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Riyadh Aviation Museum

School is  reopening  after 2 days! Aaarghh! We bought a new bag, a new water bottle and a new lunch box. Sadly, the lunch box has a Disney princess on it and it is very, very pink in colour. But I anyway figured it couldn’t go worse than that and (besides, most of the lunch boxes either had a Mickey or Minnie mouse on it) therefore I decided to live with it. I have successfully completed my holiday homework and almost misplaced them in my happiness. Anyway, teachers won’t fall for the old trick, the my-dog-ate-my-homework one. Not that I have ever tried it. Now, I can look forward to projects, homework, table tennis classes, and Math’s tuition when school reopens. We went to the Royal Saudi Air Force Museum yesterday, and I have to admit, it was super. Old-fashioned planes of all shapes and sizes were there. There were fighter planes, planes for transporting cars and stuff, unmanned aircrafts, jets, bombs, missiles etc.

Alappuzha Trip

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“Mew!” A kitten mewed when I stroked it. The other one brushed against my legs as it walked past. Their mother sat on the ground lazily, and watched the kittens lie, lick and run.  I started to stroke the other kitten and it ran between my legs. We laughed. The mother cat was named Mickey as Savithri and her family thought Mickey was a male cat and Savithri and her younger brother Shanku, ended up naming it Mickey. It was only after she gave birth to 2 kittens that they realized they Mickey wasn’t a ‘he’, but a ‘she’. Sadly, one of the kittens (Chakki) died later.   And when I visited them a second time, I saw a crow lying on one of the electric post. It had got electrocuted.  A murdered crow was surrounded by a ‘ murder of crows ’ ! Even though, that would be sad news for the crow, I was so excited. I had never seen a dead crow. Especially not one that had been electrocuted.      Two people from Mathrubumi came to intervi...

The mystery of the missing bicycle

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Rockstar Nara’s career changed into Detective Nara. He solved “The mystery of the missing bicycle”.  These were the clues: ·         There were no clues These were the notes: ·         A bicycle was missing ·         Its owner was Detective Nara’s best friend, Abhijit ·         The lock of the cycle had got broken before, making it easy for the culprit to get cycle and make a clean getaway. The funny thing is, Detective Nara solved the mystery before he knew what had happened. Curious? Astonished? Impressed? I sure was. Actually, what happened was that Nara was riding at the back of Grandpa’s scooter when he noticed a bicycle near an old house, hidden between bushes.  He tried to remember where he had seen it before, but he was not able to remember. At school, Abhijit told him what had happened. Then...

Back from India...

Hey everybody! It’s me, Janaki. Whoops!  I am starting to sound like Mickey Mouse. You know, like how he says, “Hey everybody! It’s me, Mickey Mouse. Say, ya wanna see my club house?” And no matter how hard you scream “No!” he says, “Then let’s go to the club house. Oh, I forgot that we have to say the magic word. Misca Moosca Mouse ca doodles! Come on, say it with me” It’s pretty weird stuff, considering the fact that we have to say the words that make absolutely NO sense at all. I came back from India on the 11 th of August, with sadness and sleepiness, because we left home at 11 at night, so I had a quick nap in the car while going to the airport. So, I was pretty grumpy and sleepy when we reached the airport, for I had been having such a good dream. For a sec, I did not even care leaving India, which might have been a good thing because otherwise I would probably run screaming “I don’t want to go back!” to the car. But then, I remembered the fun I had al...

Vacation begins..

A lot of things have happened (and are going to happen) during all this time, so I shall quickly go over them in points- My exams finished 2 days ago Summer vacation has begun I am going to India tomorrow. I shall come back on August 11 th It is very rainy in India now 2 weeks ago I held my birthday party. Chandana and Anne came, we had a lot of fun and I got few gifts. J !!!!!! I am so happy that I am going to India tomorrow! I am going to have so much fun! The only problem is that, it is really pouring rain in India. Many streets were full of water and some were flooded. My cousins got a lot of holidays from school because of this dreary rain. So, it will be difficult to go out unless we want to be drenched in the rain. But since their home is just across the street, we can always play an indoor game. My 3 rd blog anniversary was on 26 th of June, the day when I published my first post.  Yaayyy! My exams were over on Wednesday. The last exam...

