Tagging can be fun.... until I have to spend hours thinking of answers to questions about myself

I honestly don't like talking about myself, since I seem to spend the majority of the time going bands! bands! bands! books! books! books! instead of actually explaining anything, which may be odd to hear since I spend the majority of this blog talking about my opinions, but hey-ho.
So Jennifer (Almost too posh to function) tagged me in the Liebster Award so here goes...

Rules:

• Each blogger should answer the questions the tagger has set for you
• Choose eleven new bloggers to pass the award onto and link them in your post
• Create eleven new questions for the chosen bloggers
• Go back to their page and tell them about the award
• Each blogger should post eleven random facts about themselves
• No tag-backs

Question One: What is your favourite musical?

Hmm, I don't think I really do musicals.. I'm not that kind of person, so I'm just going to go for the good old High School Musical. I don't even care, but I love it. Maybe because it's a reminder of the childhood I'm not ready to let go of just yet, who knows?
Or maybe Chicago, I do love Chicago

Question Two: If you could only speak one word for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

Coinkydink. I like that word, it's fun to say

Question Three: What is your dream birthday cake?

I don't really dream about my birthday cake to be honest, just cakes in general. I like all cakes, but I would love one where I could eat Tom Hiddleston's face. Mmm.... Thomas

Question Four: What made you want to start blogging?

I'm not really sure. I had a blog ages ago, but I was a bit crap at keeping it, so I used to blog on Tumblr, except I found that once I started to get a lot of followers, it became harder and harder for me to blog posts like I do on here. I guess that's why I started this blog. I have too many thoughts and no way to control them

Question Five: Who is your favourite singer or band?

AHHHHHH!!!! You can't ask me this question!!! If you ever read my blog, surely by now you know that bands are my area of fangirling and I couldn't possibly pick between my babies! However, if I'm being forced to, then I'll be picking one of these: All Time Low, Young Guns, You Me At Six, Of Mice And Men, Sleeping With Sirens, Pierce the Veil or Mallory Knox.

Question Six: What is your ultimate comfort food?

If it's edible, I'm there.

Question Seven: Where is the one place in the world you want to visit more than any other?

I would say New York, but I'm going there this summer, so apart from New York, I once again have a list: Cape Town, Australia (Sydney/Great Barrier Reef) Ethiopia, Brazil, Mexico, Japan or New Zealand. I can't pick, I'm bad at decisions.

Question Eight: What is your best ever buy, and how much did it cost?

And the mountains echoes, by Khaled Hosseini and I think it was around 12ish pounds?
or All Time Low concert tickets around 27 pounds

Question Nine: When you eventually retire (which in this economic climate will be about three months after you die) what do you want to be able to say you did that made you proud?

I want to say that I became a doctor, but didn't live my life as most doctors do (and I can speak with experience since the majority of my family practice some form of medicine), with greed. I want to be able to say that I used the opportunity that fate and luck gave me by allowing me to be born privileged and did some good in the world. I want to work in a LEDC and if I can say I did that by the time I retire, I will be a very happy dying person indeed

Question Ten: What is your desert island book (or if you don't read, what is your desert island film?)

Harry Potter/A Thousand Splendid Suns (although if I take ATSS then I may cry buckets and buckets when I need to be preserving water.... I may have to reconsider that?)

Question Eleven: If you could meet any celebrity in the world, who would it be?

Only one? That's not how I roll. Here, have another list: Tom Hiddleston, Chris Evans, JK Rowling, Alex Gaskarth, Zack Merrick, Vic Fuentes, Austin Carlile, Jensen Ackles, Martin Freeman, Aidan Turner, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott, Colin Morgan, and Bradley James. The list goes on, but I really must stop myself.

