Rather than finish the year with a dull post about a scam email, I actually wanted to do a quick post to tie up a couple of loose ends, before I get on to doing my Christmas Favourites and a general look back at the year gone by to kickstart 2020.
As many of you know, people in the blogging community often nominate each other for “awards”, which is an opportunity to promote other bloggers that you like and ask them questions. And I was very kindly nominated for two of these awards back in October, but didn’t get around to responding at the time. So I wanted to acknowledge them and answer the questions that were put to me.
If you want to answer these questions yourself, then please feel free to do so. I always nominate everyone on my long lists of bloggers by default, as I always find it difficult to narrow it down to a select few!
I still find it very humbling and flattering that so many people have taken an interest in my adventures over the past few years, whether it be reading my blog, watching my videos, or seeing me speak at events. I’m very grateful to everyone for the support and encouragement, and I wouldn’t be doing this if nobody cared, so thank you.
I never imagined that I’d have a documentary made about me though. Yet that’s exactly what happened for the first time a few months ago. It was an exciting experience and I’m delighted with how it turned out.
I’ve held it back until now for various reasons. Firstly, whilst I have permission to post it regardless, I wanted to give a bit of space for its creators and sponsors, including a major charity, to publish it first if they so wished. But I also had a few things distracting me over the summer too, as regular followers will know, which has further delayed it.
But now’s a good time to release it, as it ties in nicely with the recent publication of my Aniridia Network Conference talk – Growing In Confidence With Aniridia – which was filmed shortly after the documentary was completed. Soon after that I was also in a second documentary – See Differently by Yiwen Feng – which featured myself and others. You can find out more about my speech and that other film in my June Favourites. I was certainly getting my 15 minutes of fame around that time!
In this post, therefore, I want to share my first ever documentary with you, and give a behind-the-scenes insight into how it all came together. I hope you enjoy it, and please do share the film around on social media.
So without any further ado, I present my documentary debut – What Is Normal?
This post is in response to the Bedroom Tag that I’ve been nominated to do by Amanda Gene – thanks Amanda! There isn’t a lot I can say about my bedtime routine particularly, but it’s not something I’ve written about on here before, so I hope you enjoy reading my answers.
It’s time to showcase another blogger as part of my little series of interviews, and today I’m delighted to introduce you to Xin (Carol) Sun, who many of you may already know as the author of The Invisible Vision Project.
On Monday she very kindly posted an interview with me on her website, so in return I’m very pleased to share an interview with her here, and I hope you enjoy reading it. Please do go and check out her blog as well, where she’s got a lot of wonderful posts, and follow her on social media using the links at the end. She’ll really appreciate it!
So big thanks to Carol for collaborating with me, and let’s get on with the interview!
Last month I was very kindly featured on the blog VI Blind Resources, after Chelsey interviewed me about being raised by visually impaired parents. It’s not something I’ve really written about here on my blog, so do go and give it a read to find out a bit more about me.
In exchange for that, I’m delighted to feature an interview with Chelsey here on my blog. She regularly posts on her blog and YouTube channel and across social media, and she even makes the effort to provide written descriptions for images and audio descriptions in her videos. So do go and check her out, and I hope you enjoy this little interview with her. Thank you to Chelsey for featuring me and answering my questions!
This is a new type of post for me – an interview exchange with another blogger! Amanda Gene came to me with the idea, having interviewed some other bloggers already, and I was of course very flattered and happy to take part! Amanda has already published her interview with me, so do go and check that out too.
I’d love to do more posts like this too. I think it’s a really nice way to learn about other people, for the same reason that tag posts are so enjoyable. Plus it’s very important to support and promote each other in the blogging community, especially as disabled bloggers get overlooked somewhat (which is why I’ve created lists of bloggers who post about sight loss, disability, London & entertainment). So if anybody wants to do an exchange of Q&As like this, feel free to contact me.
Anyway, here is the interview I did with Amanda. I hope you enjoy it. Do give her a follow if you can, all of her social links are at the end of the post. Thank you so much to Amanda for featuring me on her blog and for answering my questions here as well! She gives great advice on blogging and interacting with disabled people, and it’s really interesting to get an insight into her disability and the things she enjoys.
