noun [kee-smash] a random string of letters and symbols typed out on a keyboard or touchscreen, used to signal intense emotion in written communication:
Aaaand that’s another week of August gone by! Time flies, especially when you have midterms going on. It’s been rough last week so there’s a lot I haven’t really gotten around to doing, but all things considered I think I am doing fine.
I feel like talking about what’s been happening in my non-blogging life…just because. Some time ago, I made my first personal post The Hard Part where I talked about how after falling for a guy I knew I couldn’t have Continue reading “The Sunday Post: Weekly Wrap Up #2”→
Sunday marks the first day of the week for me and my fellow Bangladeshis, and I figured I’d do a weekly wrap every Sunday to take a look back on everything book-related and non-book related things that have been happening in my life. Here’s a short recap of the past week.
Considering how slowly I have been reading the past four months I’m pretty happy that I finished one book in a week, and that book is The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet (link to review posted above). I started it in 2nd August and finished it on 5th August–it was so much fun to read, and so light and easy that I managed to complete it in 3 days without even needing to pull all-nighters. I started reading The Darkest Mindsby Alexandra Bracken this Wednesday, and I think I will be able to finish it by the end of next week even though I have my midterms coming up from Monday.
Managed to squeeze in the time to write 3 chapters of my WIP, and even posted three new chapters of my poetry book on Wattpad. I also wrote 4 new poems this month, and I am really happy with how they turned out.
Erm…I took some photos but forgot to post them. You’ll find out why in a bit.
And now I am going to share something that I have been wanting to share, but was in too much pain to do so. Recently there has been a tragedy in my country. Two weeks ago, three children in my city were killed by a reckless bus driver who was never apprehended for his crimes. In Bangladesh, more than 4000 people die every year because our roads are so unsafe, and because the drivers do not even pass the required fitness certification (forget having a licence to drive). To protest this, the children in my country, 13-year-olds to 16-year-olds boycotted their classes and exams and rallied on the streets to demand safer roads.
They did not stop there.
These children, these minors, stopped every vehicle on every road in every city in the country to check whether the drivers had legitimate licence and fitness certificates to drive–whenever they found drivers who did not have the necessary papers they politely turned them away.
They did not stop there.
There has never been any order to the traffic in our country, so these kids took matters in their own hands and brought order to the roads. The image given below shows what the roads looked like in my country under the control of traffic police and the government.
And this next image below is what the roads looked like when the children of my country decided they would control traffic. They ensured that every vehicle used appropriate lanes and even maintained an emergency lane to allow ambulances, fire services and other emergency vehicles to travel quickly.
They did not stop here.
They cleaned the roads, and they fixed broken roads wherever they found them. I repeat, these are children, and they showed the government how to do its job right.
All they wanted in return was for the government to accept their 9-points demand that would ensure our roads would be safer. Instead of listening to them however, on the third day of these peaceful protests, the government retaliated violently. Police and BCL members attacked these children, but to this day, the government still denies it, and all the national media except The Daily Star refuses to cover these brutal events. You can read the details of the attacks from the articles by The Daily Star here–I am afraid I cannot reveal too much of what had happened because the government is arresting anyone who is speaking out by accusing them of spreading rumors and anti-government propaganda. (My blog is too small to get their notice, but I am trying to be as careful as I can be).
This was followed by more unrest and violence. To protest against these attacks on our children, students from every university in the country rallied on the streets and protested only to be attacked by law enforcers whose job was to protect us. These law enforcers were aided by BCL who are youth who represent the government, but have no right to take the law into their own hands. Yet they did exactly that, attacking students wherever they found them, invading university campuses, and instead of stopping them our police took their side. Instead of apologizing to the nation and making amends to the innocents who were injured, the government continues to deny all of these atrocities and is arresting anyone who says otherwise.
I have been seeing so much violence in my country growing up that I feel as though I have been desensitized to it all. But last week was different. Last week broke our spirits, broke our hearts, but it also made gave me hope: hope that the children in my country will do great things in their lives even if it is not in their own motherland. Last week made my generation and every generation that will come afterwards hate the ruling government with every fibre of our being. They can try to pretend that nothing had happened, they can lie to us through gritted teeth, but we know the truth and we will never, ever forget.
I hope that wherever you are and whoever you are, if you are reading this, I hope that you never have to suffer the pain of knowing that you are not safe in your own home.
((cue nervous laughter because this is the first personal post on this blog hehehehehe))
This has been on my mind for a while now, and I am not sure how best to express this in words without embarrassing myself, but I tend to form emotional attachments a little too quickly, a little too strongly, and at the same time, I find myself unable to really open up to people, to share the things that friends are supposed to be sharing with each other. It makes friendships hard enough as it is for an introvert like me–on one hand I can’t make my friendships more meaningful even though I want to; without intimacy, without the feeling of trust that comes with sharing and keeping secrets and other things you wouldn’t tell most people, it’s difficult to cross the borderlands between “acquaintance/friends” and “good friends”.
