Dear Axero,

I already love your music but I understand it a lot more on on truffles I feel like I am literally inside the music.

I didn't choose you, you chose me. It all became clear last Friday. Everyone of your song is a reason.

Axero is the best trip sitter. He keeps it chill. The best.

2013, you smell good.

So it's the end of 2012, what do I have to say for myself?

Well, it's been a great year. I've finally fulfilled my bucket list of backpacking in Europe and I did good.
The bad news is I caught a disease from the trip, the travel bug.
So, yes, I've altered my life plans to accomodate my hedonistic nomadic lifestyle (ethical of course)
to the dismay of my parents.
What the hell!?!
You only live once.

2013, you are my lucky year. I can smell it.

This will be the year I do whatever the hell I want!

Maybe He's Out There

On my next voyage for peace, I meet him – the one who sets my heart on fire.

A person who perpetually gives you that feeling, that warm fuzzy feeling kind like butterflies in your stomach but much better - day and night.
That one person who puts the widest grin on your face the moment you wake up and is there again in your thoughts right before you doze off to sleep.
Constant happiness that makes you feel like you can explode any moment all the time.

Can you imagine. . .a love like that?

My pursuit

These days periodically I'd see myself in a moment, a flash, a downward spiral; Relapsing into what was once an empty hole in my mentality. Feeling alone like no one understands me or atleast does not want to sympathize with my situation. Passion is a drug itself. Pleasurable moments that you never want to end. When it does, sadness, despair, a knot settles in your stomach and you yearn, you ache, to make that pain go away. You'd do almost anything to be at that happy place again. It's in the mind, in the body. We are conscious over it but why should we resist? Quote: If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad. This is my pursuit of happiness.

EPORUE-EVOL-I

Some people find love early, some late; For me, I found love at twenty-five.
It took me seven years to finally pull a Eurotrip.

Why? Well, I didn't have the money to do it right before college and got stuck being a college nerd for five years.

"Well, atleast it happened." I tell myself.
So now I can proudly use my carefully thought up screen names: scruffybackpacker and surreptitioustraveler, without feeling like a phony wannabe.
The self inflicting hate that has been growing like a tumor inside fueled by amazing travel stories - stories of others - has been appeased and my love for this magnificent world is growing.

I love the Louvre, not for it's artifacts or paintings or sculptures but for the atmosphere it gives at night allowing Francois the street musician to magically transform me back to an age where I haven't been, an era where love and music transforms the mind into something human.

The trip changed me and I came back a completely new person.
From Salsa dancing in Rome, stealing a pizza in Barcelona, hooking up in the dark alleys of Venice, crying at the sight of Florence, to trying some Parisian cocaine, I aged years in just one month.

Sparrows, and even a pigeon, ate grain from my hand at the Notre Dame.
I got to dunk my feet in the mediterranean sea, made out with a soldier from Israel and a night of crazy dancing led to an unexpected kiss from a French cutie who lost my lighter.

I'm already planning my next trip.

Hunger Games

So my 2nd book review is going to be The Hunger Games.. I guess

I started off hardly intersted in the books but then the movie hype finally caught up to me as well so I bought a copy to read during my birthday trip to Surathani.

If you sum up the main ideas of who did what in as few words as you can, the movie would be very similar to battle royale; a bunch of people chosen to fight to the death in an arena full of weapons and obstacles. Only one will survive

But what The Hunger Games differ is that the " Hunger Games" is a political tool (not just pure S&M) designed to keep the 12 districts of a future country set out in the distant 22nd century (once known as north america) in line and remind them of the misfortune that had befallen the late 13th district.
Instead having thousands of people die each district sends in a male and a femal tribute to the capitol each year to fight to the death and so on.

"... Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games."

I enjoyed Catching Fire as much as the Hunger games. I really was trying to imagine what she could possibly do to maintain the suspense of the story but she did it extremely well. Even the arena was insane.

"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors"
The sophistication of the arena is hands down well thought up.

So what didn't I like about it? Well, (many other reviewers agree as well that) there were way too many unnescessary casualties.

Finnick.

Finnick "Stud muffin" Odair.

The book describes him as "Tall, athletic, with golden skin and bronze-coloured hair and those incredible [sea-green] eyes" and Katniss says he is unarguably one of the most stunning, sensuous people on the planet.

How can you not love him? With the charming smile, the incredible athleticism and the soft character behind all that!
His death (I, myself too horrified to verbalize the specifics of it) was truly underserving.


Yeah we all know there was a war in Mockingjay and everything but come on! our main character, Katniss, volunteered to take Prim (her sister)'s place in the games to basically save her life.

But in the end, it didn't matter!!!

