Liebster Award

I would like to thank the wonderful Nyctophile who nominated This Door is Alarmed for this award. Nyctophile is a dear friend and a beautiful person. She is also an incredibly talented artist, writer and poet with a sweet and tender heart that oozes through into her creative wonderings. Her blog is a delightful perusal for any and all. She is the bravest person I know, for those who know her, will know she has been through so very much, but remains strong and incredible. I have awe and respect for her, so very much awe and respect.

The GUIDELINES for the 2018 award are as follows:

• Thank the person who nominated you
  • Display the award on your post
  • Write a small post about what makes you passionate about blogging
  • Provide 10 random facts about yourself
  • Answer the questions given to you
  • Nominate 5-11 other blogs for this award
  • Ask them creative and unique questions of your own
  • List the rules and inform your nominees of the award

What makes me passionate about blogging: You lovely people! I have never met a nicer, or more entertaining bunch. You can always guarantee Ward Clever or The Britchy One will get you chuckling. You can be sure to enjoy Nyctophile’s beautiful poetry and artwork, or MatthewRichardson’s exciting stories, and a hundred other blogs that tickle a fabulous little chord. Thank you!

Ten random facts:

1. Very few people know my actual name. Most people call me by an abbreviation of my first ever language.
2. I have an identity clash with my birth name, so I have soared through life on a variety of nicknames. The curious outcome of this is that people from different times of my life know me by different appellations.
3. Wednesdays are fat and orange.
4. I have a giant fluffy sloth (a big stuffed toy) who gives superb cuppa soup-style hugs.
5. I have never understood olives or bell peppers, their taste, shape and colours all feel deceptively misleading.
6. I was a teacher of Linguistics/ English Language and Literature for 5 years.
7. Sometimes I sit and think for twenty for minutes of more, it is a defrag for the mind, and I recommend it.
8. I never learned to play chess.
9. I have created my own shorthand writing system that I use day to day.
10. I am transfixed by planes and rockets.

Nyctophile’s Questions are:

1. Why did you start blogging? The idea of starting a blog discovered me. I needed somewhere to gain feedback from my writing, to gauge whether I had any potential as a writer when it comes to publishing. A blog seemed like the perfect medium. An idea sprang to mind one morning, and without thinking into it too much, I began. I thank you all for your beautiful and honest feedback, you as readers make the journey so very worthwhile!
2. Which blog post is your absolute best? Please explain! I have no idea. Some that I think are my worst are considered the best by my readers and probably vice versa. I am probably most concerned by chapter twenty. He is Dangerous, He is Fire. I wasn’t sure whether Andrew should be seen as so violent. I notice I have entirely evaded the question, in good political style, in fact written the opposite. Sorry, I guess that says more about me than anything else!
3. Who inspires you? Impossible to answer, as there must be a hundred thousand answers to this. Perhaps I might mention Chum Mey who I met and shook hands with, one of seven survivors of the Khmer Rouge S-21 prison during the Cambodian genocide, who speaks to tourists passing through every day about the terrible crimes that took place. Perhaps I might mention Margaret Atwood, whose writing titillates my inspiration bones, perhaps I might mention my father, with his ever ready wisdom and witty tongue. On the other hand, stalagmites also make great in-spires.
4. What three things would you put in a time capsule to show people 1,000 years from now what life was like in 2018? A diary, a smartphone with memory full of apps, pictures, and emails, and a national newspaper dated on the day it was buried.
5. If you could go anywhere, where would you go? This depends on a number of things. Firstly, I am basing this on the assumption it will not cost me money.

If I could go anywhere and in any form, I would take the form of sentient data and live in the infinite matrixes of the internet, spending my life absorbing and imparting knowledge.

If I was solely corporeal and I had to live there, I would choose Scandinavia, and hope I could keep up with the cost of living.

If I was solely corporeal and I could go home afterwards, I would choose the most expensive place on my travel list—Antarctica—and delight in meeting the wobblesome and superb Emperor Penguins in their natural habitat.

6. What’s one thing you’re looking forward to completing? The story of Andrew. I hope I can smile at it. Christen it with its title. You, my readers have given me so much confidence that I could, perhaps publish this one day!
7. Do you have a pet? Yes, she likes to walk on a lead, she chirrups, she greets me at the door when I come home from work, takes a lap as soon as your bottom hits a seat, and then dribble kneads your tummy. She has a hundred-and-one names, one seamlessly evolved from the last (and some, admittedly, are pure nonsense). Her names have evolved to the point that I am convinced she no longer knows what her name is. She is Amanita, Amie, Jammie, Jam Jar, Jamboline, Jam Bug, Am Boleyn, The Onion, Little Miss Toots-a-lot, Tooty-fruity, Cutie-McTootie (When she was little, her toots could clear the room!), Jammy-Fantastic, The Jaminator, Pudding, Sir Puds-a-lot, and the list goes on. Did you guess what creature she is? Yes, she is a fish! Only kidding, she is a cat 🙂
8. Where is your best writing spot? Another delightful lexical ambiguity here, leading to two answers:
   1. On my chin, darn that T-zone. It is the most creative, but in all honesty, how creative can a zit be?
   2. At a computer, with a large space around me, and I like to keep trinkets about for inspiration, which is why I like the study and my lounge, or the large space in a library with the words of books for comfort.
9. What’s your greatest success to date? Either receiving my First Class Degree or completing my first year of teaching; I walked into the profession blind, having carried out no training whatsoever. It was a ‘fun’ year.
10. What advice would you give a brand-new blogger? Don’t chew your pencil—a teacher I know used to dip the ends in super-hot chilli paste so the children at her school wouldn’t chew them. I suspect that bled a few tears and  caused some spectacular faces. I am not sure if you could get away with that today, health and safety and all that! 🙂

My Questions for Nominees:

1. How straight is straight?
2. What would you think I was referring to if I told you to ‘put it down’?
3. Why are swans graceful?
4. Would you be a superhero or a sidekick, and what would your name be?
5. If you could remove one letter from the English alphabet, what would it be, and what consequences do you see coming from it?
6. What was the last thing you lost and never found? What do you imagine has happened to it?
7. What significance does the number seven have to you? What memories do you associate with it?
8. Young and completely broke or old and disgustingly rich?
9. If a giant squirrel had commandeered your mode of transportation, whether car, moped, bike etc., and seemed to know how to make it work, what would you do to stop him?
10. If you had your own coat of arms, what would I expect to find on them to describe you/ your family?

Nominees:

Kkatch22

Our Daily Scraps

The Little Mermaid

Photosociology

Mel Gutiér, Fiction in My Head

Liavi

Jono51

Theceaselessreaderwrites

Nyctophile

Pia Majumdar,

The Britchy One