Hey everyone! So, I’m excited to share that I’ve been nominated for the Liebster blogging award. …Three times. Woops. The point is that after you’ve been nominated once, you’re supposed to write a blog post about it. I clearly never got around to that! But I think the third time’s the charm and I really need to get my butt in gear because I really am grateful that three beautiful women would nominate me for this. The other problem is that this award is given to blogs with less than 200 followers. When I received these awards, I still qualified, but now we’re rockin’ over 300 Bloglovin’ and e-mail subscribers. I get it. I suck at following rules. But this sounded like a fun opportunity and I just couldn’t pass it up! Please don’t expel me from blogging!
First of all, I’d like to tell you who I was nominated by because I am so grateful to each of these women for even thinking of me.
Erika at Chimerikal
Kenzie at Chasing Happy (who also didn’t follow the rules! Glad I’m not the only one!)
Chelsea at Now Is Magic
I’ll wait while you go check out each of their blogs.
Dooo dodooo doooo doododoo.
Cool, are you back yet? Awesome, let’s get started!
Alright, so this Liebster Award is pretty involved, people. I need to share 11 facts about myself, answer the questions the girls made up for me (I’m just going to choose my favorites since they’re all different!) and then make 11 questions of my own and nominate 11 other bloggers. Good lord, it’s like we’re at summer camp for blogland. Well, we better get crackalackin’!
11 Fun Facts About Melyssa
I was absolutely terrified of dogs until about high school or college. I was bitten by dogs 3-4 times when I was younger and they’ve always scared the bejesus out of me. Now, whenever Monja eats something he shouldn’t be, I have no problem grabbing his mouth, opening it with my hands, reaching inside and pulling out whatever he’s munching on. Never fails to make me feel like a badass. Take that, former self!
Including all of my aunts, grandparents, and parents, I only have two sets of relatives that have never been divorced. My dad has also been married three times. If I didn’t tell you divorce was one of my biggest fears, I’d be lying. Well this fact isn’t very fun, can we move on to number three now?
My dog, Monja’s name comes from a Japanese food called Monjayaki, which is similar to okonomiyaki. It looks like barf (no, I’m not kidding), tastes a-mazing, and is hands down my favorite Japanese food. I didn’t intend for his name to be correlated to the food. To be honest, I just thought “Monja” sounded cute. But now sometimes Keiji and I joke that we want to go eat Monja. Japanese people also ask me if my dog tastes good. Real knee slappers, really. 
I’ve always wanted to start an online creative space like this one and purchased tons of domain names over the years, but never ended up making an actual site or blog with them. Some of their names included Make Like the Sun, The Chronikles, Coco Buttons, Sixxxes, and The Get Up Get Down. Yep, Godaddy.com made quite a profit on my laziness.
Sometimes I feel like everyone in “blogland” only likes wine. I’m kind of obsessed with beer. Will you still be my friend?
I was a vegetarian for over 15 years of my life. I just started eating meat again about 6 months ago.
My favorite candies include anything fruity and gummy. Sour is an added plus. Sour gummy worms are not screwin’ around.
Before coming to Japan, I had already accepted a position with Teach for America, an organization that sends teachers to schools in low-income areas of the U.S.. Later, I found out I was accepted into the JET programme in Japan, too. Choosing between them was probably the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. No regrets here!
During my last year of university, I was on homecoming court. We each had to make a video advertising ourselves and I made my first stop motion video (I can’t believe I’m sharing this here!). Yep, that’s me when I had blonde hair.
My favorite book is Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Whenever I say that people always say, “oh, that love story?” like it’s a cheap Notebook remake. No, no, trust me, it’s much more than that. You should check it out, it’s chillingly honest. Speaking of books, I read the entire Harry Potter series last year in 2 weeks. I was also voted into Hufflepuff on Pottermore and created another account so I could be in Gryffindor because I was embarrassed And now telling that story is inevitably more embarrassing I need to stop before I tell you I’ve already beaten every level. Wait…SHIT!
I got the balls to start this blog after taking an e-course called Creative Courage in January. I’d never taken an e-course before, but I was sick of not learning anything formally and wanted to be proactive. The course was really personal and soul inspiring. Literally after week one or two, I started making plans for The Nectar Collective. The rest is history!
Well, enough of my oversharing! Now let’s move on to their questions! Yippee!
The Questions
What do you believe your “calling” in life is? I love connecting to and encouraging people. I also love weaving creativity and self expression into that. I think my calling would be to do something where I can help people feel more confident, especially by using creative means to help them express themselves. I don’t know exactly what that calling will look like, but it’s there, and I’m following it!
What’s one of your proudest moments or accomplishments? There are other things I could say that are probably more relevant or recent, but even though it was awhile ago, I am still really proud of when I was the Editor-in-Chief of my high school’s yearbook. I think I’m choosing this example over others because creating a book, especially one that relied on design and writing, is something I am really passionate about doing again in some way.
