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Hello friends,
In the second edition of our exciting interview forum – Ten Vital questions (TVQs) – we are excitingly glad to reveal for your reading pleasure our very dear and vibrant friend, Kathleen VanBeekom. Kathleen is one of the Anchors of our community’s Person Of The Week (POTW) nomination and voting forum.
She is quite friendly, very frank, down to earth and one of the leading and visible lights of our community.
Please relax back and enjoy this interesting revelation of Kathleen's personality, interests, love and hates!!
Do have a great weekend and thanks for all the support.
.:: Sam Sunday
www.samiplus.com |
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TEN VITAL QUESTIONS FOR KATHLEEN VANBEEKOM |
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.::T VQ-1: Can we know more about Kathleen VanBeekom?
.::Kathleen: Age: I was 44 on July 21st. Nationality: AMERICAN of Irish/Scottish/English heritage Family/Marital: Currently married for 22 years, 2 sons and I also raised 2 stepsons in our household from ages 5 and 7 until they were 18. I was only 22 at the time they came to live with us, that was 2 years before I had my first child, raising other peoples' kids was more difficult than my own! Also have 2 cats, we previously had a dog and another cat. Education: Catholic school from grades 1 thru 6, then public school from grades 7 thru 12. High school graduate.
.::TVQ-2: What is your major purpose in life; and have you succeeded yet in achieving it?
.::Kathleen: Are we only allowed to have one major purpose in life? When are we supposed to choose this purpose as THE ONE? I would say my daily purpose since I was a teenager is to "not get fat" because all the women in my family have all been obese, not chubby, OBESE. I walk 4 miles daily, that's down from 6 miles in my 30's. I hope I can maintain at least 3 miles daily until my old age. So my main purpose is not just to "stay in shape" it's to "not get FAT!" There IS a difference; avoiding fat in a family of fat women is a major daily challenge. Were you expecting some reply of intellectual greatness of wanting to change the world? Okay, if everyone would just put one foot in front of the other, walk approximately 17-18 minutes, then turn around and walk home, that's about 35 minutes, about 2 miles for the average person, then do it again later the same day, 4 miles, simple, no fat, unless you're a compulsive over-eater, then do the 2 mile walk 3 times daily.
.::TVQ-3: Share with us, the all-time most exciting moment of your life.
.::Kathleen: Most exciting moment in my life? I don't think I've had it yet. I could say turning 44 and still looking fantastic, every day that I get older and still look good is an exciting day. That's not called being arrogant, that's called the results of walking several miles daily. Guess what? People don't melt in the rain. Most people would say their biggest excitement was getting married, buying a house, having children. Those were interesting! I was excited about getting pregnant with my oldest child, it took almost 2 years after I got married and I thought it would never happen, but babies take 9 months to have, and I was very impatient waiting for him to be born. I like my excitement to be more right NOW. I was invited to Europe and I said yes but I haven't gone yet, that's a 12 hour flight, maybe longer, and once again my impatience says, that's still not NOW enough! Sometimes I have a lot of patience, and sometimes obviously not.
.::TVQ-4: How much have you impacted positively on the people around you?
.::Kathleen: How MUCH have I positively impacted people around me? You didn't ask HOW, so I only have to think of how much. I'd guess a LOT. People tell me I'm a positive influence, but I think everyone is capable of the same things, if they would figure out what they want to do, and then take action and do it. Take ACTION and DO it. The world has a tendency to wait for other people to do things. Why? Nobody wants to take the blame if things turn out badly. More people need to take risks and do things if they want positive change. Would you rather keep living with the same situations you don't like, or take action to change something even if it doesn't turn out well and you get a negative response? Do nothing, change nothing, continue to be unhappy. Do something, possibly change something, possibly be happier.
.::TVQ-5: You sound like a music freak especially with your Whammy forum, Which song best fits your image and what does music mean to you?
.::Kathleen: I'm not really a music freak, I had 5 older siblings, some were MUCH older, so I was inundated with tons of music at a young age, on a daily basis, all 4 of the older kids had their own record players, YEP, record players with tons of big vinyl records, then after that, my brothers had an 8-track player with tons of 8-track tapes. OLD STUFF!!!
