So immediately after I published my last Liebster Award, I got nominated for another one by Hebah Pervaiz and I loved her questions so I had to do another one!  I also recently got nominated by Angie at Water for Camels. Thanks so much for nominating me Angie and Hebah 😀

Rules

You know the drill:

• Answer the 11 questions given to you
• Share 11 facts about yourself
• Nominate between 5 to 11 other bloggers
• Ask your nominees 11 questions

Questions from Hebah

1. What was your worst travel experience?

I suppose I’m lucky enough to not have many bad travel experiences but there is one that springs to mind…  When I visited China over the summer, we had booked an apartment for our stay and it wasn’t cheap.  However, we booked it because it had a central location close to where our extended family lived.

Everything was fine – we interacted with the host to introduce ourselves, the confirmation email with the address and dates was received, and eventually we arrived at the building after a long journey on the plane.

However, when we called the host, he said that the address that he had put on the listing was wrong!  He then directed us to meet a woman somewhere else in the city.

Since this host website was very new to China at that moment, we were very wary of being scammed.  We asked him to come and meet us in person, but he told us that was impossible.  Out of options, we agreed to go and meet this woman.

We did meet her and she took us up to the apartment, which was clean and air-conditioned and most things worked.  However, she then asked us to place a £50 deposit and to pay our electricity, gas and water bills – but the apartment rental website warns travellers to not transfer money outside of their system, so of course we said no.  The one-off fee should cover everything!  She then got angry and the adults had a row with her, and we told her to come back with the host the next day.  She left and didn’t come back.

At the end of the trip, she didn’t charge us the bills, but we had already felt that we had been scammed.  We wrote an honest review on the website, but it is only published if the host writes one back; he didn’t.  As a result, I don’t think our review ended up on the listing, but I hope that the host changes the address to the correct one and realises that bills and deposits should be covered by the fee!

2. Where is the furthest away you have been from home?

I’d say China but when I’m there, it does feel a little bit like home too.

3. Where would you like to live in the future?

Before 2016, I would have said the UK – now, I’m not so sure.  Leaving the EU won’t be great for our economy, but maybe that will create opportunities?  Who knows.

4. Would you like to have children one day? If so, how many?

Yes probably, maybe 2 children because any more and I might get overwhelmed.

5. What is your all-time favourite book?

I don’t have an all-time favourite but one that I have recently enjoyed was Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You.

6. What is your pet peeve?

When people walk slowly on the pavement. Grrrrrrrrr

7. What is your worst habit?

Watching videos on YouTube and getting distracted easily.  I have so much to do, yet I don’t do it!

8. What is the weirdest thing you have ever done?

I’ve probably done weirder things but this is one that springs to mind: lie face down on the carpet in a friend’s room and reminisce about how it feels like my childhood home.

9. If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, what three things would you do in the time you had left?

Oh man, the stress!

1. Eat as many different things as possible with my favourite people, preferably somewhere comfortable.
2. Say goodbye to all my close ones.  They deserve to be warned and to be told that I love them.
3. Get high or something.  I don’t think I’d be able to deal with the idea of dying.

10. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

My greatest achievement would probably be how I’ve managed to succeed at so many things, from academics to music to sport to organisation to just being a good person.  I see success as a journey, so you can always get better.

11. Would you rather visit the world 100 years into the past or 100 years into the future?

100 years into the future – I want to see what the world will be like, what our impact on the world will be and what will happen in the future.  It’s far more exciting, and the quality of life will probably also be better than what we have now!

Questions from Angie

1. Who was an early influencer in your life?

My mum.  She’s not perfect, but she is hard-working, driven, organised and extremely capable.  I wouldn’t be anything without her (quite literally too!)

2. How did you realize you wanted to become a writer?

I don’t.  I want to do something that requires more maths, but communication skills (especially written communication) is so essential and I think blogging has really helped me in that field.  I just wanted somewhere permanent to put my thoughts that I could find easily without having to dig through a pile of old notebooks.

3. Do you prefer writing poetry or prose?

It depends on what I am writing about.  If it is completely creative writing, I prefer poetry.  However, I prefer writing about my thoughts and that definitely comes out better in prose.

4. Who is your favourite poet?

This is a hard one.  I really like Dylan Thomas (famous for his Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night) but Robert Frost, J. R. R. Tolkien (for a good laugh) and E. E. Cummings also rank up there.

5. What is the hardest barrier for you to overcome in order to write your blog?

Finding the time to write.  I feel like there are a million things to do: going to class, shopping for food, eating, sleeping, exercising, spending time with friends, just living life; blogging comes somewhere at the bottom of the priority list, I’m afraid.

6. What current social crisis is near to your heart? (You feel strongly about).

Underrepresentation of women (and other genders) in STEM.  It’s getting better and the ratios are already very good in comparison to years ago but there is still plenty of room for improvement, especially in areas like computer science, physics and technology.

Having gender diversity is proven to increase group creative problem solving and an increase in the financial performance of the economy and the firm.  So why are the numbers still so low?

7. What would you like to be remembered for most when you are gone?

I would like to be remembered for discovering, creating or facilitating something that helps the world, or benefits a disadvantaged group of people.  Big dreams.

8.  If you could have dinner with anyone alive or dead who would it be and why?

I have already answered this question in my Real Neat Blogger Award but since I’m lucky enough to get another opportunity to dine with whoever I want, I would choose to have dinner with Bruce Lee.

He is famous for his martial arts, but fewer people know that he was a great philosopher too.  I think he’d have a lot to teach me, and we’d have plenty to talk about.

We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything that has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone; we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us! We are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

Bruce Lee

9.  What is your kryptonite food?  (can tempt you no matter what?)

Dark chocolate.  If it has nuts in, even better.  If it’s dark chocolate, gooey cake, it won’t exist in a matter of seconds.

10.  What is your birth order?

Not sure what this means but I think my answer is I’m the eldest?

11. Why did you start your blog?

I started my blog as a way to express my thoughts and sort out my life, somewhere where they couldn’t get lost in a pile of paper.  I wrote about it here in my first post ever.

My Nominees

If you don’t want to do the award, that’s absolutely no problem!  I won’t get offended.  I just picked you because I love your blogs 🙂

• Jaz in London
• Kip Walkin
• Cogito Ergo Sum
• Cats cakes candles coffee
• Chloe Grey
• Ica
• Queerly Texan
• Jen’s Rambling Thoughts
• Leila Land
• Robbin’s Realm
• The Cozy Den
• What Would An Adult Do?
• Not So Perfect Student

My Questions to You

1. What is the most important song to you?
2. What does a typical weekend in your life look like?
3. Would you rather be twice as smart or twice as happy?
4. What are you excited about this year?
5. Who knows you best?
6. Unlimited love or unlimited money?
7. What’s the hardest barrier for you to overcome to write your blog?
8. What’s the first thing you would do if you won the lottery?
9. What’s the favourite thing you bought in the past month?
10. What is the nicest thing someone has said about you?
11. Where’s your favourite place to be?

And that is a wrap!  Those questions are slightly more searching and personal than the questions you usually come across so if you don’t want to do this tag, I won’t get offended, but I hope that you find them interesting!