August Interview Questions with The Brain is a Noodle
Egg-cited to get to know you better!
A collaborative way to know fellow writers better!
A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to the July 2021 TBIN interview questions! Here’s a collection of the responses that have gone live:
Your challenge as a reader is to read the interview associated with your birthday month, listed at the beginning of each link!- 🔴 Jan, Feb🔴A reflection exercise on writing, work and self-care by Niru
- 🟠 Mar, Apr 🟠 So you want to know more about me — #3 July by Giulia
- 🟡 May, June 🟡Ask and you shall receive by Barbara Dalton
- 🟢 July, Aug 🟢 July Q&A with The Brain is a Noodle by Rachella Angel Page
- 🔵 Sept, Oct 🔵How Grey’s Anatomy has reminded me about breaking ice and mental health? by Yan Huang
- 🟣 Nov, Dec 🟣 So… what do you want to know? by Ashlea Morgan
August Interview Questions
If you publish these somewhere other than TBIN, please do tag me so I can make sure I read through them! As always, would love to house them in TBIN. Also, for ease of access for others who might want to fill out this interview, feel free to include a direct link so that they can copy and paste the questions right over!
All of the responses will be published under the twitter tag #August2021TBINInterview
[1] What’s a new technique or topic you’d like to try writing about?
[2] What are your top three values in life? What are they your main values?
[3] If you only had 5-minutes to squeeze in some mental health / self-care time, what would you do?
[4] What is one story, tradition or myth about death that has been passed down your family?
[5] If you could have a magic wand to zap away one food in life and never have it exist again, what would it be?
Faves?
- Favourite podcast app?
- Favourite app on your phone?
- Favourite piece of technology?
- Favourite person?
- Favourite kitchen item?
Articles to share
- Your top piece last month
- A piece that deserves more love
- A piece that starts with the letter M
- A piece that is more than 3 minutes
- A poem
My responses!
If you publish these somewhere other than TBIN, please do tag me so I can make sure I read through them! As always, would love to house them in TBIN. Also, for ease of access for others who might want to fill out this interview, feel free to include a direct link so that they can copy and paste the questions right over!
All of the responses will be published under the twitter tag #August2021TBINInterview
[1] What’s a new technique or topic you’d like to try writing about?
Other than working on rhyming and rhythm in my poetry, I’d like to dive into writing about food more often. Though I’ve reached top writer status for food, I feel like there’s so much more I can do to improve my food writing.
Most of the pieces that contributed to that top writer status has been poems, and I’d really be able to write longer essay format pieces about food without feeling stuck. And damn, I’ve been feeling pretty stuck over the past few months.
The only piece that truly made it publication was this one, which tells the story behind my relationship with noodles.
Having a publication named The Brain is a Noodle, and writing about noodles — do we see a strong theme here?
[2] What are your top three values in life? What are they your main values?
Curiosity — In a way, this is tied in with novelty. I like learning about new things because I value the fact that our world is constantly changing, and there are so many people out there that I can only have more to learn. There’s not really a stopping point and there’s no real way to truly experience it all, but knowing that there’s always something out there to explore with my mind excites me.
Productivity — I struggle with this one! I think part of the struggle is that I’ve had productivity IMPOSED on me for the sake of capitalism or survival (or both), and those definitions of productivity have soured this term for me. At the same time, I derive such joy from having created something, or produced something, and not in a checkmark way. It’s slightly related to curiosity and being able to explore something new, but has an outcome to it. I’d create even if there isn’t a monetary value or survival value for something — that’s when I know I’m creating for the value of producing rather than other versions of productivity that have been imposed on me.
Humility — I was a precocious kid and by that I mean sometimes I’ve been obnoxious and a know-it-all. Learning and adopting humility was an important character redemption arc in my life. Plus, now that I’ve embraced humility, I realize just how related to the top value of curiosity it is. Humility involves acknowledging that shortcomings and limits of being human and genuinely never being able to know everything possible, and approaching answers with the thought in mind that there might be something I don’t know.
[3] If you only had 5-minutes to squeeze in some mental health / self-care time, what would you do?
My favourite self-care tip that’s less than 5-minutes is the 5–4–3–2–1 grounding technique. In fact, it’s made it into the poetry structure of a few of my poems:
What it is:
- Name 5 things you can see
- Name 4 things you can feel
- Name 3 things you can hear
- Name 2 things you can smell
- Name 1 thing you can taste
Bringing attention to the different senses helps me bring my attention to the present and get out of my head, which can often be in a some toilet flushing swirl of doom and anxiety.
It’s portable, doesn’t require an app, and can be done pretty much anywhere.
[4] What is one story, tradition or myth about death that has been passed down your family?
Maybe not directly related to death, but I constantly wonder about the myth about ghosts hiding in umbrellas. Apparently, ghosts that didn’t go on to reincarnation will hide out in umbrellas as their temporary home, which is why opening an umbrella inside the home is unlucky. You may end up releasing the ghost into your home, haunting yourself.
I think about the umbrella I stole from the lab just after COVID hit, when I was packing up my stuff for permanent work-from-home status. Someone had taken my umbrella, my ghost, and I had taken theirs.
I wonder how they’re doing?
[5] If you could have a magic wand to zap away one food in life and never have it exist again, what would it be?
I mean this in a joking way, but corn??? It depends on the day and the phase of the corn, but intermittently, the existence of corn really bothers me.
Yet other days, it’s completely accepted to me.
I think specifically, I dislike the texture of corn kernels when they get stuck in your teeth. Who knows?
I’m the kind of picky eater that internally squirms and writes a lengthy journal entry about said squirmy experience but outwardly I have a smile on my face and I will eat every last kernel so as not to be impolite to the host and their well-prepared dinner.
Faves?
- Favourite podcast app? Podcast Republic!
- Favourite app on your phone? Boost for Reddit
- Favourite piece of technology? Noise Cancelling Headphones
- Favourite person? Me (lol, right after I said my top value was humility, too, oops)
- Favourite kitchen item? I JUST THRIFTED THE COOLEST ROLLING PIN, PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR A MUCH-TOO-IN-DEPTH REVIEW OF SAID ROLLING PIN I AM ECSTATIC sorry for yelling
Articles to share
- Your top piece last month:
- A piece that deserves more love
- A piece that starts with the letter M
- A piece that is more than 3 minutes
- A poem
Hi I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and I can’t wait to read, publish and tweet these interview responses! ❤
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