What are three qualities that are mandatory that your friends have? This is a really interesting question! I think I am forgiving if people slip up, but in general, my closest friends tend to be open-minded/non-judgmental, fun-loving/silly, and sincere.
What is your favorite quote? I have about a zillion favorites and you can check them out on my Quotes I Heart page! I also wrote a post with one of my favorite quotes in the form of a free download here. Buuuut today I’m really digging this one: 
What three words do you hope people use to describe you at your funeral? This is really interesting, too! I guess I’d hope that people would describe me as sincere, encouraging, and passionate.
If you could go back to college and get a degree in anything, what would you study? Hmmm, in college I studied Social Science with a concentration in Multicultural Studies. I liked that, but I wish I had studied English or Psychology.
What is the number one thing you’ve learned about blogging so far? I think I’ve learned that it is reflective of life. I kind of expected that I’d just write my blog and publish my posts and it would be fun and that would be it. But there’s so much more to it. It’s like a microcosm of society. Our blogs are just reflections of ourselves, kind of acting together to form a community. There are the bloggers who like to start fights with each other, the bloggers who donate all their sponsor money to charity, the bloggers who run linkups or extracurricular programs, and plenty of others. I think if you studied someone’s blog long enough, you’d have a really clear picture of who they are as a regular ol’ person – the good and the bad.
Why did you start blogging? Like I said in my “fun facts” above, I got the motivation to start after taking the Creative Courage E-Course. But like I also said, this site was blossoming in my mind for years. I think I started blogging because I am a huge collector of information, thoughts, facts, and ideas. I needed a space to share these things with people before they imploded in my brain. I also loved the idea of combining all of my most dear hobbies into one: graphic design, writing, photography, and connecting to people. It’s a dream, really!
Your favorite night out in your city/town? This wasn’t in Tokyo, but it was in a city called Osaka and it was when one of my best friends visited me last year from the States. We had been traveling around Japan for two weeks and this was our last night together. We’re not huge partiers, but we were looking forward to at least going out a little together during our trip. Nope. After temple-watching and deer-petting all day, everyday, we never had the energy to do anything at night. Until the last night when we had tickets to see Justice in concert in Osaka. We made a deal that we were going to drink that night and be young and stay up past midnight like regular 22-year-olds. Anyways, we compleeetely overdid it and got poopfaceddrunk in our hotel room in about 30 minutes. We went to the concert, which I hardly remember, and after it was over we just wandered around like creepy degenerates, asking people if they wanted to take pictures with us because we were foreigners. Oh god… Even though the night was kind of a disaster, it was still absolutely hilarious and something I’ll never forget with one of my most treasured friends.
If you were given a HUGE grant to make/ do something crazy artistic, what would you make or do? I don’t know if this is crazy artistic, but I’ve been thinking more about how to make positive thinking and happiness more of standard things in people’s lives. I think it would be awesome if there was some sort of social media site or app that was intriguing enough to keep people interested, but also helped people to be more creative and positive in their daily lives. The jury is still out on this one, but maybe one day I’ll have some real details on this idea.
Besides blogging, what’s your favorite social media outlet and why? Well, speaking of social media! I just got back into it, but I really like Twitter. I like that it’s easy to connect with people, but most of all, I like that, more than any other social media platform, it beckons you to share the random, silly or interesting thoughts you might not even say out loud in person. I really appreciate that.
WOW I’M DONE! Are you sick of me yet? So, now I just have to nominate 11 more people and make 11 questions for them. haha Putting it that way makes it sound like I’m being sarcastic, like, oh ya know now I just have to clean the house 80 times and water my lawn for three hours straight and them I’m DONE cleaning for the day! Yeah. Well. In the name of blogland, I must persist!
My Nominees:
Yes, I put them in alphabetical order because I’m neurotic about making sure no one’s feelings get hurt!
Alesha from Lifeology
Chelsea from Sea, Field and Tribe
Chelsea from Sketchy Notions
Claire from Daisy Bisley
Crystal from Seoul Sold
Elyssa from The Wellness Doer
Heather from Find That Warm Fuzzy Feeling
Laura from Inspiration Sparks
Laurie from World Traveling Military Family
Lou from Stars in Jars
Rachel from Tossing the Script
My 11 Questions for Them:
What was the best thing that happened to you this week?
What’s your favorite part about blogging?
What is the best memory you have with one of your relatives?
What three words do people describe you as the most?
(I’m stealing one I answered) What three words do you hope people use to describe you at your funeral?
Without thinking about obstacles, what is the biggest dream you’d like to accomplish in your life?
What would you do if you stepped in dog poo on the way to an important interview?
Why do you blog?
What five things make you extremely happy?
What is something you achieved this month or something you’re proud of from June?
What’s your favorite quote?
Giggity. We dizzonnee! If you made it to the end, then I think we just became best friends. Thanks for sticking around! Now, go have a great weekend everyone! And while you’re at it, why don’t you go ahead and just forget everything I told you about Pottermore. Thanks.
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