Ashlee Betteridge
By Robert Farley (cl_kaulana) | cl_kaulana@oocities.com | Vienna Strasse/7000
One of Vienna's youngest 'old-timers,' Ashlee Betteridge obviously enjoys ballet
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This issue's Community Leader Zinterviewee, Australian Ashlee Betteridge, set a record for beginning and ending the interview segment of the zineterview. I sent the first batch of questions one day back in February at 9:22 a.m., received the answers at 10:16 a.m., sent the follow-up questions at 12:57 p.m., and had the answers waiting for me at 3 p.m. Not only was she fast, she was intelligent and witty as well.
This is the second time around as a CL for Ashlee, making her an old hand, though at 13 she is still one of our youngest leaders. Thanks perhaps in part to her youthful energy, she is also active on the Millenium of Arts contest committee and the Vienna Vanguard Award committee, as well as being an active participant in many forum conversations, both in Vienna and in her sister hood, SouthBeach.
User Name(s) by which you are known in GC: butterfly_ash (formerly dancetech)
Real Name (at your discretion): Ashlee Maree Betteridge
Geographical Location: Albury, NSW, Australia
URL(s): Vienna Choir 8485, SouthBeach Sandbar 4944
Email Addy: webmaster@dancetech.zzn.com
Birthday/Age: 13. My b'day is 3/5/85 (just in case you would like to send me a present!)
Neighborhood(s) you are a CL in: Vienna/
Family: My dad owns a pizza shop (but I hate pizza) my mum works there too. My little brother Bishop James is 11, and my little sister Brittany Rose is 4. I have two pets, a beautiful white himalayan dwarf rabbit called Marshmallow, and a gorgeous dog called Wilbur.
Vocation and/or School Situation: I go to Albury High School. It is a pretty good school. If you want to see more about it go to http://jupiter.dragnet.com.au/~albu_hs/
Favorite Composer: Tchaikovsky (He wrote some of my favorite ballet music)
Favorite Composition:
Instruments You Play: Flute, guitar (really badly!) and recorder (only by force at school!)
Favorite Instrument (whether you play it or not): Flute!
Kaulana: Welcome, Ashlee, to Vienna Online's Zineterview! How is the weather over in Australia this time of year?
Ashlee: G'day! (Do you realise nobody in Australia ever says g'day unless we are talking to a person overseas!) It is still quite hot, but it is cooling down. It's hot enough to go for a swim. I have sunburn hangover, though! My nose is all red and peeling! Not a good look!
K: You know, this is my sixth interview for the zine, and three of the six leaders I've talked with have been from Australia.
A: That because Australians are pretty cool people I suppose! Or maybe we just like to brag! :o)
K: The ones I know are pretty cool, I'll have to say. When did you become a GeoCities homesteader?
A: I was a GeoCities homesteader ages ago, and a CL, then I deleted that page, because I didn't have enough time to do it. Then I got a new page about six months ago.
GeoCities was still a few years away from being started when this photo of CL butterfly_ash was taken in the mid '80s.
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K: You're 13 now, so you must have been really young the first time.
A: Yeah, I was only 11 or something close to that anyway.
K: What did you learn the first time around that will help you this time?
A: Not to try to scan my whole block once a week!
K: I sure can't disagree with you there. I like to scan, myself, but going through a block a week? Sounds too much like slavery, not to mention work. Besides the fun of scanning, what would you tell someone who asked you why they should become a community leader?
A: I would say being a CL is great because you get to look for great sites and talk to interesting people. Just helping people out gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside :o)
K: What other GeoCities activities are you involved in?
A: I like chatting in HelpChat and putting messages on the Vienna forums. That's because I like to talk!
K: What's the strangest or most interesting experience you've had while scanning your blocks?
A: I sent an email to this guy, telling him that his site looked really good, and he sent me back an email saying "Don't congragulate me, congragulate the aliens." And I just started laughing and thinking about this guy in our town that sprays his food with fly spray because he says he is an alien!
K: LOL. That's a great story. Is the site still there? Maybe everyone should take a look at what the aliens can do on GeoCities. LOL.
A: I don't know. Maybe they have abducted the page now or something.
K: How did you become involved with making webpages?
A: I saw some people's personal pages, then I thought "Wow, that's cool, I want one!" So I started off easy and slowly taught myself HTML. Then I discovered the wonders of Frontpage Express. I actually used to sit for hours typing up HTML code!
K: Hey! I do all my own HTML writing 'cause I'm too cheap to buy an editor. Somebody has to keep the flame. Hehehe. Anyway, where do you see yourself in ten years, what will you be doing, what will your site look like?
