The Liebster Awards

So I have some great news, Harper (@ Harper Honey) nominated me for a Liebster Award, which I really a
ppreciate. For those of you who haven't heard of the Liebster Awards, like me before Harper's nomination, these awards are intended to allow bloggers with smaller followings to show their appreciation for each other and introduce their followers to other blogs they may like.

All you have to do is: write eleven random facts about yourself, answer eleven questions posed by the blogger who nominated you, and then pose another eleven questions to eleven other bloggers with under 200 followers that you would like to nominate.

11 Facts About Me:

1. I love to travel, before coming to England for my study abroad program I had already been to Poland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland. I'll be in Ireland this weekend, and I'll be going to Italy over spring break.

2. Halloween is the coolest holiday, without exception, you get to dress up in a fancy costume and eat junk food.

Oh No!

3. If you hadn't guessed from my favorite holiday, I love to get dressed up and need very little reason to do so. I always dress up for college exams because it makes me feel more confident.

4. Apparently I sang before I could talk, so basically gibberish set to a melody, and I had to be bribed with skittles to be convinced not to sing during my Uncle's wedding.

5. I don't cry when I'm sad, but I do when I am angry or embarrassed (which of course just makes things worse). I am also prone to crying over sad scenes in books, but sad scenes in movies just don't have the same effect.

6. I love going to the movies, even the bad ones.

7. I'm pretty terrible at most team sports, but I really enjoy rock climbing, dancing, and archery.

8. I was overly brave as a child and did all sorts of crazy things that likely terrified my parents. These gems include classics such as: eating a poisonous mushroom (which my brother assumed was a strawberry based on its red color), knocking my front teeth loose (and later needing them pulled) by jumping off a play kitchen, the time my grandmother found me hanging from the outside of my crib because I'd figured out how to climb over the railing but I wasn't brave enough to drop the couple of feet to the ground (I held on to the edge for a significant period of time), and the many times I puled all of my clothes out of my dresser drawers and cabinets, piling them on the floor, and proceeding to take a nap in my cabinet (or on the pile of clothes, depending on my mood).

9. I look strange in any picture in which I'm not smiling.

10. I hate the song "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" and with good reason because, due to the aforementioned play kitchen incident and teeth pulling, I was missing mine for several years. Although this did result in a great party trick, especially after I lost the bottom two front teeth as well, where I could smile and stick my tongue out at the same time (it also made a great slot for a straw).

11. I decided that I was going to the College of William & Mary when I was very little, and I was right. I absolutely love going there and I couldn't imagine having gone anywhere else (plus I had an amazing freshman experience).

Harper's 11 Questions:

1.What are your top 5 favorite movies, and why?

My very favorite movie is, without a doubt Pride & Prejudice (the one with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen). Pride & Prejudice is also my favorite book, and I'm a complete sap, so I think it's the perfect romance. The rest of the list rotates around quite frequently, currently it's: Mean Girls (I can practically quote the entire movie at this point), Up (it creates a perfect romance in the first five minutes, and then the rest of the movie is still adorable), Avengers (the action, the witty dialogue, the cute guys, what more could you ask for?), Star Trek (it's got two Spocks!), and Legally Blonde (Elle Woods rocks, and the musical adaptation is spectacular).

Can't you just feel the romantic tension? (or the hate, it's hard to tell)

2. Where do you like to go when you are upset or stressed out? What do you do there?

When I'm upset or stressed out, my response is always to listen to music. The location varies, going home does have the advantage of being able to listen to music at a loud volume and sing along obnoxiously. Spontaneous karaoke fixes everything right?

3. If you could live in either a comic book, a romcom, a musical, a crime show, a gothic novel, or a sci-fi series, which would you pick and why?

This is a surprisingly difficult choice. A romcom has the advantage of a definite happy ending and lots of cheesy romantic gestures, a comic book probably means some sort of super powers, a musical means that no one thinks it's weird to sing at random moments and everyone always knows the choreography, and a sci-fi series means futuristic technology and possibly space travel. I'd probably have to go with the comic book, provided I'm more than a damsel in distress (and that I don't get fridged).

4. In what ways do you hope your blog will grow or change?

Mostly I hope to expand further than solely discussing my study abroad experience. As far as changing, I've been having a lot of fun figuring out how to customize and personalize my blog, so we'll see how that goes.

5. You are on a mystery solving team, similar to the Scooby Doo gang, with a combination of friends and celebrities. It's you plus 3 other people and an animal side-kick of your choice. Who's one your team?

Hmmm, let's go with Jennifer Lawrence, Beyonce, my friend Alex, and a polar bear (what? polar bears are awesome, and I'm assuming domesticity). I'm not sure how successful we'd be in actually solving any mysteries, but we'd be fairly over dramatic and hilarious.

6. Where do you see yourself in five years?

In five years hopefully I'll have a job in public relations or design at a cool company out on the west coast, though I'm leaning towards Washington rather than California at the moment. Ideally I'd like to have my own place and enough money to travel.

7. Tell me about something from your childhood that you still keep (a toy, a book, etc.).

I definitely have a lot of things from my childhood that I still keep: my American Girl dolls (yes that's plural), stuffed animals, books, arts & crafts projects (and much much more!). I think that my favorite thing from my childhood is my collection of charms for my charm bracelet that my grandparents brought back from all the different countries they traveled to for work.

8. Do you have any favorite charities or causes?

I don't really have any particularly favorite charities, although I have fund raised for both Susan G. Komen and the National Alliance on Mental Illness. I do have lots of causes though, particularly social equality and education.

9. Do you stay organized? What are you best at staying on top of, and what are you least organized about?

I do like to think that I stay organized, though it does get out of hand and I'll have to reorganize periodically. Shamefully, I am probably most organized about my clothes (they're organized by season and type of clothing, as well as color), but I am also a bit obsessive about organizing the documents on my computer. As far as what I am least organized about, definitely my desk drawers which start out perfectly organized, but I seem to accumulate a ton of papers and it never lasts.

10. What time of day or night do you have the most energy?

I am definitely not a morning person, I probably have the most energy in the late afternoon. However, if I am definitely able to stay up late, so long as I have time to sleep in the next morning. However, I can always use more sleep.

11. Tell me 3 regrets you hope to live without?

I definitely hope to never regret missing out on my dreams (though I'm not sure what exactly those entail at this point), not traveling enough, and I never want to let down any of my family or friends.

My 11 Questions:

1. Who is your favorite fictional character?
2. Who would you pick to play you if your life was a movie? Who would play your love interest?
3. What's your favorite book and why? Is there any book you've read recently that you really enjoyed?
4. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
5. Do you collect anything? If so, is there a particular reason why?
6. If you could become friends with anyone (fictional or otherwise), who would you choose?
7. What's your favorite quote?
8. If you could live in any historical period (or in some future time period I suppose), which would you choose and why?
9. What shows are you currently addicted to (Netflix binges count)?
10. Is there anything that you've always wanted to learn?
11. Why did you decide to start blogging? What's your favorite part?

My 11 Nominations:

XO Mia
The Undecided Girl
Styles I Like
The Spontaneous Idealist
Polished Perfectly
Life's Better On The Road
In Layman's Terms
The Lady With Questions
Eyes of the Universe
Em La Jolie
Caught Between The Pages