The Kite Runner

That was one of the first books I read after the A-levels. Do go and read it if you haven't already, it was fascinatingly genuine, and realistic in it's portrayal of harsh Afghanistan, a country ripped apart by internal strife, set on the fringes of the 21st century. Made me grow up a little too. The end is far from a happy ending, but it's a hopeful ending. And that beats a bleak ending any day.

I borrowed the book from the National Library, and it was in quite a bad condition. What irritated me further was that one of the previous borrowers had left pencil marks all over the book. I was about to erase them, but I realised that most of the marks were indications of words that reader didn't understand. He or she had underlined and/or circled words unknown to him or her. I was curious to determine the age of the reader, but it was puzzling.

How old could the reader be, who borrowed a book meant for teenagers and adults, who didn't know the meanings of "retaliate", "blemished" and "hippie", but knew the meaning of a certain ugly little word which sounds like the first syllable of the word "country"? *

(That reader stopped reading the book after the first few chapters, or gave up marking words; the pencil marks disappear completely and I doubt it was because there was no other difficult word.)

Perhaps swear words are common even in primary schools. Or, perhaps the reader was familiar with swear words rather than other words (then why borrow such a book?).

I definitely wasn't the second person to read that copy of the book, judging by its condition, so I was surprised to find a spelling mistake no one else had noticed, even though the same word appears twice in that paragraph, once spelt correctly, once incorrectly. The word that was meant is "aisle", and it appears right the first time, but a few lines later, it's spelt "isle". I triple-checked, but "isle" made no sense in that sentence.** This surprised me, surely discerning readers would have read this copy before? I hate vandalising books, but this disturbed me.

I added in the "a".



* I didn't think of this myself, it's all thanks to a certain Literature teacher from England, who told us that in some contexts, a description of a girl as a "country girl" has sexual references.

** This really is true. I returned the book quite a while back so I am unfortunately unable to quote the page number and paragraph. The other single-word quotes are accurate, though. I remembered those.

Simmer!

Special mention for SIMRAAAAAAAN!

Cos I couldn't find a picture of her earlier, except the anteater picture hahaha.

The Past Few Days and Recollections

Walking along the beach at night is as great as always. If only we could get to the rocks! India won the match, an opportunity for the Heroes of India to uplift the mood of the entire nation. Orchard Road isn't as spectacular as usual, a pity, I've always enjoyed walking down to see the different Christmas light-ups. The Day The Earth Stood Still was okay. Reminded me a lot of The War of the Worlds, and it was pretty short. But meeting the senior was great =] And Vaaranam Aayiram is an amazing movie. It manages to be sensitive, but with realistic depictions. Perhaps the love at first sight part might be unreal to critics, but the rest of the movie is great. It almost made me cry in the theatre. A lot more English in this movie than is usual for Tamil movies, though. Watching this movie with Shal was fantastic, and it touched her loads even though she wasn't watching it for the first time. There was a fire in one of the houses in Block 4 of Neptune Court. The whole flat was ablaze. I asked around but no one knew what caused it or whether everyone was safe.

I miss VJ:

07S43

05V14

Beyond Borders: Japan

Beyond Borders: Silicon Valley

The Indian Gang

And loads more, but I don't have the pictures. Yet.

This has been a disorganised post but I like it that way =]





"I will come and find you, and I will blow you off your feet."

Cold Days and Warm Hearts

The temperature in my house was 25 degrees Celsius yesterday. I love cold days like that, when the whole house seems air-conditioned and we wear jackets and watch movies or read books and munch on apples. Perfectly dreamy weather. Today is a great day too, 26 degrees Celsius.

Prom was great. Everyone looked wonderful! I'll admit it was mostly a costly photo-taking session, but I liked it. And Prom King and Queen were awesome too! Our table (Some of the Indians + Wilbur) was pretty fun! Simran sitting on my right and Dhevy on my left- much fun =] I don't have any of the group photos with me now, so another time! I love the shot glass souvenirs. "Viva la Victoria" and "sweet like a chic a cherry cola" - they couldn't have chosen better phrases!

(That's a bit of nail polish left on my finger. )

I like the Macro function on the camera, it makes details unbelievably clear.

Finally met Reema on Thursday for ice cream, it was ages since we'd talked, and we talked for hours. Then Sunday was bowling with the gang. We'd planned on ice-skating but it ended up being too expensive, so we went bowling instead. It was my first time, and I slipped and fell the first try =D cos I overstepped into the (i'm not sure what it's called) slippery part of the aisle. Besides, I was wearing a size 7 shoe on my left foot and size 6 on the right. That was pretty embarrassing, but after that, it was fun! I really want to go ice-skating some day though. Dhevy! Haha let's go!

I found this in my all-purpose notebook. It was written sometime during the A-level period, so hopefully that explains the dull tone-

I Love:

The sound of a cricket bat against a cricket ball.
The smell when you strike a match.
The feel of a firm handshake.
The taste of a salty seashore breeze.
The sight of thunderclouds rolling ahead.

I think that was written to momentarily distract myself.

I hope everyone's enjoying their holidays!