Friday, May 15, 2009

Holidays - Every Kid's One of the Most Desired!

I'm enjoying the holidays. They aren't everlasting, though - they'll end on June 15. Still, I've got a whole month to enjoy - and relax after my travel - them and just... you know indulge more time in my hobbies. Well, if I haven't already told you, and if you haven't already looked at my profile, I assume you don't know them. Reading and writing are the topmost, followed by reviewing and comparing similar things to find out their flaws comparatively. Yes, I'm going to have a great time these holidays. That's why they're every kid's one of the Most Desired! I certainly don't blame kids who like holidays. It's just natural.

So how am I passing the time? This question may be a bit strange, but sometimes I find it incredibly difficult to thoroughly enjoy a holiday day. In my mother tongue Hindi, I always bemoan: Mein Kya Karu? which translates in English as "What am I going to do?". Happily though, this time I haven't had yet one of those days. I'm enjoying every day to the full!

Reading is my - I think one of the - oldest hobby. I recall reading at the age of 5 or 6, short storybooks such as fables and suchlike. Then I recall moving up a bit during the ages of 8 or 9, but still I didn't know or read novels. It was only at the age of 10 that I came to know. My first of them were Enid Blyton's Famous Five and Secret Seven series: my first ever novel was Five on Kirrin Island Again. Then I recall proceeding to the AAdventure and Five Find-Outers and Dog Mystery series, and so on. Eventually I moved on to Hardy Boys and Harry Potter. But then, it wasn't the end. I continued searching for more authors, young adult and children's authors, and now have quite a few in my bookshelf!

As for writing, I'm now writing a humour novel, currently 7000 words long. Fingers crossed that by next year I'll have at least finished the first draft! :-)

And of course, I still go and play outside. A child's life is the BEST life!

Saturday, May 9, 2009

The Differences in Lifestyle of Different Countries

Here we are at last! This post is late, I know. I planned to write this on April 26th or 27th, and today is May 9. Why the delay? The fact is that I went to Saudi Arabia for a holiday and to live with my father for a few days. There was a computer there... so I figured I couldn't go wrong and I could make at least one post minimum.

Was I right? No! Actually for the first few days I spent time in other stuff (from April 22). But when I finally got the time, and entered the URL in the very old desktop, the blog did come but the instructions (Create Blog, Sign In etc) were all written in Arabic, the native language there. As of yet I have not learned how to read or understand the language. How was I to know which was the correct instruction? That went that theory down the drain. I was pretty angry, I can tell you. I tried loading the page once again to find out if it had changed to English... all to no avail. Really!

When we at last came back from our trip yesterday, our desktop had problems and refused to start in. It's pretty old anyway so I can't blame it.

Anyway to make a long story short, I didn't get a chance to write a post until now. Well... the time has come, so out I now log in. Hurrah!

Saudi Arabia is an amazing place. Of course, it appears dreary at first - all desert and no one on the streets walking. Saudi Arabia and India are like two polar poles, I should think. In India there's too much population but space is scarce, while in Saudi population is sparse and space enough. Frankly, I was astonished when I found that no one walked from home to shop. Everybody went in cars. The result is that the roads are empty - they appear a part of nature. And I also had my first sighting of the mango tree (we had one when I was young so I can't remember it). Oh, the great distances! You just can't walk without drinking water all the time to keep yourself from being dehydrated in the desert. The roads are amazingly built, much, much better than those in India. And oh, one can't hear a construction sound (which is actually very cool.) The lack of all the sounds one is used to hearing did rather astonish me at first. Everything is so quiet! Not much to do too, in Jubail (near to Dammam.) I have to say that the architecture is much better there. Everything is air-conditioner ed there, and it's a necessity. And oh, the space! Lots of empty ground is still left despite the huge and tall buildings (they aren't actually sky-scrapers - one or two of them maybe - but still really they are much, much bigger than here). There are no problems in lifestyle, unlike India. A perfect place for a holiday... provided you have a computer that works (the desktop there was very, very old). ;-) I also visited some other cities and was shocked - they're much too perfect....

But the days were just too short. I wish we could have lived a bit more - unfortunately that wasn't possible. Maybe another time?

Blytonians will notice that I am posting this on the Enid Blyton Day. As we returned yesterday on May 8, I did have a crazy idea before to go directly to Great Britain from Saudi Arabia, and even mentioned it to my parents. I already knew the answer. But some day... in the near future - I will attend the Day. I will go there. I'm always happy travelling, though I must say too many flights left me a bit exhausted! Happy days.

More in another post. :-D