Eleven random facts about myself: 
1) My name is Elham Husain
2) I was born in Saudi Arabia
3) I'm an Indian (like seriously, give me a British passport all you like, I will always be Indian)
4) I enjoy talking to other people and I like trying to make them happy, but I'm really bad at it
5) I eat too much food
6) I enjoy learning things, but schools ruin that in everyone by giving us an education
7) I really really badly need to travel the world
8) My bestest friend(s) in the world are Tasha and Nikola, and I haven't ever met either of them D:
9) I am currently revising for my last GCSE exam and hating it
10) I have black hair and brown eyes
11) I enjoy sleeping, but I don't think I do it enough

Okay, so I now need to make up questions for other people:

1) What is the one thing you love the most about yourself?
2) If you had to pick 10 (yes ten, I like lists of things) of your best qualities/features what would they be?
3) What or who could you not live without?
4) Who is your inspiration in life?
5) Is there anything you would like to change about yourself? (I don't know why there would be you're all amazing)
6) What's your favourite place in the world?
7) Name one thing from your bucket list
8) What is your proudest moment in life?
9) Your favourite book/movie/TV show
10) A band, song or singer you like but think they are immensely underrated
11) A fear you have

Now I guess this is the part where I tag people, but alas, I've only been on Blogger for a short amount of time, I only follow a few people, and only have a couple of followers myself, so I don't think I have 11 people to tag. I do still want to know what everybody who reads this thinks! I want to know all your opinions, and I'm genuinely interested in your answers to my questions, so if you read this please, please, please, do this! And if you do tell me so I can read it/mention it on my blog that somebody actually did it!
I will appreciate it so so much, and it'll be a brilliant way for me to actually talk to all the people who read the blog but don't actually follow me, leaving me with no way to know who they are and send them my love and hugs!

So if you do answer my questions and please do, make sure to tell me/comment on this post.

Auf Wiedersehn!

p.s. A few posts ago, I mentioned my immense love for the amazing, but underrated Young Guns, and posted a link to the Kerrang! Awards in which they were nominated for one, they won it. I thought I might mention that considering how my heart swelled with so much pride when I heard that they actually won it!

And the mountains echoed

Khaled Hosseini is one of the most gifted, talented and inspiring writers in the world right now, and I'm not the first person to say this. Any one who's read one of his books can't help but to admit that his writing is almost flawless, and I know that everyone makes mistakes, but to me, Hosseini can't make a single mistake in his writing.

I just finished reading 'And the mountains echoed' literally about 10 minutes ago and I have no stopped crying, while reading the last chapter, I had to keep stopping to dry me tears, blow my nose, and try and stop my heart from aching, because I kid you not my heart was literally hurting; I was struggling to breathe because of the ache in my chest: true story.

It got me wondering, how many writers can do that, physically make us feel the pain? People have their own opinion about their favourite writer, or the one that inflicts the most emotions upon them, but for me it is definitely Hosseini, no other writer has that control over my heart.

I don't want to go into too much detail because I know it is a fairly new book so many people have not read it yet, but I would like to say that with every Hosseini book, I learn more about myself, and definitely after reading 'And the mountains echoed', I have learnt a great deal about the kind of person I am, and want to be.

This book is genius, because it lets you live the life of many different people, who are all linked in some slight way or the other. Perhaps just the smallest of connections they don't know they have to each other, but it exists. It got me thinking, about the stories in our lives. I often walk around and think to myself I wonder what it could be like to live like them? or I wonder how they're feeling? How they got to be who they are?, but I rarely, if ever asked myself the question, how are we linked? Probability wise, we probably aren't linked, but a connection may exist between the two of us in the strangest, slightest of ways, and we may go our entire lives without knowing it exists. Without knowing that a friend of a friend, had a brother who did something, and this had an effect on someone else who's brother I'm currently talking to.
We live in one society, and this reminds me of the great words from Priestly: "...their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do. We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other."
I hated analysing that play for English, but Priestly had a point, a very important point which he tried to teach in the 1940's, and here we are in 2013, still without learning it.

Another thing it loved about the book is how it made you love and appreciate every aspect of your life. Sometimes, we take way too much for granted, and often I find books try to explain without actually explaining it, by making you read between the lines, which is great because it makes you understand the feelings, but the way Hosseini said it, he explained the words, the exact words, that somebody in that situation would feel, didn't just help you understand the character, but helped you be the character. You could live the characters lives properly without just experiencing the same things as them, but by feeling them, and applying these new feelings to a situation in your own life. That's the magic of Khaled Hosseini.
For example, a character in the book says "I'd been blind to a greater truth, which lay unacknowledged and unappreciated, buried deep within my grievances. It was this: that my mother would never leave me."
This line probably has more impact in context, but I'm trying to keep it as spoiler free as possible (if you ever read the book and get to this part, you'll understand). I'm speaking for myself when I say this, obviously different people have different experiences with their parents, but for me: I argue with them a lot, not as much now as we did before, we have a lot of differences, we don't always get along, and I find myself comparing their parenthood to others and thinking why couldn't I have done ballet when I was three? Why couldn't my parents have done this to me? I don't remember my parents doing this for me?, and I never second guessed myself. This was natural, I wasn't being rude, I was just thinking about different prospects of my life, but I was deep down ungrateful and felt cheated upon, and now I realise that was wrong. I was lucky, incredibly lucky, because, as mentioned above, the greatest gift of all goes unnoticed and unappreciated by children like me who've had ups and downs in our family relationships. My parents will never leave me. I know that. I've always known it, but never acknowledged it, but now I do, and I realise that in a world where people are treated cruelly and parents leave their children every day, mine never would. That's the faith I have in them, and it's a good faith, and I thank them for giving it to me, and I thank Hosseini for making me realise it.

