Saturday Snapshot- 30-07-16

Hey guys! How are you doing? Today I am going to be continuing with the mini-series of Kerala! Enjoy!

The Vadakkunnathan temple I had mentioned in my last post. This is how it looks from the outside

These tree's were part of a rubber plantation. They all are leaning towards the sun's direction!

A banana flower!

On the way up to a Hillstation- Munnar

A visibility of Zero! We had no idea whatsoever about the road ahead of us... What an adventure it was, while finding our way to the Hotel!

Saturday Snapshot- 23-07-16

Hey guys! This is my first Saturday Snapshot after a really long time... 

I am starting a mini-series for my trip to Southern India, Kerala! 

A thin sheet of clouds...

A small dam in the hills! It looks like a road cutting through 2 different ecosystems...

A beautiful lake in the calm of the day...

Various huts like these, were placed in the Vadakkunathan temple. It's 1000 years old! It's a classic example of Kerala's style of architecture. There were many mural's inside as well depicting the stories of an Indian epic- Mahabharata. It has also been declared as the National Monument of India! 

A beautiful waterfall cutting through the mountain...

Enjoy Your weekend!

Round Square- part 1

Hello again people, how are you guys doing?
Today, I am going to talk about Round Square, and my recent experience attending it...
Since this is going to be a really big post, I am going to divide it into three parts- What is round square, the first half of the conference I attended, and then the second half...

Round Square is a worldwide network of schools associated in more than 40 countries, across five continents.
It was based on the educational ideology of Mr. Kurt Hahn, who founded two of its original member schools, in Germany and Scotland respectively.
Round Square has a holistic approach to the IDEALS.
They are the six pillar's that support Round Square. They include Internationalism, Democracy, Environment, Adventure, Leadership and Service.
Another important part of the conference is the theme- A statement on which the entire conference would revolve on...
After the theme would come the Barraza sessions and the Keynote speakers. Barraza sessions are group discussions, on the speech of the key note speaker- who would give his/ her own opinion on the theme. This gives the students an opportunity to look at the statement from many opinions and from different angles.
Activities, Key note speakers, Barraza Sessions, all revolve around the theme!

With all these various aspect's, I believe that the Round Square Conference is truly a very diverse and a very unique learning experience, one that cannot be forgotten any time soon...

Goodreads 2016 reading challenge

Hey guys! Today I'm here with a post on The Goodreads 2016 reading challenge. It's basically a annual challenge held by Goodreads, to motivate reader's to read more books. All you have to do is pledge a certain number of books that you want to achieve by the end of the year, and you are ready to go! Every time you start a book, you have to enter it on Goodreads, and it would add it on to your challenge!

I think it is a great way of exploring books, cherishing them, and recording them. Scroll down, and you can find my progress on the challenge so far, and do let me know how many books you have read and what you think  about the challenge, in the comment section below!
I would recommend all of you guys to register, and if you do want to register, you can click on the link above... What are you waiting for?

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Hello guys! I'm back with another review today- Landline, by Rainbow Rowell. Unlike other blogger’s, I don’t really like writing a summary of the book, cause it just spoils the book for the reader- and believe me, it has ruined so many books for me. So I am going to tell you about it from the reader’s perspective.

The story revolves around the life of the main character- Georgie and a magic phone. It also includes the entire romantic theme, that you would usually see and expect in a Rainbow Rowell book. However, it also deals with how one can often be so passionate with their work, that they forget things that are far more important- family. 

Firstly, I liked how Rowell created the plot. I enjoyed the many flashbacks Georgie got. They showed a completely different side and phase to her. I wish that the book showed the thought's of more than just one character. Like how Rowell wrote "Carry on", I think and I hope that other reader's would agree with me, this book could have been taken to a completely different level, as you could dwell into the thought's of the other character's as well.  

However, in a way, I also love it the way it is. By not revealing the thoughts of the other character's, she has allowed and encouraged the reader to dwell into a another world completely. It helps them to predict, and make their own minds about the story as it progresses. Thus, it added a new and prominent effect on the reader.

That's not all- The first thing I noticed when I started the novel, was that there was a lack of stereotypes. It contradicted many global stereotypes. For example: Georgie's best friend wasn't a girl, but actually a boy! Georgie, who was a girl, wanted to be a comedian! It was the lady in the house who went for work, not the man. 

Rowell actually pressed on these matter's very seriously, writing about the faults in our society, and motivated the reader to understand the difference in everyone's lifestyle.

With just the right blend of comedy, love and fantasy, Rainbow Rowell's "Landline", is truly worth it...

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Hello guys! I'm here with a review today- Carry on, by Rainbow Rowell. Okay, so firstly, it’s a sequel to fangirl- who’s character’s are obsessed with a series that revolves around a fictional character, Simon Snow. What is interesting is that Fangirl is a fictional book, with another fictional book inside it! Simon Snow didn’t actually exist (But neither did the character’s in fangirl- This is really confusing…), that is, until Rainbow Rowell wrote the book “Carry on”,  which is basically about Simon Snow’s, “Magickal World”. You don’t really have to read Fangirl to understand Carry On (I didn’t), since it is a great and a unique book altogether…

The book is a YA fiction, fantasy. Again- it revolves around the magical world. This was the part I dint completely like, but was unique altogether- It was so similar yet so distinct to Harry Potter. Everything from the chosen one, to the 3 main character’s, the plot, were all quite similar and relatable to the Harry Potter series. However, Rainbow Rowell has succeeded in gifting it with a much more modernized theme. With action packed adventure, and the appropriate amount of romance, thrill and humor, this “Magickal novel”, was truly a great read, that didn’t disappoint...

