Another Mystery Blogger Award!

I recently found out that I have been nominated for another blogging award—this time, another Mystery Blogger Award! I want to thank Ospreyshire’s Realm for the nomination—please give the blog a visit! I also thank Okoto Enigma for creating the award; you can find a link to Okoto’s blog here.

As for the rules:

1. Put the award logo/image on your blog.
2. List the rules.
3. Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
4. Mention the creator of the award and provide a link as well.
5. Tell your readers 3 things about yourself.
6. You have to nominate 10 – 20 people.
7. Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog.
8. Ask your nominees any 5 questions of your choice; with one weird or funny question (specify).
9. Share a link to your best post(s).

I’ve already done the first four on this list, so now to the three things about myself (and these are three other things I haven’t shared before):

1. While I have my own talents, playing a musical instrument isn’t one of them. I went to a public school that taught violin for a time and then recorder for a time, but I wasn’t exactly the best talent ever at either instrument.
2. I was into singing, though…in choirs. Between 5^th and 12^th grade, I was always in my school’s choir, singing at school Masses.
3. I still enjoy singing, even though I haven’t been in a choir since 12^th grade.

As for the questions I was asked, here are my answers:

1. What makes you an innovative blogger in your field? In my field (social justice blogging), I focus on injustices we may be blind to and/or blindly commit. I think this makes me innovative because most of the time, the injustices that we want to focus on as bloggers are only injustices that end up in the news.
2. What are issues that you’re passionate about? There are a lot of issues I’m passionate about, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, indigenous rights, ableism, immigration, and economic justice, just to name a few.
3. Who are three famous people that you would want to have coffee with? I’d love to have coffee with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as well as Malala Yousafzai for similar reasons— I admire how they integrate their faith with their work (Anglican in the case of Archbishop Tutu, and Muslim in the case of Malala). The third famous person I want to grab coffee with is a choice that may create controversy with soccer/football fans who read my blog…because I’d like to grab coffee with Jürgen Klopp, the manager of Liverpool Football Club. I’m not even a Liverpool supporter, but he’s a funny guy with major interests and passions similar to mine (football/soccer, faith, and, apparently, walking).[1]
4. Why do you blog and what are your goals for your it? I blog so that people (myself and others) can hopefully be aware of some of these injustices we may’ve been blind to or blindly committed in the past. My goal is for that awareness to spread on those “blind injustices.”
5. Would you rather own a house that’s attached to an ice cream company or one that’s attached to a chocolate factory? Yes, that’s my required weird/funny question for this award. Haha! I’d rather own a house attached to an ice cream company! With a chocolate factory, I would end up limiting myself to chocolate. But with an ice cream factory, I could have chocolate ice cream if I’d like, but I could also choose to have something other than chocolate if I wanted.

Here are my nominees (with links to their most recent posts, as of the time I was drafting my award acceptance). This is in no particular order:

1. Novas Namaste 365 Online
2. denise421win
3. No Half Measures
4. Shine Heart
5. Green Revolt
6. Retrospective Lily
7. Invisibly Me
8. Sylvia Marcia
9. Gadfly on the Wall
10. Love is Stronger

My questions for you all are:

1. What are you passionate about, outside of the topics you blog on?
2. What made you want to blog on the topics you now write about?
3. What do you enjoy the most about blogging?
4. What is the biggest piece of advice that you think new bloggers need to hear?
5. Are you a superstitious person? If so, what is your biggest superstition? (That’s my funny/weird question.)

Three of my best posts (these are different from the posts I shared the previous time I accepted a Mystery Blogger Award) are:

1. “Men and Mental Health”: Given the suicide crisis with men in the United States, I thought it was important to really raise awareness on this topic. It looks like I was successful at that, with 115 WordPress likes as of the time of drafting this post!
2. “Racism Exists Where You Don’t Expect It”: This post, which I wrote nearly two years ago, is a favorite because I was able to turn a negative (racist writing in my neighborhood, including on my own family’s car) into a positive (this post on how racism exists where you don’t expect it).
3. “Addressing the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting”: I was worried about the quality of this post because I wrote it literally the night before publication. But, looking back at the timing of the post (mere days after the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh), a blunt and relatively unfiltered view of just how deep anti-Semitism really was/is was maybe what was needed at that time.

Congrats to my nominees, and once again, thank you to Ospreyshire’s Realm for the nomination!

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[1] Klopp’s undergraduate thesis was on walking. Additionally, when he was the manager of Borussia Dortmund in Germany, he enjoyed taking walks from his team’s stadium to his home after matches.