Another thing (the same character) said was: "They saw that much of what they were, would be or could be, hinged on the symmetry of their bone structure, the space between their eyes, their chin length, the tip projection of their nose, whether they had an ideal nasofrontal angle or not."
It's been explained to us so many times by the media that beauty isn't everything and it's what's inside that matters (the same media that shows images of what an ideal beautiful person is like), but none describe it the way that Hosseini does. No one really captures the essence of the stupidity of society. The fact that a few millimetres between the nose or a few millimetres on the length of the nose could literally define your place in society? Surely, that's not right?

Further along the book, another quote got me thinking. This time for a different character:
"All my life I have lived like an aquarium fish in the safety of a glass tank, behind a barrier as impenetrable as it has been transparent... I think I have grown accustomed to the glass and am terrified that when it breaks, when I am alone, I will spill out into the wide open unknown and flop around, helpless lost, gasping for breath." I think that summarises life. We're kept so secure for so long, but eventually the security ends and we're forced out into a world that's horrible beyond compare, that's rude and inevitably sucks. It leaves us lost, damaged, frail and weak, the world kills us all. At the same time, I feel as if the world can save us. Hosseini describes a beauty in the world, this particular character gets out into the real world and deals with her glass breaking by finding beauty that gives her the security that she needs, and I believe I can so that too, if I ever get out into the real world like she did. Not just me, but I believe everyone has the ability to find someone or something to cling onto, and in the end, that is the one thing we all really strive for.

I couldn't possibly describe all of the things I felt during the book because it will take far too long and there are far too many feelings for me to write. I feel like a new person after this book, and I think I need some time to recover. It's going to be some time before I can pick up another book and read it, because honestly, I don't want to be disappointed if it's not as good as  'And the mountains echoed'. Eventually I will read another book, and it'll be good, but I have a love and a passion for Khaled Hosseini's books I can get out of no other writer, and so I am desperately waiting for his next book, but preparing myself for disappointment, because we all know how long he takes to get a book out. That being said, we only have three books, but we have three heart-breaking, breath-taking, flawlessly executed, wonderfully sad, and emotionally traumatising books that cannot compare to if we have had ten that weren't as good.

I'll just leave you all with this quote: "I know now that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely and without recourse." and I think this is a basic summary of this book, my feelings towards this book, this world, and the way I believe a large number of people in this world feels.

I feel like I've written some kind of literature essay, but obviously this was more fun because I wasn't analysing, I was understanding. (Maybe this is how English teachers feel?)
I'm also still crying when I think of this book, and I don't know if my heart will ever stop hurting.


I found a sad little fairy
Beneath the shade of a paper tree.
I know a sad little fairy
Who was blown away by the wind one night.

Young Guns: one of the best bands around right now

Aloha amigos

I'm not Spanish I'm pretentious....

But I was sitting in my bedroom today, after having suffered a major emotional shock that I won't go into today but I may share the traumatic experience some day, and I was listening to my music, and I just had to express my love for Young Guns.

The band Young Guns, not the movie, although I do love the movie too.

I think Young Guns are one of the most underrated amazing and talented bands in the world. Words could literally not describe how much they mean to me, and yes I say this about every other band, but the two bands that I really mean it for are All Time Low, and Young Guns. I've already dedicated a post to ATL so I thought that it's time I rambled on about how much YG mean to me.

They are so amazingly talented, there are no two ways around this fact. Yes, people have their own opinions about bands they like and I'm not out to change that, but you can't deny these guys talent. Just watch this video, okay!

