Poll: Year End

[thefourthvine]

I've seen lots of people doing year-end wrap-ups, but, well, I don't really have a lot to wrap up. You all know how my year went. Instead, I thought I'd ask you: how was your year? Are you happy, baby? (I'm also curious because a lot of people seem to have had absolutely terrible 2007s; I'm wondering if it was just the Cursed Year or what.)

And the question at the end is a very important one. Best Beloved and I were talking about that story, and we totally disagreed about what happened. I'd like to be proved right by majority rule, please. Voting is key.

[Poll #1114196]

Comments

[misspamela.livejournal.com]

I forgot to answer the most interesting thing...which I think you already know! And when I said, "about the same" happiness as last year, it's a totally different kind of happiness/not happiness, but it's not quantitatively more or less. If that makes sense.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

It does indeed make sense. (And, hmmm. I do think I guessed your most interesting thing. I suspect it's the same as my most interesting thing, even!)

[calathea.livejournal.com]

This time last year I was sick as a dog, facing the fact that all my plans for 2007 had been ruined by my dodgy thyroid, on medication that had, oh what fun, fatal side-effects, and knew I had to spend the next 8 months working in a soul-destroyingly tedious job until I could finally resign. Fannishly I had run out of steam in my main writing fandom and still felt completely on the margins of the community.

This January I am completely in remission and totally healthy, I FINALLY left the awful job, and I am loving my PhD. Plus, my fannish life has just become steadily more and more awesome over the last 12 months, and I have a half dozen things lined up for this year with people I know through fandom, I have a new fandom I love and an old teeny-tiny one that is full of energy, and I am just. Oh my GOD, I am SO MUCH happier. :D

*gushes all over your LJ embarrassingly*

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

*beams*

You are entirely welcome to gush all over my LJ. Or, you know, cry, but I'm very glad you're not in a crying place this year. Yay! (Especially since I remember where you were last year: Not the Happiest.)

[katie-m.livejournal.com]

Okay, this is that one time when I'm going to say that there is no answer to that question about the story. The whole point of the story is to forbid us knowing; we can think about it, say how we would have written the story, but the story is what it is and the answer to that question isn't in it.

(Given the story as it is, I probably would have ended it with the tiger, FWIW.)

[destina.livejournal.com]

What she said. Hence I didn't vote on that question because it's a theoretical exercise only.

[zillah975]

If it had been the tiger, I'd have been torn to bits and could be starting all over again, reincarnated or something. Alas, it was the lady, but I was already married (figuaratively) with a lovely home and nice stuff. Now I don't have my lovely home and I'm married (figuartively) to taking care of my mom and trying to keep my step-dad from reaching the end of his rope (because if he does that and splits for parts unknown, I will be hurling myself into tiger pens across the country with beefsteaks strapped to my belly).

However, the year could have been much worse. I still have my sister, my health, the internet, my awesome friends both online and offline, books, fandom, a good job, a place to live, my cat, two computers, and a car that runs, and my step-dad and I generally get along all right. So I wouldn't say I'm sadder than I was last year, but I'd say I'm less hopeful for the near future.

Still fairly hopeful for the distant future, though. :)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Um, here's to the distant future? And yay for stil having things that are good? Because, wow, 2007 sounds like it sucked.

I offer you tea and sympathy, and hope for a great 2008.

[joandarck.livejournal.com]

My vote reflects my opinion in junior high -- given the characterization of the woman and her culture as presented, it seemed inevitable that it would be the tiger, even though any of us would have given him the lady instead. (I do realize the question is supposed to be uanswerable, but I didn't feel like he'd presented enough counterbalance suggesting that she was having an outburst of "civilized" compassion or anything.)

I don't have an opinion these days, it's been too long since I read the story.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. Now I totally want to talk about my opinion, but I can't, because I promised BB that I wouldn't do anything that might bias the results. (LJ polls are serious business!)

I do remember everyone having really strong opinions about this in middle school, and I certainly formed mine then and, until recently, hadn't thought about it since. Perhaps that's why they have middle schoolers read it; I mean, it's very much like middle school (today, will I make a friend, or will I be eaten by a tiger?), and it's kind of geared to the middle school mentality, so it's a topic they can really get into. Hmmm.