I couldn't have done it alone- Nirupa Reading Foundation

My latest post gave a very brief outline on the new project that I have under-taken. To summarize, I helped build a library for the under privileged in a government school. This is just a short post, acknowledging the one's who made all of this possible...

However, I didn't and couldn't have done it alone. A foundation that is soon to become a NGO, I helped the Nirupa Reading Foundation.
It was made by a group of friends, in the memory of a energetic, perky and a peppy girl, who sadly died of cancer in 2015. It's goal is to make libraries in India, and has successfully made 2 so far... I am hoping to help flourish it's most recent one...

These guys are actually taking the initiative of helping other's- and I am sure, somewhere out there- kids are passionate for reading, but just don't have the resources.... These guys and many others like them are hoping to give kids like these the greatest gift, a book...
...and I am willing to be a part of it... Wouldn't you?

My new project...

Hey guys! I am back with a new post! This one is about a new project that I am working on. But first I want to tell you guys about some more interesting things...

Firstly I want you guys to know that I love community service! My first motivation towards doing it is a program followed in our school known as IGCA and the GCA.
The "Global Citizens Award" was first introduced to us in primary school- it was a award where we had to reflect on all our events, and recall what we did to make a world a better place. It was a simple, but a rather creative idea...

The "International Global Citizen's Award" was first introduced to us in middle school. It was initiated by "Mr. Boyd Roberts", and promotes the IGCA world wide. In the IGCA program, we have to implement our learnings and make a change. From there came in the aspect of community service. I am currently doing the silver program, which requires one to do at least 16 hour's of community service. It is a great platform for engaging a student into doing something better for the world, one tiny step at a time...

The projects that our taken up vary a lot, from making an NGO, to educating people with less resources.
In my project, I helped in building a library for kids in a government school. It was truly a great experience, from waiting tirelessly for books for donation, to spending some more time cataloging them, talking and interacting with the kids and engaging them, but still just moving one tiny step forward...  

Big Book summer challenge!

Hey guys! I was recently told about the Big Book Challenge, by one of my friends, Poem Fanatic and I have been following the Big Book summer challenge for quite some time now, and I was very fascinated by it. It is hosted by BookbyBook. Its basically a challenge that encourages readers like us, to read newer and bigger books, as well as something that makes us go to our shelves, pick up a book we didn't get the time to read before, and read it! It's a great way to spend your summer and you have enough time, like 2 months! The rules are really simple. You only need to read one book which consists of 400+ pages from May 27 to September 5th. That's still more than 1 and a half months left! I hope all of you would participate!

I am done with 2 Big books so far- The first being “The fifth Wave”, by Rick Yancey. It was a great book- one which I really loved. I like to think of it like this: "All of us are so ignorant in our lives that we don't empathize or understand the suffering of people who don't directly effect us- That is, until we suffer ourselves. When we are hit by a catastrophe, we die by millions, but Yancey tells us that it is nothing but a perpetual drop in the Human population. Even in the real world, so many deaths occur every day, due to protests, wars, terrorists, but we don't really understand that we have to fight unified and extinguish a problem." That however, is my perspective to it. The main storyline is based on how Cassie and Evan, team up to survive "The Fifth wave", of a alien attack. Catch more of it on it's review, sometime this week.

“Carry on”, by Rainbow Rowell was the second. I have got to say, this book was "top-of-the-notch", and one of Rowell's best! However there were a few pro's and con's that I noticed. 

The book was really fun, and was a good read. The story revolved around Simon Snow, and his friends, in a constant fight to defeat the Insidious Humdrum.  The characters were also very dynamic, and the novel had a good combo. of romance, magic and humour. It is also a great book if you are looking to start reading YA fiction.

It was kind of slow and kind of dull in the beginning. But it did pick up pace when Baz was officially introduced. It also felt like a ludicrous premise of the Harry Potter series. I mean, the entire chosen one, "school of Magic", and the character's felt very closely linked to Harry Potter. I was also a bit disappointed by the ending, where Simon loses all his magic, and I am hoping for a sequel, cause I don't really like cliffhangers...

So, to conclude, it was a good read, and I do recommend this book, but I feel that it had a great potential, and I am also hoping for a sequel. (So many people would disagree with me right now but this was my opinion on it...)

I also decided to start “The knife of never letting go” (Patrick Ness), but I never got the motivation to read after the first chapter. The beginning didn’t strike me like other books do… It may be the style of writing, or the fact that it leaves you on a cliffhanger. Anyway, I am keeping that book in store for later. 

Also- I am going to be posting regularly now and I have tons of stuff to share with you! So stay tuned!