awards

The Mystery Blogger Award #3

Rachel13 Comments

I was nominated by the lovely Hannah @ I Have Thoughts On Books for the Mystery Blogger Award, and I’ve done this one a couple of times but I really loved her questions so I couldn’t resist doing it again.  Thank you Hannah!  Everyone else, go follow her if you aren’t already, that is an order.

What is Mystery Blogger Award?

“This is an award for amazing bloggers with indigenous posts. Their blog not only captivates; it inspires and motivates. They are one of the best out there, and they deserve every recognition they get. This award is also for bloggers who find fun and inspiration in blogging and they do it with so much love and passion.” – Okoto Enigma

Rules

  • Thank whoever nominated you and include link to their blog
  • Tell your readers 3 things about yourself
  • Nominate 10-20 bloggers you feel deserve the award
  • Answer the questions from the person who nominated you
  • Ask your nominees 5 questions of your choice with one weird or funny one
  • Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog

3 Things about me

  1. I’m in Houston right now, not by choice.
  2. I prefer hot weather to cold weather any day.  I’m like a plant – I need sunshine to live.
  3. As of five minutes ago when I purchased the ticket, I am officially going to spend a week with my friend and her family in the Bahamas over Thanksgiving!  I am so excited, I’ve never been to an island other than England.

My answers to the questions:

1. What did you study at university or what trade did you learn?

I have a degree in Italian (which comprises studies of the language as well as Italian lit and Italian history) with a minor in Art History.  Ironically, I am very dispassionate about Italian literature.  I mean, I love La Divina comedia and the Decameron and some of the other classics, but modern and contemporary Italian lit, especially 20th century stuff, is something I dislike very strongly.  Calvino is not for me.

Anyway, I literally only ended up majoring in Italian because I switched my major from Linguistics at the end of my sophomore year, and if I wanted to spend a full year abroad in Italy I didn’t have enough credits to major in anything other than Italian.  I was only like 1 class away from majoring in Art History instead, which I would have preferred since that actually is something that I’m really passionate about, but oh well.  Your undergrad major literally does not matter unless you’re learning a specific trade.  When people ask what I have a degree in and I tell them they like to smirk and say ‘and what are you planning on doing with that?’  Absolutely nothing – my plan was to go to college and I did that.  Now I have a job in the industry I want to be working in.  What exactly is the problem here?

Sorry, tangent.  I’ve just encountered that a lot this week.

2. What was your favourite book growing up? And why?

I mean… I feel like saying Harry Potter is kind of a cop out, but that’s the honest answer.  I devoured each of these books as soon as they were released.

3. If you could live anywhere, where would you?

This is such a good question.  The reason I’m still living in Vermont is because I can’t decide where I want to live.  I would love to live in Europe eventually, probably somewhere in the UK, but that’s not very realistic right now as my family are US-based and I am a homebody.  I’m a city girl at heart, so in North America I can imagine myself living in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Providence, or Montreal.

4. What is the greatest place you have ever been?

I’m lucky in that I’ve been to many beautiful places and it’s so hard to narrow it down.  I think my answer has to be Bologna Italy where I lived for a year, it feels very authentically Italian compared to the more touristy cities, and imo it has the best food of anywhere in Italy.  And it’s gorgeous, I mean, look at it.  I love that city with all my heart.

Runners up include: Brussels, Berlin, Marburg, Verona.  I love Europe.

5. Which book has recently surprised you? (Either in a good or in a bad way)

The Pisces by Melissa Broder and The Idiot by Elif Batuman both surprised me in very good ways.  I hadn’t expected either of them to be so thought-provoking and stimulating (though in very different ways – I would not recommend these 2 books to the same person).

Also – the nonfiction of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie recently surprised me in a bad way.  The lack of intersectionality to both of her feminist essays was a huge disappointment.

I’m not going to nominate anyone because I’ve done this one a couple of times and I’m so tired right now and can’t come up with very good questions.  I seriously need to just sit down one day and write a list of questions for awards like this.

13 thoughts on “The Mystery Blogger Award #3”

  2. Hey! I was an Italian major too haha. And I don’t use my degree either lol. It’s not really necessary with the job I have now so I completely understand where you’re coming from. I’ve had plenty of people ask me why I majored in something I wasn’t going to use. It’s annoying.

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    • No way!!! I don’t think I’ve ever met another Italian major (aside from the people in my classes I mean). That’s awesome!!! lo parli ancora?

      The amount of pressure we put on young people to choose a college major is absolutely ridiculous. If you’re not going to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer, your undergrad major is ultimately meaningless. College is about networking and being able to check that requirement off the list when you start to apply for jobs. If you’re getting a degree in the humanities, just study whatever you like!!

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  3. Un pochino haha. I don’t really have anyone to practice speaking it with, you know? I try to keep it up though by listening to Italian music and using Duolingo lol. How about you??

    You’re right. There is a lot of pressure when it comes to picking a college major. The humanities are more like a stepping stone. I was a double major, Anthropology and Italian Studies. I only ended up majoring in Italian because I wanted to learn the language and study abroad. So I thought “oh, what the heck, I’m taking all these Italian classes, I might as well major in it”. I’m happy with what I’m doing now, so it’s all good haha.

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    • Oooh where in Italy did you go? I do like some of the more touristy cities but Bologna owns my heart. It’s worth it for the food alone, but the city is beautiful as well. I must go back to Italy too, I think about it all the time but I’ve only been back to Europe once since living there.

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      • We went to a few different rural areas that I sadly couldn’t remember the name of if I tried (it was 10 years ago, to be fair), and then to Venice and Murano. I’d particularly like to visit Florence, but Bologna is sounding ever more tempting too.

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      • I always feel like such a snob or a hipster when I say this but I don’t like Florence at all 🙈 the Duomo and gli Uffizi and Ponte Vecchio are definitely worth seeing but I can’t stand how tourism has affected the city, it honestly feels more American than Italian to me? But I’m probably just a snob or a hipster, don’t mind me 😂 the great thing about Bologna is that it’s a very quick train ride away from Florence and Venice as well as Verona which imo is one of the most beautiful cities ever, and it’s only about 2 hours from Rome by train, and Rome is amazing. Anyway, yes, hit me up for Italy recommendations next time you go!

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  6. There is…such a deep ignorance of what getting a degree in the humanities means and what you can do with it. People don’t understand how little it matters what specifically you major in, and that humanities degrees can be incredibly versatile and lead you into a variety of different positions and industries so long as you know how to market yourself. It’s really more about what experience you gain while in college that matters. When people smirk at my history degree I looooove telling them I got a job as a business reference specialist while not knowing a lick of business and that what mattered 1000x more than my major was that I had worked in a library.

    The Bahamas, wow!!! That’s so awesome!!!

    Also I feel you re: living in Europe, I would give anything to move to the UK but it is SO HARD to get a visa to stay there. They really just…do not want Americans lmao. I have this coworker who studied there for while and she was offered a job as a librarian in a small Shakespeare special collections library and that was her specialty, and she accepted, but then the library discovered that they would have to pay a ton of money for her visa if they wanted to hire her over a British citizen. She was devastated.

    But you’re of Irish ancestry, right? You should try to see if you can get the Ancestry citizenship! I think you just have to have a grandparent/greatgrandparent who was born there and it’s a TON of paperwork but so worth it if you manage it!! (I had a friend from Brazil who got it because her greatgrandparents were from Portugal and now she can live anywhere in the EU!)

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