Image? I don't think I have an image, I've never thought about having an image. My favorite songs are the ones with long instrumentals between the lyrics, such as Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" (Theme from Titanic) if I had to choose only one song that would be it, up until NOW. It's difficult to choose ONE from all the songs we've ever heard. What does music mean to me? It's part of daily life, it's part of everyone's life, I truly believe it keeps us young...it either reminds us of our youth when we listen to the "oldies" or it keeps us in today if we listen to new music on a regular basis. Can anyone imagine not having music on a regular basis? I don't think anyone would punish themselves by trying a no-music experiment for a long time such as several months.
.::TVQ-6: Tell us about your attraction to wildlife which you mentioned in your "About me" profile page?
.::Kathleen: I've always loved animals, we ARE mammals, but people would like to forget we're mammals most of the time. If you realize you're one of them, the animals will love you more, they will feel it in your demeanor and they'll be comfortable because they'll know you're comfortable in the knowledge that you ARE also a mammal.
.::TVQ-7: What do you think your best online friends would get annoyed with most about you if they had to live with you for a week or two?
.::Kathleen: Well, within the first short amount of time, you'll think I'm ignoring you, but I have probably more than 50% hearing loss BUT that doesn't stop me from talking non-stop and loudly, so people forget I don't hear everything they say, and even if I did, there's no guarantee I'd listen or agree with them anyway. Either I have the TV volume very loud or completely muted; both of those situations get on peoples' nerves also. It's been a gradual hearing loss over many years and getting worse recently, so I could hear normally most of my life. I don't let it stop me from telling people what to do and expecting them to do it. I can also be a compulsive eater, I can eat a lot within a short amount of time. I think most people would be surprised at how much they eat within a few minutes if they aren't fully aware of it. Most people would be shocked to see how much they can pack in while watching TV for 5 minutes, or even worse, 20 minutes.
.::TVQ-8: If you were the owner of Adlandpro Community site, what major issue would you have handled differently and why?
.::Kathleen: Major issue...I don't know if people want to rehash this, the extra??? 100 or 200 or so votes that came in repeatedly from the same one or two voters during the 2007 January POTY election. I think the electronic ballot should have been thrown out then and not used for any other admin-supported elections. Besides, we're all more capable of just clicking a dot, right? Why do people fight so hard to keep their little dot-clicking ballot even if it's not reliable? Laziness is a lifelong master, shake yourselves out of it and use the intelligence you have within you, you weren't born to click a dot once a week and call it your lifetime achievement..."I clicked a dot, therefore I AM!" You are what? Complacent? Overly trusting?
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.::TVQ-9: You are one of the most consistent and active members of Adlandpro community. Many members describe you as friendly, intelligent and readily helpful while a few have depicted you in some forums as being stubborn, rigid and contentious in your response to certain issues in the community especially POTW. How would you react to these notions?
.::Kathleen: I am stubborn, I wanted to change the election to AVOID CONTENTION, there were big problems after 2 of only 4 POTY elections, the POTY doesn't even have a prize, so why did the 2007 and 2009 POTY's end in huge disputes? Because of the anonymity of the electronic ballot in both situations. If something causes a problem, remove it. No more electronic ballot, also no more POTY election. Next January there will be 11 or 12 PEOPLE OF THE YEAR named without a POTY election, just from among this year's POTW winners since the start of the write-ins.
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.::TVQ-10: If God were a woman what would be the one thing she would change about the world?
.::Kathleen: IF God were a woman! First I'd have to have verification that there is a God, and if so, how could the gender of this God be changed IF there is already a male God and he possibly does not want to change genders? How was the current God created? Did he create himself, and if so, then he already chose to be male, probably after a great deal of thought. If he's already been male since the beginning of time, and knows all about both genders and hasn't changed yet, why would he want to change to female now?
IF God were a woman, what is the ONE thing she would change about the world? Obviously, eliminate the gender-bias that permeates all of society worldwide, so much that we don't even realize it most of the time, it's completely saturated all of humankind to the point where it's taken for granted as never being solvable. This question is one example "If God were a woman..." The Bible was written 2,000 years ago, at a time when few people knew how to read and write, and mainly just men. Does that give us a big clue as to why God is always depicted as male? |
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