[bardicsidhe.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize I was still logged in on my roleplay account when I took the poll, *sheepish* so he voted instead of me. If you notice someone named 'Tristan' squeeing about buying 'his' first apartment... it's actually me. XD;

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

the problem with your poll is that, for how the year went, there is no way to say: #1 and #5, simultaneously, all year. This is why, all year, when people have asked me how I am, I have opened my mouth to answer; locked up completely; flailed my arms expressively; choked once or twice; and finally said, weakly, "And how are you?"

[selfinduced.livejournal.com]

hear hear.

[runpunkrun]

I went with the tiger because the author repeatedly refers to the king and his daughter as "semi-barbaric" which is as good as calling them "semi-evil." It would have been a different thing if they had been repeatedly described as "semi-civilized" instead. The mention of the daughter's "fervent and imperious" qualities is far more open to interpretation. That could mean she's civilized and passionate or blood-thirsty and self-absorbed.

My feminist hat may be on a little too tightly, but the author didn't spend as much time telling us about the daughter as he did about the father. Who knows what she's fervent about.

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

This is exactly why I went with the lady. I don't trust the narrator -- he's too busy reveling in the "barbarism" of the father and daughter. What good qualities of the princess's does he leave out in order to make the tale as salacious as possible. We don't know, but the lover certainly didn't have a second's hesitation in trusting the princess both to find out which door was which, and to direct him appropriately. Possibly he's an idiot, or possibly they both agreed that it would be better for him to be eaten by the tiger. But if he really knows her and was looking to be directed to the lady, I think that's what he got.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

My fannish year was not one I ever want to repeat.

[jamethiel]

You see, I don't know why I'm happier. By all rights I shouldn't be. Partner went off to Japan with practically no notice. Landlady raised the rent $180 a month, rendering me temporarily homeless. I've had to move out to the other side of the city, giving me a 2.5 hour commute each way. My mobile phone went through the washing machine and didn't like it (who knew?) and I lost all of the numbers and contact details of all of my friends EVER. I should be--stressed. I don't know.

But I'm not. I'm happy. Optimistic. I'm getting my life together. Starting the cross-stitch o' DOOM. Preparing to exercise (well. Thinking about it. It takes a lot of psyching myself up, yo). Actually getting out of debt and exercising self control!

It's amazing how much outlook, while it doesn't change the actual circumstances, changes your ability to cope with stuff. And look! I am awesome, for I am taking stuff in my stride!

Also, you are awesome. Because you're having a baby which is all--grown up! And stuff! And there will be more fourthvine genetics in the world which only strikes me as a good thing (will your kid turn out to be a reccer? Is it genetic?).

*beams at you and the world impartially*

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

If 2007 let the door hit it in the ass on the way out, I would not have a problem with that.


This comment is mainly to say that I have a clever idea -- it would be awesome if you dropped me a LJ comment when you've found time to resend those emails. I seem to still be getting comments! I just want to know if I'm going to have to throw rocks at the email-eating monkey, is all.

[qe2.livejournal.com]

I'd drive nails into the ass-hitting side of said door, myself.

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

The author spends, like, ten seconds on the "ooh, what if he got eaten by a tiger? That'd totally suck!" bit and five minutes on the "ooh, what if he got married to THAT BITCH, sluttrampwhore making eyes at MY MAN HOW DARE SHE" bit. He's trying to claim that the answer is unknowable, but he's stacking the deck pretty decisively in favour of "tiger".

[acari.livejournal.com]

Am I supposed to know that story? I closed my eyes and clicked. *g*

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

My fannish year redeemed the rest of it, and really is almost all of that worth remembering about it.

[elizabeth perry (from livejournal.com)]

TFV, before I take the poll, on my shitty wireless connection, one thing -- have you been getting my recent emails re: Sheppard's 11 & the Arcadia fic & various randomness?

[exceptinsects.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's hard to put a number on such an up-and-down year...basically things were happy but a bit dull until about September. I had a nice boyfriend and a nice job which were fine but not amazingly fulfilling.
THEN all of a sudden it was like BAM BAM BAM.

There was a big fire at the camp where I grew up, and a lot of buildings burned, though not the most important ones, and not my parents' house. So that sucked, but it actually makes it a lot easier for them to do improvements that have been needing done for a long time, and in the long run the forest will be healthier.

