I tried cooking my sister

I found the small stool I used to reach the sink when I brush my teeth and placed it down in front of me. I could now reach everything I needed. The fiery circles mum puts the pots on, the big wooden spoons and carrots. I climbed on top of the counter and put everything I needed in front of me.

Then I saw her. She thought smiling and kicking her feet would change her fate but not today. She took all of mum’s attention by screaming and crying whenever she felt like it. I no longer had story time because mum was too tired from looking after her all day. She also got more presents than me last Christmas.

Today that would all change.

I tried to make the fiery circles work. I didn’t know all of the dials and buttons mum used to make it work. It looked like a spaceship and I didn’t have any training for that so I had to find another way to complete my plan.

I walked over to my sister and tried to pick her up. I thought babies were meant to be small? Carrying her felt like the holding all my school books at once. I didn’t want to hurt her so I put her down and she stumbled her way into the kitchen.

I opened the oven and she gleefully climbed in. I put the carrots in for flavour since that’s what happens in all the movies and waited.

My mum warned me against having cookies when she wasn’t around but she was sleeping this time – so it was kind of ok, right? I thought so. I climbed onto the counter and tried opening the cupboard where she kept them but the worst thing possible happened. They fell onto the floor.

She shot up from her bed, rushed downstairs and caught me staring at the cookie jar that was smashed to pieces. I tried running past her but she blocked the doorway and asked me where my sister was.

My plan was falling apart.

After she took my sister out of the oven, I ran upstairs to hide under the covers in the hope that she’d forget about everything. She didn’t.

I expected to hear “You’re grounded forever!” or “You’re never allowed to eat in this house again!” Instead she walked into my room and said:

“You didn’t turn the oven on.”

I wasn’t allowed any cookies for a whole week.

***

26/08/13: This also relates to a daily prompt :) However, I’m not sure I would call myself a comedian.

What is good health?

Good health is something we quickly take for granted.

We always see doctors, friends, family members and even adverts promoting exercise, healthy eating and good sleep. We also come across those who have been in unfortunate accidents or those who are born with disabilities that affect their lives everyday. But we never expect it to happen to us, do we? We may buy trainers and promise ourselves that we will go jogging or sign up for that gym membership one day.

But I’m healthy. What do I need to change?

Being healthy isn’t confined to being in the gym every waking hour of the day or trying diets that require you to starve yourself. To me, it involves trying to become the best versions of ourselves. Whether that is through meditating, improving our ability to write or even something as simple as going for a walk and spending some time alone.

Good health is important and we should always try to improve both the physical and mental. We never know when our health could be affected in an adverse way. I didn’t but it won’t stop me from being as healthy as I can.

What does health mean to you?

***

I liked this challenge because my health is partly why I wanted to try blogging. My physical health isn’t the best right now but instead of letting the pain and discomfort turn me into an extremely bitter person, I’m trying to improve all areas of my life now. I no longer take good health for granted.

Fahrenheit 451: A Review

When it comes to reading books children can, for the most part, be split into two groups – those who love to read and those who would rather eat bugs for breakfast than read voluntarily. I guess I can say that I fell into the first group because feeling the presence of Dementors in my room or experiencing what it would be like to be a teen spy was fun. Nowadays, I read less fiction but continue to see people dismiss reading as a useless activity or even take pride in never reading!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury explores a society in which books are illegal, books are burnt and is a story of how censorship wins over the search for knowledge. Guy Montag is a fire-fighter but instead of putting out fires, he creates them. Kerosene has become a symbol of suppression whereas before this dystopia, water would free and relieve people. Montag, as most people, continued this job without considering its implications or acting to stop it. To him, it was normal. It was the right thing to do. After all, it would be near impossible to fight against this policy singlehandedly.

This was until he met Clarisse McLellan. Clarisse is a 17 year old that seems quite out of place in this society. Instead focusing solely on work, she enjoys nature. She strikes me as the person that would often frustrate teachers by asking too many questions or raising issues that can’t be satisfied with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. She raised two simple questions for Montag to answer: ‘Do you ever read the books you burn?’ and ‘are you happy?’ Of course he dismisses the first question by emphasising that it is illegal to read books but now he begins to ask himself questions about the actions he commits. If books are the source of unhappiness in this society, why is he now unsatisfied with himself? His new behaviour is noticed by his boss and wife and he knows just how dangerous these feelings can be. Despite his efforts to hide his feelings, it is clear that his behaviour is out of the ordinary.

