Hey, I’m Mariam’s younger and much cooler sister Aaliya. I’m a 14 year old secondary school student currently preparing for my dreaded GCSE exams. I live with my lovely family, gorgeous brown, white and black patched cat Billee and my Dad’s 6 huge tropical fish tank (:
I’m a total tomboy who adores ALL animals, I can’t get enough of sports and am really fun loving. At the moment I am fully absorbed by the world cup and believe it or not I am supporting Italy along with my Form class for our big school competition.
The last couple of weeks at school are always the busiest, packed with tests, trips, competitions and if you’re lucky – amazing weather too! My year group is having a fun end of year trip; we will be staying in North England, Dorset and doing activities like rock climbing, archery and kayaking. It’s a way of unwinding before our awful exams next year. We have also been buying our new uniforms for next September and they are surprisingly big on me – I don’t think I’ll ever get that big but I can dream.
Before the end of year we will find out which class has won our school’s world cup competition. We have all been decorating our classrooms according to our countries ‘theme’. My class is decorating using white, green and red because we are last times winners- Italy! This should help me to beat all of the other students!
Nowadays I feel like I have a test nearly every lesson! That’s the best part about end of year though – time away from trying to memorize a bunch of French vocabulary, science facts and a list of complicated English. But for now, wish me luck and have a nice summer!
The island of Cyprus is unusual because it’s shared by Turkey and Greece. For my holiday last week I went to the beautiful Greek south coast and enjoyed it even more than I thought possible. It was about 29 degrees the whole time I was there and I received some funny, jealous texts from my friends stuck back in cold, rainy London.
I got to drive a huge 4 by 4 range rover while I was there – something I would never do in the busy, narrow streets of London, so I made the most of it!
It was unusual driving along rocky and uneven terrain; I even avoided hitting a live iguana lizard! On one day out my family and I drove to the Troodos mountain area and saw amazing views. But it was terrifying when heavy mist began to descend on us and it was barely possible to see anything. I was scared we could fall off the side of the mountain because of the sharp turns and invisible barriers and was grateful when we reached ground level!
Thankfully we made it safely back to our villa every evening – which was a lovely place to hang out. We had our own swimming pool which was good fun and a pool table too. We don’t have a pool table at home so I was pretty bad at first but after playing every night I think I got rather good – I wish I had one of my own!
My days out included visiting a Greek amphitheatre where Gladiators used to fight, stunning monasteries and mosques as well as incredible beaches where I went snorkelling – It was great seeing colourful fish up close and personal in the clear blue water but not so much when I cut my fingers on the coral.
I had a lot of fun while I was on holiday but I have to admit I began to get home sick towards the end of the week and am more than happy to be back in London – although I would be even happier if there was a swimming pool, pool table, and good Cyprus weather!
This is definitely the best time of the year for me and probably everyone else in the UK – especially students who have their 6 weeks summer holidays to look forward to! It never felt like summer time for me unless I was going on holiday somewhere but I am definitely changing my mind. In London the weather is now getting quite lovely during June, July and August – so I think it’s a good idea to stay here and make the most of it. (Maybe global warming isn’t such a bad thing!! OK, that’s definitely a bad Joke.)
I have noticed that more people are going on holiday to get away from London’s weather when it’s horribly grey and wet and when holidays are also much cheaper!
I’m really excited about my holiday to Cyprus next week but will not be going anywhere else for a while once I get back to the UK- not that I have plans to get bored here over the summer!
My new book ‘101 places to see before you die’ has great ideas of places to visit that I can’t wait to start on. It suggests parts of the Great British countryside, old castles and places where old famous people had lived. I would love to see some parts of the UK that books and films have been based on and have already visited Chatsworth house where one of my Jane Austen favourites ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was filmed.
I will probably be visiting the park across the road from me quite a lot during summer too. It’s called Victoria Park because Queen Victoria gave the land to East London as a gift for the children. It has its own deer park, maze and fishing lake, which I have never been able to catch anything from! The playground has a glider and some of the biggest slides I have ever seen and I could literally spend hours there feeling like a child again.
Most of all, I love cycling through the park and racing my brothers and sister over the speed ramps! I know that even if I do nothing all summer apart from walk over the road to the park it will still be a great holiday and I can’t wait to make the most of it…
We have a new prime minister! I honestly don’t know whether this is a good or bad thing yet but it’s a relief that something has finally been decided. The UK has been caught up in a political whirlwind for the last few months – it’s strange that it’s all we have been talking about!
Thursday the 6th of May was Election Day and there was a lot of excitement leading up to it. We’ve definitely learnt a lot from the way America’s elections take place – for example, a few weeks ago the leaders of our main political parties had live TV debates together for the first time and have been campaigning in a way that got normal people here involved. As a result, we had a large turnout of voters and ordinary people seemed to be getting interested in the elections for the first time.
