June 2011

1. Your favorite virtue: Honesty, and the ability to take responsibility for your own actions. Being able to hold your head up high in the face of hardship.
2. Your favorite qualities in a man: Humility
3. Your favorite qualities in a woman: Seriousness
4. Your chief characteristic: I am reserved around acquaintances and sardonic with friends
5. What you appreciate the most in your friends: Patience and warmth toward others
6. Your main fault: Not strong willed enough; I always turn to others for advice on how to behave
7. Your favorite occupation: Possibly reading, but too often I let myself be distracted from it
8. Your idea of happiness: Freedom to read and write
9. Your idea of misery: Being alone, not having someone to turn to when I need help
   
10. If not yourself, who would you be? Tolstoy
11. Where would you like to live? Anywhere—I have no ideal future home
12. Your favorite flower: Red and white roses in a single bouquet
13. Your favorite color: Anything vibrant and unusual
    
14. Your favorite bird: Don't have one
15. Your favorite prose author: Tolstoy and the 19th century Russian masters
16. Your favorite poets: A poem that I currently can't put down is "Here and Now" by Stephen Dunn
17. Your favorite heroes in fiction: Strelnikov, Levin, Bolkonsky
18. Your favorite heroines in fiction: I am strangely hard pressed… I probably read too many books by men, with unremarkable female characters
    
19. Your favorite printers and composers: Let's update this question to keep up with the times. Musicians/bands I currently like: Metric, Bat for Lashes, Moby
20. Your favorite painters: It's been a while since I've looked at art seriously… but to modernize again, how about moviemakers. Woody Allen, with certainty.
21. Your heroes in real life: I admire people who stick with their convictions, like Dan Savage.
    
22. Your favorite heroines in real life: Any woman who can stand up for what she believes in, on her own terms. And Blake from The Submarines, whose song really helped me through dark times.
    
23. What characters in history do you most like: Tolstoy
24. Your heroines in world history: The women who did not doggedly follow the male authorities in their lives. I admire (and emulate) strength of character.
25. Your favorite food and drink: My mother's cooking.
    
26. Your favorite names: Anna
27. What I hate the most: Being lied to. Feeling like a fool. Thinking about the future.
28. World history characters I hate the most: People who lost sight of their principles and became obsessed with power. Stalin, Mao…
29. The military event I admire the most: The Russian Revolution. No other period in history has been so driven by passion
30. The reform I admire the most: Anything that has advanced civil rights in the last century.
31. The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with: I wish I could write music
    
32. How I wish to die: Peacefully and calmly
33. What is you present state of mind: Utterly confused.
    
34. For what fault have you most toleration? I can forgive any fault if it is coupled with self-awareness
35. Your favorite motto: Even though I'm not religious, the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.