One Lovely Blog

Rosh from The Rose of Sharon Healing, a wonderful blog about hopeful and beautiful things from her adopted home of South Korea (and history!), had kindly nominated me for The Lovely Blog Award awhile ago. At the time I was already on an upswing – an emotional high full of hope and wishful thinking, and knew that it wouldn’t last. Unfortunately, this is a fact of life. Sometimes we’re in a good mood, sometimes we’re in a bad mood. Anyway, knowing this, I decided to secret this piece of honest kindness away until I needed it. And these past few days, I have been in need of a virtual hug.

Hug me!

Thank you Rosh! I hope you don’t mind that I kept your hug safe until I needed it.

Okay then! Let’s get down to business. The rules of this award are:

Seven things about myself? I’m going to take that to mean stuff I haven’t talked about already, just to make it difficult. Because I get a kick out of gossiping about myself honesty. Well, I’ve told you all about my aesthetic flaws, personality quirks and absence of religious faith, so I have to think about what I haven’t told you already. Ready? Here we go.

One

I can’t stand coffee. It gives me acid reflux – I taste it in my mouth for hours after I drink it, threatening to regurgitate. It also gives me, erm, digestion issues. Not that you needed to know that, it’s just I get lots of people who shout “YOU DON’T LIKE COFFEE?!” at me so I always have to explain why. Just figured I’d get that out the way by preempting the inevitable question. Yes, there are people in the world who don’t like and/or simply cannot enjoy coffee.

I am a tea drinker. Have been since I was ten years old. I cannot start the day without a cup of tea – to do so gives me a headache. I expect smokers experience the same thing if they can’t get that first cigarette, so it must be a withdrawal symptom. But tea doesn’t give a person lung cancer so as addictions go, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got 🙂

Two

My birthday is at the end of this month! I was born on the twenty-ninth of September, nineteen-eighty-nine. So I was able to experience the last three months of the glorious eighties before being raised by the indifferent and apathetic nineties.

I’m just kidding. After all, the nineties gave us the following awesome:

• Xena
• Spice Girls
• Sailor Moon
• Metal Gear Solid
• Pokemon
• Power Rangers
• The birth of the Elder Scrolls

Three

I love travelling. I was lucky enough to have been raised by parents who loved travelling, so I caught the travel bug early. It helped that my dad worked for an airline so we got the staff travel discounts by hopping on planes that had spare seats. I’ve been to England (x3), California, Cambodia, New Zealand (x2, and what Aussie hasn’t visited Middle Zealand?), Tokyo (x2), Singapore, Dubai, Turkey (all over), and I’ve been on a two-week tour of central Europe which included: Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungry, Slovakia and Czech Republic.

And in case I haven’t talked about it enough already, on Thursday I shall embark on another adventure! This time, to Spain and Portugal for a two-week tour with Mum. So, so keen on this holiday. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I come back from it. I’m hoping I’ll have some sort of emotional epiphany and realise exactly how to live my life from now on. Bah, I should just get over myself and enjoy the damn holiday.

Four

I love history and museums. The Hittite Museum in Ankara (Turkey) and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin (Germany) are my favourites so far. Yes, I’ve been to the British Museum. It was horribly organised and cluttered, like a flea market. I thought it was terrible. The one redeeming factor was that they got their grubby paws on the Rossetta Stone. But hey, each to their own, I suppose.

I completely geek out over this so maybe I’ll do some dodgy archaeological posts in the future (the discovery of Troy! Hatshepsut! The destruction of Minos!). Maybe. If I want to repel readers for some reason.

Four

When I’m at work, I become Daria (oh! Add that to nineties awesome list). I think it’s a coping mechanism: if I stop caring, everything will be okay.

La la la, la la.

I wish I could be chirpy and happy and positive (like Unikitty) all the time but… but I’m at work. I get up at five, I’m at work for the pre-shift meeting at quarter to six, then it’s underground running around dodging falling rocks, or in the office running around and thinking too much until six in the evening. Then it’s bath, buffet, blog and bed. Well, it’s actually a shower and camp food for dinner – I just wanted to use alliteration.

Five

… this is difficult. I’ve got four things so far and my mind is now stagnating. Do I have any other hobbies I haven’t mentioned? I don’t think so. I remember my mum signed me up for everything under the sun when I was a kid. I think it was because I wouldn’t leave the house otherwise. I was very much an indoors person. I’m not big on exercise, though I’m making myself do more because things are starting to click in strange places, which can’t be good.