Chandana's party

Last  Friday, Chandana, my best friend threw a party. I, Anne, Daniya and Alaina (she is one of our classmates) were invited. Daniya is leaving Riyadh and going to India on May 9 th . We were all glad to hear she would be coming because Daniya was one of our best friends and we all loved her a lot. She was really sweet and kind. We would miss her. Anne was not able to come because she had to go somewhere, but all others came. When I arrived, Dania was already there and she was outside with Chandana and her father, waiting for me. We all began to chat excitedly. Chandana lived in an STC compound and there is only one word to describe it. It was HUMONGOUS!! It was a pretty neat compound, with a clubhouse, swimming pool and 4 parks. There were many villas. Alaina arrived half- an- hour late. When she came, Dania whipped out her camera and told us to stand together so that she could take a photo. We made funny faces in front of the camera and Dania was laughin...

Koshari Express

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Last night, for dinner, we had an Egyptian dish. Can you guess which?  (Hint- It starts with “Ko” and ends with “shari” ) Of course! It was koshari ! It consisted of rice, macaroni, noodles, chick peas and lentils topped with small chicken pieces. The noodles were cut into pieces (some people might think this is a weird combination but it is not. ) It was delicious but kind of heavy and was a beautiful combination with a sauce like salsa. Some of Dad’s colleagues are Egyptians and sometimes they buy koshari , that is how we came to know about it. We had it from a restaurant called “ Koshari Express ”. We gobbled all of it up and washed it down with a bottle of ‘Mirinda’. I remember that 2 years back in 5 th grade, one of our teacher’s told us that Pepsi and other fizzy drinks were very harmful for us and they could cut our intestine. Well, that did the trick. Whenever we had Pepsi, I always gave it the evil eye and refused to drink it. My parents as...

Detective Nair

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They say that time flies quickly, and I now reluctantly agree with them. I cannot believe that 2 weeks sped by so quickly! It seems like just yesterday I had finished my exams. Now there are only 4 more days as holidays, school is reopening on  Monday and is the beginning of 7 th grade too. My cousins are soooo lucky, they now have summer vacation for 2 months. Every morning Dad drops me at school and afternoon I come back by school van. Malaika, Marilyn, Faiz, Ravika, Abdul Aziz, and Nimisha are the kids in my van. Malaika is the eldest among us, she is going to be in 9 th grade now. One day Abdul Aziz (the youngest in our bus, he is going to begin the second grade), was babbling about how he went to the computer class, and when he came back to his class he found that somebody had stolen his pouch which had all his pencils and eraser in it, and how he was going to punch the face of the person who stole his pouch.  I tried to make him calm down. I whip...

Daniya's party

Remember that in my last post I told you that my BFF Daniya invited me to her party? Here is how it went…… We were to have dinner at Daniya’s house. I was really excited when we reached their home. We had parked our car outside a restaurant near their home.  Daniya and Anne came soon and we walked to their flat together. Daniya had worn a white anarkali and Anne had put on white pants and a black top.  They said I looked very different in my latcha, open hair and lip gloss. Anne said she came 10 minutes earlier than the time we were supposed to reach there. Daniya said, ”She came so early I was just putting on my eye shadow and I still had not combed my hair”. “I hope she was not scared when she saw you” I joked.    Chandana arrived 10 minutes after me. This time, all 3 of us went to meet her. She refused to remove her abayya, for some reason she felt embarrassed. I think it is because she usually wears traditional clothes like a skirt or latcha, but th...

