A Flow Free tell all...

   After watching criminal minds and Sherlock Holmes I started to get very nervous around people (mostly physiatrists, crazy old ladies and anyone with a penetrating gaze). I felt as though they could discover my secrets just by observing my actions. But now I’ve uncovered the truth. You don’t have to be gifted to ‘know’ things; you just have to be observant. So lately I’ve been keeping my eyes open. My latest discovery was made on a Monday morning over breakfast.

   My dad and I have obsession with Games section in the android market. Our latest fad is Flow Free. Every morning we spend a good amount of time building pipes. It’s a basically just a battle to see who can finish the most levels in the least amount of moves over some freshly brewed coffee.

   Yesterday, instead of focusing on my own screen I peered over at my dad’s. I observed his playing strategy and saw that it differed from mine. He would spend a great deal of time staring at the screen and muttering about how he can’t move something there or it’ll block something somewhere. He basically considered all his options and played out the consequences in his head before actually making a move.

    I on the other hand, looked at the board once then started to move pipes around here and there until I found the correct path. My strategy was trial and error. If something didn’t fit I’d just start over.

    I thought about it for a while and realized that our playing strategy reflected greatly on our life strategy and attitudes as well. I concluded that it must be maturity must be the reason behind our varied strategies.

   My dad being an older person has experience from trial and error so now he knows how to navigate the minefield. He knows he doesn’t have the energy like before to bounce back easily from error. So he sticks to the safety net provided from thinking before acting.

     Although I am just starting out and I’ve got my whole life ahead of me to make mistakes and learn from them.  I have the time and energy to start over and bounce back from a set back, I can leap over hurdles (metaphorically speaking of course, jumping hurdles was proven to be my weakness at a rather embarrassing track meet). So I take a risk and go with trial and error.

‘Our love is the brightest star of all.’

 “Hey”, said a low smoky voice from behind me. I turned around rather abruptly; I didn’t expect to run into someone so far off the trail. I came face-to-face with a strikingly handsome boy. “You’re Jasmine, right?”, he said. He knew my name. Warning bells went off in my head and every kidnap, murder and rape case I’d ever heard about flashed through my mind.

I scanned the face of the handsome stranger in a Dartmouth hoodie before me, laugh lines softened his chiseled face and his eyes seemed to smile. I felt a wave of serene hit me.  “Uh… hi?” His face seemed familiar; you can’t easily forget something so beautiful.  

“Funny running into you here, I didn’t take you for a outdoors person.” My nostrils flared slightly and I crossed my hands over my chest. I found it extremely annoying when people make preconceived judgments before giving you a chance to open your mouth.

“Is that so?” I asked with raised eyebrows. I enjoyed a little battle of wits; I had a feeling the boy in front of me would make a brilliant counterpart. I built up anticipation for a witty retort but all I got was, “Um. ya.” I suppressed a snort. That stupid smartass geek, his Ivy League education should’ve made him capable of giving a adequate answer. His poor parents spent a fortune for nothing.

“Excuse me, how do you know my name?” I asked in the politest tone I could muster. Which was hard because I lost respect for the fool who’d backed down. The stranger smiled warmly, I noticed the crinkles by his eyes. I felt the iciness towards him melt away.

 “You’re a star,” he said his blue grey eyes twinkled. My mind went blank. I had no idea what he was talking about. “Sorry but I don’t follow.” Perhaps if he didn’t speak with a great deal of charm coated words maybe I’d have a chance of comprehending him.

 He gave me a big toothy grin. Boy, he’d sure score perfect in a dental exam.  “Let them eat cake. Summer of 2013.” My mouth formed ‘O’ and I laughed. I couldn’t believe he was referring to the small charity I started years ago. “I’m hardly a star, I’m just following my dreams.” I explain.

He smiles and intently looks into my eyes. “That’s enough to make you my star.” His every syllabus flirted. I felt blush creeping along my neck. Then somewhere in my brain it clicked, I knew this boy; his charisma was unforgettable. “Marcus Fields, Dalton high school. Summer of 2013.” He walked past me and sat down on the blanket I’d brought. He pulled a moleskin notebook from his pocket and replied, “Correct.”

Book Review: Divergent

   Yesterday on a cold boring winter night, I curled up in my bed with Divergent, the book that I had been withholding from myself, to read when life got busy so I would have something to look forward to. I stared at the clock it showed 8pm it was too early to sleep but too cold and dark to do anything that required moving around.  So I sat up and decided I’d read a few chapters to get acquainted with the book. And I’m sure you can all guess that was not the case when I finally put the book down at 4am.

   Mostly, the famous book series,‘the trends’ as I like to call them. categorize their characters into groups. In Harry Potter there were houses, in Percy Jackson it was according to your godly parent, in Hunger Games it was according to Districts and in Divergent there were factions.  Amongst these groups only Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth cared to name the misfits (rebels and divergent). But that’s not where the similarities end between these two powerhouse writers with amazingly successful trilogies. Both The Hunger Games and Divergent are full of colorful violent scenes. Both sci-fi books have done an exceptional job of showing the ‘ugly’ side of everything from politics to entertainment industry from selflessness to intelligence.  Divergent and The Hunger Games both consist of rebellions against society norms and wars.

