In which I accidentally abandoned my blog…

It seems to be an increasingly common thing. So many blogging friends from years ago have likewise let their blogs slip away into the swirling blogosphere, some to never reconnect and others to one day salvage their old creative venue and perhaps turn it into something new. 

It happens to us for a variety of reasons. It would be too easy for me to say that I abandoned mine due to the stress of moving back to Australia after a couple of years in Sweden. That may well be a contributing factor, but I feel like I had run out of steam on the blog as well. Heck, I didn’t even do NaNoWriMo last year (the first time since I started in 2009). I just ran out of steam in so many ways and life had too many other priorities.

Now a year has passed. We’re living in a beautiful apartment literally on the waterfront, with a bay of water, mountains and boats in front of our place. The sun sets over the mountains and leaves behind sparkling light over the water each evening – the closest we can get to sunset over sea on an eastern coastline. I’m back teaching again, and after a year and a half of being married to the love of my life we have never been happier.

I’m about to tackle NaNoWriMo again this year, returning for my 7th round and hopefully 7th win. All this thought of writing again has reminded me of my blogging days (over 400 posts in total) and now I find myself wondering: will I blog again? And if so, will I blog here or start anew? Will I refocus my blog or just ramble on more than ever? And will I ever find Waldo? Oh, there he is…

Anyway. I have much to think about. But if any of you have had similar experiences I’d love to hear from you! Meanwhile here’s a nice picture I took recently of my home.

The Conundrum of Multiple Blog Syndrome, or, A Third Blog? Really?

That’s the question I have been asking myself for a couple of weeks now. Am I crazy for wanting to start a third blog when some months I struggle to stay on top of my main blog and my second blog (the lists one) has slowed down to one or two posts a month? Personally I don’t think so, although it probably is true that I am crazy for one reason or another anyway.

I’ve been blogging now for nearly three years, and not only has the blogging world changed a lot in that time but I have changed a lot in that time, as has my blog. This particular one started off as mostly a book blog, also sometimes including music reviews and different writing tips and things (some of my poetry form posts from 2012 are still very popular, much to my own surprise). But lately it’s taken a more personal turn as I’ve come to write about my experiences immigrating to Sweden, as well as just whatever I feel like really. I like the personal feel of my blog, but some of my interests I have been wanting to write about I fear would take over my blog and potentially alienate my readers too.

One interest in particular that I’ve developed this year is cooking and, more recently, baking. Perhaps because I’ve had more time and energy, I’ve made myself learn to cook really nice dinners properly. I’ve been training myself to understand how to adapt different recipes to suit my own tastes, how to make things from scratch and how fresh always tastes a million times better. I’ve started to bake from scratch and now I’m even baking my bread myself. I’m no professional chef, but I kind of like that I’m becoming a self taught cook and I feel like I’m developing my own style of cooking as a result of not being 100% competent in the kitchen just yet.

So, unsurprisingly, I am pondering starting a food blog as my third blog. I am passionate about it, and one thing I have learned is that being passionate about your blog subject is one of the most vital things to a successful blog. My concerns, among many, are things like the fact that does the world really need another foodie blog by somebody who doesn’t really know what they’re doing but is pretty good at pretending he does? But then, if I thought that about a book blog I wouldn’t be a blogger at all now would I?

I think I need to consider more how to make a food blog something unique and typically “me”, as well as making it interesting to others whether they are foodies or not. I also need to think of a good name, which is half the challenge in itself. But if and when I do start this new creative venture, I’ll make sure to post about it on here!

To all my blogging readers, do you keep up multiple blogs? Why did you decide to create other ones? Do you find it challenging to keep all of them updated?

Introducing My Second Blog – One for list-lovers

Since January 2012, I’ve been informing thousands of amazing readers all over the world of my ridiculous thoughts and feelings on a range of things, most notably books, music, comedy, and occasionally donkeys. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed doing this and I have no plans to stop it, so don’t worry this blog will continue as usual.

But I have felt a growing desire to start a second blog for some time. Something entirely different to my main blog here, something that would be more creative and more than likely quite silly. I remember growing up as a teenager that I used to read a lot of lists, not only in the form of books like 1001 Books/Movies/Albums to Read/See/Hear before you die, but also in the form of “20 things not to do in an elevator” and other silly ideas like that.

