Several Milestones- One Post

Here we go with my Academy Award acceptance speech-

I have reached a milestone both in my experience as a blogger and as a student. ‘A Fresh Outlook‘ has recently crossed a hundred followers! When I started blogging, I had one email follower, my friend, Katie, in the United States. This number has grown to over a hundred now, implying that I have been able to assimilate into this beautiful WordPress community of thought-provoking ideas. This experience of blogging is an ongoing one and every day, there’s something new and delightful to read! Thank you all for your continued love and support!

As a student, I’ve reached the culmination of my tenth grade finals, (affectionately called Board Exams by the student body in India). 😂 This is the first major academic milestone of my life, and I’ve made it through with extensive support from my parents and teachers.

The task of simply making it through each exam, day by day, was arduous and now, it has come to a point where just the fact that the exams have reached an end is enough to give a feeling of excessive gratification, before the anticipation of the results sets in…;)

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank superheroes009 for nominating me for my first Sunshine Blogger Award and Rida Yumn Ahmed for nominating me for my second Sunshine Blogger Award.

End of Academy Award acceptance speech. 😂

(I have combined the two award nominations in one post to create a more comprehensive set of answers).

Sunshine Blogger Award #1-Nomination by superheroes009– Questions and Answers-

1. What does the name of your blog stand for?

-My blog’s name stands for my perception of the society we live in. It’s a series of unrelated articles that I write on the spur of the moment. Nothing elaborate or deeply meaningful. Uhhh….Sometimes, I wish I could be Shakespeare.

2. What’s the one thing that makes you feel amazing about yourself?

-I can’t answer this without indulging in self-praise, can I? I guess, the best thing about me is that I’m not a rebellious teenager….

“This comes too near the praising of myself; therefore no more of it…”–Portia (The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare, Act III, Scene 4)

Thank you, ICSE English Literature. I can’t be Shakespeare, but I can quote him.

3. What are your hobbies other than blogging?

-I love learning languages, especially French. I aim to be fluent in it.. Along with that, I’m a full-time student. I like following Donald Trump’s antics as well.

4. What/Who is your source of inspiration or motivation?

-Helen Keller is my inspiration; I cannot even begin to describe a deaf-blind woman who overcame all deterrents to emerge as one of the most versatile and self-reliant people of the twentieth-century. Her versatility ranged from performing onstage to writing to charity work and fundraising.

5. Describe yourself in six words.

-I am sociable but mostly introverted. (I was trying my best to stretch that sentence. Honestly, I really do not know).

6. Do you think your current leader or government is propelling the country in the right direction?

-Yes, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is performing decently under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP members are intrinsically nationalistic in their approach and I disagree with their jingoism, but I think they are economically quite a progressive party. Their economic moves, especially demonetisation, introduction of GST (Goods and Services Tax), though poorly implemented by the administrative officers, were probably flawless action plans on paper.

Coming to the ‘intense nationalism‘ propagated by the party, I think that this is a problem which plagues the entire world right now. Nationalism is good to the extent where it helps in constructive nation-building programmes, but jingoism is flawed and only builds hatred for other communities. So, BJP should change in that sense by giving up its extremely pro-Hindu stance. And the Indian National Congress (the Opposition Party) should focus on staying secular and stop all the minority appeasement, which they do only to obtain votes, not with any good intentions. The British focused on minority appeasement when they ruled over India, and now the Congress is doing it.

7. Name any of your five favorite movies.

English-
Pixar is truly the most amazing thing that has ever happened to the world of filmmaking.

1. Toy Story trilogy (especially Toy Story 3)
2. Ratatouille (This ties in with my interest in the French culture and I think the movie is seriously underrated)
3. The Dark Knight
4. Baby’s Day Out- (Yes, I’m sorry, but I loved it!)
5. Dunkirk (I really liked the lack of spoken dialogue in this film. I think watching the movie in IMAX really enhanced the experience).

Get Smart (Steve Carell) was probably the first Hollywood movie I watched; I was five or six at the time, didn’t understand anything, but loved the slapstick comedy.

Hindi-
1. Dangal
2. Rang de Basanti (I enjoy social issues portrayed in a unique perspective)
3. Airlift (Tells the story of the real-life civilian evacuation of 170,000 Indians living in Kuwait when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. It was the largest-ever civilian evacuation in history and was carried out by Air India….My mom and i both adore this movie).
4. Lagaan- (Finally, a movie which makes cricket even remotely interesting)
5. Hindi Medium- (A parody of the current state of the Indian education system, very intelligently scripted)

8. Name any songs you’re hooked onto.

-Anything by A.R. Rahman or Coldplay. My dad introduced me to music. He likes ghazals, couplets with an intricate rhyme scheme, sung by Jagjit Singh and written by Mirza Ghalib (my dad even learned Urdu for this). So, at age seven, I asked him if there’s anything better in the world of music, (normally, seven-year-olds don’t enjoy ghazals). 😂 That’s how it all began.

9. What’s your idea of a healthy friendship?

-A healthy friendship is one where both friends don’t have any expectations from each other. I don’t have much experience here…

10. What is one message you want to convey to your readers?

-Start writing. It’s fun.

Sunshine Blogger Award #2- Nomination by Rida Yumn Ahmed– Open-ended Prompt-

“Haters will see you walking on water and say it’s because you can’t swim.”

-This is a great question for an essay, but I have just a simple response. Don’t bother too much about what haters or followers think, you can’t keep everyone happy. I’m currently in the fast downward-spiraling vortex of trying to please everyone and it’s not fun down here. The only person you are accountable to is yourself and let the negativity of the haters be channelized into positive energy.

The question initially prompted me to think of Moses for some reason…Anyway, thanks for the nomination and the beautiful prompt!

My Nominees (For the same set of questions):

1. Zankhana Goyal
2. KraftingThoughts

All readers of this post are also nominated. 😊