I remember listening to this song in January after I'd heard about Young Guns a few months back but never really had the opportunity to listen to properly and thinking that this was one of the best rock songs to come out of England in a long time. And it really is, and now look at it, doing so well in the US.
Not gonna lie when I heard they got number one in America I was so so so happy! I felt so proud of them, and proud of myself for finding such good music!
I say they're underrated, because they are... a little, not that many people know about them, even tough they did get a number one, but still...

I don't really know where I'm going with this so here's a list of the reasons why I love Young Guns:

• they're so funny! I don't understand, but pretty much all band members in the world are hilarious... I dunno, but my theory is that they all go to some kind of band boot camp where they learn about things like jumping on stage, head banging, and being funny.... YG were just one of the ones who excelled the most at the most at this so-called boot camp. Simon and Ben obviously got A's in the 'funny' class and Gus got an A is his jumping around on stage... seriously watch one of their live performances and ask yourself this question: how the fuck does he do that? I get tired just casually walking up the stairs...
• their live performances are kick ass. I don't know of many bands that perform like that live, and they're happy to play small and big venues which I love love love love love love!! And it hurts, it physically hurts that I haven't seen them live, even though they came to a city so close to me :'(
• they put their heart and soul into their music. No joke, but you can literally see the passion they have for the music they make and listen to and I love it because you can tell that they're so happy to be doing what they do
• Gus is a major reader, from what I've gathered, and I love that, because so am I! And I just wanna meet him and discuss all our book collections and I wanna get book recommendations from him and it'll be awesome! (that being said they all hate Harry Potter and my heart sank a little because THEY'RE WRONG. NO ONE CAN HATE HARRY POTTER AND THEY'RE JUST WRONG. I respect everyone's opinion, but HARRY POTTER IS NOT AN OPINION IT IS A FACT!)

( Also, Ben is a Liverpool fan but I tend to ignore that fact and pretend that he's a United fan in my head, Gus is a Chelsea fan but that doesn't irritate me as much....)

Young Guns are one of the most amazing bands in the universe, and people need to check them out!!
Start with Bones (video above) then listen to Crystal Clear, Dearly Departed, Towers, and Weight of the World, which are some of my favourites
I wish I'd done this post earlier and I could have told everyone to go vote for Young Guns as Best British Band in the Kerrang! Awards but I didn't :(
But oh well... there's still about an hour so GO GO GO GO

http://awards.kerrang.com/Default.aspx

Good bye school, this really is good bye

So today was the last day of my high school experience and I can't really use words to express the joy I feel inside me right now. I don't think those words exist, and yes, everyone says that they won't miss high school and half the school was trying to be 'cool' and pretend they weren't bothered, but I could tell they were. And that's fine for them... they can feel whatever they want to about high school, I couldn't care less, but I hated it. Absolutely despised every second of every day. From day one in that September back in 2009.
 I don't think there's been a single day when nothing has gone wrong. Everything went wrong. Every dingle day, but of course I did have days when things went well, like the time we wrote a letter to the IT Crowd, and the time we tried to summon a demon (no joke... it didn't work), but then we also had the arguments and the bitching, but it's not just that. It's the basic fact that every where I went, from day 1, every thing I heard people say about me was negative. All the time. It can't just be me being paranoid I could literally hear them saying it. Of course Year 8 me was a lot more peppy than Year 11 me, so I tried to fit in and I tried to make friends. I tried really hard for a long time. There was Year 8 and my group of friends then, we drifted away from each other. Not anyone's fault to be honest, and I still sit with them in form. Then there were my Year 9 friends, and some how we made it through into Year 10. Then I lost them all, they all hated me, they made fun of me and they treated me like shit. You couldn't really expect me to stay friends with them? The Year 11 friends, I lost one, and no regrets there she treated us like crap too, but I still have three people I could count as my friends.
I know it's hard to believe, but I really do have some friends. To prove it here I am with one of them, celebrating the end of PE lessons in our horrible, horrible PE kit:

 We recently had a leaver's assembly, and some one said that they insisted that they were one of those people who could count their friends on one hand, but then they realised that they had a lot of friends. I'm sorry to break it to this person: Sophie, Sammy, Jenny - one hand. If we're counting outside of school too: Sophie, Sammy, Jenny, Tasha, Nikola - one hand.
Someone also said "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened" and, well frankly, all I could think was 'don't cry because it happened, smile because it's over'.
And yes, I may sound 'anti-peppy', pessimistic and all that other crap, but you survive four years of high school at the same level on the school's status ladder as me and still be as peppy as a Year 8!