End of grade Six

Yaaaaaaayyyyy!!!!!!!! I am sooooo happy! SA-2 (Summative Assessment) has finally finished. Now, there are 2 weeks stretched in front of me which I am going to spend by watching TV, playing games on the computer, reading books etc.  And of course, no studies. I am going to be in 7 th grade and I already feel so grown up. I can still not believe how fast time flew. Today, my BFF Daniya is hosting a party and I am also invited. She has also invited my other 2 best friends, Anne and Chandana. Since Daniya is leaving Riyadh and going to India, this is  a goodbye  party. The 4 of us are best friends and we always stayed together as a group. I love them all so much  J .   Daniya said we could wear a traditional dress so I am going to wear my mango-colored latcha. Anne said she would wear her churidhar, and Chandana planned to wear her half-sari. On the first day of the holidays, we went to AppleBees for dinner. Yum! Just thinking of the food...

Dubai Diary - Day 2

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I was still out cold in the morning of our 1 st day at Dubai and Mom woke me up at 10 am. Gradually, I knew I had to get up. Hey, I did not remember I was in Dubai that time!  “Let us order breakfast” Kochakka handed over a menu from “Palm Valley”. I and Mom pondered over the menu for some time. Mom’s suggestion was pepper roast. I was like “Not for me, I rather have a paratha!” Dad wanted idli and Kochakka, dosa. So soon I was gobbling down paratha, Dad was eating idli, Kochakka had dosa and Mom, her pepper roast.  It went like this for 3 more days. Mom joked that “don’t forget that we are going back to Riyadh and don’t expect all these from me” It was time to explore Dubai, I was very excited. Kochakka offered me the front seat, it was a real privilege. We first went for a drive, looking and admiring all the buildings and we were all excited to see the Burj Khalifa. It looked totally glamorous while sparkling in the sun and showing off its smooth, silver c...

Dubai Diary - Day 1

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Are you wondering why I have not written for so many days??? I have 2 reasons…..                 1.      We went to Dubai for 4 days. Yaaayyyy!!!!                 2.     Exams are going on… After coming from Dubai, I had a lot of class work to complete so I was very busy. We had tons of fun in Dubai! We went to the aquarium, Burj Khalifa, Ski Dubai etc.  Kochakka lives over there and we stayed with him. The night when we arrived at Dubai airport, Kochakka was waiting for us at the arrival.  On the way from airport, Mom said “Kochakka, take us to some interesting restaurant”,  “We are on our way” he replied.  Soon we reached at “Punjabi Dhaba”. They served good food and there were even some Punjabi dances and songs.  It was the first time I was going to such a hotel and I felt it very entertaining and interesting.  Kochak...

1 evening, 2 occasions ...

Thursday was a busy day for us, but busy in a good way. We had two occasions to attend, one was a 25th wedding anniversary and the other was a marriage. It was the first time we were going to a marriage in Saudi Arabia but all of us were happy, especially Mom since she loves occasions just like me.   Since we mostly get invited to marriages in India, I and Mom can only attend ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­one or two and we only stay for a couple of months in India. Wedding anniversaries are also a lot of fun.   The wedding anniversary was held at a restaurant called Al Nouras. They had delicious buffet.  What I loved especially was the chicken fried rice. Yum!!!  Too bad we could not eat a lot because we knew there was a marriage also waiting for us. Mom and Dad also thought that the food was awesome and they are thinking to go back to the restaurant again during a weekend. The marriage was held at a school auditorium. It wa...

Happy 2013

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“God, how fast the year went!” Mom was saying yesterday. She gave a glance at the calendar. “Today is the last day of 2012’’. She reminded me “Soon, you will be in 7 th grade.” Happy New Year! I would like to have a flashback of the events that happened in 2012. We went to India twice We had our flat’s housewarming Me and my cousins had a lot of fun I attended 2 marriages (uncle Prasanth ’s and Gouri’s marriage) Altogether, it was a great year. It was Kunjunni’s birthday on Saturday and I wanted to send him an email, but as soon as I opened my Inbox, a box popped up and Kunjunni had typed ‘Hi!’ So we began to chat. Eeshta, my former classmate who is now living in China, called me yesterday and wished me a Happy New Year.   My winter vacations are about to end and I have to go back to school next Saturday. I still have some projects to complete so I am going to be a little busy now.

The first kid to get The Third Wheel @ Jarir Bookstore!

