Weekly Geeks and Awards

It’s been a while since I last participated in a Weekly Geeks activity, but one of my blogging resolutions for this year (more about those in a separate post) is to participate in Weekly Geeks more often.

After Dewey died, Weekly Geeks was out of the air for a few weeks, but it has been taken up again by a some fellow bloggers who set up a special site with a blog for the Weekly Geeks.

This week’s (actually last week’s, but I couldn’t get this post up earlier) assignment is brought to us by Terri:

In the spirit of the amazing community building that Dewey was so good at, tell us about your favorite blogs, the ones you have bookmarked or subscribe to in your Google Reader, that you visit on a regular basis. Tell us what it is about these blogs that you love, that inspire or educate you or make you laugh. Be sure to link to them so we can find them too.

Another option: Reading goals for ’09 and wrap ups for ’08 have been pretty well covered by now on a lot of blogs any other memes. But if you haven’t done this, feel free to make that your first WG of the new year, in addition to or instead of the above.

As I recently won two awards, I decided to combine the Weekly Geeks with passing both awards on two some of the many bloggers whose blogs fill my feedreader.

First up is the Honest Scrap award that Susan gave me way back in December (ouch! Another of my resolutions: reply sooner when I was tagged for an award or a meme!). It has a meme attached to it.

1. List 10 honest things about yourself (have some fun with this!).
2. Pass the award on to 7 bloggers (I was told that you can give out fewer if you’d like.) who are honest and speak their minds in a thoughtful manner.

Now, since I have another award to hand out as well, I am not sure I will get to seven bloggers, but I’ll give it a try. But first the ten honest things about myself:

1. I will be unemployed soon, most likely from the end of February. Not my fault, but it sucks nonetheless. I work for an international company that is going to close its Yerevan branch.

2. I will not leave Armenia because I will be unemployed. I will find (am trying to find) a new job. Not an easy task, but there you have it. I didn’t move to Armenia for this particular job, so I am not going to leave now that the job is no longer there.

3. I can be very direct, embarrassingly or rudely so at times, because sometimes I just blurt out stuff. Want a recent example? I have a friend who goes out and drinks a lot (and I really mean A LOT). With another friend we have decided she is in an “experimental phase”, because it apparently started after she broke up with her long time boyfriend. Recently, at a party she complained to me that she should diet and loose some weight, because she is growing a belly (I think she looks perfectly fine, but there you go…). My reply: “Or maybe you should just drink less beer.” That did not go down well…

4. I hardly ever regret things I say, including the above comment.

5. I am a bit of a loner, I don’t like being in (big) groups or at parties and I often feel like a social moron. But that is apparently not the way I come across.

6. I cannot hide it if I am bored or if people bore me. People who know me well, notice it from the look on my face and from the fact that I get very quiet and stop participating in any conversation.

7. I have little or no patience with people who only care about status, outward appearance and material things.

8. Hardly ever do I really dislike a person or have no respect at all for someone. Usually I try and find a way to understand this person better, to try to understand where a person comes from, why s/he thinks the way she does. But once I do loose my respect for someone, there is no way back: That person is doomed.

9. I am a feminist and I think it really is too bad that that word has such negative connotations these days (man-hating, bra-burning, etc.).

10. I am a loyal friend.

Now, as for the bloggers I nominate, these are some that I appreciate for their honesty or for their well-argued opinions:

Rebecca of Rebecca Reads, because she always gives good and reasonable arguments why she does or doesn’t like what she read and she always poses questions that make me think.

Raych of Books i done read: If there is one blogger out there who honestly gives her opinion about the books she reads, it is Raych. And she often is hilarious at that as well!

Bibliolatrist of Bibliolatry is also one of those bloggers who doesn’t mince her words.

Becca’s Byline, for writing about the good and the bad and making me smile and think.

The second award I received, is the Inspiration Award which I received from seachanges at 51Stories. These are the rules for this award:

1. Please put the logo of the award (see on the left) on your blog if you can make it work with your format.
2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.
3. Nominate 7 or more blogs.
4. Put the links of those blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message on their blogs to tell hem.

Having done points 1 and 2, I will continue with my (drumroll please!) nominations of bloggers who for different reasons give me inspiration. Actually, I could nominate the blogs for the previous award for this one as well, because they make me think or give me inspiration about reading or writing.

Jew Wishes is a blog I discovered recently. Lorry writes about books, music and other things Jewish. She posts beautiful pictures as well. Since I started following her blog, she has given me lots of new ideas of books to read.

Rob Around Books who not only reads interesting books, but has features like Reader of the Week (where he usually lets other bloggers introduce themselves) and Bookshelves of the week (do check out the amazing pictures he finds on the net!). And he is planning to read my all time favorite book The Chosen by Chaim Potok soon!

Kevin from Canada is a new bookblog, but Kevin has been around for quite some time, building himself a reputation by leaving thoughtful comments on some of the bookblogs I read. Which is why I didn’t hesitate to add his blog to my feedreader when I found out he started a blog of his own.

Natasha from Maw Books Blog who uses her blog not only to post book reviews (and recently started to make and post short videos as well), but also used it last year to raise awareness for Darfur.

Heather from Age 30+ – A Lifetime of Books because she gives me tons of new reading ideas. And because I love her posts about the books she reads with her young son, I have tons of respect for the way she is trying to make her son think about the books he reads, what he likes about them and why. I don’t have children, but her mother-son bookclub posts are an inspiration in trying to instill a love of books in young children.

A non-book blog for a change: Glued Blue Glass. I have been reading Margaret’s blog for years now. Her pictures of all the crafty things she makes, remind me of how utterly un-creative I am in that regard. Plus, I find her social awareness and compassion very inspiring.

There you have it, all my nominations (and yes, I know I mentioned only six blogs for the second award) . These are all blogs I very much enjoy reading, though that list is much longer than just these eleven blogs.