Liebster award

One of my favourite aspie-related blogs, mados, has tagged me for the Liebster award. I am honoured and it only gave me a little performance anxiety. I have been thinking a lot about how to respond. As always, playing by the rules is the obvious option. Luckily for someone like me, the rules in this context are explicit. They are as follows:

1. Give 11 random facts about me.

2. Answer the 11 questions that the tagger gave me

3. Make 11 new questions for the people I tag to answer.

4. Tag 11 blogs that are new or have less than 200 followers**.

Allright, let's jump into it...

1: 11 random facts about me
1. I don't do random, everything is planned and structured ;)
2. My nail on the right thumb is much bigger than the nail on the left
3. I am lactose intolerant
4. The best thing I know is analysing large datasets
5. The second best thing I know is cooking
6. I don't like surprises
7. I love coffee
8. I hate shopping
9. But I love interior decorating shops and magazines
10. Not that that - at all - is reflected in my home
11. I find spiders and bugs very interesting but I am scared of flying things, birds and bats in particular.

2: Questions for me:

1. If you were to do a research project (no limitations, all resources provided), what would be its title and subject areaI do research for a living, so there are two answers to this question. One in my field of expertise and one in another area. In my own field I would like to work with data from some of the large American cohorts - and explore labour market consequences of common risk factors for disease, such as obesity and stress. Outside my own field: something very scientific, like neurology or insect studies. Or paleontology. I'd love to find out how the brain works and how everything originated...
2. Do you have a formal degree/education – and what is it?I have a masters degree in economics and a Ph.D. in health economics
3. What is the worst job you ever had, and why?I guess the one where my manager was a psychopath and made people cry, tops the list. Colleagues were nice though and I really liked the tasks. A runner-up was the part-time job I had in high school. I had to draw posters for a pizza-bakery. I got free food and colddrink. But I sat in a basement and inhaled the fumes from the permanent markers I had to use and I got a splitting headache. Every time.
4. If you had the chance to travel to another planet and return, which planet would you go to (not considering risk and travel time)?Being afraid of heights I am not really tempted to go into space. I fly often but I really don't like it. :)
5. If you and everybody you knew were to leave Earth on a generational spaceship and never return, which 3 words would best summarise your feelings about life on Earth?PleasantStressfulInefficient 
6. Who is your favourite author?I love books, and I love several authors, for different reasons. For many years my answer would have been Salman Rushdie. Then for a long period I would have said John Irving. I may even still say that. But the best book I've read is by Siri Hustvedt.
7. Have you ever thought of starting, or actually started, your own business – or undertaken freelance work?No, not really. I like having a manager and the structure of a workplace. 
8. What is your preferred balance between solitude and socialising (including with close family, but pets don’t count) – as a general ‘rule of thumb’, in percent?To be perfectly honest: 70-30. While it often is the opposite in reality, that would be my preference. As much as I love my family and friends, I need time alone to re-energize.
9. How do you prefer to socialise most of the time – Online or Offline?Online. I find real life socialising very stressful. I prefer written communication and also I can zone out when I want and leave the party without offending anybody.
10. Has blogging helped you to develop as a person or change your life in a positive direction?Indeed. My Danish blog has been an invaluable tool in the long-term conflict with and quasi-estrangement from my mother. My aspie blog (this one) helps me to put words on my different-ness that I've always felt but never formulated.
11. Which advice would you like to give new bloggers?Think carefully whether you want to be anonymous or not. If you are thoroughly anonymous, you can write about friends, family and colleagues - and they will never find out. In that case, don't tell people about your blog. I chose the middle way, I don't use my real name and my own photograph but I wasn't that difficult to identify (my Danish blog). I've bragged about this blog on facebook so it is not that anonymous, really. Sometimes I wish it was different. 

3: 11 questions for the tagged
1. What is your favourite time of day?
2. What is your favourite meal?
3. Do you have a special interest and if you do, how do you pursue it?
4. Are you doing any sports?
5. How do you view blogging (1): as a road to fame/new friends or a vent for thoughts you can't let out anywhere else?
6. How do you view blogging (2): relaxing or stressing?
7. Does your blog have a twitter account or a facebook page?
8. Who and what inspires you? People/books/TV-shows...
9. Do the people around you (colleagues, relatives, neighbours) know that you are blogging? Or are you, in the words of the Bug Girl, Batmanning?
10. If money wasn't an issue, where would you like to spend your vacation?
11. If you could bring a famous person on that vacation (dead or alive), who would it be?


4: Tag 11 new blogs
See, this was difficult. I have a number of blogs in my reader, most of them Danish-language, and the English-language ones are often very popular. I am not sure that the below selection is entirely by the rules but I've tried to tag blogs in two areas only: Autism/asperger and spiders/other bugs:

For aspie blogs, I follow many different. These five blogs are written by women that have aspergers themselves and/or have children with autism/asperger.
1. The seventh voice. Intelligent and well-spoken mother of an autistic son

2. Mind retrofit. Aspie mother of three, writing about her own and her childrens Asperger experiences. She is very honest and I can recognise myself a lot in what she writes.

3. Aspiewriter. Title sort of gives away the content, huh? ;) Also an aspie mother of three. And she's an author which is cool :)

4. The inner aspie. Strangely, another aspie mother of three.

Did I mention that I am a mother of three and that I am aspie? In my country however, home schooling is extremely seldom. This seems not to be the case in the US, where these women are based (so I gather). I mostly follow the inner aspie on facebook, but her blog is an interesting read.

5. The alien hippy. Aspie mother of an aspie daughter and she has such a lovely, honest and well, touching blog. Please go and read it. An you can follow alienhippy on facebook, too!

The next five blogs I've tagged are abut something completely different: spiders and other bugs
6. and 7. Thomas Shahan and  Nature closeup both have the most beautiful, amazing photographs of spiders. Take a look.

8. And bugs can not only be photographed, they can appear in poems too! The scope of this blog is rather narrow and perhaps that's why this is so fascinating. Three-line poems about spiders and other bugs with 6 legs: 3linesabout6legs!

9. The bug geek. Again, title says everything. An entomology PhD student, unfortunately taking a break these days. Doesn't matter really, you can still enjoy some of his older posts.

10. My all time favourite bug blogger, the bug girl. Her awesome spiderman post is probably the best tought lecture about spider reproduction, I've seen or heard.

And for the last tag, something completely different. I love cooking and baking, but most of the blogs I follow in this field is in Danish. In fact all blogs in my reader of this field are Danish. Except for this one which is - - - Swedish! But she writes in English :) Call me cupcake!