Not only was it friends, it was teachers too. I am constantly ignored by all the teachers, they all hate me and I really don't understand why. The people who I just pass in the corridor, they're so rude. People walk around and make you feel like crap, the littlest thing you do and say is made fun of. Having an opinion in school - impossible.

But you know what, I'm not going to give a crap about the past four years of my life, but I'm going to care about what's next for me, because you know what? Those were most definitely not the best four years of my life. I am going to do something amazing in the future, and I'm going to be happy with what I do. Here's a list of all the things I will accomplish in my life, despite the past few years and all it's bull shit:

• I'll finish my GCSE's
• I'll go to College and study Maths, Biology, Chemistry, and Phycology
• I'll apply to university
• I'll go on a gap year:
• I'll go to South Africa (Cape Town specifically, for some reason it has been one of my favourite places ever... maybe it's because the word 'cape' reminds me of superhero's, and I could really use a superhero right now.
• I'll go to Ethiopia and/or Ghana to do many months of charity work there
• I'll go to work in Australia and/or New Zealand
• I'll get into university and study medicine
• I'll graduate and then study psychiatry
• I'll become a psychiatrist
• I'll write a couple of novels, maybe about how crap high school has been, maybe about my gap year adventures? Maybe, one day, I will be able to write as well as Khaled Hosseini (but we all know that won't happen - he's too good)
• I'll work in England for a little while
• I'll move countries, maybe to one of the places I go in my gap year
• I'll return to Ghana or Ethiopia and become a doctor there, at least for a little while
• I'll maybe get married and have kids, or maybe I'll just get loads of cats, or maybe I'll just adopt a couple of children

Okay, so maybe I'm a bit over ambitious, but there's nothing wrong with that? I can only hope I manage to do most if not all of this. I have a plan for my life, and luckily school didn't completely ruin it. In fact, I even have some teachers to thank, like my Geography teacher who in our previous lesson told us about gap years and travelling around the world, which only confirmed this idea that was growing in my mind.

So basically my point was: screw you school.

What do we really count down for?

1 down.. 12 to go!
Those are the stats for my exams this year... 1 down, 12 left.

So I recently had my first exam of the year (urgghhh Maths!) and I only have 12 left!!! *sarcasm* that's a lot of exams. And all I'm waiting for is the day when I can go "only one exam left" and then soon after I can be so excited by the prospect of no more exams, an exciting summer ahead of me, and yes... NO MORE HIGH SCHOOL!

Some people may be a little bit sad to leave, and good for them, high school obviously treated them well, but not me. Since the first couple of weeks of high school I have been literally counting down till I get to leave, maybe not always the days but by Christmas of Year 8 I was thinking that 1/12th of my Davison life had gone and I only had to that 11 more times, not too hard, right? Wrong.
It was horrendous. It sucked and at the end of Year 8, it wasn't so much joy at the thought of summer I was feeling, but more joy at the thought that I had gone through a 1/4 of my high school experience. And by Year 9 I had made it through a half and at the end of Year 10 I only had one year left and by the time Year 11 started I had a countdown calendar going and now I can't really believe that it's only 45 days till my last exam, 49 till Prom then it's all over. Forever. Finally.
I couldn't begin to describe how much high school sucked.... Best four years of my life no fricking way.
I refuse to accept that this is it. Who knows, the rest of my life may be utter crap, and if so then I'm not looking forward to it because some real shit has to go down for these four years to have been as good as it gets! Okay, maybe for the chavs and high school 'popular' kids who only really got a kick out of school by intimidating others and making other people feel bad, maybe high school was as good as it gets for some of them.... but for people like me, the people who have been battered, bruised, kicked down and walked over for four years, this is not the end.

There is not one little thing I will miss about this hell hole of a school, not even the people. You know what my logic is, friends don't last forever, not at this age anyway. We all have to move away and on with our lives that's just the way the world works, and if we don't keep in contact, then we can't have been that close any way.
And besides... who am I kidding? I really only have like three or four friends. Tops.