So I decided my second blog would focus on lists. Lists of silly and hopefully funny things that I’ll come up with, but occasionally something more interesting or serious too. But mostly I plan to write fun lists, and most importantly I’ll be writing all of them myself rather than just reposting stuff already out there on the internet.

The new blog is at alistophilehaven.wordpress.com mostly because my blog is called A Listophile’s Haven (I just dropped the apostrophe and s from the url). Right now it only has one list and the about page has been filled out, but I will be adding more lists over the next few days before slowing down to a couple of posts a week on there (as I have already committed myself to a minimum of three on here).

Go visit my new blog, let me know what you think of it, follow it, leave me comments and suggestions if you want, and please if you like it share it with others and spread the word. I’m quite excited to see what I can make of it, and I hope if nothing else I can put a smile on your faces or maybe even make you laugh!

Two Year Blogaversary – What next and New Year resolutions

It’s hard to believe this, but tomorrow my blog turns two years old! It was on the 2nd of January, 2012 I started this blog, and little did I know where my blog would lead me (for those who missed the posts earlier last year, I revealed that the girl who I’m moving from Australia to Sweden for is someone I met within those first few weeks of blogging).

2013 was a crazy year for me, and I think it showed on my blog as my output generally slowed down across the year. 2014 looks even crazier – it’s two weeks tomorrow until I fly out of Australia and begin my new life in Sweden. So for the next two weeks I’ll run around in a mad panic and then when I get there I have to, well, start everything basically. Get a job, learn the language, continue to be awesome – it’s going to be a challenge, to be honest.

But I will work on keeping my blog more regularly updated, with the focus being on regularly – I will aim to keep a steady 2 or 3 posts a week, rather than writing 5 some weeks and none other weeks. I also have a whole bunch of other goals, but they’ll be easy to achieve and many of them are necessary to achieve. Here goes:

1. Move to Sweden. (This is kind of a given, really).
2. Get a job in Sweden. (Also fairly necessary).
3. Learn Swedish. (I am particularly excited about this one).
4. Enjoy the snow, and other big changes to my lifestyle.
5. Get healthy. No, I mean it this time. I’m not upping and moving my whole life and then letting my health slip further down the drain – this time I’m taking back control. Just have to resist the pick and mix sections of the Swedish supermarkets (apparently they’re the biggest importer of those lollies in the world).
6. Reach 400 blog posts on this blog. This is my 293rd I think, so that comes out at exactly 9 posts a month, or a little over 2 posts a week. I can handle that.
7. Try and write creatively more often, and write what I am in the mood to write, rather than something I was in the mood to write several months prior. This issue has made writing challenging these last couple of years.
8. Read more books. I barely read any last year, which was so disappointing. I’m thinking of aiming for 25 – just one a fortnight. I can do that, surely.
9. The most important one is last: spend time with my girl! It’s been 2 long years of barely seeing each other, there’s a lot of time to make up for now!

I think for once I will achieve all my resolutions, perhaps because I’m being reasonable for a change.

My blog topics will shift a little this year – I will still post about books and music and other random things, but I’m going to post a lot more about Sweden and everywhere else I travel to as well. I want to document some of my experiences moving to a new country, and I am sure I will never run out of fascinating things to tell you all about, so I’m looking forward to that quite a lot. I’ll also update my about me page again after I’ve settled down in Sweden.

In the mean time, I hope you all enjoyed the end of 2013 and have a great 2014 ahead of you! Let’s make the most of it!

Awards appreciation and some changes to my awards acceptance

Okay, first of all the awards. Kerilady from My Thought Exactly…! nominated me for a Very Inspiring Blogger Award quite a few months back. Then about a month ago I was nominated for it again by A Girl Who Reads from the blog Find A Girl Who Reads. Lastly, I was nominated by Jill London on her self-named blog for, well, one of a selection of awards she was nominated for all at once.

I want to thank all three of these wonderful ladies for sending awards my way – it is always much appreciated and nice to know people enjoy the stuff I have to say on here (even after quite a startling amount of posts). I also want to highly recommend their blogs, all of which are very interesting and thoughtful – if you haven’t checked these out before on your travels through the blogosphere, get the heck off my silly blog and go look at theirs (the links are in the first paragraph). Now. Go on. I’ll wait right here. I’m cooking a roast anyway so I have quite a lot of time to kill. I’ll just whistle a long song, like Bohemian Rhapsody. Or maybe Echoes by Pink Floyd, that’s like 20 minutes long…

Have you looked at their blogs? You have. Good stuff. This is why I like you.

