I’ve been nominated for a Leibster Award!

A few days ago I was checking my notifications and saw that two wonderful people had nominated me for the Leibster Award – but due to deadlines I was too bogged down to appropriately show my appreciation. Finally I can now take the time out to properly thank Shannon and nazymidget for nominating me! For those of you who are not familiar with the Liebster Award, it is an award given to Bloggers, from Bloggers. To receive an award, you should have less than 200 followers and the goal is to help small blogs you like get discovered. It’s a sweet gesture and all around kind of awesome, if you ask me.

The Rules

1. Mention the person who nominated you on your own blog and link them.
2. Answer the 11 questions chosen by the person who nominated you
3. Nominate 5 to 11 more blogs you like who have less than 200 followers
4. Create your 11 questions
5. Let your nominees know!

The Questions

Because of the double nomination I ended up with a lot of questions, so I decided to pick my favourites from the both of you – I hope you guys don’t mind!

1) What  pushed you to start blogging? Why do you blog? 
I put these two questions together because the reasoning is the same. I started blogging about my snail mail because before I started I spent weeks looking at other people’s incoming and outgoing letters. I looked at their mail art for inspiration, and that’s what finally got me involved in the snail mailing community. Now I wanted to contribute to the wealth of inspiration that other people have put out there.

2) Who is your fictional character crush?
Maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t been reading any books lately, or that this seasons TV shows are shockingly disappointing, but I currently don’t have a fictional crush. My most recent fictional crush was Stiles from Teen Wolf. I identify strongly with that guy. And Castiel is a forever love.

3) All-time favorite movie and why?
The Princess Bride (1987) is my go to favourite movie ever. I’m not sure why exactly it’s my unrivaled favourite – perhaps it’s the fact it’s profoundly  hilarious and absolutely quotable, perhaps it’s just the idea of a fairytale satire. Either way, you should all watch it ASAP.

4) What is your favorite comfort food?
Either great vanilla icecream with only half-baked mudcake batter. Or, if we’re going for something more food-like, the homemade mac and cheese I made a few time in second year of uni but sadly haven’t made since.

5) What would your weapon of choice be in a zombie apocalypse?
Assuming I knew how to use it, and also knew how to make arrows – then totally bow and arrow. Accurate, quiet, and depending on sizes and stiffness can be used for a variety of distances.

6) Which fictional world would you want to live in?
The wonderful world of Harry Potter is definitely high on the list. Preferably during a non-dictatorship period, say, post-Voldemort. How amazing wouldn’t it be to be able to do magic and encounter strange creatures and all the like?

7) What item would you run back for if your house was on fire? (Safely assume that all humans and pets are safe)
My Finance 2 book, to remind me that I’ve been through worse.

No, but seriously, this is a really hard one, because for the life of me I can’t think of anything at my current place of residence that I would risk my life to retain. Most of my sentimental mementos aren’t in my flat, and all my photos and files are backed-up on the cloud. I wouldn’t risk my life for my clothes (not even my stunning DVF dress..) or craft materials (even though I love the desktop edition PL cards). Maybe I’d grab my favourite planners and a box of washi, if they were close to the door.

8) If you could put 5 things from your home into a time capsule today, what would they be?

• A month or two of decorated filofax inserts, with everything I’ve been up to.
• 3 very long letters to my future self, including pictures and stories behind them.
• Printed print screens of some of my most used social media sites and blog stats page.
• A mix tape of all the songs I’m currently listening to.
• Year-end National Geographic (Year in Pictures Edition).

9) What is your all time favourite book?
My all time favourite book isn’t the best book I’ve ever read, but it’s the one that had the biggest impact on me when I read it. I’m talking about The Perks of Being a Wallflower and the first time I finished it I felt genuinely different. Like all the things I’d always known and never quite been able to put my finger on had suddenly become real. To me, on a very personal level, it changed everything and nothing all at once and it’s been precious to me since.

10) What do you do to relax?
Bake some cookies or cake, start a TV show marathon, grab a bunch of craft supplies, and either scrap or write letters while watching. Creativeness always makes me unwind from the academic stress in my life.

11) Do you prefer the country or the city?
I like a mix of both, but since that’s a cop out answer I’m going to go with city – it just works better with what I want from my life right now.

12) What is the most adventurous thing you ever did?
Last year during my exchange at Cornell in the US I received an email from the international listserve wondering if there was anyone willing to perform at a start-up school festival at a university in Chengdu, China – all expenses paid. I emailed back, saying I was interested, and after a few email back and forth it had all been arranged – I hadn’t met anyone, never mind been auditioned, but I did have tickets to fly alone to China. When I got there I was treated like the biggest VIP superstar. I went to the same restaurant Michelle Obama had gone to on her official visit, I was bought gifts, I was interviewed by some local papers and TV (I use local broadly, Chengdu is China’s third most populous city). What really makes this an adventure is the fact that the concert I performed at wasn’t in front of the 600 or so people I was expecting. It was a crowd of over 3000 people, on a n almost 15m wide stage. If you need help visualizing that, here’s a picture of the crowd, and one of me on stage.

And here’s about half the audience.

Hey look, it’s me!

13) How did you come about one of the hobbies you blog about?
I came across the happy mail variety of letters one day during a particularly extensive Pinteresting session. From there I started looking for all the pins and then all the blogs and then gradually joining various online groups. After using Swapbot for a few months I found a few more permanent penpals, and then started to blog about it and connect with the Instagram community. It’s no more exciting than that, I’m afraid.

14) What is your favourite word?
My favourite word changes quite frequently, but I’ve always had a soft spot for words that sound and feel like exactly what they mean.
Right now I’m quite fond of ‘meridian’.

My nominations – and questions for them – will be up on the blog tomorrow! 

May the postman deliver ever in your favour, x Alex.