An Award Disguised As Some Tags

Good evening, readers!  Did you groan good-naturedly at my poor attempt at an April Fool’s post?…Great!  On with the show!

I’ve recently been tagged by no less than three incredible bloggers!  They are: Allegra from Here’s to Us, Erin of the newly renamed Nonsensical Ramblings and Insanity, and last but certainly far from least, Kirsten at Kirsten Writes!

There are, naturally, some questions involved and some passing-on-of-the-award-tag-thing to do.

The Rules:

1. You must post the rules.
2. Post eleven facts about yourself on the blog post.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for your in their post, and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
4. Tag eleven bloggers; however, you can break the rules and tag fewer people if you want.  Make sure you hyperlink their names/blogs.
5. Let them know you’ve tagged them!
6. Have fun!

In accordance with above rules, I will now post eleven facts about myself:

1. I am in all likelihood addicted to the Internet.  As in sometimes when I’m done checking up on my favorite websites I will open and close sites at random just to have something to do.
2. My English class is tremendously challenging.  And that’s why I love it so much.
3. I’m a bit of a pack rat.  Take, for example, my recent adventure cleaning out my old desk (because I had received a new, much nicer, one). I threw away about twenty pounds of junk- forgotten toys and action figures, textbooks from private school, key chains, et cetera.
4. I have this really nerdy liking for The Remus Lupins (a wizard rock band), which gets me some REALLY weird looks when other people happen to see the albums on my iPod.  Same goes for my Hunger Games playlist (which includes yet more Alex Carpenter music).
5. I really love when it rains.  I love hearing the sound of it on the roof and on the windows, and I love what it represents, that it can be such a destructive force and a lot of people hate it and yet it’s essential for plants to grow and life to happen.
6. Ever since last summer, I’ve been strangely into wearing tank tops.  Around this time of year I can only really wear them inside the house because of the cold, but yeah.  Anyway.
7. I’m still catching up with Doctor Who on Netflix, but I’ve stopped recently.  I’m holding off on watching David Tennant’s last episodes as the Doctor because I’m going to hate seeing him go.
8. When I was a wee youngster, I was under the unshakable impression that I was great at drawing.  Alas, I cannot draw to save my life.  I was reminded of this during the aforementioned desk-cleaning.
9. I have five months’ worth of Smithsonian magazines stacked up on my dresser because, what with all the books I’ve been reading, I haven’t had a chance to get around to them.
10. This thermometer is probably the coolest non-franchise-related nerdy thing I own right now.  I think it’s pretty darn cool.
11. Although I tried multiple times in my youth to be the journaling type, I never really got into keeping a diary.  As much as I love writing, writing about myself and my humdrum, nerdy life never seemed to work for me.

Now that that’s done with, I can get to the questions.  I’ll try to keep the answers short, because we’ve got a lot of them to go through.

The Awards Want to Get to Know Me Better

Today, readers, I would like to acknowledge my being given the same four (!!!) blogging awards by two different people: Allegra from Here’s to Us and Kirsten from Kirsten Writes!  I’d like to thank both of you for giving me such a generous slew of awards.*  *wipes away tears*  I’m sorry, I’m getting emotional.  Really, though, thank you both.  I think I’d better just get to the *sniff* awards, okay?

I’m going to cut this post off here, ’cause it’s a long one.

The Like Button

Before I go any further, I’d like to acknowledge that I have been awarded another Versatile Blogger Award, this time at Life In A Notebook.  This happened a while ago, but I haven’t talked about it yet, and for that I apologize.  I’m incredibly grateful that someone feels as though I deserve a blogging award.  I’m not going to do the usual nominating/random facts thing, though, because I’ve already done plenty of that.  For a peek at the awards I’ve gotten in the past and thus the blogs you should follow, though, check out the “awards” tag in the sidebar.

Okay.  Today I’m going to break my normal tradition and talk about something un-book related.

I know.  Shocking, right?

Anyway, along with the emergence of Facebook came the notion of “liking” something.  That is, clicking a button showing your support of a post or whatever, or your agreeing with something.  It doesn’t require any actual effort from what I’ll call the liker, and it provides a means of saying something when there’s really nothing to say.

But it’s occurred to me that the like button may be hindering communication.

Recently I read a comment on a blog post that I really agreed with, but I didn’t have anything specific to say.  Gee, I thought, I wish there was a like button for comments.  Immediately afterward, I got to thinking about how people can no longer use words to express themselves.  We feel as though a like or a thumbs-up or whatever will be enough of a communication.  In a lot of cases, it is.