Okay, now on to the second part of this post that I hinted at in my title.

As some of you might know, my life has become ludicrously busy in recent months, and the rest of the year is destined to become even crazier as I build up to some big changes that I can’t quite discuss yet because it’s too complicated but I promise you all I will one day write a blog post about it and you’ll all be like “ohhh now I get it.” But until then, spare time is something I find when I’m supposed to be sleeping, sleep is a distant dream at the bottom of my coffee cup, and I have more pressure being put on me than Queen and David Bowie would have at a concert where they forgot the lyrics to that song.

As a result, finding time to blog at all has proven increasingly difficult. I’m managing to stick to an average of about three posts a week, although some weeks I only find time for two, and this takes it out of me. I miss the days where I could blog four or five times a week with ease, but if I forced myself to do that I simply wouldn’t enjoy it any more, and to me that seems kind of pointless.

What I’ve realised is that when it comes to awards, I’m just not getting around to posting about them any more. I have a weekly music post, a weekly book/writing post, and then the third post tends to be whatever I can think of, and that’s it really. Not only that, but as a fellow blogger pointed out recently, sometimes these awards posts can be quite stressful, especially when you’ve already won a number of these awards and you’re starting to run out of things you can say about yourself or random questions you can ask people. It’s not that I don’t appreciate them – I really do – but I’m starting to see now why some people accept them but don’t post about them, and I’m about to become one of those people I’m afraid.

So I will still accept awards if you wish to send them my way, as I always, always appreciate the thought (though I understand as well if you’d rather send them to people who will continue with the posts). When I get around to it in the near future, I’m going to create a page for my awards with a tab up the top, so it has its own special corner of my blog, and there I will link to my old awards posts, and try and include links to everybody who has nominated me for each award (to the best of my abilities – with several thousand comments, it may be hard to pick up every single person who nominated me).

Wow, this post became longer than I thought. I must be tired (I ramble when I’m tired). So I’ll end it now.

Thank you to everybody who has ever nominated me for an award. And thank you to all my readers, past and present, who continue to amaze me with your kindness, support and encouragement. You all rock!

The Addictive Blog Award

So, I’m a terrible person. Why, you ask? Because I was nominated for The Addictive Blog Award back in September, but I’m only posting about it now. I was nominated right before I took a break from blogging to go travelling, and when I returned I found myself so busy and distracted that, well, my memory wasn’t all that intact.

But I am rectifying this error of my ways right now, beginning with thanking Andrea Kelly who awarded me this in the first place so many moons ago. Andrea is a writer and wonderful blogger, and if you haven’t seen her blog The Hand-Written Life you are missing out, so go and check it out right this instant! Go on, I’ll wait here.

…

Okay, you’re back? Excellent. The idea of this award is pretty obvious – it’s about sharing the blogs you are addicted to with your fellow readers. So the rules are as follows:

– Thank the person who nominated you (and link back to their blog of course)
– Share a little about why you blog and how your adventure in the world of blogging began
– Paste the blog award on your page (or wherever you keep them on your blog for all the world to see)
– Nominate 10 (or in my case 5, I’ll explain later) other bloggers you are addicted to (or rather, their blogs. I mean, you might be addicted to the actual person, I don’t know, but it kind of sounds weird)

So….

I blog because once I started, I couldn’t stop. Getting started was a little hard though. I’ve always been a writer, since I was a very young boy, so over the years my desire to blog grew, but I didn’t know what to write and was scared I’d just be saying stuff that had already been said. However once I did start, I very quickly realised I just wanted to write about my passions, in particular books and music, and on top of this I met a lot of wonderful supportive readers and fellow bloggers who inspired me, and still do inspire me, to keep on blogging. So now I blog because I know people want to read what I have to say, and because I like reading what these same people have to say themselves. And, as with all writing, I blog because I have something to say, most of the time. But mostly I just blog because it’s awfully good fun.

Okay now as I said I am only going to nominate five other bloggers, the reason being that a lot of bloggers I am addicted to I have been addicted to for a long time and nominated for gazillions of awards and so I thought I’d try to focus on some of the blogs I have more recently followed. So four out of the five blogs here I have only followed in recent weeks, and the other one I am simply shocked I didn’t nominate for an award months ago! All five blogs are great, so check them out.

