Here’s a tag from starsinmyeyes 

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen x
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien x
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte x
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling x
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee x
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte x
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens x
Total: 7

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott x
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy x
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller x
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare x
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier x
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien x
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger x
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
Total: 7

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell x
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald x
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy x
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy x
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky x
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll x
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame x
Total: 7

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy x
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens x
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen x
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen x
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini x
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres x
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden x
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne x
Total: 8

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell x
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown x
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins x
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery x
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy x
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding x
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
Total: 6

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen x
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth x
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens x
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Total: 3

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov x
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold x
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas x
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie x
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville x
Total: 5

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens x
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker x
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett x
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce x
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome x
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray x
80 Possession – AS Byatt
Total: 6

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens x
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro x
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert x
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White x
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle x
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton x
Total: 6

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery x
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams x
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas x
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare x
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl x
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo x
Total: 5

So. A total of 60. I think I’m going to go order some of these books on amazon now. It’s been so long since I had time to read a book. Just cuddle up and read and drink tea Been partying and working like crazy all year.

Amazon, here I come.

Cheers y’all. Peace.

Durga Puja today and I was as oblivious as ever. My Dutch supervisor reads his paper and sees these goats being sacrificed in Bangladesh. Then does a quick look up at me, hesitates and says: Aarabi, do you know today is Durga Day?

lol

A: Yes Edgar, it’s called a Puja

I love how he’s fascinated by our epics and religious stories, our traditions and social systems. At work, I talk quite straight about some of the shi*ty things in our system. I also talk straight about things which strike me shi*y in the dutch system too (so don’t send me hate mail already)

I found a very pretty bangle which mom put in my bag when I was in India. I heart it so much! And to make the evening even more special, I’m wearing a new salwar!

Indian clothes make a girl feel so graceful and beautiful. The cuts and flows make you automatically feel more lovely and gentle. What is even more cute is guys start treating you with more gentility. I am amazed at how they transform. Maybe it’s something Indian guys are hard coded to do? Maybe traditional clothes trigger some deep down gene?

I think I’ll wear a saree to work tomorrow. Make Navratri special at KPN

Aarabi is a happy bee today!

Cheers all and peace. Enjoy your Navratri.

I am utterly lost trying to understand what men see in beer.

Even the sweet Kriek beer , which is a cherry beer, makes me feel sick with it’s semi bitter after taste. So I was talking to a friend about what guys see in beer. Apparently after the first few sips, they don’t notice the bitter anymore. Okkaayy. Why go through with the first horrid sips and get to that point anyway?! you know? like what’s the point? Let’s all grow fat and ugly together?

I’ve nothing against alcohol. My housemates drink it by the litre – honour bright I just don’t get beer.

On a completely different note, this weekend, I’ve shit loads of stinking work to do, a slumber party and an India-Pak cricket match and a 20 page report to start and finish. I’m so screwed.

So to keep myself from completely flipping under the work, I’ve been digging up old favorite songs and I’ve gotten re-hooked to Janet.

I’m leaving you guys with this:

peace homies.

So! I’m trying to get my life back on track. Number one on my things to do is keep my mind occupied all the time.

I work during the day on my internship and thesis. It almost always leaks into my evenings and nights. I never have even a half day of no jobs. I work for another group at university which pays me rather good. I also joined the Board of Telecom at university and am organizing events for them. I’ve joined my university sport centre and I’m falling in love with the idea of pushing my body to its limits, get fighting fit  Today I tried a body activity called Spinning and then Pilates.

Tomorrow, I’m doing Kung Fu. Wednesday, yoga, hip hop and spinning! I love it!

More updates soon!

This summer, I’ve grown up. I know I haven’t blogged since April. But it was SO hectic.

I had to get my internship and thesis contract in place. Super loaded with work. Worked out the finance to support my living. Now, juggling 4 jobs, a complete new attitude (because I now live with 3 guys, eep!), coping in a completely Dutch speaking environment at work, a super messed up social life, and several self perception issues later, I present to you the new and improved Aarabi 2.0

This one is still learning to love herself, accept her limitations, understand her needs and loves, pamper herself as she is.

I love me for what I am. I can think with the best, I work with people from the UN with ages of experience and learning. I can chill with almost anyone already with no self perception issues and am working towards straightening out my complicated social life. I can live with 3 absolutely adorable guys who have supported me and strengthened me through this. Hearts, you guys.

Anyway, I’m back. And I’ll post more sooooooon!

Ciao ciao!