As you probably noticed in the short summary of the book; important themes are touched upon. The main one being censorship. Such acts have been attempted before in the modern world. For example, there was book burning from 1930 to 1940 by the Nazi Government, the destruction of libraries in Poland, China and Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In fact, attempted censorship is not limited in the slightest by the time period in anyway. It spans thousands of years. While the policy of censorship will probably never cease in any sphere of the world, I feel that Bradbury hints at a bigger issue.

Source: goodreads.com

Could we be doing this to ourselves? I don’t mean this to be a sensationalist assertion but an observation. Media is inescapable. We can be connected to everything and everyone at a mere click of a button and it is rather difficult to separate ourselves from it. As the internet takes up more and more of our lives we are both exposed to more information and more at risk of being forced into a corner of dogma. We begin to see more of the character that dislikes reading and forming her own opinion because we are bombarded day and night by adverts and over the top reality television. We see less of the person that does her best to form opinions on important issues because it is so easy to avoid doing otherwise.

Fahrenheit 451 is well written and raises important issues worthy of attention. My only criticism is that I did not get a big idea of how engaged Montag was in his job before Clarisse showed up.

I’m not asking anyone to become an aggressive revolutionary but to consider the problem and learn more about various attempts at censorship that have been made in the past.

***

My efforts to improve slowly will involve reading more and later reviewing them. If you have anything to share about the book or my review, let me know!

The next book on my list is ‘Replay’ by Ken Grimwood.

Weekly Writing Challenge: I remember

The clouds were dark and a soft breeze stroked the grass. Maybe it would rain. The weather was unpredictable but right now; it was perfect. I took a slow jog out of the changing room, heard the familiar cheer of my teammates behind me and the daunting stare of my coach greeted me at the top of the pitch. He never said much, but his general stance gave me an impression of fear, respect and comfort.

He wished our team luck and we went on our way to play one of the most important matches of the year.

It started as a high energy encounter. Both teams fought for that oval shaped ball as if their lives depended on it. There was blood, shouting from the small crowd of friends and parents, encouragement from friends. Most importantly, I was on top of the world. Running towards the try line with only winning on my mind gave me a feeling that I cannot replicate. I felt at peace despite being among so much destruction.

Peace among destruction. A wonderful state I have yet to experience again. One poor tackle made that so. I was left to watch the match on the sideline in pain as I struggled to walk again.

It took a few months to understand what had happened. But I’m reminded of it everyday. One of the most important matches of the year turned into the most significant match of my life.

I wasn’t to play the sport again.

***

I wasn’t expecting that to be my second post but it was an interesting challenge. You can get a lot done in ten minutes! Do you have any important memories you want to share?

Here is a link to the challenge.

An introduction: Why I’m here.

I woke up late. Again. This time by one hour instead of three but it still used up the majority of my morning and I had work to get done. Obviously, this meant that I couldn’t go the gym that morning (or anytime that day) because I didn’t want to be tired all day since that would simply stop me from doing anything productive. I’ll go tomorrow. I promise.

I wrote a list of goals that I wanted to achieve by the end of the week and took a short while to remember why I’m doing this: I want to become better. While I wasn’t in the worst position in the world, I wasn’t satisfied. In fact, I was very disappointed. I found myself continuously focusing on the negative instead of celebrating the positive – possibly because I couldn’t find much. But don’t worry, I’ll try changing that today. I promise.

I promise.

This was me a few months ago and not much has changed since then. Many broken promises and failed goals later. Rather than spending my time reading about how to improve myself, I have decided to make an example of myself instead. This way I’ll have a way to keep a log of my progress as a person. But more importantly, I’ll hopefully help people that either feel like they see themselves in my position or simply want a way to become a better version of themselves.

How will I do this? 

Slowly. Overnight success can take years.

My posts will show things that I’ve learnt and positive pieces I wish to share. For example, you’ll read reviews of books I’ve read, explanations of things I’ve been learning and my opinions on topics I want to write about. Maybe some poorly written stories too.

This is subject to change though. It’s a personal blog after all but you’ll see how it develops along with me.

Maybe it’ll be entertaining too.