On the other hand, just because I cannot share these things that matter so much to me, the important things, does not mean I don’t care deeply about the people surrounding me. I do. It’s just hard to prove it when I can’t open up to them.
And we are just talking about friendships here, not romantic relationships. Let’s not even go there, hahaha.
((Actually we are going to go there))
A little more than a month ago, I gathered up the courage to text a crush I have only known through social media. Mind you that this was a really stupid crush–an absolute school girl infatuation–I didn’t actually like the guy. It was more like a he-seems-interesting kinda thing.
Anyway we started talking and I was surprised by how quickly we became friends. One of the first things I learned early on was that he had a girlfriend, which, as disappointing as it was, didn’t bother me that much because I did not really like him seriously. At first.
I guess you all know where this is going.
Well, no point beating around the bush: now, after having talked to him for some time and getting to know him better, I am starting to think I have feelings for him. I am not going to go into the details of that or why I even started having feelings for him because that’s not what I want to get off my chest. I want to talk about the hard part.
The part where I start to forget myself because of how emotionally attached I can become to a person.
I guess it happens to a lot of people when they fall in love. As cliche as it sounds love really can be…overwhelming. And I guess it’s normal that when you fall in love, this one person becomes so important to you that you start to forget that you are important to yourself too. That all the people around you are characters in your story but you are the protagonist. That this story is about you.
Especially if the other person doesn’t reciprocate or (if they are a shitty boyfriend/girlfriend) makes you feel like they don’t love you as much back.
At times like this I guess it’s hard to remember that the love we want isn’t some thing that only one person can give. I think that’s part of why it’s hard for us to leave those people, even when they hurt us and make us unhappy, because we want them to be the one to give us the love that we give them. To quote Charlie from The Perks of Being A Wallflower(the book not the movie): we accept the love we think we deserve.
And I think all of this is part of why it is so hard to love ourselves first–to give ourselves the love that we actually deserve. That’s the hard part.
For myself, I have been doing a little better lately. I am putting a bit of distance between myself and this guy, and using that time to focus on me instead. I am not talking trips to the spa or shopping mall (but if that makes you feel good do that, you do you) but more like things that I know will make me happier in the long run: running every alternate days to get in shape a bit, writing more often, talking to other people, reading more, etc. Things that require me to think about other things instead of him. He is still on my mind, more often than I like, but at least now I am trying to become the person I wish I could be, and focus on all the other kinds of love I have in my life instead of the one I can’t have. It’s hard, not talking to him, not trying to have a little more of him even if just as friends, but hey it’s a start.
Dear reader, if you are reading this, I am sorry for telling you so much that you didn’t ask to know, and I thank you for “hearing” me out anyway. I am done for today. All the love!
June passed me by a little too quickly this year, but I am excited for everything July is going to bring. Not only does today mark the first day of my 22nd year on this planet, but there is so much to look forward to–Camp NanoWriMo to help me make more progress on my WIP novel, #bookstajuly18 on bookstagram, and so much more.
I love the last day of a month and the first day of the month, because there is something about moving from one month to the next that makes me feel inspired and encouraged. New beginnings and all that jazz. September was a good month for me, and I look forward to whatever October is bringing.
You’d think that after nearly three years of blogging, I’d be somewhat less awkward at first posts right?
NOPE.
Which is why I am going to keep this first post super short and simply tell you that this blog here is my personal outlet for things that I cannot stop thinking about and things I cannot seem to speak enough about. I hope you find things here that will make you laugh at my stupidity, or make you feel hopeful and inspired or motivated. I hope when you come here, you can relate to some of the stories I share, and you leave feeling happy and a little less alone.
New month, new beginnings. Reading about everybody’s August Recap made me take a trip down memory lane. August was a hectic month, where I had to do a lot of adjusting, and I am not simply talking about my blogging life. August was the month when I Continue reading “August Recaps and September Resolutions”→
Growing up, most of us have heard our fair share of fairy tales about knights in shining armor, princesses locked up in towers and wise caterpillars who smoked pipes and gave words of advice to young girls lost in Wonderland. Somehow, these fairy tales have played a huge role in shaping our childhood and fueling our imagination and creativity. In case of avid readers such as myself, these fairytales had turned me into a bookworm and inspired me to maybe write my own story about magic and myth someday.
Despite having a Goodreads account for years, it wasn’t until I began blogging that I started becoming active on this wonderful, wonderful site for bookworms, which ultimately led me to discover the magic of reading challenges. Continue reading “Reading Challenges”→
Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a great weekend. First, let me apologize for being MIA the last two months–life has been really hectic, and to tell you the truth, things were getting so bad that I couldn’t help but slide into a blogging as well as a reading slump. Now that I’m back from my long hiatus, looking back I realize how badly I needed to have that break; no offense to my lovely readers but taking some time off from my blog and focusing more on my personal life has really helped me to put things in perspective.
On that note, I decided to return to my blog with a discussion post about what I think is the best solution for a blogging slump. The answer is simple and somewhat unorthodox: let it happen.