But no like button is a substitution for using language to get ourselves across.  No simple expression of our agreement can perfectly replace an intelligent discussion among different people.  Even if it’s just reiterating someone else’s point, even if it’s just agreeing, can’t we still use words for this?

I'm totally guilty of this, actually. (from someecards.com, I think)

For all of its ease of communication, social networking is to some extent lessening the contact we have with other people, at least in my humble opinion.  There are less face-to-face conversations nowadays.  Everything is getting more and more impersonal, and the like button only adds to this.

I’m not completely knocking the like button.  It certainly has its uses.  All I’m saying is if you feel as though you have something to contribute to a conversation, don’t stop at liking a post.  Get involved; make a point; do something to let the person who posted know you read/looked at whatever it is and are truly interested in it.

Sorry to get all preachy on you, readers, but I felt like I needed to put this out there.  Now that I think about it, though, this is really close to the issue that forms the core of the short story I’m sharing with you guys starting next week…I swear I didn’t do that on purpose.  Weird.

Happy reading!

(Eclectic Reader) Challenge Accepted

Readers, today’s post comes to you in three parts.

Part One: The Challenge

Becky from over at Blogs-of-a-Bookaholic posted a while ago about the Eclectic Reader Challenge 2012, and as that year draws ever nearer it’s time I officially announced my undertaking of it.  Go here to see the page where the Challenge originated.  Essentially, those who take on this challenge must be willing to go outside their literary comfort zones and read at least one book from each of the following genres:

1. Literary Fiction
2. Crime/Mystery Fiction
3. Romantic Fiction
4. Historical Fiction
5. Young Adult
6. Fantasy
7. Science Fiction
8. Non Fiction
9. Horror
10. Thriller /Suspense
11. Classic
12. Your favorite genre

…and all by December 31, 2012, or December 21 if I want to be eligible for a prize at the end of it.  It sounds quite interesting, and I can’t wait to see what books I read because of this.  The only thing I’m a bit worried about is writing a decent review for each book.  You may have noticed that I don’t write reviews here normally.  That’s because I’m really awful at it.  Oh well!  Time to learn!

I’ll be following Becky’s example and creating a tab at the top of the Novel Journeys page to track my progress throughout the year, so stay tuned for that!

Part Two: The Award

I’d like to thank Kirsten over at Kirsten Writes! for giving me the Don’t Read This Blog at Work Award.  Here are the rules of this particular award:

1. You may nominate no more than three bloggers, each of whom must have made you laugh out loud with at least one post.
2. Those who receive the nominations may consider themselves as having received the award, and they must post a gushing acceptance speech thanking the person who nominated them, and perhaps thanking any companion animals they may blog about.
3. Those who receive the award may, but need not, pass on the award, but will not themselves be eligible again until they have published at least ten more posts.

So, here goes said gushing acceptance speech:

“I’d like to thank Kirsten for giving me this prestigious award.  I’m bursting with happiness and gratitude that you think I’m funny enough to deserve this.  I’m not often humor-oriented here, but when I do post something that’s supposed to be funny it’s nice to know that other people like it and are laughing and not just me.  Anyway, Kirsten, thank you.  So much.  I’m glad you enjoy the ol’ blog.  I just…” *holding back tears* “I’m just so happy!  Thank you!  Thank you!”  *bows and scurries to sit down*

There!  That’s enough gushing for one day, yes?

Exactly.  Now, the rules say that I’m not required to pass on this award, and so I’m not going to.  Don’t think this is because there aren’t any wonderful and humorous blogs out there, because there are.

That Liebster award was only a short while ago, at any rate.  If you want to look at some blogs that I like and that deserve attention, please refer to that post.

Part Three: The Song

Time for a Hunger Games update!  Yesterday I discovered this amazing song, which is the first song we have from the official movie soundtrack, was released only Thursday, and which, within 24 hours, TOPPED THE SINGLES CHART ON ITUNES, and is still at the top as far as I know.  Without further ado:

I would love to get your reactions, readers.  What do you think of the song (not to mention the fact that Taylor Swift is on the soundtrack)?  Most importantly, where can you imagine this being fit in during the film?  For me, it definitely goes with Rue’s death, or rather, shortly thereafter.  Some, though, seem to think it’s for the cave scenes with Katniss and Peeta, and I’ll admit that’s a possibility (but I don’t believe it myself).

