complete the 5000 question survey

but I lost my enthusiasm for it. Sorry.

1. Who are you? I am Sessygail.

2. What are the 3 most important things everyone should know about you? I love Maine. I use big words not to impress or annoy but because I love them. I hate conflict.

3. When you aren’t filling out 5,000 question surveys like this one what are you doing? Balancing my time between working really, really hard and being really, really lazy.

4. List your classes in school from the ones you like the most to the ones you like the least (or if you are out of school, think of the classes you did like and didn’t like at the time).
English
Psychology
History
P.E.
Science
Math

5. What is your biggest goal for this year?
To lose another 25 pounds and get fitter.

6. Where do you want to be in 5 years?
Alive, active, healthy, and getting ready to retire.

7. What stage of life are you in right now?
The stage where I have started worrying just a little bit less about getting all of the work done and a little bit more about the fun and interesting things I want to do in the years I have left.

8. Are you more child-like or childish?
Definitely child-like.

9. What is the last thing you said out loud?
“Love you.” To my husband after he kissed me goodnight.

10. What song comes closest to how you feel about your life right now?
“Simple Gifts” ‘tis the gift to be simple; ‘tis the gift to be free; ‘tis the gift to come down where we ought to be…

11. Have you ever taken martial arts classes?
Not even one.

12. Does your life tend to get better or worse or does it just stay the same?
Mostly it balances out, probably tilting more to the better side – some of the “worse” times are spectacularly bad but there are so many “better” times and so many of those are spectacularly better so that it feels like it must tend to get better, overall.

13. Does time really heal all wounds?
If you allow it to.

14. How do you handle a rainy day?
I don’t bother with an umbrella, if that is what you mean. But I do drive more cautiously.

15. Which is worse…losing your luggage or having to sort out tangled holiday lights?
I’ve never lost my luggage and I don’t mind sorting out tangled holiday lights, so, I can’t really say.

16. How is your relationship with your parents?
My father, who has been dead for more than 10 years, is with me every single day. My mother, who used to be my best friend, is still alive but has left me in more ways than I can count and it makes me very sad.

Will you miss them when they are gone?
I already do.

17. Do you tend to be aware of what is going on around you?
Very much so. I practice “Lessons in Noticing”

18. What is the truest thing that you know?
That the truth is relative.

19. What did you want to be when you grew up?
A nurse.

20. Have you ever been given a second chance?
I’m sure I have but I cannot think of a specific example at this moment.

21. Are you more of a giver or a taker?
I would like to say “giver” but I imagine that is a matter of perception.

22. Do you make your decisions with an open heart/mind?
It depends on the decision that needs to be made. And, as I think about it, making a decision with a closed heart/mind, doesn’t really qualify as making a decision, anyway, does it? I mean, if your mind is closed then the decision making process doesn’t occur, right?

23. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you?
Waking up with a kidney stone. It felt like I had exploded an ovary.

24. What is the most emotionally painful thing that has ever happened to you?
Hmmm…if I look back on the things that I hold onto (for the most painful things are the things we can’t let go of, right?)…well, if I am honest (and why shouldn’t I be?) it would have to be something that happened on December 27, 2009. That’s all I will say here.

25. Who have you hugged today?
My husband and a co-worker who got the full time job.

26. Who has done something today to show they care about you?
My husband, several of my colleagues, my friend Jeanne.

27. Do you have a lot to learn?
I certainly do!

28. If you could learn how to do three things just by wishing and not by working what would they be?

A To be fluent in Swedish

B To craft beautiful furniture

C To sew

29. Which do you remember the longest: what other people say, what other people do or how other people make you feel?
How other people make me feel.

30. What are the key ingredients to having a good relationship?
Honesty, kindness, self-awareness.

31. What 3 things do you want to do before you die?

A Spend a few months exploring Italy with my husband.

B Take some classes: photography, dancing, cooking, pottery

C Get an interpreter pool fund set up for health care and 12-step meetings

32. What three things would you want to die to avoid doing?

A Willfully and maliciously hurt someone I love

B Be kept alive after the essence of me has left

C Embrace conservatism

33. Is there a cause you believe in more than any other cause?
For lack of a better term, “Gay Rights” I believe with all my heart and all my soul and all my being that being gay is NOT a sin and that there is a spectrum of sexuality. And I am not gay.

