Sunshine Blogger Award

Last month, Kacha from Food.for.Thought nominated me for my first Sunshine Blogger Award! I’m a big fan of the Sunshine Blogger Award, so I was thrilled to receive Kacha’s nomination! If you’re not already a dedicated fan, I highly recommend checking out Kacha’s blog, https://journeythroughlife591163021.wordpress.com/. If you are already a dedicated fan, congratulations, she’s well worth the dedication. Her posts on mental health and neuroscience will broaden your understanding of the brain and mind, and her music shares will lift your spirits and get your feet tapping. Thank you, Kacha, and sorry it’s taken so long to post this. I really had to think about some of these questions!

The Rules

• Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link back to their blog so others can find them.
• Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you.
• Nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 new questions.
• Notify the nominees about it by commenting on one of their blog posts.
• List the rules and display a Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post and/or your blog site.

Questions from Kacha:

1. If you could, would you turn back time?

If I had the ability to go back and redo small choices, I would be very tempted to use it. However, I think I probably would not attempt it. Part of my reasoning is that the details of how that would work are so uncertain and problematic no matter how I imagine them. After changing my choice, would I then have to relive every moment after that until I reach my current time again? What a daunting idea, trying to redo every moment in a way that wouldn’t alter the parts of my future I liked. Would I just zap back to the present? If so, would I suddenly be out-of-sync with my life as events changed from my different choice or would I end up with two sets of memories? Or just forget it hadn’t always been this way?

Finally, there’s the fact that any moment I wish I could change has since served as a reminder to do differently. If I undid that moment, I would probably then make that mistake again somewhere down the line, possibly in an even worse way than the first.

Probably the only way I would eagerly turn back time is if I could travel as an invisible observer to witness past events. I’m fascinated with memory and history, so it would be exciting to see glimpses of the past! Even if I was limited to events in my lifetime, at least I’d be able to find out where certain objects I lost are hiding.

2. What is an expression you use quite often?

If you mean full, meaningful phrases, I’m not sure. Probably someone outside my self would have a quicker answer for that. I do marshal an arsenal of movie and book quotes when talking to close friends and family, but nothing so consistently that it comes to mind. I have noticed that use the phrase, “please note” a lot on my blog. It just seems like a polite way to interject and highlight a comment. I’m fully capable of ruffling feathers, but I also believe in respecting people who come to read my words. So I guess that phrase gives me a balance between excitement and grace.

3. What is your favorite fairy tale?

Wow, that’s a tough one. There are so many out there, and I’ve enjoyed them in various forms and revisions through the years. However, if I had to pick one I have never wanted to see updated, I’d go with “Little Daylight.” It’s a fairly recent fairy tale, published in George MacDonald’s 1871 book At the Back of the Wind. I first encountered it in a collection of children’s stories when I was quite young myself.

“Little Daylight” tells the tale of a princess who has that familiar problem of a wicked fairy coming to her christening to curse her, although the curse is softened by not one but two fairies afterwards. Her curse is then to be awake only at night while cycling from an older appearance to full youth with the moon cycle. The prince who eventually meets her wins her love not by killing or questing but simply by listening to her when she says go or stay rather than trying to impose his will on her. And then he frees her from the curse by kissing her in her aged appearance. Sure, it’s a tame kiss of kindness because he doesn’t know who she is, but seriously, how sweet is that?

4. What is the trait you are most proud of?

Love of learning! In others, I enjoy talking to people who are open to new ideas and adjust their worldview to new information after carefully and reasonably questioning it. Those who stick stubbornly to an idea of how things are without checking their information worry me. Similarly, those who accept any and every idea that comes their way without checking whether those ideas contradict each other make me nervous.

In myself, I am very grateful to have the curious mind I do. Without it, I would never have started this blog. Even my hobbies are designed to keeping me learning, whether it’s watching movies and TV from countries besides my own or researching for creative writing projects.