The blogs I’m currently addicted to and nominating are:

Mitten’s Kittens

Thedogdidnothing

Cafeteria Days

Bookish Bean

The First Draft Of Anything

And we’re done. Better late than never, hey?

One year old already?

So I’m finally a year old, and really I’ve achieved quite a lot. I mean, already I’m frightfully literate, I’ve been a teacher for two years which throws a number of concepts regarding time and space into question, and let’s be honest here – I’ve somehow turned into a quite handsome young man. I don’t know how all this has occurred in a year, but I’m awfu

Ahem.

So my blog is a year old. Or a year and a day. Actually a year and a day and a bit. But you get the point.

When I started this blog at the beginning of 2012, I had no idea where it was going to go, or what it was going to be about, or what changes it was going to introduce into my life. A year later, I’ve written over 180 posts, covering my tastes in books and music, my thoughts on certain aspects of writing, my adventures in writing challenges, some of my travelling, some of my humour, a few brain teasers here and there, and who knows what else (well, I should, but I forget). I’ve met hundreds of other bloggers in the process, all of whom have amazed and inspired me in different ways, some of them in ways that have quite literally changed my life (they know who they are, when they read this).

If you’re any one of these people I’m referring to, if I’ve dropped by your blog in the past year or you’ve taken the time out of your busy schedules to swing by my page and say hello, thank you so much – you have no idea how much this means to me. It is you people who keep me going, and make me want to stay and keep blogging even when life becomes inevitably hectic, as it has done in recent months.

2013 will be a big year for me, and I’m hoping it’ll be a big year for my blog, too. I will continue with the book reviews, as normal, and I plan on reading more regularly (rather than in the small explosions of reading that occurred last year), so the reviews should trickle in more consistently. I plan on writing a weekly “what I’m listening to” music post, but it will be simpler, shorter and sweeter than the few attempts at this I made last year. I’ll also jump between various other types of posts, such as writing posts, history posts, perhaps some more brain teasers and similar games, and whatever else takes my fancy. I plan on writing a lot more short stories and poetry this year, so some of my writing posts will revolve around these adventures, and I may even put snippets of them up for others to read (this is a definite maybe at this stage, though).

Thank you again for supporting me these last twelve months, and I look forward to another year in this great blogging community with you all!

Blog of the Year Award 2012

To be nominated for an award with a title such as “Blog of the Year” at all is pretty nice, especially for a blogger who is still in his first year, and who still feels he has a lot to learn in the art itself. But to be nominated for this award three times before I even have the chance to write my post on it leaves me a little speechless. So Keri from My thought exactly…!, Susan from Mywithershins, and Jenny from J.Keller Ford – thank you for nominating me for this, for being so wonderful and supportive over this year, and for being so inspiring with your own blogs.

Now, as usual there are rules (which I am simply going to copy and paste, rather than rewording them as I so often do (I’ll put them in italics so you know when it’s me writing again, so to speak)):

1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award

2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.

3 Please include a link back to this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award and include these ‘rules’ in your post (please don’t alter the rules or the badges!)

4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the ‘rules’ with them

5 You can now also join our Facebook group – click ‘like’ on this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience

6 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars…

Yes – that’s right – there are stars to collect!

Unlike other awards which you can only add to your blog once – this award is different!

When you begin you will receive the ‘1 star’ award – and every time you are given the award by another blog – you can add another star!

There are a total of 6 stars to collect.

Which means that you can check out your favourite blogs – and even if they have already been given the award by someone else – you can still bestow it on them again and help them to reach the maximum 6 stars!

Okay, I’m back now. So having been nominated three times, I have three stars now, which is pretty awesome, and for which I am exceedingly grateful.

But now onto the blogs I wish to nominate. These are blogs that I have been following for the majority of the year at least, and many have helped inspire me countless times over my (relatively) short blogging experience.  I also won’t write about their blogs – if they’re on this list, you should just go and check them out, it’s that simple. Many of them have similar interests to me, but some are more personalised, as well. Also, I am including the three blogs who nominated me on this list, which I would have even if they hadn’t nominated me!

My Thought Exactly…!

