Celebrating Autumn : the year's last loveliest smile

I like to wear my heart on the sleeve when it comes to autumn. And it isn't a secret here in this little blog.

Plenty of warm sunshine, the crisp air, clear blue skies and blankets of golden leaves on the ground makes my heart flutter.

On days like these, I like to go to the park, read a book under the sun and take a nap, which I did last weekend only to attract weird stares from people at the park. At the risk of not seeming too creepy I quickly picked up my things and headed home. Tomorrow is officially the end to this glorious season. 

This morning when the sun played hide and seek, I was nervous thinking that I wouldn’t be able to go out to bask in this glorious season for the last time. Hopefully, Mr. Sun came out and we didn’t waste a minute in heading out. It was truly breathtaking to go out and take photos in different parts of the capital. I couldn’t help but pose in almost all the photos at the risk of looking narcissist. And the inner child in me came out and I tried catching the falling leaves, played with the leaves (as seen in the pic below) and mistook a wild nut for hazelnut and ate it. Thank God, I'm still breathing. Thus this post. :)

 

Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

What I love about Autumn

What is there not to love about autumn? The year’s last loveliest smile.

The fall of the sunburnt leaves adorning the earth in all its mellowed beauty

The crisp air

The sweater weather

Large and chunky scarves

Crunchy leaves

Snuggle/reading by the fire

The flushed cheeks

Dressing in layers and leggings

Eating bathup and making that slurping sound

Autumn has always been my favorite season and I can’t stop obsessing over all things autumn. It’s the time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale. I’m so glad I live in the world where there are autumns.  

So I took a little walk in the park this afternoon and got to take these gorgeous pictures. 

Tell me what do you love most about autumn?

 

An update and a Book Review // Eleanor & Park

Things have never been busy like this before.Between moving houses, relocating to a new office (temporarily), traveling for work and the amount of reports and essays I have been shoving up my face at work is completely draining me out. Literally.

That’s why I have been MIA and this little blog has been ignored for some time now. Man, blogging is tedious sometimes! Huge commitment is required which I’m miserable at. Kudos to all blog buddies who never is on writer’s block. 

Well well,what made me come back to do a little update? My love for books. 

I just finished reading Eleanor & Park. I had to share it with you here because if I don’t, uh…nothing will happen. 

Duh. 

On a recent travel overseas I quickly picked this book on an impulsive shopping spree. Well, I’ve heard of Rainbow Rowell’s books before and had wanted to read Fangirl but this book’s cover caught my attention. I know I’m not supposed to judge a book by its cover. That’s cliché, I tell you. Because I picked this book by its cover, I mean look at the cover, isn’t it CUTE? A red head girl and a boy, sharing a headpiece. So simple yet beautiful. 

I finished the book in two days straight. Why? Because it kept me hooked. I couldn’t go to bed without telling myself ‘Just one more chapter’ and run late for work with large prominent eye bags. I had to shut myself in the room and cut off human contact because I couldn’t put down the book. It has been long since I read a good book. Eleanor & Park, a 2013 young adult novel tells a beautiful, haunting love story of two sixteen year olds in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1986. 

Eleanor is the new girl, the girl with the crazy red hair and strange clothes. She comes from a very dysfunctional family. Every moment at home for her is terrifying as she lives in constant fear of offending her abusive alcoholic stepfather. She shares a cramped room with her four siblings where toothbrush is a luxury and she has to go to school in wet crumpled clothes. 

Park is a half-Korean kid who has a more stable family life but constantly has a conflict with his father. 

Eleanor and Park bond over comic books and music and falls in love on their school bus but deals with domestic abuse, child abuse, racism, bullying and body image. Then the kick-ass plot reveals and immediately I fell in love with the characters. It just blew me away. 

The writing is as soft and silky as creamy butter that melts right away as you put it in your mouth. Like this quote: 

"Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something." 

The fact that the story is told from both Eleanor and Park’s perspectives makes the character overwhelming. The way they speak to each other, about everything makes me renew my faith in love. It reminds you of your high school teenage love, that’s if you had one. 

Throughout the book, one word that constantly came out of me after each chapter was “CUTE.” Frankly, I giggled all the way towards the end of the book and craved for more. It’s a light read with just 325 pages. Rowell definitely left me craving for more. I wouldn’t be able to pick up another book for a while now.