2014 ! The Year of Survival

2014 !

Where should I start from ? I think I should address the elephant in the room. I got married. YIKES ! That still sounds shocking to me. Every time someone mentions me being married, I turn around and try to take it in. I have not succeeded in that. Yet.

A friend of mine told me to enjoy every part of my wedding process. And I did.

Damn, man ! I freaking loved every single bit of it. It was awesome.

2014 started with us changing houses. I finally got my own room but got to reside in it only for two months.

Because our next venture was the trip to Pakistan. My dad tried to convince us to order everything online and get it done with it. But I wanted to go there and do everything myself. So I went. It was two awesome months including a lot of trips, adventures, things that deserve their own writing.

2014 taught me that things do not go the way we want them to. That doesn't mean that we don't get what we want. Its just that the path leading us to them can be slightly different, sometimes longer, sometimes twisted, sometimes even straight. So do not freak out if something out of the ordinary happens to you. Just be patient and trust in Allah.

People are mean. And this is coming from the person who has been the victim of our society many times. But when you get married, this meanness is up to a whole other level.

It has taken me a lot of time to get my head wrapped around everything that has been going on and trying my best to not take everything personally.

It was the year of personal growth. I have become more patient, more accepting and tolerant. Living in a joint family teaches you a lot. You don't always get to do things the way you want. And it takes a bit of strength to not go mad. The hardest thing I have learnt is to keep my MOUTH SHUT. Oh God ! Don't even get me started on this one. I have always been the person who says whatever she wants, without thinking about it first. I do not take crap from anyone. And its so hard to keep those instincts down. To smile and keep my mouth shut when all I want to say is, what a LOAD OF CRAP ! Okay, I admit. I get it out on Abdullah. You gotta do what you gotta do to keep sane.

Also, you cannot really be sarcastic. But that's fine. I balance it out with my siblings.

The reason I did not blog about my wedding has been procrastination. Simply, because I ended up watching a lot of youtube instead of writing whenever I got the chance. Also I just did not want to write. And I am a firm believer in doing things when you want to. And yeah, I was afraid of what people would say. I got my share of sarcastic remarks, you would say, on me getting married. The ironic part is I know that I have had the same thoughts on someone getting married at 19.

Every few weeks, Abdullah asks me if my views have changed on getting married young. My answer, NO !

Why make your life hard when you have it easy ?

But that is not to say that I do not enjoy it. I have had my share of awesomeness in the past year. I have traveled a lot. I have gotten to know Abdullah better. I say this to him a lot that if you had not made it worthwhile, I would have run away a long time ago. I have made another best friend.

2014 was basically the year of survival. While I didn't reach the winning stream, I didn't drown as well. I did things on my own pace.

Basically, I survived.

....SAP....

Book Review: Against Medical Advice by James Patterson and Hal Friedman

From Goodreads: 


Cory Friedman woke up one morning when he was five years old with the uncontrollable urge to twitch his neck. From that day forward his life became a hell of irrepressible tics and involuntary utterances, and Cory embarked on an excruciating journey from specialist to specialist to discover the cause of his disease. Soon it became unclear what tics were symptoms of his disease and what were side effects of the countless combinations of drugs. The only certainty is that it kept getting worse. Simply put: Cory Friedman's life was a living hell

Published: October, 2008
Author: James Patterson, Hal Friedman
Genre: Non Fiction, Biography
My Rating: 5/5
Pages: 304

Once in a while, you read a book that leaves you so spell bounded and heart broken that you cannot even think about it. It is not just a story for you. It becomes more like a memoir. Last month I read The Fault In Our Stars and I thought to myself, I won't be reading anything this heart breaking and sobbing any time soon. And as Cory puts it, I was wrong.

I was reading something very boring and I opened James Patterson to read something different and feel the thrill of what he writes. But I had no idea that this book was life changing. I guarantee one thing. If you read this book, it will change your life. It will change the way you think about it. The way you perceive it.

Cory is a drug addict. Not the kind you are thinking right now, no. Doctors made him one. He had Tourettes Syndrome and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). In short, his mind is not in his control, let alone his body. Its worse than cancer. And reading about him trying to figure out why he is spitting on his own sister when he does not want to, will make you cry.

Cory is a legend. He has achieved things in such a young age that people do not even do in their lifetime. I salute Cory Friedman. I loved ever bit of his journey, his failures and his triumphs, his struggles with life, struggles which were not even his own creation. He just had to deal with the crap that life is. But thing is, he made the most out of it, unlike any of us. He defeated life at its own game.  He turned his fears into his wins. His life was hell and one day, something changed and he decided to turn his life around. I am actually hoping that happens to me, some switch turns on and I get to see life in a different way.

The book itself was written in a very simple way, with the narrative being Cory himself but the story was so heart breaking that it needed nothing else. The story itself was very strong and had a great impact.The best part about the book was that he enjoyed his life even through all the awkward situations he went through. And I want to ride a bike like he does, someday.

"I will survive. I will love life; if life will love me." -Cory Friedman 

...SAP... 

Book Review: The Running Man by Stephen King

Ben Richards signs up for The Running Man. What is The Running Man ? For some, it is an entertainment series and a brutal way of getting rid of the poor population. Or it is a way of earning money and feeding their family for others. But nonetheless, it is a very dangerous game in which you are on the run from the government and you get paid for every hour that you do not get caught. Unfortunately for Ben Richards, he falls in the latter category. He has a 18 month old sick daughter and a wife but no job to support this family. Now the question is, will he survive the games ? More like, how long will he last in them ? 

Published: January, 1982
Author: Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman
Genre: Dystopia, Science Fiction

Goodreads Review: The Running Man

Amazon: The Running Man

I am not a fan of Stephen King, mainly because I do not enjoy horror . But a friend forced me to read this and I loved it. It is a dystopian novel set in the future. And the way he has written the story is worth a standing ovation. Some authors portray something through meaningful quotes but I felt everything through the story itself.

Ben Richards is just another victim of the government now being used as an entertainment. The guy goes against his beliefs for his family and his whole world shatters in the end. I knew from the start what will happen to him but any other thing I really did not expect. There were so many twists and turns being thrown at me that I was processing the previous shock when I started reading another one.

The story itself is so honest portraying the life of an everyday simple man. And how poverty is really the worse things you can imagine. It is one thing to go hungry yourself but it is entirely another to see your kid starve and wait for death to knock at your door.

I salute Ben Richards courage and guts. Being a very bold girl myself, I loved that he did not give a damn shit about what others think or do, about him. He did what he had to and stuck to it, till the end. It was not a matter of his survival. It was a matter of survival of his only kid and wife.

I have to say, I had no idea how all the action was going on because for one second he is in a car, driving, the next he is threatening to blow the whole place up with a bomb, playing a buff and hijacking a plane. It was that fast but I loved it. I think Stephen King really did justice to this book.

...SAP...