Mywithershins

J. Keller Ford

Got My Book

Books Speak Volumes

The Tiger’s Eye

Storyteller In The Digital Age

Green Paw-Paw

Diane’s Stories Site

The Hand-Written Life

If you haven’t seen these blogs before, hop to it and check them out, as they all have something amazing to offer, and are all written by some very talented and interesting bloggers.

Hope you are all keeping sane at this busy time of year, and also that you are keeping safe! And also also that you are finding time to relax, read, and so on. And also also also that you are finding time to be awesome. And also also also also…okay I’ll stop.

The Return of The Other Watson

After such a dramatic title, I feel I should write the rest of this in an epic narrative style. But I am somewhat jetlagged, and have gone from beautiful 10 degrees (celcius) England to 35 degrees Australia, so my body is a little befuddled to say the least.

But yes, I am back in Australia, home from home you could say, after what was quite an amazing and life changing trip overseas. I spent a week and a half travelling between the Midlands and Northern England visiting various relatives and several historic sites, before heading down to London for a week and a half to meet up with a very special person (who knows who she is, when she reads this (perhaps one day I shall tell the rest of you about that part of my life, as it is shaping up to be quite the story in itself…but for now it is a tale staying under wraps)).

I have never done so much in such a short space of time, so that it kind of felt like I had been over there for months, even though now I am shocked to suddenly be back in Australia. But it felt great to reconnect with my birth country, as well as many of the other things that happened on the trip. And some of those things (again, can’t really explain right now) have helped set some new directions in my life, including visiting that side of the world again early next year (you must all be thinking “stop all this secretive half-telling rubbish”).

But for now, I need to get my head down, work hard to save up lots of money, and also get through the remaining two and a bit months of the year, which are shaping up to be as hectic as always.

Also, I am officially returning to my blog. I don’t know how often I will post, as I will be busy, but I have a lot to write about – several books to review, quite a lot of music to discuss, I might do a few photo posts from my England trip, and of course in just over two weeks NaNoWriMo is starting, and I am bracing myself to attempt and win my fourth NaNoWriMo in a row.

I hope you have all kept well in my absence – I have genuinely missed the blogging community, and am looking forward to returning!

Happy reading and writing!

The Liebster Award

So I’ve been nominated for the Liebster Award four times, by Danielle from Enchanted By Books, Carlyofsuburbia from A Little Bit Of Everything, Susan from Mywithershins and Lotsboutnothin from her blog of the same name. Thank you guys for thinking of me, it is always appreciated, and readers – if you haven’t read these blogs before, head over there now because you’re missing out!

Now firstly, this award is meant for people with under 200 followers, which is a nice idea I think. Except there is one slight problem – my blog is over that many followers now, and has been for a couple of months. But despite this, my blog is only 7 and a bit months old, and I feel far from experienced or an expert in the blogosphere yet, so I shall accept these awards as they were intended (I suspect my blog doesn’t reveal the amount of followers I have to those already following me, anyway, which makes it hard).

Now, there’s rules as always. Answer the 11 questions asked by the award giver (which in this case is 33 questions (again) as 3 of the 4 asked completely new questions), pick 11 people for the award and pose 11 new questions. So this will be a long post – make sure you do at least check the blogs at the bottom if you don’t have the time to read all of my answers to the questions, which I have again broken up into each individual award-giver.

Danielle’s Questions:

1. What is your favorite book read in 2012? (does not have to be released in 2012)
So far, The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.

2. Have you read any of the books in the Song of Ice and Fire series? Why/why not?
No I haven’t, actually. I own the first one, but it’s long and I’m struggling to find time to read as it is at the moment because I am so run-off-my-feet busy, so I will probably save lengthier books like that for my January holidays (when I get several weeks off work).

3. What is your opinion of 50 Shades of Grey?
*Projectile vomits everywhere* That pretty much sums up my opinion. What a load of trash, really. I guess most people reading it know it’s trashy, at least, but somehow that doesn’t excuse it.

4. How long have you blogged?
7 and a half months. Still young to the world of blogging. But I’m pretty sure I’m addicted to it, too.

5.  Do you do anything crafty?
Yes, muhahaha *clasps hands maniacally*. Oh, you mean crafty as in arts and crafts? No, not particularly.

6. What country are you from?
England, although I’ve lived in Australia since I was 4 years old.

7. What countries/states have you traveled to?
I haven’t travelled as much as I would have liked. In Australia I’ve been to Queensland, Australian Capital Territory (i.e. Canberra) and Victoria, and I live in New South Wales, close to Sydney. I haven’t travelled overseas since coming here, but I am about to go back to England very soon which is really exciting.

