Getting to know you. Getting to know all about you.

1) How do you answer the question "What do you do?"

I know this question bothers a lot of people because they don't really want their work to define them, but they also don't have one particular hobby that defines them. How do you typically answer this question? How would you rather answer this question?

2) How do you answer questions like, "What's new?" or "What have you been up to?"

I have been asked this recently by a handful of people who I haven't seen recently and it is also interesting to see the variety of ways this question can be answered depending on the relationship you have with the other person. For example, there are people who I don't "see" regularly, but who I interact with passively through online media. So when I see them we can often skip over a lot of these catching-up questions and get straight to the meat. "Tell me about this new car/guy/job/vacation/etc!" But then if I truly haven't seen someone in awhile - how do I pick over the various things that fill my days and decide what is most important? How do I decide that I should talk about certain acitivites, but not others? Again - obviously it depends on the person. I tell my sister-in-law that I'm part of a new bookclub and playing soccer. Why? Because she is in a bookclub and her sons play soccer. But then there are times when a random story is just too good not to share with everyone you meet. Like seeing Obama.