A: In ten years, I hope to have a very good job, or maybe I'll still be at university; my site will look really, really good, and I'll hopefully have a fair bit of money. And I will definitely have a car.
K: What would someone never suspect about you in a million years?
A: That I am a dancer. I don't look like a dancer. People are always very surprised when I just drop down into the splits really easily, or when I'm walking down the street with my ballet bag and my hair wound tightly into a bun.
K: If I dropped down into the splits, somebody would have to call the paramedics, fast. How did you become interested in dancing?
A: I've been dancing since I was three, all because of this eight-page book in the town library called "Suzie goes Dancing." It's still there!!
K: Hobbies? Besides music?
A: Ballet, Tap, Jazz. I absolutely love to dance! I'm also into acting, or speech and drama, as they call it here. I'm pretty high up in my levels in that. I do RAD syllabus Ballet, and I'm in Grade 7.
K: I guess I should have said besides dancing. My bad.
A: Well, I have been dancing longer than I have been tooting my flute! I've only been playing flute [since September or October 1997]. But I wanted to play an instrument for ages before that. I guess I never got around to it!
K: What is your favorite television program and/or movie?
A: "Dawson's Creek" is a cool show. I also like "Friends." My favorite movie is "The Wedding Singer." It is so funny! I can't believe people were like that the year I was born!
K: Sort of scary, isn't it?
A: I ask my parents, "Please tell me you weren't as weird as that, please!"
K: What about musical performers, other than classical? Any favorites there?
A: I like R&B and pop. Anything I can get up and dance to or sing (badly) to. I absolutely hate the Spice Girls, but my little sister loves them. She drives me insane!
K: That's what kid siblings are for. I have four younger brothers, so I know.
A: Lucky you! They probably don't like the Spice Girls, though, do they?
K: Most likely not, though I wouldn't put it past the youngest ones. Enough of that, though. What do you plan to do to mark New Year's Eve 1999 in Australia?
A: Have a huge party with all my friends, and go totally crazy! And then maybe go on the Net in some chats when other countries are getting their new year.
K: Cool. You'll be celebrating New Year's almost a day before I will in Hawaii. You're 21 hours ahead of us here. That's bizarre. We in Hawaii will be some of the last to celebrate.
A: It's pretty cool in a way. If New Year's is spread out, that means all the more time to party!!
K: What's your favorite thing to do as a family?
A: Veg out, not eat pizza, go on holiday, swim, drive around in our car for no particular reason, ride our bikes.
K: What should a first-time visitor to Albury be sure to do that's probably not on the vacation itinerary, besides go to your parents' pizza shop for dinner? :o)
A: It seems like such a boring place for me, but I suppose for a tourist, there is actually a heap of stuff to do. Albury is a twin city. It is on the border of the NSW/Victorian border. So it's really two cities joined together by this road that goes accross this big, beautiful river called the Murray. Albury was founded by these two explorer people called Hume and Hovell. They carved their name in this old tree that is still here, even though they came her about 100 years ago. (Woah, I don't think you want to hear the town's history, even though it is kinda interesting!) The other city is called Wodonga. Albury/Wodonga has a combined population of about a 100,000. Then there are all these cute, quaint country towns that are about a 20-minute drive away. In Albury/Wodonga, things for the tourist to do are; see the big old tree with Hume and Hovell carved in it, go to the Hume Dam/Hume Weir (an artificial dam built for irrigation purposes with a big ugly stone wall, totally wrecked the natural river environment) you can go to one of the two local fish farms (WOW!!) go for a ride along the Murray River on a paddlesteamer called the Cumberoona, go to all the weekend markets. If you want to venture out of town a bit you should go to Beechworth (home of Australia's best bakery and goldmine country), Yackandandah (really cute place), Rutherglen (wine region of Australia) or if you go out a bit further, there are the ski slopes (which only get snow for a couple of weeks). The whole area is really picturesque.
K: That's great. You should get a job with a chamber of commerce or tourist attraction association of some sort. That's a really good rundown of things to do. From looking at the globe, I would never have guessed that Albury/Wodonga had so many people. Well, this has been great fun, you're a fascinating community leader, and an asset to the collective intelligence that makes up the Vienna Community Leaders. Keep stirring things up (keeps us on our toes).
If you know something about HTML, graphics, languages, and would like to learn how to help others get their web pages built in GeoCities, check out the Vienna community leader program. You'll find it a quick way to make a lot of new friends and to "make your surfing count."
Robert (cl_kaulana) has been a resident of Vienna since September 1997, a community leader since March 1998, and a liaison since February 1999. A resident of Hawaii and a former newspaper editor, he currently works as an administrative assistant at KAAH TV-26, where one of his jobs is to build web pages for the station.
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