And that’s all I have for you today, readers.  In light of what tomorrow is, I’ll be posting next on Monday instead.

Merry Christmas and happy reading.

Liebster: Both A German Word And A Blog Award

Readers, recently Novel Journeys was honored by another blogging award- this time the Liebster Blog Award.  I am immensely grateful to Becky over at Blogs-of-a-Bookaholic for doing so.  If you haven’t checked out her site yet, you definitely should go do so.  As in, now.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.

…

…

Are you back?  Good.

Now, in the spirit of chain-mail blogging awards, I will now pass this award on to some blogs I like.  I’m posting this on a Friday, which means that it’s not a part of my two-posts-per-weekend schedule.  So you can still expect our regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow.

Here are the Liebster rules:

Upon receiving your Liebster award, you should:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.

2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.

3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.

4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed. (some say just 3 or more blogs of less than 200 followers each)

5. Let them know they have been chosen, by leaving a comment at their blog.

Without further ado, congratulations to:

Kirsten Writes!, which is a great blog about writing (particularly her recent NaNoWriMo novel) and life in general.  Kirsten always has an insightful and interesting take on whatever she chooses to write about.

Here’s to Us.  The tagline of this site is “Nerdiness Encouraged,” which I absolutely love.  This is another writing site, and Allegra also helps run the Teens Can Write, Too! blog chain.

A Farewell to Sanity.  I only very recently began following this blog, but already I can see it’s very well written and the author, Miriam Joy, has a lot of good thoughts about the writing process, among other things.

Well, that’s it.  I think I’m going to stick to three blogs to pass this award on to, if only because I don’t follow a ton of sites.  Thanks again to Becky, and, as always:

Happy reading.

The Versatile Blogging Awards

I’d like to thank the Academy.  And also Allegra from Here’s to Us, for bestowing this honorable nomination upon me.

So, thanks.  This is awesome, and I’m so grateful that you like what I have to say on this little site.  This also means I can now call myself an AWARD-WINNING BLOGGER.  And Novel Journeys is an AWARD-WINNING BLOG.

I can feel my coolness points skyrocketing as I type.

If some of you have no idea what I’m going on about, the Versatile Blogging Awards is a kind of pay-it-forward type deal, from bloggers to bloggers.  Essentially, if someone gives it to you, it means a) they like your site, b) you don’t have to worry about what your next post will be about, and c) you must do the following:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you (done).
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 5-7 deserving blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them!

Well, if you insist, here goes- seven RANDOM facts about me:

1. I memorize things WAY too easily.  This often comes in the form of reciting stupid YouTube videos or movie quotes (a few of my favorites).  After only a couple of views, it gets stuck in my head until I have entire sequences down pat.  This makes me look like more of a nerd than I actually am, if that’s possible.
2. I’m currently wearing a Dumbledore’s Army t-shirt from the Harry Potter Exhibition (hey, it says random facts).  It’s exactly the quantity of amazing that you think it is.
3. I prefer to say the word “yes” in place of “right’ when confirming something.  For instance, “The party is at five, yes?”  It’s different, and I like it.
4. I translated the entirety of the Gnommish code along the bottom of Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex completely from scratch, using a Sharpie pen, a printed Gnommish alphabet and some lined paper, just for the heck of it.  It hangs on my bulletin board to this day.  I retain a certain dorky pride in the accomplishment.
5. In fifth grade, we wrote letters to the editor of a local newspaper.  Mine was published.  It was about kid’s allowances.  The clipping also hangs on my bulletin board to this day.
6. My first word was “bird.”  At least that’s what I’m told.  I can’t exactly remember, you see.  Because I was a baby.
7. The first book I read over and over again was King of the Wind.  It most probably remains the single book I have read the most times.

(I just realized that this is basically the blogging equivalent of chain letters.  Oh well.  Too late to stop now!  I’ll have another post out sometime this week to make up for it, and for yesterday.)

Okay, so that’s out of the way.  Now for the last two parts- bestowing said award on “5-7” people (“blogging buddies” being taken as a term for anyone, and not just people I call my “buddies,” because exactly one of my friends has a blog) I think deserve the blogging award (and also who I don’t think have gotten the award recently).  Congratulations to the following people, whose blogs regularly make me think and/or smile:

Makya McBee

Wallevand

Victor’s Village (and twiffidy, and themthereeyes1)

Jackie

 C.B. Wentworth

Happy reading!