In fact, I think several people like this blog! Several weeks ago Carol Parker, all-around amazing artist and creator posting at artisnotforsissies.wordpress.com (as well as guest poster at Katzenworld), nominated this blog for a Liebster Award! Thank you so much :)
I went and did my research, and a Liebster nomination is an apparently acknowledgment from one blogger to another that they like your work and that more people should see it. As a recipient, it is up to you to:
· Acknowledge the blogger that nominated you
· Answer the questions the nominating blogger asks by posting on your own blog
· Nominate 10 bloggers with under 200 followers, or so
· Inform the bloggers you have nominated them
· Post 10 questions for the new nominees to answer
It’s a great way to spread the word about smaller blogs that are out there doing great work! It has taken me a while to both answer the questions below in a way I felt was adequate and also to find some bloggers to nominate, because after starting grad school my free time has rapidly diminished. Still, I am incredibly thankful to be nominated for this award! I’m so glad people are enjoying my blog, which has now officially been described as “surprisingly entertaining.” (ADD LINK)
What motivated you to start blogging? Why do you blog?
I started blogging because I knew I had something to say, even if I wasn’t sure exactly what that was. And also because when my brother helped me make my website (aka did most of it for which I am eternally grateful), I noticed a blog tab and felt like I needed to put at least one post in there. My first piece was a truly magnificent rant about The Core, the worst geology movie ever made. But after writing that I realized I had more to say, and not just about bad geology movies. In fact, my life experiences have given me unique perspectives about planetary science, academia, science in general, rocks, and how one should go about being a halfway decent person in this day and age.
I keep doing it because I love to think and write, and because at least two people think I’m funny and two other people said I make them think.
Who or what inspires you to write or create?
Two things – one, my incurable feeling that I have a lot of things to say that need to be said (whether they should be said is another question), and two, other creators! I have so many incredibly creative friends sharing their art with me, from visual art to poetry, and they inspire every time. I am so thankful for both the creators I know who are always happy to talk with me about various art forms and how to improve, and the amazing artists and thinkers of the Internet. Talking with others is almost always where most of my posts start, whether it’s a great idea we think of or a really stupid argument.
I am also super thankful for Twitter, the glorious repository of stupidity and brilliance that inspires quite a bit of what I do.
What is one interesting thing that happened to you this summer?
I think I blogged about every interesting thing that happened to me this summer, since most of the interesting things happened while I was in Europe for my trip.
That said, here’s a thing I haven’t shared – don’t know if it counts, because it’s an action I took rather than something that happened to me, but: I started making art again! After not drawing for years, I started drawing again. It’s been absolutely wonderful, and while I’m certainly not great at it I’ve been having a good time re-discovering a way of expression that I took a break from.
Do you have any pets? How many? What are their names?
My parents have a great many but I have none, though I have big goals in the future! I am terrible with lifeforms that are dependent on me, so I’m starting out with a cactus named Bob. I also have an extensive rock collection that I am very proud of and no one asks me about.
One day, once my life settles down and I either have something approaching job stability or feel like I’ve reached Level 3 Adulthood, I will have a cat. Its name will be Professor Snugglesworth and I will love it to pieces.
What is your favorite season of the year? Why?
I feel like being from Texas gives me a really weird sense of seasons because our seasons are basically Summer, A Light Breeze, Oh No It’s Cold For Two Weeks, and Summer Again.
That said, my favorite season is, shockingly, summer! Most people think I’m crazy, but I love the Texas heat. I love eating my ice cream before it melts and getting a brain freeze, jumping into lakes and pools and oceans, and staring up into wide open blue skies. I also hate wearing pants, so summer is my ideal.
If you could hop into a reliable time machine, where/when would you go? Why?
There are so many caveats with this question and I could actually write a post just about this question.
That said, I’d probably go the exact moment of the Cretaceous-Paleogene (formerly Tertiary) boundary 65 million years ago, for several reasons:
1. I’d get to see what a massive meteorite impact looks like,
2. I’d get to see what the Earth looked like 65 million years ago and thus have hot new geologic knowledge, and
3. Dinosaurs, obviously!
This is of course assuming I could insulate myself from the effects of impact with my super nice time machine.
Tell us about your office or studio.
Well, I spend most of my life in the lab that I share with other grad students for work, but all of my blog writing takes place elsewhere. If I’m writing or making art, I like to be in various coffee shops, or occasionally at my very very messy desk. It’s covered in overly ambitious to-do lists and way too many No. 2 pencils and if I try to clean it I swear it re-clutters itself in less than 24 hours. In my mind I am a very organized person, but in reality I’m more organized chaos.
Books or movies? If you had to choose one over the other.
Books! I love movies, but there’s something about the act of reading that completes me somewhere deep in my brain. It’s something in page-turning and watching words fit together… I can’t explain it, but movies can’t really compare. I also have a super vivid imagination, so no movie is ever as high-budget or high-concept as the show in my mind. Books have a much bigger scope because the reader does all the special effects for themselves! Each of us is essentially given a screenplay, and then the casting, directing, and so forth is all done in our heads. I think that’s an amazing experience. And the nerd in me loves a well-written geology textbook or a perfectly concise history book.
Also, the smell of a new book is the best smell in the world, closely followed by hot apple cider and mountain air.
Your best post, in your opinion, and a link to it.
This is hard, because I don’t have a whole lot of posts but I am also insanely attached to all of them. I’d have to say my Italian Dolomites History and Culture post. I’m obnoxiously proud of that post, for whatever reason. It feels, in style and structure, like the culmination of my travel work.
Advice you have for anyone who might want to start blogging.
I have a few tips, though they come only from my experience as a blogger:
1. What do you want to write about? If you want your blog to have a theme or a specific tone/personality, figure that out first. If you just want to write stuff on the Internet, that’s great too! Start writing.
2. Edit your post at least once after you write it. Do not blindly post things assuming you just wrote a magnum opus only to get an email from your mother pointing out typos. It’s not a good feeling!
3. Lastly, it’s okay to blog however you want to blog! Update when you feel like you’ve written something you want to share. Don’t let blogging become a joyless chore – then it’s no longer fun, and it will show in your writing, too. There’s no rulebook for this stuff, but I would say the most important thing is to find joy in your work. If you do, others will too!
My Blog Nominations
I do not spend as much time as I would like on the ol’ blogosphere, so I don’t have as many nominations as required. However, I am nominating blogs that I really do think are worthwhile, and have enriched my life. Therefore, here are some blogs that always deserve more recognition and I think you should check out:
Queer, Fat, Femme: Okay, she has her own domain so she's clearly legit and clearly doesn't need my help signal boosting, but I think Bevin Branlandingham is the bee's knees and y'all should check her out.
Fashionable Tinfoil Accessories: Vrai is an amazing writer, and their takes on many of the fandom that I love are just so intelligent and so rich with imagination. If you like deconstruction of anime and other pop culture items, this blog is place for you.
Never Satisfied: The new and wonderful webcomic about magic that is technically not a blog but it's a wonderful read and coming of age story.
Shattered Starlight: I love webcomics, and I especially love webcomics that deconstruct the magical girl genre in a serious but not super somber way.
The Questions for the Nominated Bloggers
Why did you start blogging? Why do you blog?
Who/what inspires you to blog?
What is your favorite movie?
What is your favorite rock?
Do you have a role model? Who are they, and why?
What is your favorite image or gif from the entire Internet?
Do you have a favorite superhero? Why?
Mountains or oceans?
Your best post, with a link to it.
What is the weirdest thing you have strong opinions about?