I enjoy doing Q&A tag posts, whether they’re disability related or on other topics, as they’re a nice way to connect with other bloggers so we can get to know each other better, and it’s also lovely to be invited to participate in them.
And this time around, appropriately for summer, I’ve been very kindly nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award. This award is given by bloggers to other bloggers, to recognise and celebrate the creativity, positivity and inspiration in their work. And the rules are simple:
List the rules and display The Sunshine Blogger Award badge in your post.
Thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to their blog.
Answer the 10 questions that the person who nominated you asked you.
Nominate up to 12 other bloggers to receive the award and ask them 10 new questions.
So to be nominated just once by anybody is a great honour. But over the last few weeks I’ve been nominated THREE times, which is extremely flattering! So thank you very much indeed to Holly (Life of a Blind Girl), Luke Sam Sowden & Carol (The Invisible Vision Project), it’s very generous of you all to nominate me! They’ve all asked completely different questions too, which is wonderful. So I hope you enjoy reading my answers to them all.
This Q&A tag is a wonderful creation by Elin at My Blurred World who recognised that, in amongst all of the many blogger tags out there, disabled bloggers didn’t have a tag for themselves. I’m one of the people she nominated to do it, and I’ve also been nominated by The Invisible Vision Project, Amanda Gene and Life Of A Blind Girl, so thank you to all of you! 🙂
So here are my answers, as a post and a video. I hope you enjoy it and find it interesting!
Happy New Year everybody! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, and that 2018 is a joyful and prosperous year for you. 🙂
This Christmas marked my first anniversary of moving to London. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long already. And 2017 has been an amazing year! Although I was already used to getting around the city from my previous visits, it was still a leap into the unknown in many respects to actually live here. I had no idea how well it would work out, how safe or comfortable I would feel, how accessible events and attractions would be, and how easy it would be to make friends.
But it’s been more than worth the effort, and I’m extremely happy with how well it’s gone, given all the friends I’ve made, places I’ve explored, new things I’ve tried, and the opportunities I’ve taken up. A year ago I never imagined that I would be doing many of the things that have transpired in the months since.
I’m also pleased that my blog, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages have had a steady increase in followers over the year. Sure, I don’t have big numbers compared to the bigger bloggers out there, but relative to where I was a year ago it’s been a substantial leap. And my goals for this haven’t been about the numbers anyway. Making connections, sharing my experiences and spreading a bit of awareness was always my aim, and I’ve been achieving that. It’s resulted in numerous opportunities and new experiences, including guest posts, a public speech (with another planned for next year), participating in a research study (which is continuing next year), being interviewed by a journalist, and more. My efforts have been paying off more than I could ever have imagined, and I’m loving it.
But above all, thank you so much to everyone I’ve met and interacted with during the year, whether it be in person or online. By reading, liking and sharing my content, leaving comments, asking questions, sending me private messages and emails, giving me opportunities for guest posts and public talks, and even meeting up in person, you’ve helped to make this year a very special one for me. Especially Aniridia Network UK, Nystagmus Network, London Vision, Thinking Bob, VocalEyes, RNIB, Scope, Fashioneyesta, Life Of A Blind Girl, My Blurred World, Luke Sam Sowden & All The Stations, but also everyone else that I’ve had any kind of contact with during the year.
Everyone has been very positive and supportive, and your involvement has enabled me to start this new chapter in my life with confidence and comfort, and fun and friendship. And for that I’ll always be very grateful. 2017 will forever be one of the most significant and happy of my life, nothing will take that away.
And I’ve had a lovely Christmas to finish it off in style, so I wanted to bring you up to date with how it went and the various things I enjoyed. This is quite an epic post as a result, and I’ve also filmed a video that mentions some of the stuff here along with my general reflections on 2017 as a whole. So I hope you enjoy!
This is the last in my triple bill of tag response posts to finish off the year. And this is the Colours Of The Rainbow tag by Luke Sam Sowden, which asks for the meanings that you associate with various colours. So I thought it would be something different and fun to do, and I tag anyone else who wants to respond to it as well. I hope you enjoy my answers!
Well Eye Never 
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