Prim got blown to smitherines towards the end of the war. She died less than a year after Katniss's entering the first Hunger Games. I felt like Katniss's primary motive literally died in vain.

So I am now left questioning the message of this book.
What the hell is it?
Is it telling us that fate is inevitable?
It's useless to protect the one we love?

This book is very very dark for Y.A.
I have no doubt that many kids will feel be left confused, drained, and hopeless for a couple of hours after finishing Mockingjay, the last sequel.

So the BIG shocker (I think I had goodbumps and had to reread it a second time) was when rebel president Coin said

"What has been proposed is that in lieu of eliminating the entire Capitol population, we have a final, symbolic Hunger Games,"

Way to put a damper on the youth of today's hopes by saying no matter how shitty things get, it can always get shittier.



And what about Gale? He didn't even say bye! He just...left. After all he's been through with Katniss that's how their five year friendship ends?
Okay, the writer kinda saved it in the last page with Katniss realizing her love for Peeta was what she needed all along.

     Peeta   and   I  grow   back   together.  There  are  still

moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs

on until the flashbacks are over.  I wake screaming from

nightmares of mutts and lost children.   But his arms are

there  to  comfort  me. And  eventually  his  lips. On  the

night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me

on the beach,  I know this would have happened anyway.

That  what I  need to  survive is not  Gale's  fire, kindled

with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I

need  is  the  dandelion  in  the spring. The  bright yellow

that  means  rebirth  instead of  destruction. The promise

that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it

can  be  good  again. And  only  Peeta  can give  me  that.

      So after, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not

real?"
      I tell him "Real."

So...I've discovered this cool new secondhand bookstore about two weeks ago and my nose has been buried ever since.

The first one I finished was The Kite Runner since there were no sequels to it I'd figure I could just "get it over with".

The overall plot was great, moving. Not many books have made me shed tears but the loyalty and the devotion was soo supreme, admirable.

The writing style was sort of confusing. I do agree that the random foreign words was taken way to far.

Eventhough I've finished it over a week ago, I still haven't sold it back yet because there are some good parts that I wanted to go back to


"
...Ali was immune to the insults of his assailants; he had found his joy, his antidote, the moment Sanaubar had given birth to Hassan...even in birth, Hassan was true to his nature: He was incapable of hurting anyone. A few grunts, a couple of pushes, and out came Hassan. Out he came smiling. (10)

Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.
Mine was Baba.
His was Amir. My name. (11)

If there's a God out there, then I would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork. Now, hop now. All this talk about sin has made me thirsty again. (18)

By the time I dragged myself out of bed and lumbered to the bathroom, Hassan had already washed up, prayed the morning namaz with Ali, and prepared my breakfast: hot black tea with three sugar cubes and a slice of toasted naan topped with my favorite sour cherry marmalade, all neatly placed on the dining table. While I ate and complained about homework, Hassan made my bed, polished my shoes, ironed my outfit for the day, packed my books and pencils. I'd hear him singing to himself in the foyer as he ironed, singing old Hazara songs in his nasal voice. Then, Baba and I drove off in his black Ford Mustang - a car that drew envious looks everywhere because it was the same car Steve McQueen has driven in Bullitt, a film that played in one theater for six months. Hassan Stayed home and helped Ali with the day's chores: hand-washing dirty clothes and hanging them dry in the yard, sweeping the floors, buying fresh naan from the bazaar, marinating meat for dinner, watering the lawn. (27)

Over the years, I had seen a lot of guys run kites. But Hassan was by far the greatest kite runner I'd ever seen. It was downright eerie the way he always got to the spot the kite would land before the kite did,

He whirled around, motioned with his hand. "This way!" he called before dashing around another corner. I looked up, saw that the direction we were running was opposite to the one the kite was drifting.
"We're losing it! We're going the wrong way!" I cried out.
"Trust me!" I heard him call up ahead.

"What are we doing here?" I panted, my stomach rolling with nausea.
He smiled. "Sit with me Amir Agah."

I dropped next to him, lay on a thin patch of snow, wheezing. "You're wasting our time. It was going the other way, didn't you see?"

Hassan popped a mulberry in his mouth. "It's coming," he said.
"How do you know?" I said.
"I know."

"Here it comes," Hassan said, pointing to the sky. He rose to his feet and walked a few paces to his left. I looked up, saw the kite plummeting towards us. I heard footfalls, shouts, an approaching melee of kite runners. But they were wasting their time. Because Hassan stood with his arms wide open, smiling, waiting for the kite. And may God - if He exists, that is - strike me blind if the kite didn't just dropped into his outstretched arms. (52-55)

"Hassan!" I called. "Come back with it!"
He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "For you a thousand times over!" he said. The he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner. The next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph. (67)

"


I personally like the first half better.