I don't know if I really had a specific point, I kind of went off on one (happens a lot) but I think I was getting at what is the point in all of this? All we seem to do is countdown? Like right now, I'm counting down till my exams are over. Then I'll start college and count down till that's over. Then the same for university. Then I'll get a job, and I sincerely hope I'll enjoy it, but let's face it... not as much as I'll enjoy being back at home in the comfort of my own bed, so I'll be counting down then as well! So what are we really counting down to? Because to me, it seems endless!

That being said, I will carry on counting down till the end of my exams, and I will love every second of the countdown because it's just one day closer to the end of high school.

Ranting is my only skill

I'm losing all faith in this world, and I've said this before numerous times, but I really am. Every time I say this some one or the other will comment on a post, or send me a message saying there's no reason to lose faith in the world, there's some good in the world, it gets better!But here's a question, does it really get better?
Think about it for a second, how much better does it get? Okay, so say I make it out of high school, what next? College and University. Say I make it out of University, what next? A job, marriage and kids if I'm lucky? Where's the getting better part? Because as far as I'm concerned, the world hasn't changed just because I've gotten older, and I can't possibly be so selfish to think that just because I got to university and I got a job that I wanted the world is suddenly a better place? No, it's really not, because the world doesn't revolve around me and it's not going to change any time soon.
This world is messed up, there are no two ways about it.
We were talking in Biology today about feeding the world, and it was mentioned how in certain countries (America, England, other European countries) people are actually dying of obesity. They are dying because they are eating too much, where as there are people in LEDC's across the world dying because they cannot get enough food into their bodies to survive. I'm going to point out here that this is not me having a go at people who eat a lot (hell I'm one of them!), this is me having a go at the system. It strikes me as a bit odd, like how did we get to this? How did the world get to the point where we can literally let other people starve? I don't really understand. I mean, I was raised believing that it is wrong to throw food, because we have to be grateful we even have any, and maybe that's just because I've been raised in an Indian family, and as Indians we see immense poverty within our own country, but that's what I've been taught. Whenever somebody wastes food, it makes me really mad. Even if you don't want to eat it yourself, just think, you are so lucky to even have the option of having food left over to throw away.
This isn't just about starvation though, although that is one of the major problems in the world, it's also about the mentality that some people have. Let me make a list, I like lists.