I think one of the reasons that this election was different from the others is because there was no clear front runner – we had no idea who was going to win. And this year, even once all of the votes had been counted – there was no clear winner! There was a lot of confusion as no single party got the majority vote to govern the UK by itself – we have what we call a ‘hung’ parliament (for the first time since 1974) which means parties have to work together if they want to form a new government.
Gordon Brown resigned after being Prime Minister for 3 years. He visited Buckingham Palace and asked the Queen’s permission to leave his position and then David Cameron, leader of the party with more votes (but not enough to win by himself!) was invited to the Palace to form a new government.
Cameron has decided to join forces with another party so that their votes can be added together – this is not something that has happened successfully before so there is a lot of uncertainty about how this ‘hung’ parliament will work. We really don’t know what the new Prime Minister has in store for us now that he has moved into 10 Downing Street but hopefully the UK’s new found interest in politics will continue!
We have had some extreme weather here in the UK lately, from heavy rain- to heavy snow- to sunny spells. We now have volcanic ash to deal with and people are not happy! A volcano in Iceland has decided to erupt and we are faced with a huge ash cloud flying over Europe. It causes most planes to be grounded. That means that if you were going on holiday anytime soon – you are not anymore!
I had thought the reason to worry about a volcano was the boiling hot lava flowing out if it, but it’s now clear that the harmless looking black cloud above it can cause its own problems. Although we can’t actually see the smoke from here we are definitely feeling the effects – no planes are allowed off the ground and we don’t know when things will improve. At the moment life for people in Iceland has apparently not been affected too much but if the wind changes direction and keeps the ash on Iceland’s mainland, people might have to be evacuated.
I don’t know much about volcanoes but it’s pretty obvious that breathing in volcanic ash is not going to be good for you!
I always expected an active volcano would be amazing to experience but right now the only people who seem to be excited are the scientists. Big events like the Formula 1 Grand Prix and football matches are being disrupted, along with many concerts. I feel bad for struggling organisations around the world relying on air travel – they are being hit yet again in this recession and a lot of money will continue to be lost until the volcano calms down. I feel most sorry for those people who went on holiday over the Easter break and are now stranded overseas until further notice! (Although being stranded somewhere nice might not necessarily be a bad thing!!) I just hope things get better by next month when I plan to fly off to Cyprus!
Well, this film has to be one of the best ones I’ve seen lately!
When I found out Sandra Bullock finally won an Oscar for her role as the mother, Leanne in this movie, I was really happy for her. I’ve been a fan of hers for ages but I never expected her newest film to be as good as it was. I think it was the actual story that I fell in love with – and the fact that it was based on a true story made it even more amazing.
The film is about a very wealthy, white, American couple taking in a homeless, teenage, black boy who (unexpectedly) starts attending the same school as their two children. It’s a wonderful story of how the family really open up their home and hearts to this neglected boy Michael Oher and treat him like one of their own. Some parts of the film were hilarious and got me laughing out loud but most of all I honestly found it quite emotional, especially because it was obvious what a difference the family was making to Michael’s life.
There was one particularly touching part: Leanne (Sandra Bullock) is showing him his new room and he tells her he’s never had one before – she asks him if he means he’s never had a room all to himself? And he replies ‘a bed’.
The real Michael Oher is now in his 20’s and has become an American football legend!
It was incredible to watch this film about how he was rescued from the streets by this loving family and given the opportunity to pursue a successful sporting career. Finding out about his neglectful background made me feel really fortunate about my own life. I saw how the family took him in despite how different he was to them and this was truly inspiring.
Overall The Blindside was a real feel-good movie and I’ve been telling everyone I know to go and watch it!
Well, these Olympics have certainly been one of the most memorable of all time, but this is for both good and bad reasons!
One young Olympian sadly died before the games had even started after crashing during a training run on the luge course. This tragic event did cast a shadow over the Olympics at first. A minute’s silence was observed at the opening ceremony and the 21 year old’s Georgian teammates wore black armbands as a mark of respect.
Soon enough though, the competitive spirit kicked in, the tiny lack of snow problem was resolved (snow was shipped in!) and we were in for a fantastic few weeks of sport!
Along with some of my sport loving friends I have been glued to the TV every night watching the Olympics and I mean VERY late every night. I have the Canada-UK 8 hour time difference to thank for my recent lack of sleep! Even unlikely sports like curling have kept me interested, who would have thought a simple game of rolling weights on ice could actually be kind of… exciting!?
Snowboarding has always been my favourite of the winter Olympic events and they didn’t disappoint this time around either. The fast races down the Vancouver slopes were also amazing to watch and the painful looking falls suffered by some of the Olympians kept me at the edge of my seat.
