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My Favorite… Gift Ever. And Why I Know You All. A Thank You Post

There’s this meme on Maureen’s blog I’ve been eyeing for a while, it comes out every Wednesday, and this Wednesday… It had a theme I couldn’t pass up. It’s about your favorite gift, and it so happens that that gift is related to the blog, so I just couldn’t miss my chance. If you want to know more about the meme and join it, here’s more info.

So what am I going to talk about, actually?

Alright. I’m not actually going to talk about my favorite gift. I’m going to talk about the giver. Because that’s infinitely more important, isn’t it? It’s high time I dedicated a post to someone who has been very influential in my life, and that person is my sister. If it wasn’t for her in the long run, I might not even have a blog. Because my sister was the one who equipped me with my year-long dream at the time – my first Kindle. Without the Kindle, I would have never been able to read books in English. Would have never been able to get ARCs. And would have probably never started blogging.

There’s a funny story behind this too…

First of all, let’s transport back to good old 2005. When I was still in highschool, I was kind of a nerd, and I was always very ecologically geared. So naturally, when I first heard of e-ink paper? This was pretty much what I looked like:

I was like.. I must have it. But then… You might not understand this, because the majority of you who read this blog come from a well developed Western country. Back then? We had probably only joined the EU for a year! There was no shipping, no buying from other countries… (that’s why I still tend to think there’s no shipping even now, although there is xD) Basically, yes, I read that Sony was developing an e-reader. But I knew that it’s just as reachable to me as the moon. It was a far off dream that I could probably never have. But I never stopped thinking about it.

The funny thing is, I even wrote a report for physics about how e-ink works. And then I wrote another one for university. Not kidding! Imagine me presenting that.

Years passed and first Kindles appeared. I had no dreams of even getting one. It would have cost 5 times its actual market price to get it here. I could even have asked, I had a sister living in America. I had a boyfriend who was American (that’s a long story for another day maybe…) and yet I didn’t even think of asking. It was so far removed from the scope of my life I didn’t even ponder it.

But something happened…

I don’t even know how it began. It was my year of winning things. I… Did this weird “let’s program your subconscious” thing where I said I would win something every month that year. (Surprisingly? I did. I won 15 things that year in raffles, and I’ve never done that before or since!) And… Maybe it just put me in a winning mood? But I noticed this random contest one website was holding, and it went like “give us a dream of bettering yourself and we will make that dream come true”. And I was like BRING IT ON.

It was one of those Facebook voting contests. I believe at that time, it was already like 2013, maybe. Maybe 2012. I made like 200+ people vote xD among them… Was my sister.

Did I win?

Yes and no. No, I didn’t win the main prize, which means… I didn’t win them buying me a Kindle (LOL I know! Who won? This random girl won a nail art class! A nail art class! Bettering yourselves..? Nail art over reading?!..) But… I did win second place 😀 I won a voucher for trousers I still wear. But that’s beside the point.

Because… When I didn’t win, my sister was all like… “Hey, why didn’t you tell me you wanted a Kindle? It’s like 99$! I could have got you one ages ago?? I keep having to come up with present ideas!”

And that’s how it all started. How I started reading English books. How I realized later that there was this thing called NetGalley. That you could get unpublished books. That you could blog. Years later I only started blogging because someone made my dream come true. A dream I had thought was so far out of my reach that I didn’t even dare dream of it much.

So I want to say…

Thank you to my sister.

If it wasn’t for you, I would not be here blogging right now. I would not have people reading my words. I would not even have had the opportunity to read half of the amazing books I’ve read, because we don’t have them all in my country. But even more than that… I wouldn’t know that dreams you’ve had since highschool can even come true.

That’s enough touchies for today. Maybe one day I’ll write a post to thank my mom for teaching me to read. That’ll be a big one. Do you have anyone who has influenced your life like that? Share with me in the comments!