• People who think it's okay to make fun of other people/make other people feel bad
  Do you not realise that these people you make fun of have feelings? I can't ever comprehend why anyone would think it's okay to make someone else feel upset? Honestly, why would you think that? Again, I don't know if it was the way I was raised or what it is, but if as a kid I ever bad mouthed someone I would be in so much trouble when I got home, maybe that's why I feel the way I do now; whenever, even by accident, I feel as if I've said something rude, I feel guilty for weeks. I'm not very good with words, I'm not articulate and I get nervous talking to people, so I may not always apologise, but I always want to. And I never ever say anything to be deliberately rude. So these people who are constantly rude, I genuinely want to know, why do you do it? Do you find pleasure in making other people feel upset and sad and bad about themselves, because if so I pity you. I think that these people should know that it's not just a couple of words and a laugh. To that person you just called fat, ugly, a freak, etc. it's more than that. The words are like knives, and who knows they may be able to shake it off, but they may not be able to, and your words could just haunt them for the rest of their life, and that's not a risk I'll be willing to take. That laugh could be more than a joke to them, it could be a poisonous sound. They may replay that moment over and over in their head, and they may cry about it later. You never know, so here's a thought. Think before you speak. It's that simple. Then, after you've thought about it, think about what the consequence of your words may be. If that doesn't stop you from saying it, then think about how you would feel if someone said this to you.
  I can't change your thoughts, but I shouldn't have to put up with them being changed into rude words.
• People who hurt or even worse actually murder other people.
  Things like the recent Iraqi and Boston bombings, the wars in the world, the shootings, the terrorist attacks, all of this. Why would people think it's okay to kill innocent people? It's wrong, it's beyond wrong. You can't just decide when people die, you can't just decide to play god, you can't give yourself that authority, you do not have that right. It is not okay to do this. I don't really have many more words for this, because honestly, I don't understand it. I physically can not understand this, if there's someone out there who does, please explain it to me? I feel bad when I even accidently hit someone across the chest, and I'm incredibly weak, so how can you even look yourself in the mirror after actually killing someone? Just, how?
• People who blame without knowing facts
  I'm not talking simple 'I bet it was Barry who stole my biscuits', I'm talking about every time there is a terrorist attack, suddenly it's a Muslims fault. I'm talking about that type of blaming. It's ridiculous. Let me use the recent Boston bombings as an example. The two attackers claimed to be 'Muslims' and suddenly I know people who live in America, some of my cousins (who are Muslims) who are genuinely seeing the difference in the way they are being treated! People suddenly think that everyone they see that is a Muslim is a terrorist. You can not simply group people together like that. You can't blame someone and make them feel like shit just because someone who claims to be following the same religion as them is a bit of a nutter. I keep saying claim, because they aren't real Muslims. I know a lot about this, being a Muslim my self so I'm going to lay down a couple of facts for you.
• Islam = the meaning of Islam is literally 'peace'. I don't know what else I could tell you about that, it's pretty self explanatory really
• Jihad = I'm sure you've heard this word. It means struggle. There are two types of people. The people who read the religion properly and they can understand that the jihad, this struggle is people struggling within themselves to do what is right in the world. This means for them to avoid sins, to help look after the earth etc. It's just these people struggling within themselves, we all do it. We struggle over whether or not we should revise or watch TV, whether we should go to a party or stay at home, it just so happens that Islam has a name for this. Now there are the extremists. I don't want to talk about them because they make me mad and upset, besides this is the only type of Jihad the world's media reports about, I'm sure you could easily look it up, I just needed to explain the real Islamic Jihad.
• the laws about killing in Islam = it says do not kill. I couldn't give you the exact quote but it says something along the lines of 'when you kill one person, it's as if you've killed all of mankind' in the Qur'an
• The media.
  What to say about the media. I'm going to use the Boston/Iraqi bombings as an example, simply because they happened on the same day.The world only cares if you are one of the western countries, like America or England. Iraq needed our prayers and supports, and didn’t get it. Why is this? Why is it that even after so many years since the slave trade etc., there are still small cases of racism, and yes this is a small case of racism from the media, a very small one - they should have reported about Iraq, but they wanted viewers, and they knew that more viewers would watch if they talked about Boston, which is wrong. No one particular place deserves more respect than another place. Both places, Iraq and Boston deserved 50/50 news coverage.
  This also happened on Tumblr. I saw a post where someone made a comment on how it was important to pray for Boston but people had died in Iraq too, I can’t really remember what it said exactly but I don’t think it mentioned Iraq had been bombed too which may have caused the confusion, which again shows how many people didn’t even know about the bombings. Anyway, underneath this post there were comments about how it is wrong to compare tragedies, what’s happening in Boston is current, whereas Iraq has been going on for ages etc. And they are correct, it is wrong to compare tragedies, but the Iraq tragedy was recent too.I mentioned this point to a friend of mine the day after the bombings, and she said “oh no people did know about Iraq, I heard about it,”. Okay, so maybe some people did know about it, but there is no denying that the majority of the Tumblr posts were about Boston, there are more news articles about Boston, pray for Boston was trending, not pray for Iraq, and that is a fact.
• People who listen to all these tragedies, realise that there are tragedies in the world, and only care to get notes, and likes, and only care for a little while, but they don't realise that these things are long lasting. (I'm no longer just talking about the bombings, I'm talking about everything)
  So many times when there is a tragedy, or whenever anything serious happens in the world, for a day or two it will be all over the news and everyone will be talking about it, you'll see Facebook updates, tweets and Tumblr posts on the topic, pray for *insert country name here* will be trending worldwide and I think that's brilliant, I honestly do, but day three or four and the media stops covering the news so people don't feel obliged to make a post about it, and then within a week, they've forgotten it; it's no longer current news so it doesn't matter to them, it's none of their business and they can go back to their everyday lives. Whilst I do think it's brilliant that there is an awareness for things around the world, it irritates me that there is a large number of people who don't really care and just want notes.
  How many people are sitting there and think of ways to actually help those who died? How many people sit there and actually thinking of ways to help those who need it, ever? You hear about things like poverty and natural disasters, and people care for the couple of hours it’s in the news, and how many people actually give a little bit of money, not everyone otherwise there would be no more poverty. How many people actually go out to these countries and help first hand, hardly any.
  Out of the many people who give a little bit of money to charity, first of all, thank you, but how many of them actually realise how they are helping and how many of them are just pushed by either the way they have been raised or the way society around them generally behaves? I know that for ages, I didn't really understand why I was giving money. I understood that it was for charity well enough, I'm not completely stupid, but I didn't quite understand it the way I do now, I didn't really get just how much a little bit helps and I didn't really understand how necessary it was for me to give as much as I can, and honestly if certain things hadn't happened in my life, I don't know if I would have ever understood. I'm curious to know how many people are in the same position I used to be, but either way I don't really care because at the end of the day, they help and that's the important part.

