jmgoyder

wings and things

Oct 7

I got tagged

by jmgoyder

I don’t know how to tweet, or text, or play tag but I just got tagged by Susan at http://susandanielseden.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/i-am-actually-taking-a-tag-because-this-one-is-cool/

Now, she knows I have an aversion to awards but she still tagged me! Her punishment is the Hot Potato Award which, if you read her above post, is something she has been craving for some time.

For those of you who don’t know, the HPA is an award I created some time ago as my way of avoiding award nominations, not because I am ungrateful or ungracious, just because I was too lazy and inept to understand all the rules! The HPA is an award that comes with no rules – you just get it (if I give it to you – hahahaha!)

Susan’s blog is brilliant – check it out!

Okay, back to my texting lesson.

blogging Friendship

31 Comments »
Sep 29

Award anxiety/aversion

by jmgoyder

I have read enough posts lately to know that I am not alone in my award anxiety/aversion.  Despite the gratitude I feel towards other bloggers who have nominated me for various awards, most of the awards themselves, though well-intentioned by their inventors, entail hard work, resemble chain letter pressure and I keep losing the plot with what award? who nominated me? what do I have to do?

Today I decided to trace back to those culprits who nominated me so that I can punish them with the Hot Potato Award that I invented ages ago as a kind of award-shield.

Here is a list of the beautiful culprits. Their blogs are worth following because of the honest heartiness in each person’s words.

http://writingmusings.wordpress.com/

http://terry1954.wordpress.com/

http://dogdaz.com/

http://perfectingmotherhood.wordpress.com/

http://magnoliabeginnings.org/

http://help-me-rhonda.com/

http://mamatattoo.com/

To each of these people I want to say three things:

1. Copy/paste the Hot Potato award to your blogsite. There are no rules – the award is yours.

2. If you nominate me again I will send you a cold potato!

3. I love your blog!

Now, here is a little story to explain my apparent ungraciousness and my award anxiety/aversion:

A few years ago, the university decided to introduce a teaching award. If you were nominated you had to give a 5-minute speech about why you loved teaching. So I was nominated and gave a flustered speech. I was competing with a few other lecturers, but I won the vote and was given the award. The nominations and votes were anonymous of course. I was congratulated and I felt quite chuffed to be recognized.

A few weeks later I was having a coffee with a colleague who also happened to be a student in one of my classes (this often happens on small campuses) and she mentioned the award.

“Yes,” I said, “It was a bit of a surprise because I am the least professional of all the lecturers here but that seemed to go down well – my down-to-earthness or something!”

She looked at me strangely and said, grinning, “I nominated you.”

I was shocked. “Why?”

“Just for a laugh,” she said, cackling.

That’s why I don’t like awards.

blogging Friendship

41 Comments »
Jul 1

Two more culprits!

by jmgoyder

The following bloggers nominated me for awards without realizing that my way of accepting awards is to give them an award – yes, indeed, there are now two more lucky recipients of the Hot Potato Award for which there are no rules except that you either accept it and copy/paste it to your blog or not.

Riba, at No Holds Barred, has a way of writing that strokes the soul:

http://noholdsbarredribataylor.wordpress.com/

Magically Mad, at Not Quite Lost, has a way of writing that challenges the soul:

http://ocelotbound.wordpress.com/

Of course, they both do both of these things in their enlightening blogs.

blogging Friendship

8 Comments »
Jun 26

Awardees!

by jmgoyder

For those who are new to this blog, I seem to have a problem with accepting blog awards (yes, I am seeing a psychologist next week – joking!) So, in order to not seem ungracious or ungrateful, I created the Hot Potato Award to bestow on anyone who nominates me for an award. Hence, the latest winners are:

http://thoughtstomull.com/

This blog is both inspirational and very thoughtmully; it gets my brain working.

http://freedomtoafulllife.wordpress.com/

This blog takes the guts out of fear.

http://terry1954.wordpress.com/

This blog grabs me by the throat because it is about Parkinson’s disease.

There is only one rule for the Hot Potato Award: you accept it and copy/paste it to your blog, or you don’t.

I have been deliberately vague in my descriptions of these three blog awardees because I hope you will visit them and see how wonderful they are for yourselves.

Okay, now back to the award problem I have. There is an extremely profound reason behind my non-acceptance, which is steeped in philosophical reasoning:

I am lazy!

blogging Friendship

21 Comments »
May 24

Hot Potato Award Winners!

by jmgoyder

Here are the first Hot Potato Award winners in alphabetical order. Each of these bloggers nominated me for a blog award but, as I am reluctant about awards, I have created the Hot Potato Award which is free of complicated criteria. Again, the only rule for the HPA is that you either accept it and copy/paste it to your blog, or you don’t. You cannot pass it on – it’s yours.

The first ‘winner’ is a cheeky cherub. Her blog is delightfully unpredictable and inspiring.

http://barefooybaroness1.com/

The second winner is one of the kindest, most generous-hearted people I have ever come across. She is a prolific blogger and a poetic photographer.

http://photographyofnia.com/

The third winner is the first person who ever nominated me. Her blog is a brilliant example of creative writing at its best.

http://thoughtstomull.com/

The fourth winner is a nature-loving adventurer who combines photographs and anecdotes expertly.

http://wordsfromanneli.wordpress.com/

To all winners: Please simply take this award with my heartfelt gratitude for your support and encouragement and for your wonderful blogs! Many thanks again to Lisa and to the potato for the graphic!

PS. As an award-shy person, I have decided to respond to any nominations I receive by rewarding the nominators with the HPA. If you have received nominations for awards you already have, or if you are like me and don’t want awards, please feel free to use the HPA!

PPS. If you happened to nominate me and you are not on this list, please let me know, and you will be next – hehe!

blogging

16 Comments »
May 22

Well, how was I supposed to know?

by jmgoyder

Okay, so I get this idea of the ‘Hot Potato Award’ (see a previous post) which I want to give to anyone who has nominated me for other awards. I thought it was quite a good idea, so I googled “hot potato” to get a free picture (because I had run out of potatoes of my own). So I found an appropriate picture but now I don’t know how to turn it into an award – to do the graphics thing with it – so, so far, I just have this picture of a potato.

But what I didn’t expect (when I googled “hot potato”) was to be led to a couple of porn sites. I found this rather startling because I didn’t know “hot potato” had connotations. I mean, how does an innocent, innocuous thing like a potato become a pornographic metaphor?

I will have to put my thinking cap on again. I thought maybe ‘Warm Potato Award’ or ‘Cold Potato Award’ but somehow these don’t have the same resonance.

Mmmmmm……..

blogging

39 Comments »
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