The Liebster Award (In Which I Am Kindly Interrogated Whilst Sort Of Attempting To Follow The Rules)

Salutations, my bloggerly associates! I have been nominated for the Liebster Award by the exceptional Annie Xia @ Zoelogist. She is smart and funny and it follows that her blog possesses these attributes as well. You should consider exploring its contents. She is amazing and I am very grateful to her for her thoughtfulness.

Though I must confess, when I first saw that I had been nominated for this award I had no idea what it was. Something like this came to my mind:

Upon further investigation, however, I realized my error and I now know that the Liebster Award has nothing to do with lobsters or any of its crustacean brethren. It is just a kindly recognition of bloggers by their fellows. I suppose this could include lobsters if they had blogs, but I don’t know any that do. Oh well.

Now that I have cleared that up, on to the questions that Annie has prepared for me.

(Did I mention that the custom of the Liebster Award is to honor bloggers by interrogating them? Well, it is.)

1. Who’s your role model?

I have to go with C.S. Lewis. My biggest goal in life is to be a writer, and he NAILED IT.

I love his books and his writing style and I really agree with his philosophies about art and literature. One of my favorite quotes by him is this:

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally—and often far more—worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.

-C. S. Lewis

I love the idea that good literature is good literature no matter how old you are, and things don’t have to be complicated to be meaningful and valuable.

So yeah, I plan on being C.S. Lewis when I grow up.

2. Dream occupation? (If you don’t know, just say something cool, like dinosaur tracker.)

I am so talented that I basically answered questions one and two at the same time. Wow.

I want people to pay me to feverishly gather up a bunch of words and concepts into my head and then cram them into a book.

3. What are three things that are pretty consistent in making you smile?

1. Food. (Good food never fails to put a smile on my face.)
2. Lemony Snicket. (The man is funny. I cannot deny it. I smile whenever I read his books. That is, when I am not too busy weeping.)
3. My sister’s impersonation of Harry’s impersonation of Evil Wells. (This is from The Flash, by the way, and she is weirdly good at it, considering that she is not in fact a middle-aged man.)

4. Best book you’ve read recently?

For an alleged bookworm my book intake has been sadly lacking of late. But a couple weeks ago I read Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, which was actually recommended to me by Annie Xia.

I thought it was a pretty good little book and I was able to connect with the protagonist, a struggling sixth grader named Ally. (I am not a sixth grader, nor is my name Ally, but that is the beauty of stories- they allow us connect to people who on the surface don’t appear to be anything like us.)

5. First date ideas?

Um.

Well.

Quite frankly this is something I never think about. I have never been on a date, nor do I plan on changing that fact any time in the foreseeable future.

At the moment my thoughts stray to things like:

1. the morgue
2. an economics lecture
3. Awana

Anything to ensure that the first date is also the last date.

Then again, that isn’t usually the goal, so I’d probably say something more like go to a neat bookstore and talk about your favorite books. (If your date doesn’t like books this relationship doesn’t need to go any further.) Or you could take them down into your interrogation room, shine a bright light on their face and figure out important aspects of their character in that way. I’ve never actually tried this, but I’m sure it would work.

6. Which Disney princess would you most want to be and why?

Disney princess?

The first one that comes to mind is Belle. Because books. The Beast gives her a MAGNIFICENT library. I wants it.

But then again, maybe I should pick Princess Eilonwy in order to retain some anonymity.

7. What’s something you wish that people knew about you without telling them?

This got deep suddenly. I can’t swim.

I want people to know that I am overflowing with the need to create art. I want them to know that I am not boring.

8. What’s your favorite movie?

‘Favorite’ is one of my least favorite words.

Maybe that’s because I take it way to seriously. (HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PICK A FAVORITE? WHAT IF I HAVE MORE THAN ONE? WHAT IF DON’T HAVE ANY??? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!)

But hey, I can do this.

I recently had to fill out a Secret Santa questionnaire, and I put down The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to  answer that question.

Though that was just because I had gotten tired of answering The Return of the King.

To be honest I have a lot of favorite movies.

9. Favorite post that you’ve written?

There’s that word again.

Okay, so I haven’t even written an abundance of posts in my short little blogging life, but even as things stand I find that answering this question is terribly difficult.

I like different posts for different reasons. I think I will have to say An Ode to Stories, which was my very first post, but then I also have to say Newsies- The Metaphorical Journey from Movie to Broadway Production, because I felt so clever about the metaphor bit. I can have two favorites, it’s legal.

10. Ask someone who knows you pretty well to describe you in a couple of words.

I chose to exploit my sister for this one.

Her answer: “Lovable, yes, yes…cuddly. I don’t know.”

So there you have it.

11. What would you do with an invisibility cloak?

Wear it.

Constantly.

11 Random Facts About Myself:

1. I know the difference between lobster and liebster.

2. I love Charles Dickens.

3. I don’t like country music.

4. I am left-handed.

5. I have hands.

6. I am slightly obsessive.

7. Okay, I am extremely obsessive.

8. I prefer siblings to romantical attachments in books/movies etc.

9. I refuse to accept that hobbits don’t exist.

10. 87% of my life is made up of movie quotes.

11. Contrary to popular belief, I can count to eleven.

In Conclusion

Right-o. Now we come to the bit where I nominate bloggers and give them piercing questions to answer.

I am supposed to nominated eleven blogs, but that is a lot of work. I think I will just go with three:

The Temperamental Writer

Chelsea R.H. @ An Ordinary Pen

Katie @ The Act Diary

These bloggers are all wonderful and deserving of a lobster- I mean, an award. The Liebster Award to be precise.

Here are the questions, if they choose to accept the challenge of answering them:

1. Pie or cake?
2. Who is your favorite author and why?
3. Who is an author that you cannot stand?
4. If you could live in any fictitious world which would you choose?
5. If you could suddenly have a new skill, what would it be?
6. What is something that you wish people knew about you without telling them?
7. What would your superpower and superhero/super-villain name be?
8. What is your favorite blog post that you’ve written?
9. If you could give one fictional character a hug right now and tell them that they are not alone, who would it be?
10. If you could punch one fictional character in the face right now, who would it be?
11. Which character from fiction would you choose to have as your big brother?

By the by, these are the rules for the Liebster Award, as far as I can make out: (Actually I literally copy and pasted these rules from Annie’s post, so thanks again for that!)

1. Acknowledge the blog that gave it to you and display the award
2. Answer the 11 questions that the blogger gives you
3. Give 11 random facts about yourself
4. Nominate 11 blogs
5. Notify those blogs of their nomination
6. Give them 11 questions to answer

I still don’t know what it means to display the award, but I have a lobster instead, so it’s cool.

Merci buckets again to Annie for nominating me for this award! I had a lot of fun answering the questions.

Happy Christmas and have a wonderful holiday, everyone!