8. Do you like to participate in weekly memes? Which ones?
No I don’t, though I have seen them and some of them look quite good. But I tend to just write a blog when I feel like it, about whatever the heck takes my fancy at the time. I’m trying to make Mondays my music blog post day but it has been a while…

9. What is your guilty pleasure tv show/book/movie?
Well, guilty pleasure implies I’d feel guilty or embarrassed about it. But frankly I don’t have any such things. I don’t really watch or read anything trashy, I most watch comedies, documentaries, quiz shows (like QI), and my taste in movies is becoming quite broad these days. The closest books I have that could be considered guilty pleasure is my Wodehouse collection maybe.

10. What tips/pointers do you have for blogging?
Write about not only what you know, but what you love, what you’re really passionate about – people can tell. And although it’s important to try and keep consistent with posting, don’t force yourself to post when you don’t feel like it – people can tell this too. Lastly, comment! Reply when people comment on your blog, but make sure to visit other blogs and comment there too – I’ve met some wonderful people through the blogging world, but you do have to make some effort yourself, as well.

11. Is there a book you love that you want to be a movie, as long as it was done the right way? Why/Why not?  Which one?
Yes, there is (I think I answered this question recently somewhere). Magician, by Raymond E Feist. I just envisioned it like this epic movie as I was reading it.

Carlyofsuburbia’s questions:

1. What’s your favourite book?
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It blew my mind, it made me laugh, it made me cry, and it inspired me to get back into reading and writing after these lifelong hobbies had taken a several year absence (or close enough to an absence) from my life.

2. What’s your least favourite book?
I find myself rather repulsed by the success of 50 Shades of Grey. Twilight is closely behind this.

3. Have you met any authors?
Hmm, I have known some authors, some were lecturers at university, and one author I actually went to school with for a couple of years, and she has a couple of books under her belt already, which makes me think I need to get on with my writing more! Oh, also, one particular fantasy author who has become huge in recent years with his first two books added me on Facebook after I put up a short review of his debut novel – this was just before his book really took off sales wise, but I think it’s still really awesome.

4. Do you own an e-reader? If not, will you make the switch to e-reading?
I might do eventually. I might not. Right now I am undecided, but am enjoying real books more for the time being.

5. What’s your favourite colour?
Always changing, but mostly it’s blue or purple.

6. What is your favourite childhood book?
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. I think a lot of this was because James is my middle name, and you think in funny ways when you’re a kid. Anyway, I loved all of Mr Dahl’s books, and still do.

7. Do you have a favourite genre you like to read?
Not really. I think a lot of my books would be thrown under the banner of Literary Fiction, but Historical, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Crime Fiction (Cri-Fi…why hasn’t that caught on yet?), and most other genres would appear on my shelves somewhere. I have a weird fascination with books about neurology, too, particularly by Oliver Sacks but I am looking into many other authors now too.

8. Sunrise or Sunset?
Oooh. I love both, so this is really hard to decide. Do I choose the sun setting on a day, closing another chapter, or do I choose the light cracking through the dark of night first thing in the morning, as a new day begins to take form, with adventures and events yet to be told? Actually what I do love (though I haven’t done it for a long while) is staying up all night, and watching the sunset AND the sunrise!

9. Favourite pastime, other than reading?
Probably listening to music. My music collection numbers over a thousand albums (actually it’s probably closer to 1500 albums now), so it’s safe to say I more than just like music – I absolutely love it. It fascinates me, moves me, soothes me, inspires me, keeps me company. Oh, and writing, of course.

10. What’s your favourite day of the week?
I’m really enjoying Saturdays at the moment. Though I’m also enjoying life, so any day ending in y, really.

11. Finally, two men walk into a bar.. ?
And the bar says “watch out you idiots, that really hurt!” I also like these ones:
A superconductor walks into a bar and asks for a beer. The bartender replies “Sorry, we don’t serve your kind in here”, and the superconductor leaves without putting up any resistance; and
Schrödinger’s cat walks into a bar, and doesn’t.

Lotsboutnothin’s Questions:

1. Who do you live with?
Nobody. Well, officially with my sister, but she’s never here and is slowly moving out, so essentially I live alone, which after initial misgivings, is actually quite nice and peaceful.

