A daughter's present to her father

All daughters are their father's girls. I have not met a single girl who doesn't want to be in the good books of her dad. The relationship a father and daughter share is something different. It's unique in its own way. They may fight, they may reconcile, do mischief together, wreck the house, trouble mom, basically do everything together. So, for my father's birthday I decided to write him a poem which goes like this. Happy birthday dad! 

Father 

From the day I was born,

To the day I die,

I will always be my father's daughter, 

The only girl by his side. 

He was my tooth fairy,

And my pirate.

The king of my kingdom,

And my official pilot. 

We had our fights,

We had our laughs.

How we used to trouble mother,

Every time using the same path. 

I do everything to please him,

I write everything to make him proud.

I draw to show him what I'm capable of,

So that one day, he can hold his head up high in a crowd. 

I can do anything for him,

Anything that will make him say "well done".

I'm ready to go through anything,

Just to hear him say, that's my girl up there. 

Time management- A necessary skill for the twenty first century

Time and tide wait for none. A student studying for his examination probably understands this phrase more than anyone else. No matter how many days of prep leave you get, you're always tensed about the exam, always feeling that you've done less, always thinking you're going to get a bad score. Here is where time management comes to the rescue.

Time management is essential in every person's life. Be it a school-going kid, a homemaker or a stock broker, unless you've charted out your jobs and given a fixed time for them, things are going to take a turn for the worse. Talking from a student's point of view, we need to manage our work only during the "exam time". This is when all hell breaks loose. More than ten individual subjects to study, plus practical examinations and your occasional reading time, planning a schedule is the easiest way out of this labyrinth.

I believe in starting from the basics. More than the recalling time, for me, it's the reading time that matters. If I read it, I know it's in my head somewhere and I'll just have to rummage through my brain to find it. May be a bit tedious, but it works for me. So dedicate a lot of time reading. The next thing is the importance of taking a break at the right time. You may study for three continuous hours and take a break for the next hour and a half, but it simply doesn't work that way. Study for shorter durations of time, take shorter breaks and gradually lessen the amount. The final thing to do is, recalling. Recalling what you've studied is the toughest, most demanding part of this whole exercise.  Dedicate an entire day just for recalling.

Another important factor in time management is what to do during breaks, spend time on the internet, read a novel, watch television? The answer is to do something what makes you feel relaxed. The whole point of the break is to give your brain a time out for a while ans avoid it getting a short-circuit! So there it is. Decoding time management. If you get a hang of this, life would become so easy.

Put me down- Anti-bullying

Bullying is something everyone has gone through. If not something as harsh as that, you may have gone through back-stabbing, being framed for something or just being betrayed by a friend you thought was loyal to you. This poem is for all those lost souls with no hope in their eyes. An episode that happened in my life inspired me to write this.

Put me down

Knock me down,

Push me over.

Stump me and trample me,

Abuse and insult me. 

I won't fear you

If that's what you're trying to achieve,

Because I'm bigger than that.

I'm bigger than falling for your traps.

I will rise up from the ashes,

I will learn from my wounds.

My pain will go but the scars will remind me 

Of people like you in this world. 

You are petty, you are a coward.

Instead of fighting head on,

You attack after dark behind my back.

You don't deserve my tears,

You don't deserve the pain and sorrow I go through

Because of you. And if I give in to it,

Then you've won the whole game.

But, I ask you to put me down,

To make me vigilant and aware

Of people like you on this planet,

Who'll do anything for revenge. 

Put me down and see me rise,

Rise from the same fears and tears you gave.

Rise to become a better person,

Rise to become someone you can never hope to be,
Because the two of us are as different as
"Chalk" and cheese. 

Book hangover- Existential crisis overload

If you thought having a hangover is bad, trust me, having a book hangover is worse. You can't sleep it off, you can't take an aspirin to make it better. All you can do is wait, wait for another book to come into your life and inevitably lead you to another book hangover. I've gone through this first-hand.

My first experience was when I was thirteen. I had read the first two parts of the Hunger Games trilogy and was moving to the last part. I was pages away from finishing it when it suddenly dawned on me that in another few chapters I'll know the whole story, the whole conspiracy, the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale would be solved. But what do I do after that? After that sudden realisation, I read the last four chapters over four days, stretching it as much as I could. But when I reached the last page, tears started rolling down my cheeks, not because I got to know everything about the Capitol or Katniss and her relationship (no spoilers don't worry), I cried because I had finished the book. I had no idea what I'd do for the rest of my life! That's right, rest of my life. A bit dramatic, agreed, but hey I was going through a hangover! Then after a few days, when I finally got the courage to keep those three books back into the shelf, I got better. My friends helped me by suggesting a few books I could read to take my mind off the hangover and I started Percy Jackson series, which yet again led to a hangover, even worse that the one before.

The moment I read Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, I fell in love with it! Soon I had finished all the books of the series with the hope that another series would come my way and all would be fine. And that series did come! Heroes of Olympus novels were, if anything, better than the first series because in this the Romans also got involved and played a huge part in it. (Again, no spoilers) For the past one week I was reading the last novel of the series. Before I could finish half the novel I started thinking, oh no! I'm going to finish this series too! I had grown extremely fond of Rick Riordan's writing and well I didn't want it to stop (though he is writing another series). Nonetheless, I read the Blood of Olympus and completed it at 11:40pm last night. The emotional end, the thought of the series getting over and another shocking truth revealed at the end, all of these things weighed on me and I couldn't shed a single tear. It was far more painful that for what I'd cry, far more unbelievable to cry about. I was hit badly with Book Hangover Syndrome. So much so that I was in half a mind to start reading that book all over again!

I just hope I'm able to find another series that lifts me from this hangover, even if it puts me in another such situation. I'll take my chances. Until then, I'm still living in the world of Demigods.