A fact about me… Something about myself… I guess I’m a pretty boring person once you strip away the over-active imagination (which I like to think is pretty good, if I do say so myself). I don’t like ‘going out’, I don’t like to drink to excess (in vino veritas, after all, and no one wants to hear the truth (or so I find out the next morning)). My drink of choice is bloody mary. There we go. That can be number five.

My drink is Bloody Mary.

Six

I’m a natural bitch. I don’t really want to be, but in real life I find it incredibly liberating to speak the scathing remarks that pass through my head (not in the blogosphere though – I think that’s because of the company I keep :o) you guys bring out the best in me). Because I work in the mines, the bitch act kind of works. Everyone is a… well, I’m in polite company now, so I won’t repeat what’s often said on minesites. Basically, if you can think of the worst word to use for a masculine appendage, and the worst word to use for a female, um, deppendage, then you’ve got a pretty good idea what two words are most frequently used out in the middle of this red dust-bowl. The former word can be used on its own, or with the suffix ‘head’. The latter word is just fine on its own, thank you very much.

Seven

Okay, I think I’m going a bit crazy trying to think up tidbits about myself. Oh, that gives me a good idea of what number seven can be:

When I was still at uni and I was trying to stay up really, really late because I was studying, my dreams started impeding my waking reality. I’d start to hear people. Not ‘voices’ as such (I had spoken to someone I knew who’s a psychologist and she swore I’m not carzy), but I could hear people having a conversation. Yet, there was no one there. At the same time I started getting flickers of something in my peripheral vision. I thought it was pretty cool, but recognised I was past the point of no return and had to retire to bed. Sometimes, I just need to do what my body is telling me and get some sleep.

Oh, and another fact about me? I’m an over-sharer. Let me know if I’ve been too much 🙂

My Nominations (in no particular order):

Please know that there is no obligation to follow the rules of this award – I’m nominating these people because I think they’re lovely. Whether they accept or not is entirely up to them.

Eliza Worner is a lovely fellow Australian and wholly sympathetic to the plights of the struggling author. Check out the details of her upcoming book, The Black Road.

Lola from Hit or Miss Books is always up for a friendly chat dissecting books and scarily has a very similar opinion to me. One of my first port of calls for recommendations.

Leiah from So, I read this book today. Leiah defines lovely. She is kind, supportive, and always giving and generous. She has too many qualities so please click the link and check out her blog!

Shelby from Nature Preserve Me –  seriously, seriously nice person who I feel so lucky to have accidentally replied to her comment when I was aiming for some else. I said something completely unrelated, but she replied with tact and grace. Because she’s that kind of person.

Kendi has written a really great fanfic based on The Purge (I loved it!) and she also posts about her random and entertaining thoughts. She is a genuinely nice person.

Utah Rob for Fly fishing the high country. I’ve already got one of Rob’s stories linked on my sidebar (click on the picture of the dog, and you’ll know why I’ve nominated him).

Cheryl for What Cheryl said. Cheryl reminds me to be kind, while addressing the more challenging topics of life.

Auntie Doris is one of my favourite characters on the internet. She is fantastic. Just, fantastic.

Oil Pastels by Mary. I love Mary’s art. Beautiful, unique and simply gorgeous.

Newguy87 from Movie Reviews 101 is a lovely guy who is crazy about movies. Seriously – check out the huge variety he’s reviewed!

TK from Chapter TK raises some great argumentative points and challenges us to really think about the society we live in and the society we want.

Leanne Walker is another Australian author who’s working on her manuscript! Plus she’s got some really funny commentaries on everything that happens to her.

Karen from My train of thoughts on… has some truly wonderful posts that are loved by many people – me included!

Story Medic is a great blog for writers – this Tasmanian has taught me a lot, and I’m paying sharp attention to what happens next with his writing adventures…

Carol Balawyder is a fascinating woman who has done some great posts on femme fatales and Nobel Prize Laureattes. I also love the cover she’s currently showing off for her new book Getting to Mr. Right.

Honourable Mentions!

Nicholas Rossis and Horrorville had recently been nominated for the lovely blog award, so I’m just giving them a special mention here 🙂

Also, to Silver Linings who had deservedly won two Lovely Blog Awards. It’s easy to see why.