The winter holidays have started and now I am totally looking forward to the whole of the two weeks that are stretching out in front of me. But there are many obstacles lying in front like the dozens of projects that I have to complete before the holiday finishes. Seriously, why do teachers have to give projects and holiday homework? It is almost like this in every vacation. I HATE HATE HATE CLASS PROJECTS! If I ever become a school principal, the most important rule will be, No holiday homework! ***** We went to Jarir bookstore today to buy some things that I needed to make my projects and besides, I also wanted to check if the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel had been released. We could not find it anywhere and I was a teeny bit disappointed because I really wanted to read it. Later I just took a few books, sat on a bench and began to read. I was halfway through Big Nate Goes for Broke (I love Big Nate) when Dad came over and said tha...

Oscar for Valyachan - will the dream come true?

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‘’ It is Valyamma” Mom said, handing me the phone. I spoke, “Hello?” No answer. I spoke again “Hellllooooo”? The next thing I knew, Dad was kneeling beside my bed and asking, “Janu, what is the matter?“ That was when I knew it was all a dream, except the part where Dad was asking me what happened. Anyway, I felt too lazy to answer him and soon, I was asleep. I think the reason why I had this dream is because last couple of days Amma and Valymma was always over the phone. I laughed out loud in the morning when I and my parents recalled the events that had happened previous night. Sometimes I do get confused between my dreams and what really happened. And one time my Dad thought that one of his dreams was real…. We were at Dammam for few days since my Dad had to go there for a business trip and we were all at our hotel and on the bed. Both my parents were out cold. I was just simply lying when Dad suddenly opened his eyes, sat up and examined himself. I wondered why...

Children's problems

 “Papa! Papa! Where are you?” the little boy called. He wandered still calling out “Papa!” We had gone to Lulu and I watched a boy who was looking for his father. He was lost and looked close to tears. I decided to help. But he had already gone, still calling out for his father.  I felt sorry for him as he now sobbed a little while still calling.    I saw a news article that was also related about a child and his parents. It said… “ Two parents have been jailed for hurting their child in Norway. Apparently, the child had been burnt with a very hot spoon and also had been beaten by his parents badly. He had many bruises on his body and some burnt marks. They are Indians. The father has been jailed for 18 months and the mother for 15 months. ” I was shocked and astonished when I read this. I never imagined that a small boy could be hurt that much and that too by his own parents! My Dad joked that now he was very scared of me and he will...

Jerry in my room

“The movie we are about to watch is a classic Iranian movie“, Dad said. He was talking about “ Children of Heaven ” The movie started and the three of us watched intently. It was a very touching movie, about 2 children who struggle with 1 pair of sneakers after a boy Ali loses his sister Zahra’s only pair of shoes.  They belonged to a poor family. Then Ali tries to win the 3 rd prize in a race because the 3 rd prize was sneakers. But he ends up winning 1 st prize instead.  We all enjoyed the movie. Dad told me a joke today. It was really funny. Look……. A family who did not know English very well went to London. In their room at their hotel, they found a mouse scurrying underneath their bed. The man called the front desk. Man – “Uh, hello” Manager – “How can I help you?’’ Man ( thinks for a while ) – “Um, you know ‘Tom and Jerry’? Manager ( surprised ) – “Yes sir” Man – “Jerry is here” I laughed aloud when I heard this. ...

A funny incident

“Sit here.”  Jayshree Ma’am told this to a boy studying in the Nursery class. The boy did so, a sulky look on his face. Just then, a small girl came. It was her birthday, so she was distributing chocolate to all the teachers in the block. “Thank you” Ma’am said. She then started to give us some advice about the test the next day and kept her chocolate on the teacher’s table. The boy looked at chocolate for some time and then, when Ma’am faced the blackboard, quickly shot out his hand and took the chocolate. “ Hey, that is not for you!” ma’am snapped. She had seen him do that. “ Keep it back.” He did it, a sullen look on his face. He did the same thing again but he was still not so fortunate. By this time, we were snorting and trying not to laugh. ‘’Do you know why you are here?” she asked him. “It is because you are a very naughty boy and you keep hitting other children. A complaint has come about you and I brought you here so that you would not be able to...