shanaqui

Hi! I'm Nicky, or shanaqui.

ALL ABOUT ME:
I live in South Yorkshire (with my wife, three bunnies, and many, many books), which is close to where I grew up, but I'm from Wales and miss it very much. I work for the productivity app Beeminder most of the time, along with some work for Taskratchet, but I also help out here at Postcrossing!

I'm studying for an MSc in Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. It's tough work but fascinating: this year I'm focusing on bacterial infections, parasitology, and the links between undernutrition and infection.

My hobbies are reading, gaming (mostly playing Final Fantasy XIV at the moment, but also a fan of games like Persona 3, Assasin's Creed 2, the new Tomb Raider games, Stardew Valley, Harvestella, etc), crochet, cross-stitch, and sometimes writing. I love reading science fiction and fantasy, mysteries, popular science, archaeology, anthropology, romance, and anything else that catches my fancy. I like to stay curious and try all kinds of things! I write book reviews on breathesbooks.com, and sometimes on the Postcrossing blog.

Hulk (she's in my profile pic!) is our eldest bunny, at around 10 years old, while the "babies" are five-year-old siblings. Hulk's got big opinions, Biscuit's a brave and curious little miss, and Eclair is a fluffy boy who just wants to cuddle. If you ever get a postcard with a nibbled corner... well, blame them.

My wife is Belgian, and we lived there for a while. We got married in Leuven, in 2016, after being together for 11 years. I'm glad to be in the UK, as I don't speak much Dutch at all, but we do miss Belgian chip shops! (Guess you can't pack those up and send me one through the mail, though...)

WHAT TO SEND ME:
I don't have really specific postcard preferences: I'd like to receive something you think I'll find interesting based on my profile! Here are some ideas:

- local culture/history (I especially love castles and ruined buildings)
- cute animal postcards (especially hedgehogs, hippos, giraffes and bunnies)
- zoo postcards (my wife and I love visiting zoos; we collect a magnet from each one we visit! We'd love to get some visiting ideas)
- book-related postcards
- anything to do with science (if you can find biology-related postcards, even better!)
- dinosaurs
- Moomins
- Nijntje (Miffy)
- dragons

But please choose any postcard you think I'll like!

UK members: I'd really like to receive a postcard with one of the Tutankhamen stamps on it!

If you like sending extras with your cards, I collect bookmarks, especially free ones from bookshops, libraries, and The Book Depository (so sad that's closed now)! It's nice to connect with booklovers all around the world.

If you're not sure what to write, I'd love to know your favourite books or what you're reading at the moment. I also write the monthly writing prompts on Postcrossing's blog, so you could answer those for me!

Diolch yn fawr! (Thank you very much.)