I guess my main point here is that if people have the ability to actually help and don’t, it annoys me. When certain people roll in their money and don’t even think about giving enough to charity so that it even scratches the surface of their money, it irritates me. It annoys me when people make statuses about praying for a place, simply to get likes. It annoys me when people, and the media, emphasise on one tragedy and not on another. It annoys me when people don’t try to make a difference.

At the same time, I know there are still plenty of people who get out there and do make a difference, and the world is running today because of them. The world is going because of every single charity worker, whether it was standing outside a shop with a collection basket or whether it was going out to LEDC’s and helping with projects first hand. They are the reason this world is running today, not because of politicians or soldiers or lawyers, or any one else, but simply because of the charity workers and the kindness in their hearts. It is my goal in my life, to one day be one of them who go out to these countries.

I know there is some good in this world and JRR Tolkien said it was worth fighting for so I’m just hoping he’s correct, because I want to fight, and I will fight, but I just hope it’s worth it.

I feel like I should really make a post about my birthday

I don't know why, but it just feels like if you have a blog and don't post about your birthday experiences.... it's a bit wrong?
I don't know really, I guess I just really want to use this opportunity to express how much I love my friends, and one in particular: Nikola
I met Nikola online and I can't remember the first time we spoke, but it was single-handedly the best decision I've ever made. She lives in Germany but still sent me over a birthday card, which looks a little like this:

Isn't it cute?
Anyway, it wasn't really the card, but more the letter she wrote me that brought a tear to my eye. I couldn't tell you why because I don't really know myself, but I figured out that I really loved this girl, and that she was beyond amazing, and that I'm lucky to know her. She goes through things in her life, we all do, but she's gone through some pretty bad things, and there have been moments when I've been scared beyond compare that I've lost her, and the relief I went through when I figured out I hadn't was second to none. I guess another thing that struck me was that she took time out of her day to buy me this stuff and send it all the way from Germany, and the fact that she takes time out of her day to talk to me so much as well. I'm glad to have her in my life, and I hope everyone has a friend like her, because everyone deserves and needs one.
I have other friends too, not to leave them out, and one friend I need to mention is my Internet soul mate.... I may or may not be hers, but she is definitely mine! Tasha. A million years wouldn't be enough to describe this girl, but I would just like to say that recently she did something so amazing and inspiring that no matter what the consequence, I'm so proud of her for going though with it.
I realise I'm being vague, but these aren't my stories to tell.

Anyway, I guess the main point of all of this is that I went through a phase in my life, a very long phase, where I didn't really have any close friends. I made a couple of friends, but then either I'd end up pushing them away with my anxiety/awkwardness or they would get bored of me. It always happens. I currently have a couple of school friends who I've really only been friends with for a year and this is usually the amount of time when my relationships start to fall apart... so I'm dreading this part really. I have one school friend I've been friends with pretty much since the beginning of high school, for four years, and that is genuinely the longest friendship I've ever had with anyone!
Since I barely have any social skills and lack the ability to make friends, I honestly thought that I would never find anyone that I could open up to, have serious conversations with, who could be there for me and I could be there for them, but we could still have the stupidest conversations and laugh for hours at end. You can imagine my surprise when I met my two best friends who know pretty much everything there is to know about me, but are still by some weird miracle my friends and I can have a crazy laugh with both of them and I'd definitely like to think that I'm there for them and I try my hardest to be 100% of the time, I hope they know that.

I guess this is a really cheesy post, but what can I say.... I like cheese....
(No I'm sorry for that 'joke' it was so bad... doesn't even deserve to be called a joke *sigh* what is my life?)
My stupid jokes aside... I guess what I'm really trying to say is that despite everything we all deserve an amazing friend, and I'm just really lucky to have two.

Peace out
The Ham Master has spoken