My Liebster blog award. I’m a Liebster Blogster!

They say your first time is always the best. And my very first Liebster, given to me by Namrota, arrived on the heels of the dismal end to the short story contest I’ve raved and ranted about in my previous post, and made me feel like the Universe was conspiring for me. Thanks a ton for reading and appreciating my blog, Namrota, and hope you continue to enjoy reading my blog!

Jumping, shouting, celebrating is done. Now back to business.

What is a Liebster? It’s a blogger-to-blogger award that tells a fellow newbie blogger that they are making the world a more interesting /intellectual /funny /better place. For a lot of us, it comes just when we’re facing that first blogger’s block or wondering if it’s all worth it. For the rest, it’s a shower of accolades. Either way, it’s a great thing. There are no certificates or trophies, but hey, appreciation from a fellow blogger is always valued.

Borrowed from Namrota’s blog, The Liebster Award is given to upcoming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. So, what is a Liebster?  The meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome. 

So here’s my Liebster questions, answers and nominations.

11 random facts about me:

1. Music is my soul. I’m a die-hard metalhead. I also love classic rock, psy-trance and of course, 80’s hair bands. When other teenage girls were daydreaming of movie stars, I was busy daydreaming of jamming with Dave Ellefson and meeting Steve Harris. It saved me many heartbreaks.
2. I love animals, and HAVE to make friends with every animal around me. It’s gotten me into trouble many times, because not every animal wants to be friends with me.
3. I’m a giganormous Sci-fi geek. I grew up reading Doctor Who. My favorite TV shows are Firefly and Futurama. My favorite books still are Brave New World, Hitchhiker’s guide and Dune. Star Wars is for lightweights, Dune is the real thing.
4. I was the bassist in my Undergrad semi-pro band, BellCanto. We even released an album!
5. I wrote a Rock n’ Roll book last year. I’m happily slacking off on its revision now.
6. I have an organization OCD. All my spice boxes are labeled and arranged alphabetically. My undies are rolled meticulously and ordered by color or brand in the drawer. I once even tried ironing them but that made me feel a little stupid.
7. I hate sharing my food or drink. I’m a caveman (cave woman?) at the dinner table.
8. I’m that crazy girl hopping and screeching on top of the chair with her eyes squeezed shut, when there is a teeny weeny caterpillar in my line of vision. Even a vivid photograph will do.
9. I’m a wimp. ‘Scary Movie’ scares me.
10. I always count in 4’s. I have no idea why.
11. It’s very hard to gross me out. Seriously.

Questions for me from Namrota:

1) When did you start blogging and why?

I started blogging seriously in late 2012 with the goal of promoting my book, but then fell in love with blogging. Now I use blogging as an excuse to procrastinate revising my book. And I’ve done nothing to meet my original goal!

 2)   What inspires you to write?

I love writing. I’ve been composing limericks, poems, song and prose since 5^th grade. This is the first time I’m writing for a real-time audience, so that excites and inspires me. It also scares me a bit, so I strive to make every blog post better than the previous one.

 3)   When you become a world renowned writer, would you give up blogging?

I’d probably blog more, because more people would read my blogs!

4)   How would you describe yourself in one sentence?

One sentence? I have one word for myself- Weird.

 5)   Which is your most cherished memory till now?

If I had to pick one, it’d be the day my dog at the undergrad hostel, Baby, had babies (pun intended). We were meeting after 2 years as I’d already graduated, and she came up to me slowly, limping in her post-delivery pain, and licked my face. I could have cried when I looked into her eyes. She had just told me who among the 80-odd girls at the hostel she considered her mama.

6)   Something that you learned recently…

Strawberries will curdle milk. So much so for my experiments with hot strawberry-chocolate tea.

7)   What is your pet peeve?

Smelling Pistakes.

8)   Did you ever have an imaginary friend? If yes, tell us something about him/her.

Never needed an imaginary friend because I have lots of real ones. No one seems to ever see them or talk to them, so I’m guessing they’re either poorly dressed or smell bad.

9)   What is your idea of heaven?

My heaven would have blue skies, snow-capped mountains, acres of wildflowers, a serene waterbody, and a clean, white, sparkling toilet. Seriously.

10) Which fictional character from a book would you like to be and why?

Alice in Wonderland, if only there’s a version without the giant caterpillar. Otherwise, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Why? Alice’s and Dorothy’s lives are so much more exciting than mine!

11) Whom would you like to play you, in a movie on your life and why?

The movie on my life will be an animated movie, so that it captures all my daydreams. It would be somewhat on the lines of Simpsons meets Family Guy meets Wizard of Oz.

My nominations for the Liebster: Now I know why all the Liebster posts apologize for having taken so long. There are lots of cool blogs around, but they all have more than 200 followers. And my biggest problem was that a lot of blogs don’t even show the number of followers.

Plus, although Google will spew out hundreds of blogs that received the award, I couldn’t find the official website (if there is any) or the nomination criteria. Some blogs state the criteria is <3k followers, some state <200 followers. I’ve gone with the latter, but there are some blogs that are just over 200 followers that I’d love to give the Liebster to. Please feel free to shed light on this!

So aspiring Liebster bloggers? Don’t forget to put your following count on your blog so a Liebster stalker like me knows for sure that you qualify! I promise to complete the 11 nominations in the next few weeks or so!

1. http://tomatotwist.blogspot.com/
2. http://avalleyofdreams.blogspot.in/ Neelima Chakraborty
3. http://www.jambudweepam.blogspot.in/ C Suresh (Yes, yet another one to answer and forward. Evil laugh)
4. http://kookydom.blogspot.in/ Sreedev Soman
5. http://miraarvind.blogspot.com/ Easwar Arunmugam
6. http://sakshinanda.blogspot.in/   Sakshi Nanda

My questions to the above winners:

1. I blog because I want to…
2. We all have articles we wrote with gusto but never published onto our blogs. What’s yours and why didn’t you publish it?
3. What’s your idea of the perfect blog?
4. Who do you wish would compliment you on your blog?
5. Describe your writing style in 5 words.

Whew! The tough ones are over! Now for the more fun ones.

1. If you weren’t in the career that you are now, what would you be doing?
2. If you were an item on a restaurant menu, what would you be and why?
3. What would you do if no one’s watching?
4. There’s always a song, a book or a movie that changes our lives. What’s yours and how did it change your life?
5. What’s that memory that haunts you and makes you cringe in embarrassment?
6. What does the inner child in you enjoy doing the most?

The next steps: Again, borrowed from Namrota’s blog because I’m lazy.

1. Each blogger should post 11 random facts about themselves.
2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you, then create 11 new questions for the bloggers you pass the award to.
3. Choose 11 new bloggers (with less than 200 followers) to pass the award to and link them in your post.
4. Go to their page and tell them about the award.
5. No tag backs.

Congratulations and Good Luck, dear bloggers!