A Tag & An Award

The Thinking Blogger Award



Just when I thought the tag business is clear out of my way, along comes one. This one is a surprise because it is from a blogger whose writing I so enjoy. She writes so beautifully, so elegantly. I was surprised that she reads my blog. I was touched, honoured.
Jane Sunshine evokes a mystery. I know that she is a friend of my good friend, Kak Teh, who was the one who tagged her and gave her the award. I have not asked Kak Teh about her and I don't intend to. I love the mystery. One day, perhaps, I will find out.
Meanwhile, I will go on opening her blog everyday as I do Eliza Haberdashery and that of Queen of The House. Both, by the way, have been tagged.
This tag, is actually an award. Jane Sunshine has given me a Thinking blogger award! Can you beat that?

As I have said in a comment I left in her blog, I thought it was a mistake.
Her blog is The Splenderful Chronicle which by the way is really, so aptly splenderful.
Reading what she has written about my blog, I felt so touched that she had considered it (among the 5) worthy of the honour.
I am not quite sure I deserve it. But, Jane, if you say so, then, who am I to turn it down?
The truth is, I am a little embarrassed. I mean, I started blogging just to write about stuff, you know.
And then, this here award, from someone I have never met but for whose writing I have admiration and high regard.
I also need to say here that a dear friend and former (NST) colleague, Fauziah X-Matters Ismail, decided to also tag me. When Jane tagged me, Fauziah was one of the people I had wanted to name because I enjoy her running series on "true blue Johorian" and a cancer-sticken friend. Fauziah was tagged by Ruby Ahmad.
Thank you, Jane and Fauziah. and I would like to thank my father, my mother..............

The deal is that I must memetag five more blogs. This is a little difficult, because there are certainly more than five that I'd like to tag. After a lot of hard thinking, I have decided on five. You can either thank Ilker Yoldas for this, or blame him!


1. Rocky : I have known Rocky for a long time but that's not why I have picked him. I think Rocky's Bru has set the tone of socio-political blogs in the country. He has taken blogs to a different level, making the powers-that-be and others sit up and notice. That he is being sued by a media giant and four of its executives has made bloggers and internet writers think about the future of blogosphere in the country. Meanwhile, Rocky is still blogging the things he likes to blog. Never say die, Rocky!

2. Raden Galoh : We have exchanged emails and smses. We drop in each other's blog. When she first dropped a comment in my blog, I clicked on her nick and got into her blog, Onebreastbouncing. My heart missed a beat when I found out that she is a breast cancer survivor. I feel so connected with her because I lost two sisters to breast cancer. I marvel at her how she is living life. She writes with such honesty. Sometimes, raw honesty.

3. Ibu : I enjoy reading her "cerita" about her life and her family. I feel I know her already, although we have never met or exchanged email or smses. I even feel I know her children, especially Idin, 11, who just started a blog. Ibu has demonstrated, through, her writing, what a wonderful mom she is.

4. Mat Salo: When I first went into Mat Salo's blog, I got transported to a foreign land, yet there was so much Malaysian about it. He is a Malaysian working in an oil rig, in a land, not so far from here. He was in Sudan when the first ethnic conflict broke. In one of his postings, he offered a gripping account of his experience. He has also taken us to "see" his mother and grandmother. I was fascinated by the thoughts of this man, and so well-written too. He has transported me to Sudan, to those early anxious and turbulent days. And now, he has taken me to somewhere in Kalimantan.

5. Haris Ibrahim: He is my kind of lawyer. When I was first introduced to him I thought he was someone in entertainment or the performing arts, or something close. Ok, Ok. I thought he was a musician. I was wrong. It was a delightful surprise to know that he is a lawyer. Non-conformist and irreverent. I cannot claim to know him well because I think everytime I see him, it is usually a "hi!" and the longest "conversation" I had with him lasted 20 seconds. But, I read his blog. His People's Parliament has made me think about things that I should have thought deeply about but had never done so.

This award was started here:
And now my dear recipients, your award comes with a price. You have to award five others whose blog you think deserve this award.


Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. The participation rules are simple:


1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think


2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme


3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.


Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all - blogs that really get you thinking!