2. Where would you like to live, if you could go anywhere you want?
The moon! No not really. I don’t really mind to be honest, but I do suspect that my future in Australia is somewhat limited. But I shall say no more on this for the time being.

3. What are you doing for your living?
High School Teaching, trained to teach English and History but actually teaching a mixture of English and Mathematics. Yeah I know, it’s weird – I’m one of those creative types who has a logical side to my brain too.

4. Do you prefer summer to winter? Why?
Not here in Australia, because our winter is probably the equivalent to summer for most of the world (as in, it’s winter right now, and this past week the temperatures have averaged 21, 22 degrees Celcius (70 Fahrenheit I think?) during the day, and it’s been bright blue skies). Our summer here is lovely too but it can be too hot – most years we have a month or two where it hovers around the 35 to 40 degree Celcius mark, normally with a week or so where it climbs into the 40s (so over 105 Fahrenheit), which is just a bit too hot for me. I know there are lots of places around the world that get this hot too, but there are a lot that don’t – I guess I just want to be somewhere a bit cooler, like, oh I don’t know, Sweden?

5. What languages do you speak?
English English, Australian English, Pirate English. Arrr, me hearties.

6. What did you want to become when you were little?
A SAMURAI PIZZA CAT!!! (If you don’t know what this is, look it up on youtube and watch an episode or two).

7. How many children do you want to have some day in the future?
Hmm don’t know, but I guess between two and four. But whatever happens, happens.

8. What is your lucky number? Why?
All of the numbers! But mostly 7, 25, and 625. (Yes, 625 is 25 squared. What of it? (I told you I was a Maths nerd)).

9. Are you tattooed? If yes, what? If no, do you want some day?
No, I’m not. And interestingly, though I wanted a tattoo for a long time, I don’t think I do anymore. I’m not against people who have them, of course, and I think they look really cool on the right people, but I just can’t think of anything I would want to tattoo onto my skin enough.

10. What music do you listen to?
All sorts of music. Look at the Music and 30 Day Music Challenge folders to the right of the page to view blog posts that reveal some of my music tastes. Right now I’m listening to an album called Weather Systems, by the band Anathema – a prog rock type band on the  Kscope label that has also been home to bands such as Porcupine Tree, The Pineapple Thief, No-Man, and many more of this genre in recent times.

11. What are you wearing right now?
Nothing. I actually lied about my teaching job, and am in fact a streaker. Now if you’d excuse me, I have some professional streaking in which to partake…Okay so in reality I’m wearing the regular weekend outfit – jeans and a tshirt. You can call me Mr Fashion, if you like.

The 11 Blogs I am nominating:

I am picking 11 of the newest blogs I have stumbled across (in some cases because they have kindly stumbled across my blog), and in most cases they are under the 200 followers, but I can’t always tell – they all seem relatively new (as in, this year) though, so it’s up to them if they want to accept it or not if they do have more followers, of course! At any rate, you, my awesome readers, should visit them:

The Hand-Written Life

Confessions of a Disquisitive Writer

A Little Blog of Books and Other Stuff

She Who Must Not Be Named

Easyondeyes 

Sarahjanelives

My Thought Exactly…!

The Secret Mermaid

Always Taylie Jay

Rustic Recluse

Holly Recommends

My 11 Questions:

1. What’s your favourite word in the English language?

2. What are you listening to as you write the answer to this question (if not music, what sounds)?

3. What was the last thing you ate that you really, really enjoyed?

4. You’re at a job interview, and the interviewer asks you to make them laugh. What do you do or say?

5. The world is about to blow up, but you’re being saved, and are allowed to take five things to another planet (aside from the clothes you are currently wearing), where you and only 999 other people will now exist (ignore the bleakness of this question). What do you take?

6. What’s your favourite drink to consume first thing in the morning?

7. What was the last book to make you cry?

8. What’s the most ridiculous or silliest way you’ve been injured?

9. What’s your favourite city in the world? Why?

10. What’s the most embarrassing album in your music collection? (Be honest)

11. To borrow an old line from a Crowded House song, would you rather a mansion in the slums or a caravan in the hills (i.e. a nice house in a not nice area, or a tiny living space but with views)?

Here endeth the interrogating and interrogation by and of me. Hope you enjoyed (and managed to get through it all).

Have a great weekend people!