An Award?

Sara Bulla from "Live to Write...Edit When Necessary" gave me "The Versatile Blogger" award awhile back.  This is incredibly nice, since I have no idea what I'm doing on here.  I started the blog one night when I was up late working, got tired of working, and thought a blog suddenly sounded like a good idea. It's like the student that needs to study for a test, but suddenly finds it necessary to sharpen ALL his pencils, or rearrange his sock drawer.  That's how I was - I wanted an excuse not to have to work.  And so, I started a blog.  Little did I know that a blog would demand work...

A week later, I complained to my husband that I didn't know if I should continue.  What's the point?  I wondered.  After some discussion, my husband convinced me that if I didn't have a blog, I wouldn't write at all.  I graduated in English and History, taught for several years, but wrote very little because I was so busy correcting essays by 9th graders.  Now that I'm not teaching, I thought I should try to write.  Maybe even submit an essay to a newspaper or magazine.  So, I continued to blog, so that I could remember how to write something besides a lesson plan.

I think blogs are like people - each has a different personality.  I don't want to have 20 friends that act and dress the same, nor do I want to check out 20 blogs that read alike.  So, I stopped worrying about what other blogs were about, and tried to find out what my voice sounded like.  I love some blogs because they are funny, some for the updates on their family life, and some because they are so beautifully written that I read a post multiple times before moving on.  I did stop trying to make my blog "all one thing" and just started writing, finding my voice on paper. 

So, when Sara Bulla gave the award, it felt really good.  Like at least one person liked what I was writing, and that maybe I should just keep going.  Thanks, Sara.

The deal with this award is that I'm supposed to share 7 random facts about myself.  This is why the post has been awhile in coming - I can't think of anything random about myself.  Oh sure, I know I'm a bit random, but when you're supposed to come up with random things, you lose the randomness of it.  So, here is my best shot:

1.  I am something of an ice cream addict.  I will eat it any day of the week, for any reason.  I can list all the Ben & Jerry's flavors, current and discontinued, and hope to one day be hired as their official "ice cream taster".  

2.  I worked one summer as a mail delivery person.  I survived by listening to books on tape and eating from taco stands en route. 

3.  I worked in Switzerland for two summers.  I loved everything about living in the Swiss Alps, and I really loved the food.  I'm a little ashamed to admit that a deciding factor in going back the second summer was to eat muesli and nutella every morning. 

4.  I have never broken a bone, although I am somewhat accident prone.  During my first semester in college, I was in two mountain-biking accidents, got hit by a car, and took a trip to the E.R.  When I switched my major from Recreation Education to English during my junior year, the trips to the E.R. reduced drastically. 

5.  I have a bad habit of cutting my hair.  Whenever I can't get to a hairdresser, I snag a pair of scissors - even kitchen shears - and go to town.  It's a good thing my hair is naturally curly, and can hide the crazy lines. 

6.  When I was in junior high, my best friend and I would hang out at the library in our small Montana town and listen to old records of jazz and big band artists.  Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Billie Hollday, and Ella Fitzgerald were some of our favorites.

7.  I found every excuse to show my students scenes from "Fiddler on the Roof" while teaching.  I could connect it to Chaim Potok's "The Chosen", or the Russian Diaspora.  I also found it helpful to dance during "If I Were a Rich Man" or "Tradition" to extend the learning experience.