sound_of_silence | (no subject) (Reply)

ME: My name is Elise, or Ellie. I was born on September 29th 1988 in Toronto, Canada, and moved to Montreal in 1999. I am half-French, through my dad. Therefore, I am perfectly bilingual in French and English (French is my first language but I learned English before I was 3).

EDUCATION: I have a bachelor's degree in biology. In the last summer before graduation, I did a research project, and discovered I was not cut out to be a researcher. So I finished my degree and went off to do a one-year diploma in translation. I am now a freelance editor and translator, but still cherish the dream of one day working for a NPO like the WWF or IUCN.

FAMILY: I am an only child and have never been very close with my parents. My mom's family is in Quebec (Famille H in the tags), dad's is (mostly) in France (Famille S). I prefer my dad's side of the family, even though I don't get to see them as much as I'd like. They're more my kind of people. I also have one cat, Dewey, who's 6 and a half. My other cat, Alpha, who was 11, passed away on December 16th 2011.

FRIENDS: I'm not a very social person. A lot of my friendships are online. I've mostly had the same group of IRL friends since Cégep, and when I meet new people usually it's through them. Most of them are engineers and play videogames a lot. I have never owned a game console in my life and as you've seen I am the farthest thing from an engineer, but we make it work.

READING: I learned to read at an obnoxiously young age (my dad's a translator and mom's a librarian, so I was brought up with books) and now I'm never far away from a book. My thing used to be fantasy, now I'm more into historical fiction and thrillers. And Stephen King, of course. But I'll read anything. Check out my Goodreads account.

MUSIC: I could not live without music. I'm almost always listening to music. If my computer's on, I have iTunes playing. I have nearly 3000 songs, everything from symphonic metal to classical, with korean hip-hop, country, pop... I just can't stand jazz, or anything "new", like Adele or Lady Gaga or Ke$ha. My radio station is classic rock, the only popular songs I know are the ones they do on Glee. I have a Last.FM account.

TELEVISION: I watch too much TV, according to my mom. My all-time favourite TV show is Friends. I've never counted, but I must have seen every episode at least 10 times. Nowadays, I'm a big fan of Castle, Revenge, Glee, The Big Bang Theory and 2 Broke Girls.

HARRY POTTER: Yes, this deserves a paragraph to itself. That series changed my life. I started reading it when I was 12 and am still completely addicted to it. I've written 32 fanfictions and counting (most of them in French), have been very active on the HPF forum since 2007, rapidly became moderator, in 2008 we formed an association, and in January of 2012 the creator of the website stepped down and gave the reins to me. Needless to say this now takes up a major part of my life. I don't talk about fandom here. Sometimes I talk about HPF, but it's mostly to rant about people on it, so it could be applicable to any situation, not necessarily fandom-related.

HEALTH: I have spastic ataxia. Which means, in a nutshell, that my muscles react too strongly, in the wrong order, and don't stop, when they're stimulated. They still don't know which variant I have (the genetic tests are really expensive so they can't do them yet). I have a bit of trouble walking (I always seem to be limping because my muscles are too clenched) but I can walk, which some people with ataxia can't, so I guess that's good. I take muscle relaxants three times a day, and a beta-blocker once a day (for a heart problem I've had since I was 16 that may or may not be related).

SPORTS: I've been a fan of Formula 1 since I was 12. Weird for a girl, don't you think? :P I wake up at 7:30 on race Sundays and watch it religiously. I couldn't explain what I find fascinating about it, I just do. The adrenaline rush, maybe, to see them going so fast and do such daring things. I love Ferrari, and plan to marry Kimi Räikkönen someday. For a few years, I've also been a big fan of hockey (hard to live in Montreal and not be). The Montreal Canadiens (or Habs) are the ones I cheer for (and the Pittsburgh Penguins, a bit).

Any other questions? See you in the comments section!