How Red Sneakers Changed My Life

So I've moved on from watching Gossip Girl to The Vampire Diaries. When I told one of my old school friends about my current interest in TV shows (mainly GG, TVD and Glee), his reaction was 'WOW, what happened to you?!' But I need a break, and indulging in chick flick teen dramas can't be all that bad! And anyway, The Vampire Diaries is nothing like Twilight, thank God. I'd pretty much given up on vampires after finishing the Twilight Saga and (painfully) watching its first three movies. Thanks to Stephenie Meyer (the author for all you lucky people who've been fortunate enough to not read the books), the prospect of any sort of relationship between a vampire and a human just made me sick. Seriously Bella Swan is the worst female protagonist EVER. She's supposed to be smart, and she reads impressive books like Wuthering Heights but she doesn't have a personality!!! And any hopes she had of actually getting one are ruined once she sets eyes on the myste...

I stir up dust particles swirling lazily in the sunlight as I hurry down the hallway. ‘Late to class again’, I think triumphantly. Since the second term of school started-make that my final term in this educational establishment-I’m no longer the nerd I used to be. It’s been a gradual change but aren’t those the ones that are the most permanent? I no longer study days ahead of a test but prefer cramming the night before, taking back-to-back classes makes my brain rot, and I look for reasons to bunk at least once a day. And I’ve got one now. The door to A2S4 is firmly shut, and I can see our Physics teacher enthusiastically drawing another of his detailed diagrams on X-ray equipment and the like on the soft board. ‘Whoops, too late’, I think happily, assuaging the slight nerdy twinge of guilt with a well-I-did-try shrug, and turn around to face the empty school hallway. For once, all is quiet. There are no shouts from the throw ball crowd that normally dominates the court througho...

Um, David Guetta looks so in the moment here, doesn't he? :P I'm not a big fan of his...how can I after he's helped release something as tragic as Where Them Girls At (Go get them, we can all be friends! Yeah, right), but this is so beautiful, it makes me cry. 

What astonishes me the most is how nothing around me seems to change. The world goes on unfeeling, unmoved, the way it's always been, oblivious of the changes that occur inside us. Most times I don't notice it because who even has time to think given the busy busy schedules we've made for ourselves? But sometimes, when my brain is stuffy because of the suffocating Karachi heat or my family arguing over something or the other, I escape to the rooftop. It's not much of a view. Just a whole bunch of old apartment buildings towering above me, a deserted mall missing some of the glass panes in its roof on the street opposite, my favourite neem tree that just grows and grows regardless of the weather and my neighbours' palms, the Commecs sign blinking blue and white from far away. That's pretty much it but it's beautiful enough for me. I start thinking about where I am, who I am, and what I've become in the past couple of years and I can't believe it. I ...