And then the library had me working half the time at one branch and half at another, which was basically doing two jobs at the same time, very stressful, and concurrently I was applying for two OTHER jobs, one of which I got, yay.

But before I could even start the new job, my boyfriend broke up with me, and even though I had been thinking of breaking up with him, I was still really really sad...which happened at the same time there was a HUGE HUGE fire that burned up half the county (you may have seen it on the news).

And THEN I finally got to start the new job, yay, but right then we found out my dad had to have bypass surgery, so I was terribly worried that he would be that guy who dies on the operating table to teach a lesson to the new intern on the hospital TV show, right?
(I'm always wondering whose story I'm in, you know? Like when I was on jury duty, I kept trying to decide who was the main character--the judge? the defendant? the lawyer? me?)
Anyway, my dad came through the surgery just fine and he's recovering unbelievably quickly, hooray modern medicine.


So when I say I'm a bit sadder, I mean just in the sense that especially in the past few days I've been thinking a lot about things like Life and Death and Love and Work and Where Things Are Going and so on, but really I think everything that's happened is for the best and is setting things up for an excellent 2008.

...and that's my life story. Sorry. :)

[out-there.livejournal.com]

I said the Tiger, but that's only because this was a hgih school writing assignment: write what happens next.

I stand by the idea that the Princess clearly pointed at the tiger and then threw her lover a sword, which he used to kill the tiger and then married the princess (he'd been brave and heroic and had clearly won the King over).

hmmm. It shouldn't be a surprise that I write fic now, should it?

[out-there.livejournal.com]

Also, re being less happy this year than last year, last year I was looking forward to my then-girlfriend moving down to Melbourne in a few months time, had survived the first 6 months in a permanent job, bought a car and a house (on credit) and life looked insanely up.

So, yeah, I'm not that thrilled about this year but I'm content and looking forward to 2008 well enough. Just... not as much as I was at this time last year.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I was first exposed to that story not in class, but at an evening program at Math Camp, where this energetic little old guy had turned it into a half-hour long skit (with actors drafted from the audience) that had an evil queen and missing treasure and things, and the choice at the end was actually a formal logical paradox of the liar's puzzle type (because he'd been smart enough to sneak out and bribe the staff for info) so it was based on logic rather than messy emotional stuff, and we got to see all the bits of connected evidence and then vote on which door he opened, and then he got eaten by a tiger. Because it turned out that they were *all* tigers, of course.

And then I went home and looked up the story, and it was stupid and boring and it was pretty obvious that the answer he was fishing for was that getting married and being eaten by tigers is really six of one, half a dozen of the other.

So I vote that it was actually cake.

[qem_chibati]

See, I think she is going to continue to have an affair and that the maiden probably isn't going to have a very long lifespan.

They knew that there would be trouble, but I think she is going to continue to thumb her nose at her father....

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

I can't exactly remember how I felt at the end of last year. I'm always happy to see the New Year, with its promise of something good around the corner.

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

It's weird, because although this time last year I had a job that I was secure in, and now I'm going home from family visiting having not had a job for a month and having to find one. But I'm still happier now than I was last year. Why? I feel more personally... aware, I guess, and feel like I understand myself better. Plus, I'm more involved in fandom and things that I enjoy than ever before. *shrug*

[anoel.livejournal.com]

The year was horrible in a day to day level (school, no job, job) but had its moments of extreme happiness. That's never truly enough though although it's much appreciated. I do have the same amount of hope for the coming year as last year and am a bit wiser in how good things may come about but we'll see. I hope for a much better year for all of fandom although it seems so far my Flist had a bit worse of a year than yours (sadly).

Tiger!

[springwoof.livejournal.com]

Tigers are always more interesting. more perilous, but more interesting...

[narcolepsy-slds.livejournal.com]

I am happier because last year was really bad, not the worst I have had in my life so far, but a close second. but since I am an incorrigable optimist I believe, I KNOW, that 2008 will be much much better. even great. because it simply has to be.

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

Clearly the story leans towards the tiger explanation. I think the author assumes you will be geared so strongly towards the 'must save the lover!' explanation that they're compensating. Or they just wrote it unevenly.

RL is too complicated to explain, but fannishly it was both awesome and not awesome. I moved into bandom and it's an incredibly fun fandom, but I also seem to have turned into a lurker and it kind of sucks.