the way is made from cows head...why do I know this, because I love cooking shows and particularly Heston Blumenthal and freakin everything he does! Anyway, back to the crazy royals...there is murder, intrigue, affairs, manipulation, rumours and all sorts of weird stuff just sitting there waiting to be read and when I can be bothered I find it freaking fascinating! I’ve always found history to be interesting, but mostly it was a love of the ancient world. It all seemed so glamorously intriguing and mysterious and superstitious and barbaric! But y’know what? I don’t mind a bit of modern history either if it’s done well. I mean what were they thinking when I was at school presenting history in such a boring way? I mean history plus sci-fi is also pretty darned amazing and most of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who and Sanctuary have been ones where they travel back in time. But yeah, who needs fantasy when real life is so whack-a-doodle?

Also, apparently there are sentient robots now…All I can imagine is Bicentennial Man and that had a sad ending!

But yeah, I’m passionate about stuff…I love getting introduced to new things that are sci-fi/fantasy and I love a good reminiscing over some favourites. One of my favourite ways to do this definitely quoting stuff…Oh man…Liz and I will quite often just morph into being the same person and just g for it…I don’t usually come across that many people who quote stuff like we do, but our brains just jump along the same wavelength…it’s great…Steve and Liz sometimes even have these competitions to see who can figure out where the quote or reference is from as Steve knows some better than Liz and vice versa.

So yeah, that is my homage to being a geek/nerd and being damn proud of it. I’d buy all those crazy T-shirts that make some witty reference to being a geek/nerd but then I’d get all self-conscious as soon as I’m out in the big bad scary world. So just between us friends…don’t tell anyone or nothing J

Steve asked for this...

So Steve has commented that I don’t seem to mention him in my blogs enough, so here is one devoted just to him. I’m not really feeling it as he’s kinda boring which is why I don’t talk about him much. *JOKES* I have been drafting this silly thing for months now…pretty much since my last entry, but I’ve just struggled to know what to say. I think part of my struggle was explained very well by Jess when she said that all the mushy stuff is kinda between just Steve and me. I mean it is certainly fun watching the discomfort of Steve’s brother Lachie, but he just gets uncomfortable about all forms of PDA’s or couple type discussion. So yeah, this is not meant to be mushy, but since Steve requested I blog about him, well I guess I shouldn’t just be mean to him or nothing…don’t want people to think I don’t actually like him or something. Although I have a feeling I’ll just start telling secrets about his love of Glee and that he likes to dance with our little ranga, Solomon!

 So Stephen Thomas Bell is my husband. He is 25 years old (26 in a few weeks and that makes him really old) and currently works as basically a site/project manager. He’s got it so tough with his work that they force him to take regular Rostered Days Off (RDO) and most of the time even if we leave home for work at the same time, he usually beats me back in the afternoons. Steve (as he likes to be called) is also brother to Lachlan and eldest (elder?) son of David and Angela. He has lots more family, but I can’t really be bothered to go building a family tree for you but I can say that one of his cousin’s is expecting their first child at the beginning of next year which will be the first great grandchild for gorgeous papa who is David’s dad. Steve and I would consider ourselves to be parents of two very needy and adorable cats…oh gosh my babies are cats now…and as I mentioned before, Steve likes to dance with Solomon. I’m not really sure why. Solomon is not a cuddly cat. He doesn’t mind lying down next to people and will occasionally lay down on you but generally he’s a distant kind of soul who prefers to watch what is going on. Personally I think Steve dances with him because he a bit littler (shorter) than Sebastian and slightly tubby! That and he actually doesn’t struggle when they dance…I think maybe Solomon likes it too J Steve also regularly calls them by the wrong names even though he’s a massive cat lady too and get excited when they cats lay on either side of him on the couch (his guard kitties).

Anyway…enough cat stuff….Hmmm…Steve…what else is there to say about him…he likes video games, Dr Who, Stargate, Modern Family, The Simpsons, Dexter, Biggest Loser, Master Chef…you get the idea…he a nerdy geek-boy-man-child who does our washing and ironing/folding, likes to buy an abundance of spices and thoroughly enjoys pretending to not have a social conscience because my uni training demands I MUST! He also plays touch football each Monday night, enjoys following most of the major Australian and International sport and is generally quite sporty for a nerd. When I’m not at home on the weekend or at night, he often fails to feed himself properly resorting to either nothing or instant noodles beside the fact that he actually cooks really well when he tries. Sometimes he can get a bit ambitious, but the only time I’ve not been able to eat anything he’s cooked was because the cheese we used on the bolognese was mouldy…but I picked it off and ate it with a brave face. Luckily for Steve I am a massive feeder. I truly feel that lack of descent/adequate food can affect people’s emotions and ability to think properly, so I naturally think about meals and meal planning and making sure we have food to eat and that the boy does not starve.

Steve’s love of ‘reality tv shows’ such as Masterchef, Biggest Loser and So You Think You Can Dance (in the past) is mostly based in mocking and reading witty internet commentary while watching to indulge the cynic within. To explain this a bit better…My dad thinks that Steve doesn’t like him…as does Steve’s step grandmother because Steve is an introvert. He gets uncomfortable in big group situations and often needs time to himself (not really socialising) to build up his tolerance again before he can get back into engaging with people. This also means he’s not that comfortable with strangers and small talk and will generally answer direct questions but not really offer much to conversations that are happening around him unless he’s comfortable. Even as someone who has the ability to talk under water with marbles in my mouth (as with most of the women in my family), I really value the quiet times we can have just sitting together but not feeling like we constantly have to talk. So Steve and I often watch these shows together and will poke fun at the drama or the way the producers have done the editing of the show to try and manipulate the audience into becoming anxious and worried that the favourites will be going home. If we miss an episode, Steve and I will sometimes even lay in bed watching the episode online before going to sleep. Now Liz is currently living with us and Steve has become comfortable enough around her that if he’s watching an episode of Masterchef for example and I’m not around, he’ll do his complaining or witty commentary to her.

I should also mention that Steve’s favourite kind of joke is puns. He loves a good pun. He can sit for days remembering a good pun and giggle at random intervals while he remembers the moment. As I rarely find his puns funny, when I come across a good one I try and make sure he gets credit…this is usually in the form of a high five or actual laughter as opposed to a roll of the eyes or smothered smirk. This is a similar humour he shares with Angela’s dad George and so the two get on quite well and often give each other cards with silly jokes on them that only the two of them would appreciate. This also means that on his mum’s side, Steve’s family gatherings are often a cacophony of bad jokes (usually about various professions or things that are gross) and worse puns, but everyone laughs so it’s ok.

I guess I’ll wrap this up with some warm fuzzies and try not to make it too mushy…Steve is my best friend. There is pretty much nothing in the world that I can imagine not telling him. There are certainly plenty of things he doesn’t know about me, particularly from my teenage years, but I also feel I was a very different person then and I don’t like dwelling on a lot of it so it doesn’t come up. He’s someone who I can confide in when I’m afraid, feeling inadequate or am frustrated. He supports my studies and the time it takes away from our weekends and me helping with the cleaning and mess it usually creates. While he sometimes has difficulty making decisions (particularly when put on the spot) he really doesn’t realise how much I rely on him for some of the simplest decisions. His opinions and advice are so precious to me that even with my confident façade I know that I can show him vulnerabilities and he never fails to make me feel better (eventually J). I wouldn’t trade him for any other husband because to me he’s exactly who and what I need. I will miss him so completely when he has to work away from home for several days at a time in the coming months.

Hopefully this entry has shown enough love, playfulness, teasing and love to my wonderful husband!