34. What does each decade make you think of:

The 19..

20’s: Not much

30’s: The Great Depression

40’s: WWII

50’s: My beginning

60’s: childhood, climbing trees, riding bikes, Sunday dinners, Wisconsin, station wagons

70’s: adolescence, being a Candy Striper, Sweden, Penn State, John Denver

80’s: teaching school, Appalachia, waiting tables, my Sunbird,

90’s: coming into my own, exploring music, going to Maine, losing Daddy

2000 (so far): Maine, marriage, hard work, step-parenting, losing my sister, hospice

2010’s: getting fit,

35. Which decade do you feel the most special connection to and why? The 70’s – so many formative moments, experiences: Sweden, working at the hospital, going to Penn State, the music,

36. What is your favorite oldie/classic rock song?
I can’t limit it to one.

37. What country do you live in and who is the leader of that country?
The United States; Barack Obama

If you could say any sentence to the current leader of your country what would it be?
“I appreciate what you are trying to do and I understand how hard it must be to do it and I thank you for trying.”

38. What’s your favorite TV channel to watch in the middle of the night?
The one that runs my dreams.

39. What Disney villain are you the most like and why?
Disney has villains?

40. Have you ever been a girl scout/boy scout?
I was a Brownie for about 2 weeks. I quit when I found out I was supposed to give them a dime from my allowance each week for some stupid thing called “dues.” I don’t think so!

41. If you were traveling to another continent would you rather fly or take a boat?
Fly, I guess.

42. Why is the sky blue during the day and black at night?
So we can tell the difference between night and day?

43. What does your name mean?
Apparently it means “holy garden”

44. Would you rather explore the deeps of the ocean or outer space?
The ocean…have you ever been scuba diving? So cool.

45. Word association

What is the first word that comes to mind when you see the word:

Air: water

Meat: steak

Different: interesting

Pink: flamingo

Deserve: earn

White: snow

Elvis: Be-Ba (my grandmother)

Magic: carpet

Heart: rock

Clash: band

Pulp: orange

46. If you could meet any person in the world who is dead who would you want it to be?
Me in a previous life.

47. What if you could meet anyone who is alive?
Wracking my brain on this one and I can’t come up with anyone by name. I would like to meet anyone who is a kindred spirit.

48. Is there a movie that you love so much you could watch it everyday?
I don’t think so. I did watch “Sleepless in Seattle” every day for about two weeks one summer when I had bronchitis and couldn’t go outside because of the heat.

49. You are going to be stuck alone in an elevator for a week. What do you bring to do?
My Xanax to take to keep my calm.

50. Have you ever saved someone’s life or had your life saved?
You never know, now, do you?

51. Make up a definition for the following silly words…

Fruitgoogle: all the leftover parts of the fruit I just cut up in the sink right before I turn on the garbage disposal

Ambytime: that time each day when I switch from doing something with my left hand to doing it with my right hand because my left hand is tired.

Asscactus: a prickly ass person who gets under your skin

52. What was the last thing you made with your own hands?
Dinner tonight.

53. What was your favorite toy as a child?
My spaghetti-haired doll (she had yellow yarn hair). Or my “Incredible Edibles” thingy. Or my Little Kiddles and their house.

54. How many TV’s are in your house?
Two

55. What is your favorite thing to do outside?
Hike.

56. How do you feel when you see a rainbow?
Magical.

57. Have you ever dreamt a dream that came true?
Not that I remember, if you mean sleeping “dreams” and not planning “dreams”

58. Have you ever been to a psychic/tarot reader?
Yes, several times.

59. What is your idea of paradise?
Maine.

60. Do you believe in god and if so what is he/she/it like?
Yes and he/she/it is a presence more than a being and he/she/it is love and hope and joy and wisdom.

61. Do you believe in Hell?
Yes, but not as a place where bad people or non-believers or anyone else “goes.” Hell is an experience, not a place.

62. What one thing have you done that most people haven’t?
Scuba diving and hang gliding (oops, that’s two!)

63. What is the kindest thing you have ever done?
Hospice volunteering.

64. Are you a patient person?
Depends on my cycle.

65. What holiday should exist but doesn’t?
Every day should be a holiday.

66. What holiday shouldn’t exist but does?
Lee-Jackson Day in Virginia. But, hey, at least they separated it from Martin Luther King Day finally!

67. What’s the best joke you ever heard?
The only one that comes to mind is one I heard about thirty years ago. I won’t repeat the whole thing here but the punch line was “It was a light load. I did it by hand.”

68. Where is the most fun place you have EVER been?
Sweden in 1976.

69. Is your hair natural or dyed?
Natural.

70. Do you have any deep dark secrets or are you pretty much up front?
Up front…I often wonder what I would send to PostSecret. I have one but it really isn’t deep and dark…it is just a private ritual my husband and I share and it isn’t about sex in any way shape or form.

71. What is under your bed right now?
The carpet. And one half-empty water bottle that rolled under just out of reach.

72. If you were in the Land of Oz would you want to live there or go home?
Home, please.

73. If you drive do you frequently speed?
Probably half the time.

74. What is the world’s best song to dance to?
African Drums.

75. What song was on the last time you danced with someone?
The Twist

76. Do you prefer Disney or Warner Brothers?
Warner Brothers.

77. What is the first animal you would run to see if you went to the zoo?
The Polar Bears. No, wait, the giraffes. Nope, the Polar Bears. Ummm…maybe the giraffes?

78. Would you consider yourself to be romantic?
Not as much as I used to be but that is okay.

79. If the earth stopped rotating would we all fly off?
Who knows…it has never happened. I mean, wouldn’t it depend on WHY it stopped rotating. Suppose it got stuck in some inter-galactic quicksand?

80. What is the one thing that you love to do so much that you would make sacrifices to be able to do it?
Spending time in Maine in the fall.

81. If you (and everyone) had to lose one right or freedom, but you could pick which one everyone had to lose, what would you pick?
The right or freedom to be purposefully mean to other people.

82. If you had to choose would you live on the equator or at the North Pole?
I guess the North Pole.

83. Would you rather give up listening to music or watching television?
Watching t.v. without a doubt.

84. What do you think makes someone a hero?
Integrity.

85. What cartoon would you like to be a character in?
Charlie Brown Christmas

86. Name one thing that turns your stomach:
Out of control anger/conflict

87. What was the last thing you paid for?
Gasoline.

88. Are you a coupon clipper?
I clip some, I just never remember to use them.

89. Get anything good in the mail recently?
The brochure for the new season of programs at the Modlin Center for the Arts.

90. Which would you rather take as a gym class…dancing, sailing, karate, or bowling?
Dancing.

91. In Star Trek people ‘beam’ back and forth between different places. What this means is they stand in a little tube and their molecules are deconstructed and sent to another tube somewhere else where they are reassembled. Only problem is when the molecules are deconstructed the person is dead. When they are put back together it is only a clone that has all the dead person’s memories. So…

Is the person who gets beamed the same person on both ends?

So they die a thousand deaths in Star Trek? I never knew that.

92. What insects are you afraid of?
Ticks

93. If you could print any phrase on a T-shirt, what would it say?

94. What’s the most eccentric thing you have ever worn?
A giant feather headpiece like a Vegas showgirl. It was a gift from my sister.

95. If you could pick one food that you could eat all you wanted but it would have no effect on how much you weigh, what food would it be?
Bacon.

96. What are your parents interested in?
Nothing.

97. Have you ever caught an insect and kept it as a pet?
Fireflies – but they never lasted very long, now did they?

Have you ever caught and tamed a wild animal?
There was an owl that flew into the side of my car. I brought him home and we rehabbed him and taught him how to fly again. Does that count?

98. What is more helpful to you, wishes or plans?
Plans.

99. When do you feel your life energy the strongest?
When I am awake.

100. You are spending the night alone in the woods and may bring only 3 items with you. What do you bring?
A sleeping bag, a bottle of water, matches.

Oh, wait, does that make it 5001 questions? Anyway, I am in the mood for a project and this seems like it might be fun. Working on the first 100. Will post them tmw.