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Showing posts from 2013

Demystifying Girls' Bathrooms

Girls need not read this post. I would ask them to wait for me to find a resourceful male friend who can ‘demystify’ guys’ bathrooms to me in turn but we all know that nothing male-related is even remotely mystical. Guys, on the other hand, can learn a few actual facts. Thanks to Orange Is TheNew Black (OITNB) , many a guy now think girls’ bathrooms are a lesbian fest. Boobs flailing all around the place, girls making out while making up each other’s faces; contemptuous looks being exchanged over that coveted toilet stall… Unfortunately, while that may be the situation in a Federal Women’s prison, it’s not usually the case in reality. So, no… should you sneak into the ladies, you’ll probably not see even a single boob… not even side-boob.   Fortunately, I stay at a Girls’ Hostel when I am at school… and in a lot of respects, our bathrooms are a lot like a Federal Women’s prison’s.  For instance, on one rather unfortunate Monday morning I woke up earlier than usual so that I could

Crush! Crush! Crush!

I have a new crush… like a real one. A real, live one! Not that the previous ones were dead or anything. They were very much alive. They were just not ‘in the flesh’. The likes of Wentworth Miller, who, it seems, didn’t think that the 20 year age difference between us made our relationship hard enough. He had to go ahead and rub his being gay in my face. * Takes deep breathes and puts Ryan Lewis’ Same Love on repeat*  There was also Ian Somerhalder… not so much Ian as the vampire he plays in The Vampire Diaries. He is hot but unfortunately he doesn’t meet criterion 2/2: ‘Being Alive’. Unfortunately, I don't do 'undead'. However, kuteseka ni kwa muda. Good things come to those who wait. Hope is that thing with wings… Okay, I don’t have the time to quote clichés. I have a new crush! You poor dear, you probably have no idea why I am this excited. You see, having a crush is not about the warm, fuzzy feelings and the sudden realization that every bad mushy love s

Sophie's Choice by William Styron: A Review

The worst game of 'Would you rather...' “She was so chaotically in love with Nathan that it was like dementia, and it is more often than not the person one loves from whom one withholds the most searing truths about one’s self; if only out of the very human motive to spare groundless pain.” This observation, made by Stingo, concerning Sophie was what led me to (mistakenly) conclude that Sophie and I were similar. That we were kindred souls, separated by time, distance and circumstances. Fellow psychos in love.   How wrong I was! Sophie is nothing like anyone I know, including me. Through her confidante, Stingo, to whom she pours out her darkest secrets over the summer of ’47, Sophie takes us back to her youth in Cracow, Poland. She weaves us through her experiences during World War II that saw her lose everything that she held dear. In her faltering English, supplemented by French and German phrases, she takes Stingo and I through those difficult years of her l

Love... and Psychosis

We all have our demons, some darker than others. Some easier to exorcise than others... to each their own. We try to hide them from those we care about, those that look up to us.... those whose opinions matter. We try to hold them at arm's length, to keep them from gazing into our eyes and seeing the demons trapped within. But once in a while... once in a lifetime, perharps, we run into that person who won't listen. That one who won't stay at arm's length... That one who holds your face and stares right into your eyes... right at your demons... and forces you to look at the demons hidden within their own eyes. And when we find them... that one person, then we finally realize that we are not alone... that we need not hide anymore... that finally someone understands us. Some days the demons rage and roar... and it is hell. But that person still remains there. On other days we feel as if we can't stand their demons. We allow ourselves to drift

To my Little Lioness

I am a sucker for letters. I wish people still wrote them more often. Well, this here was inspired by this.  Dear Aria, First off, let’s be clear that your name is Aria… and not Beyoncé or Rihanna as your father may be deluded into thinking. Your name is as beautiful as music (it actually means ‘A long, accompanied song for a solo voice, typically one in an opera or oratorio’) but let’s pretend that I was deep and philosophical enough to come up with that on my own. If you aren’t the pretty, prima-donna type of little girl, then you can tell everyone that your name means ‘lioness’… because it does. Aria, by now you must know that mommy loves words… reading them and writing them. That’s why we will take on adventures to solve mysteries with The Famous Five; we will get creeped out by the horrors of Goosebumps on many a night… and when you have been a really good girl, we’ll step out of this mundane muggle world and see what’s been happening in Hogwarts. Who knows, by t

Notable Suicide Notes

I am not a whiner… not even when my weekend already looks bleak yet it’s barely begun. Tomorrow I have a lunch date with mom and her sisters which will definitely get out of hand… but not even that will make me whiny. Instead, I choose to count my blessings. Life could be MUCH worse. I mean, look at all the people to whom life has dealt such a hard blow that they see little point in moving on… look at Huddah.     Suicidal people make me feel sad when I think of what they must have gone through to get to that point of their lives where they feel as if they have nothing left to live for, not even death. But it’s even sadder when they botch up the whole suicide thing… or worse yet botch up the suicide note/ famous last words bit.  Some of these will make you sadder... but others will make your day. Here goes...

The Great Gatsby

Like so many other girls my age, I avidly watch Pretty Little Liars for the fashion. Troian Bellisario (Spencer), Shay Mitchelle (Emily), Ashley Benson (Hanna) and  Lucy Hale (Aria) have better fashion sense than any other TV characters that I have ever seen. I especially love everything about Aria Montgomery... so it goes without saying that when she dressed up as Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby for Halloween, I knew that I HAD to read The Great Gatsby. And last weekend, I finally did. Aria, dressed as Daisy Buchanan The Great Gatsby is a 20th Century classic by F. Scott Fitzgerald that centers around a certain Jay Gatsby and his love for one Daisy Buchanan. The story is told by Nick Carraway, Daisy's cousin, who moved East to forge a life as a bondsman ( a highly unflattering term to describe an investment analyst). He hopes to experience life in the East and all it has to offer so he rents a house on Long Island rather than living right in New York City. As fortune woul

Of Dreams Deferred... Withered, Dried up Dreams.

So I FINALLY got round to watching Nairobi Half Life... yes, yes I know... how unpatriotic of me. In my defense, I have been looking for the DVD for the longest time. Some of my friends had the movie in their laptops but tech not-so-savvy me can’t even begin to grapple with the intricacies of LAN cables and such. I finally got a version that was only 1.33 GB that I could transfer using my flash disk. That said, I am fully aware that my opinion of the movie is highly belated but all the same, here goes... I fell in love with Mwas at first sight. How does one not fall for that boyish grin? I laughed at his wit; was angered by the injustice he faced... and when he was beyond hope, I wept silently. At the end of the movie I felt ‘soft’, for lack of a better word. This story, about how uncaring and cold the world is, touched a raw nerve somewhere within me. The saddest bit of the movie wasn’t the fact that almost all the characters that I had grown attached to died... the saddes