10 Quick Questions and Answers

Response to Linda Ng’s fun prompt

I wasn’t bored as fellow New Writers Welcome editor, Linda, suggests in her original prompt. I was thrilled to participate in such a fun prompt and take a break from some of the more serious topics I’d covered recently. She didn’t want to tag anyone in her original post but I’ll definitely take time at the end to tag anyone who might want to participate. As for Linda, the idea of passing notes in high school to ask friends dumb questions definitely appealed to me as well. I didn’t do it a lot but I did it sometimes. I was a pretty serious student academically, at least most of the time I was.

I’m excited to see what other writers have as answers to this line of questioning. When my Canadian peer uses the u in questions like favorite and color, for example, I will be using the American spelling since that’s where I’m from. Without further ado, here are the answers to the 10 questions.

1. What is your favorite drink? I really love water. Anything with water in it also quenches my thirst. It really depends on my mood though. Even if I know that I need water, sometimes I just really crave some pop (soda). Water is the simplest answer that I can give to this question, though.
2. What is your favorite color? My favorite color is a shade of blue that is present in the North Carolina Tar Heels sports uniforms and logos. I guess that would be considered a Tar Heel blue. It’s a much lighter shade of blue than just standard blue. I’ve always loved lighter colors and I guess blue has always appealed to me.
3. If you won the lottery, what are the top 3 things you’d do first? I’d first pay off all of my outstanding debts, mostly student loan debt. Then once all of those are taken care of, I’d buy myself a house on a nice parcel of land. Once the house is taken care of, I’d then go ahead and buy a nice, practical, and not-too-flashy vehicle for both my partner and myself. After that, everything else is optional and can go in any particular order.
4. What is your favorite cuisine? Ooh, this is such a complicated question and answer. Many different cuisines offer delicious dishes that I really enjoy across the world. When I was younger, I’d probably easily answer Italian-American (Italian). The offerings that are made by Italians who immigrated to America are so delicious and the pizzas are so much bigger and more elaborate than anything readily available in Italy itself. I also absolutely love Thai, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, and Filipino cuisine. There are so many excellent cuisines around the world to choose from.
5. Would you give up your phone or social media forever? I suppose the way that this question is framed is whether I would give up my phone or social media forever if I had to choose. I think that I’d honestly give up my phone first before completely giving up social media forever. I’d definitely have no qualms about giving up Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, or Instagram forever. Medium to me at times feels like a social media platform and I wouldn’t so much as easily give that up. My phone, though, is expendable. I’d rather not be contacted over the phone. If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me in many places. I’d rather not give up my phone completely but I’d definitely prefer to.
6. What is one thing that you’re really good at? This is another question that will take some careful consideration to answer. I really enjoy singing and I know that I’m good at it but I’m humble enough to know that I can always improve there even though I’ve reached incredible heights with that pursuit. I’m also really good at math. I was a math major in college and I wanted to teach math before I could no longer work. I guess the answer that I could settle on is math but I’m definitely good at a lot of different things and could’ve put a few answers here.
7. Do you love cats or dogs more? I’ve never had a dog as a pet but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love dogs. My partner just had a dog that passed away this last year and I loved that old man. My level of comfortability is more around cats though as I’ve only had them as pets throughout my life. I’ve spent at least five years with each one of my cats, including my most recent friend who passed away in 2020 after 23 years of life, 5 of those years with Mike and me.
8. Are you a coffee drinker? This one is another complicated answer. The simple answer is yes. Do I go out of my way to drink coffee every morning? No. This is because I drink caffeine in so many other drinks, particularly Coke Zero. I’ll drink coffee if it’s offered to me but I have a lot of energy outside of drinking coffee that I don’t really need it to energize me.
9. What languages can you speak? All right, I’m going to go ahead and take stock here of the language learning that I’ve practiced over the years. I took four years of Spanish language training in both high school and college and I can mostly formulate quick sentences and phrases to communicate well enough in Spanish. I took about 2 1/2 to 3 years of German training and I can write German better than I can speak it but I’m still decent at speaking German in a pinch. Swedish is a language I only practiced briefly as of late and my speaking is still a work in progress. I can pick up a lot of words though. Then I can say and understand phrases in words in dozens of other languages. I’m quite an interested and engaged polyglot and linguist. Talk to me about and in other languages all day and I’ll try to figure out what you’re saying or even what language you’re speaking.
10. Can you use chopsticks? Yes? But not as well as I think I can. I sometimes cheat when using chopsticks and don’t quite get the technique right. I’m just trying to finish the food so sometimes I'll clumsily put them between my fingers and just scoop the food in my mouth.

Linda Ng, I had so much participating in your quick questions and answers writing challenge. Now I’m going to go ahead and tag some more of our friends to participate in the challenge. Mary Louisa Cappelli, MFA, JD, PhD, Sieran Lane, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Anne Bonfert, Adrienne Beaumont, Sandra Jasionowska, Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages, Blogs by J. Anyone else who’d like to participate, feel free to tag me and Linda with her original story to spread the fun.