We were very disappointed that Great Britain only managed to clinch one medal at these winter Olympics but at least it was a Gold one!
Without a doubt the host nation Canada overshadowed every other county competing, winning 14 gold’s altogether. It’s obvious that the Canadian team gave these games everything they had – they were under the most pressure but I think they performed incredibly in front of their home crowd who were keen to show their support very loudly!
I just hope that Team GB will shine as brightly when they compete in front of their home crowd in the London 2012 Olympics… watch this space!
At the end of 2009 the UK launched an Inquiry into the 2003 Iraq war. This should hopefully answer some of the controversial questions people here in the UK have – like why did we really go to war? How was it conducted? And were our soldiers properly prepared?
Key players of the Iraq War like our former Prime Minister Tony Blair gave evidence recently. It was the moment we had all been waiting for.
Had the leader we once loved actually lied to us about the reasons for war? The families of some of our dead soldiers had turned up to hear his explanations and jeered him when he said that he had no regrets about his decision and would do it all again. Hundreds of demonstrators waited for him outside and he faced heckles of ‘murderer’ when he finished giving his evidence.
It now seems that we did not go to war for the reasons our leaders told us – Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. There was no chance any weapons could be rocketed towards the UK in 45 minutes. In other words we were all made to worry for no reason!
Many members of Parliament have now come forward and admitted they did not support the war and that some of them felt pressured to go along with the prime minister.
It’s also come to light that our armed forces did not have the right equipment for the mission they were sent on and we don’t seem to have had a decent plan of action for rebuilding Iraq either.
This all seems quite obvious now that we can all see the mess we’ve left abroad for ourselves. Most of all I feel really sorry for the relatives of soldiers injured and killed in the war – who now know that things might’ve been different if we’d been better prepared and that we might not have needed to go to war at all.
There’s still some time to go until we hear the result of the Inquiry and whether it’s deemed legal or not but whatever the outcome, it would be very interesting and controversial. So watch this space…
Reality TV is a big deal in the UK right now. Believe it or not sometimes there’s really nothing better to do on a cold evening but to relax on the sofa and watch other people live their lives!
I’ve always thought programmes like X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent were a bit of a waste of time but have to admit that I end up hooked watching the entire series even when I try my best to avoid them!
Maybe it’s because I find the auditions hilarious or just can’t resist Simon Cowell’s funny but very rude comments, whatever the reason, I absolutely love watching (and sometimes laughing) at other people on TV.
And it looks like we in the UK are not the only ones to develop a thirst for reality TV. America has its own version of America’s Got Talent and Strictly Come Dancing – where celebrities learn dance routines and compete with each other. Other fantastic programs like The Weakest link and Total Wipeout have been copied all over the world and are also thoroughly entertaining!
Shows like Big Brother have grown in popularity too, especially the celebrity version but sometimes I wonder why exactly we enjoy watching absolutely pointless conversations between people.
So it looks like reality TV is here to stay. I think we find it fascinating when we look into other people’s lives. Simply watching people do embarrassing and funny things is always entertaining.
Check out Japan’s version of Hole in the Wall (Human Tetris) and you’ll know what I mean!
One of the best movies I have ever seen in my life… And let me tell you, I’ve seen a lot of films!
Avatar is pretty much as good as it gets and after watching it I can now understand why it took 10 years to make. There has been a lot of hype about this movie here in the UK. We’ve all been waiting for it, especially since Avatar posters have taken over most of our billboards for the last few months! Everyone’s been talking about it so I had to see what all the fuss was about…
I saw this film on New Year’s Day at the IMAX Cinema in London which has a huge screen – apparently the biggest screen in Europe in fact! The only showing I managed to get tickets for was at 00:20am (yes, I went to see it in the middle of the night!). Every other showing was compleeeetely sold out – even the ones at ridiculous times like 3:30am and 6:45am, just going to show how popular Avatar has been here.
It was the first full 3D film I’ve ever seen so I wasn’t sure what to expect and it did take me a little while to get used to the 3D glasses. But once I did I could hardly believe how fantastic the special effects were – it almost felt as though I was on another planet. I was completely immersed, it was an unforgettable experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed all 162 minutes of it!
I loved the story as well and really warmed to some of the characters too. I’ve decided I now want to be an Avatar lol.
So as long as you fancy something different (and don’t suffer from motion sickness!) I advise everyone to have this 3D experience for themselves and on the biggest screen around!You will not regret it!
Hey, I’m Mariam’s younger and much cooler sister Aaliya. I’m a 14 year old secondary school student currently preparing for my dreaded GCSE exams. I live with my lovely family, gorgeous brown, white and black patched cat Billee and my Dad’s 6 huge tropical fish tank (:
