In Which We Stop by the Letters E and A

10 August 2008 at 16:04 (Community)

(Thankfully this is a much pleasanter alphabetic tour than when we visited the Letter D or the Letter R.)

I am pleased to announce that I have had TWO awards bestowed upon me!  (“Aw, shucks…” she blushes.)  So without further ado (because these are inadvertantly WAY overdue), I would like to explain them, give my own nominations, and importantly, add in an extra stipulation.

Ideally, I would add in some lovingly-crafted paragraphs describing intriguing details as to why each of my nominees so deserved the award.  Alas, I am up against a deadline from a college secretary who needs my handout masters for copying, and we all know that making secretaries annoyed is very bad form.  Instead, I shall aim for a few tantalising adjectives and let you enjoy discovering some new, fabulous blogs!

A black and white graphic with the inscription, "Excellent" at the top, a tilted capital E in the center, and at the bottom, the phrase, "This blog is Rated E for Excellent".

So, way back on April 20th, Shiva nominated me for this award, and I somehow missed the whole event at the time. (It’s not the first time I was in the bathroom or where-ever when someone needed to make an announcement — how was I to know?)

The Mommy Project began the award, with the stipulation:

By accepting this Excellent Blog Award, you have to award it to 10 more people whose blogs you find Excellent Award worthy. You can give it to as many people as you want but please award at least 10.

Wow, TEN people.  It’s not that I can’t think of ten great blogs, but rather, how do I choose?  (Plus, I would like to nominate folks whom I’ve not nominated for other awards, and of course, there’s the inevitable issue of finding bloggers that weren’t already nominated…)

My nominations are:

• Young Female Scientist who frequently kvetches from the lab bench, and often has pithy things to say about the socio-political side of research
• Annette of Fun With Play-Dough has a wicked sense of the absurd about politics, parenting, and an incredible ability to find strange news items
• Ms Cornelius at A Shrewdness of Apes whose reports from the circus of high school only sound improbable to non-educators
• Epi Wonk slices, dices and juliennes absurd epidemiology reporting, and also deconstructs claims in an exceptionally clear manner
• Elizabeth of Screw Bronze! who ostensibly did not become perilously sick to corner the market on Goth Hello Kitty bandages
• no-nonsense abfh, who is always thought-provoking
• the Midlife and Treachery blog; imfunnytoo manages to squeeze an impressive amount of social analysis from events that only seem mundane on the surface
• Ira of SpeEdChange who’s all about accessibility and advocacy and movies
• Piss Poor Prof at Burnt Out Adjunct, who is unwittingly providing something of a mentorship by pointing out road hazards
• the ornery gang at Skepchick who also make me feel not so alone (I know with whom I want to go elbow-lifting)

A statuette of an angel in a strapless blue gown, standing upon a gold-colored wave with the title, "Arte y Pico" curved onto the inside of the wave

Well, as if that wasn’t enough, on the 4th of July TherExtras nominated me for a really interesting award, the Arte y Pico.  Only I didn’t get any message telling me such.  In fact, it was only because every once in a while I go back and look through my WordPress “dashboard” section that tells me who has linked to my blog, that I discovered that Excavator had also nominated me for this same award, on August 6th.

1. Pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award must have the name of the author and a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner must show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

My nominations are:

• The talented Bev at Asperger Square 8 who creates the most amazing satirical products and cartoons
• Wheelchair Dancer whose dance company #1 on my list for seeing, should our locations ever synch
• Uphilldowndale whose photographs of daily life and scenery in northern England make me dretfully unhomesick
• gluten-free girl who makes me wish I spent fewer evenings staring dumbly at the fridge trying to remember what it was I was going to make for dinner
• Randall of xkcd, who proves that stick figures and cartooning are not incompatible with high concepts and erudite geekitude

All this makes me realise that I need to update my blogroll, but in addition to everything else I have to go to market today, so that’s not going to happen for quite a while.

As for my extra stipulation, it’s this:

WHEN YOU NOMINATE SOMEONE FOR AN AWARD,

SEND THEM AN E-MAIL OR POST A COMMENT ON THEIR BLOG.

So they know.  And don’t have to discover it accidentally, long, long down the road. Thank you.

And, thank you three for the awards, and thank you all for sharing your thoughts with the world by blogging!