   On that note, I point out the two biggest trilogies of the 21^st centaury have themes of war for a reason. I feel that everyone is at war. Some fight for success, others fight for pride. There are those who fight for simple necessities in life like water, food, shelter and clothing. Some are in wars against terror, others are in war against thieves. One may be at war without, another maybe at war within. Just because ones war does not include weapons doesn’t mean its not as real, it doesn’t lessen its significance. The rebellions in this book for me symbolize change for the betterment of society. Think about how many social prejudices we’ve broken, up to this point in order to obtain total equality. Divergent also shows that there is always room for improvement and that our next focus should be the right to be unique without judgment.

   When I think of great fictional couples Edward and Bella, Percy and Annabeth, and Katniss and Peeta come to mind. But in Divergent I got to witness an amazing, powerful couple, Tobias/Four and Tris. They brought out strength in each other, helped each other overcome fears and protected each other. They had each other’s back that was very essential because they were headed for battle. I liked how even though they didn’t think alike they could keep up with each other. They were great as individuals but together they were invincible. Most importantly they were truly, deeply and irrevocably in love with each other and it showed through their actions.

   Divergent deals with character. The world of Divergent only allows people to have one of the following character traits intelligence, selflessness, courage, kindness and honesty. This book made me stop and think. I’m not always intelligent, I’m not entirely honest, I’m not wholly kind, I by no means am entirely selfless, and I definitely am not totally brave. Although I have a bit of all traits I’m not solely just one. I am different! I am Divergent! And so are all human beings but the desire to belong is stronger than the desire to be unique. That is why in Tris’s world being Divergent is dangerous and scary. So most people choose a certain trait and let it dictate their thoughts and actions, they are too afraid to be anything else.  

   Divergent is now on my top ten favourite books list.  I would recommend it to anyone who is ready to read a book that will leave a huge imprint in your lives forever. My rating for this well thought out book would be 5/5.

Reading in Nepal…

  

   Precisely three days back, Jan. 2 was the very day when I came to the realization that the bulk of Nepali society simply is not interested in reading fiction. A reason contributing to this may be, teens and young children do not have time to spare from their unreasonable amounts of homework and busy social lives to spend reading.

   A friend of mine shared with me that he tries to read one novel per month. For hardcore readers (booknerds) that may sound very little but believe it or not, in Nepal, one book a month is more than what most children read.  Every six months I have a long break; my dear English teacher assigns an oral book report. I being a booknerd have no problem coming up to the front of the class and speaking on the books I’ve read but I have some friends who have done their ‘book reports’ on a television show hoping the teacher won’t figure them out!

   Another point to be noted, is that the few children who do read are often misguided and choose books that are completely out of their reading range. A friend of mine’s biggest attempt into entering the world of books was unabridged version of Macbeth. While reading Shakespeare at 13 is no crime, I would like to point out that it by no means is a starter-outer book and would end your interest in books before it even began!

   I have to say it is such a loss to the country and the world to have so many bright young people uninterested in stretching their creativity, expanding their horizons, exploring other dimensions, worlds and kingdoms. When the next generation lacks creativity how can our world evolve? If the last generation did not consist of geniuses with imaginations you wouldn’t be reading my livid words on your screen, heck you wouldn’t even have electricity and I’m sure my friends in Toronto can tell you all about how dreadful it was to live sans electricity for three days! No heating, no warm water, no working stove, no light and heaven-forbid no Wi-Fi!

  Hopefully this will serve as inspiration to read more! I personally have found the threat of no Wi-Fi to be very motivating.

Is there hope in becoming a Vampire in the near future?

   It was the summer of 2010 when I had first entered the twilight fandom and taken up the vampire craze. I can not tell you how many days my best friend and I spent searching up, ‘How to become a vampire?’ After going through countless bogus websites I finally decided that my birthday wish wasn’t going to come true… a shocking revelation at that time.  But now almost four years later I stumble upon an article that may’ve been helpful at that time. 

   Yesterday, as I was searching ‘interesting things to do with an empty wall’ I accidentally clicked on ‘interesting things to do with your body’.  The first web page enlisted was an article on a woman who lifted up a car to save her son. I thought it’d be interesting reading material so I clicked. After reading, the inner ‘twihard’ in me started jumping up and down in excitement!

  Let me explain, humans can do superhuman things like lifting cars and throwing boulders the size of cars if only they are put under adequate stress to have enough adrenaline rush

 through their veins. And then the functions of the body slow down or stop and *poof* magically the human body had enough force to do super human things!

  You might be wondering where and how that connects to vampires. As you already know, vampires are very fast and really strong. And well the human body can be just as fast and strong as vampires in circumstances then maybe with the help of science and evolution of the human race, we can create super humans that mimic the speed and strength of vampires!