I Won a Thing…the Liebster Award!

Hello everyone!

Today, I have a really exciting piece of news! I’ve been nominated for the Liebster Award! While I discussed in my previous “blog news” post that I’m glad to have an audience larger than two, it’s also an honor to realize that my work is well enough liked to be recognized for it. (And anyone who’s curious about the details of recognition for the Liebster Award can look here)

Anyway, I want to thank Rosemerry from Rosemerry Writes for nominating me! While I first discovered her blog during the #MeToo movement on social media, I’ve also found that she writes on a variety of other topics and even does some Japanese! She is truly a Renaissance blogger.

Anyway, there are some questions I need to answer, courtesy of Rosemerry, so that I can accept the award. So, without further adieu, here are the questions and my responses to them:

Rosemerry: How stoked are you?

Brendan: I’m pretty stoked right now, though if someone were to bring up my favorite baseball team, the New York Mets, with me in conversation, that would change pretty quickly since the baseball team’s lack of success is nearly as certain as death and taxes.

Rosemerry: Why did you start blogging?

Brendan: The complete answer to this question would probably require an entire blog post from me, but in short, I started to realize a number of injustices I and/or others were blind to or blindly committed. I posted about some of these injustices on Facebook, but I realized that I should talk about some of these issues on the blogosphere instead of keeping them on Facebook.

Rosemerry: What keeps you blogging?

Brendan: For me, it’s pretty easy to keep blogging because I love to write and I’m passionate about the topics I write about.

Rosemerry: Which post has been the most difficult for you to write and/or publish so far? Why?

Brendan: Honestly, the first post was the most difficult one. I struggled with self-doubt, and I particularly doubted my qualifications to write on the issues I discuss, my writing abilities, and my ability to have or find an audience. I had to overcome all of that self-doubt in order to write my first post.

Rosemerry: Have you published a post that was unexpectedly popular? Why didn’t you expect it to be popular, and why do you think it was?

Brendan: I didn’t expect my post on #MeToo to be popular, but to date no post has received more likes than that one. I drafted the post within hours of publishing it, and that’s more likely to produce typos than success. Yet, it was more popular than any other post I’ve written. I think it was popular because it was timely (it came out within a couple days of #MeToo first becoming viral) and useful to many people.

Rosemerry: What’s your theme song?

Brendan: Hmmm. My theme song varies, depending on the day (and sometimes the hour). Though as a person of Christian faith, the closest thing I have to a theme song would be Matt Maher’s “Lord I Need You”, because I realize that there’s so much in life I can’t do on my own power but need God’s help with.

Rosemerry: Name a poet you enjoy (other than yourself) and tell us why.

Brendan: Well, unfortunately I’ve never really been much into poetry. My apologies for disappointing the poets who read this blog.

Rosemerry: If you could have one superpower, what would you choose (heroic and villainous are both okay!)?

Brendan: If there’s a superpower which allows me to care for people endlessly without any time limitations, I’d totally be down for that!

Rosemerry: If you were a character in a novel, how would you want to be described?

Brendan: I’d want to be described as unselfish and compassionate, of course! Or alternately, I want to be the opposite of the Gordon Gekko character who says that “greed is good.”

Rosemerry: Who is the voice of your generation? Why?

Brendan: I’ve never really been much into music, but Lady Gaga is the voice of my generation. People around me couldn’t stop talking about her, and the people around me couldn’t stop blaring her music. At the first-ever summer camp I attended, the dances I attended just couldn’t get enough of Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro”.

Rosemerry: You just found out dragons are real. What do you do next?

Brendan: I’d probably freak out, find out where the dragons are, and get as far away from the dragons as I possibly could!

My Liebster Award Nominees:

Part of my accepting this nomination was that I, too, nominate several different bloggers that have a small following at the moment (200 or fewer followers) but deserve more recognition. These were the blogs I nominated, in no particular order:

1. Running with Crutches. I’ve learned so much from Erica and her blog on ableism and disability rights (though more recently she’s also had posts on eating disorders, and those posts are insightful too). For example, she’s written on topics I never thought of previously, such as the challenges of dating with a disability and the ableism that exists within the disability community.
2. Tuesday Justice. This blog, which focuses on racial issues, writes timely and insightful pieces. For example, this blog posted an article on the problems with blackface…days before a couple of students from my alma mater got in trouble in part for putting on blackface.
3. Caitlin J. Stout. First of all, I really respect and admire how brave Caitlin is for writing as an openly gay Christian while attending a non-affirming Christian institution. Beyond that, it’s always very helpful to read her posts as I continue along my journey as a Christian and (hopefully) becoming a good ally.
4. Age Discrimination in Employment. Given my anti-ageism work, I wanted to nominate at least one anti-ageism blog. As this blog’s posts include everything from legal developments on this issue to studies, you’ll get to see the issue of age discrimination from a variety of perspectives.
5. She Speaks We Hear. While this blog has a clear focus on issues in the United Kingdom, many of the women’s issues discussed here are relevant to many parts of the world. For example, posts on topics such as male feminists and breastfeeding shaming are not just relevant in the UK, but in many other parts of the world too!

Finally, I have some questions for the people who I nominated. I won’t answer these questions since this post already feels way too long, but I will ask them the following:

1. Why did you start your blog?
2. What motivates you when you find that you are having a difficult time blogging?
3. Which blog post did you most enjoy writing?
4. What have you learned about yourself since you started to blog?
5. What would you say to someone who’s interested in blogging?
6. If you could be the head-of-state of your country of citizenship (whether it be President of the United States, Chancellor of Germany, UK Prime Minister, etc.) for one day, tell me one thing that you would do.
7. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you travel and why?
8. What hobbies do you have? And sorry, school and work don’t count.
9. Who is your role model, and why do you think of that person as a role model?
10. Where do you see yourself five years from now?

That’s pretty much it. Thanks to Rosemerry for nominating me, and congrats to the people who were nominated!