{"id":4013,"date":"2018-02-20T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-09-12T14:59:43","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T18:59:43","slug":"so-your-character-is-from-new-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/so-your-character-is-from-new-england\/","title":{"rendered":"So Your Character is From New England … Featuring Anna Haber @ The Story Scientist"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/span> It’s time for this week’s So Your Character is … Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I’m hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last week’s  So Your Character is from Alaska … be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!<\/span>
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<\/span> I had the privilege to meet Anna last year when she came down from New Hampshire to visit our mutual friend Olivia. It happened to have snowed recently and she was fascinated with Georgia red clay. I’ve loved reading her blog and learning about all things scientist. It’s good research. \ud83d\ude09 Thus, I’m so happy to have her on the blog to talk about her neck of the woods.<\/span>
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<\/span> Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts is as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.<\/span>
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\nAnna Haber is a homeschool graduate and University of New Hampshire genetics major\/plant nerd. She is the kind of person who tries to do everything at once. In her small amounts of spare time, she enjoys devouring books, writing speculative fiction, researching rice biochemistry, doing stained glass, and people-watching. Her two goals in life are to have a PhD and a published novel.<\/span>
\nBlog<\/a>\/\/Facebook<\/a>\/\/Twitter<\/a><\/span>
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<\/span> What do you feel is unique to your region? Landmarks? Celebrations?<\/b><\/span>
\nSomething that comes to mind is Patriots Day, which is celebrated in Maine and Massachusetts only on (I believe) the third Monday in April, to commemorate the Battle of Lexington and Concord (which was on April 19th, 1775). Massachusetts celebrates this holiday with the Boston Marathon because Lexington and Concord are in Massachusetts, and Maine celebrates because, well, they used to be part of Massachusetts. <\/span>
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<\/span>As far as landmarks, well, in Massachusetts, you can find a lot related to the Revolutionary War. For example, you can visit the Old North Bridge in Concord where shots were fired, and a lot of the other battlefields and so forth are part of Minute Man National Historical Park. We also have natural landmarks like the White Mountains in New Hampshire (my state!), including Mt. Washington, the Green Mountains in Vermont, and Acadia National Park and Sebago Lake in Maine. And there are a lot of cultural landmarks in Boston, such as the Museum of Fine Arts and Symphony Hall.<\/span>
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<\/b><\/span> Tell me about your region’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?<\/b><\/span>
\nNew England is made up of six states: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. For just a small corner of the United States, we have a lot of great places to visit. Here\u2019s a short list:<\/span>
\n\u2022 <\/span>Acadia National Park (Mount Desert Island, Maine)<\/span>
\n\u2022 <\/span>Mt. Washington (one of the White Mountains, New Hampshire)<\/span>
\n\u2022 <\/span>Boston, Massachusetts, including the Liberty Trail (more on that later)<\/span>
\n\u2022 <\/span>The Berkshires, Massachusetts<\/span>
\n\u2022 <\/span>Four Ivy League universities: Dartmouth (NH), Harvard (MA), Yale (CT), and Brown (RI), plus the Massachusetts Institute of Technology<\/span>
\n\u2022 <\/span>Sebago Lake, Maine<\/span>
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<\/span> As far as the environment in general, well, it is the northern US. Winters get cold; I\u2019ve gotten up in the morning and seen -13 Fahrenheit on the thermometer. (It\u2019s probably gotten colder, but I can\u2019t remember.) There are years when we get a five-foot base of snow, and then there are years when we don\u2019t. Summer gets pretty hot, up into the nineties sometimes in late July and August, but definitely not as hot as the South. Spring and fall are pretty nice, and fall colors are beautiful. We get a lot of \u201cleaf-peepers\u201d going up to the White Mountains in the fall.<\/span>
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<\/b><\/span> Tell me about your region’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?<\/b><\/span>
\nOff the top of my head: clam chowder! New England clam chowder is a cream-based (or my family makes it with milk) chowder, sometimes with bacon in it, which only makes it better, of course. Seafood is also associated a lot with New England, especially lobster with Maine, but we\u2019ve also gotten good crab meat on Mount Desert Island. I believe people also dig up clams, especially in Massachusetts. Maple syrup is produced a lot in early spring in at least New Hampshire and Vermont, and possibly in other states as well. If you get the chance to have maple candy, do it; it melts in your mouth, and it\u2019s so sweet and delicious. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\nLastly, one of my favorites is blueberries. There are several blueberry farms in my area of southern NH where you can go pick your own, or you can buy canned wild blueberries from Maine. I love blueberry muffins, pies, blueberries on cereal, you name it. And they\u2019re one of those \u201csuperfoods,\u201d too; they have a lot of antioxidants that make them really healthy. What\u2019s not to love?<\/span>
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<\/b><\/span> Tell me about any different speech patterns in your region. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as \u201cbiscuits\u201d instead of \u201ccookies\u201d?<\/b><\/span>
\nHa. So. In New England, \u201cwicked\u201d is a synonym for \u201creally.\u201d As in, \u201cThat was wicked good\u201d or just \u201cThat was a wicked storm.\u201d I don\u2019t believe you\u2019ll hear this anywhere else; it is uniquely New England.<\/span>
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<\/span> Also, Boston accents are a big thing, something I think people from other regions often get wrong. In the Boston accent, there are no \u201cer\u201d sounds; they become \u201cah\u201d sounds instead. As in, \u201cPahk yah cah in Hahvahd Yahd\u201d (\u201cpark your car in Harvard Yard\u201d). Sometimes, short \u201ca\u201d sounds get turned into \u201cer\u201d sounds as well, as in \u201cToyoter a\u2019 Pahtsmouth\u201d or \u201cHonder Bahn\u201d (Toyota of Portsmouth and Honda Barn, two NH car dealerships whose radio commercials I hear daily).<\/span>
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