5. Where do you find inspiration for your blog?

Life, the universe, and everything (wink for Douglas Adams fans). But seriously, inspiration strikes me at odd moments. I may think of a topic while having an engaging conversation, allowing various questions to float through my mind, or reading recent news. Finding my sources is harder, since I prefer to make sure I look at topics from sources that are as objective as possible without discounting a source just because so-and-so doesn’t have a PhD. Not all knowledge is certified.

6. What languages do you speak?

I only speak English fluently, although I have long wished to change that. I’m probably past the age when I can pick up languages with a fluent accent, but I am continuing to learn ASL and Japanese.

7. What do you dislike most about blogging?

How slow I am at writing. I thought I would be able to stockpile a bunch of articles ahead of time, but so far I’m just trying to finish up the next article before my self-imposed deadline. I may have to take a month off sometime and see if that helps me get ahead.

8. What subjects in a conversation are so boring to you that you could fall asleep standing?

Most of the time I’m willing to at least try to find a topic interesting, but anything that involves too much technical detail and math will have my eyes wandering away. I’m also not too into sports.

9. What do you love to talk about?

Besides mythology and media, some of the topics that can cause an excited monologue to burst from me are animals, geology, music, writing, spirituality, astronomy, paleontology, and anything paranormal. Except UFOs. I will talk your ear off about cryptids, but I have never managed to even remotely care whether UFOs are real or not. I do have empathy for those who have traumatic memories of abduction experiences, but I also don’t have any conviction that I know the cause of those experiences. Oh, I also like to talk about plants and history.

10. Do you have habits that can be considered as a little out of the norm?

Oh, tons. I used to collect feathers molted from my chickens for crafts. I also thank my toilet for flushing. There is a Buddhist precedent for that, but there’s a different story behind my habit. I also prefer rainy days to sunny, which works out because I get a lot of rain where I live. Maybe that’s less a habit than an inclination. There are also probably plenty of habits I have that others would consider out of the normal that I don’t think of as “weird” because they’re normal to me. That’s ok. I’m weird and proud of it!

11. Which trend needs to stay in 2019?

This is the question that took me the longest to answer. I’m not a particularly trendy person, so I couldn’t immediately think of what trends happened in 2019. I can think of plenty of things I would like to end in 2020, but let’s settle for this: Remaking movies and TV shows that don’t need to be remade. I’ve heard that someone out there wants to remake The Princess Bride. No! That movie worked because some magic seeped in and made it work. There is no logical reason why it would otherwise. Why redo what’s already been done well?

It’s the same thought that’s haunted me while watching various live-action remakes of Disney classics. If we must have remakes, why not remake and actually improve the really bad movies and TV shows from the past? Look at the new Lost in Space. Erica from Geeky Mythology has a great review of this show that demonstrates why this a great reboot. I’d even say it’s the best I have seen in a long time. Everything, from visuals to scripting to acting is better. I certainly wouldn’t expect to see these awkward moments in the new show!

 

My nominees:

Chocoviv’s Lifestyle Blog

dragthepen

Fab Foodie Swede

StarLit Den

Fun with Philosophy

The Quiet Pond

We Are Star Stuff

Geeky Mythology

Macalderblog

Old Bird Travels

Mental Health from the Other Side

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My questions for you:

1. What kinds of music do you like?
2. What’s one thing you would absolutely never eat?
3. What is a language you don’t currently speak but wish you could?
4. Would you rather live in a city, a small town, or alone in the woods?
5. Is there anything you cannot currently change about your blog that you wish you could?
6. If you had shape-shifting powers, would you rather be able to change into any specific human being or any type of animal?
7. Which would you rather watch, a sunrise or a sunset?
8. If you could name a star, what would you call it?
9. Where does the line between adventure and danger lie for you?
10. Would you ever go to Mars?
11. What fairy tale/mythological role do you see yourself in? If none, make up a new one!

 

 

 

 

 

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