This blog in response to Peter Eastey's blog post

From Scribbles to Brilliance: Embracing the Unexpected in Your Writing Journey

Vegetarian food is the food that comes from plants and it consists of vegetables and fruit. Some people are vegetarian because of their religeous beliefs while others turn vegetarian because they think it's more healthy. I personally think that it is not a healthy choice because a balanced diet should also include nutrients that come from milk, poultry and meat sources. Although plants too contain most of the nutrients but amino acids/proteins in them are of much lower quality than those of animal origin. I know that vegetarians try to get more nutrients by including foods like soya and almond milk in there meals but those items are quite expensive and are not available everywhere especially in communities who eat meat a lot. Foods consisting of vegetables and fruit is very healthy as long as we add good protein source with them. People who don't eat fruit and vegetables are also malnourished and  are prone to diseases like coronary artery disease(heart disease), diabetes mellitus, cancer and hypertension (high blood pressure).

Here I would like to mention a Russian vlogger who died a few days ago. I don't remember her name but I read in the news that she didn't eat anything apart from raw vegetables and fruit for past 10 years! She would eat only raw plant based food. She wouldn't even drink water. She died of starvation. She was only 39. Her family tried to councell her multiple times to eat a more balanced diet but she always ran away from home and lived in different countries. People who met her in her last years of life said she was severely malnourished and they were scared she would die soon. She even promoted this as a healthy life style via her vlogs. She even thought she wouldn't catch covid because of her eating habits but she did. Although I didn't know her before her death and have never seen any of her vlogs but her death made me sad. She died at such a young only because of unhealthy eating habits.

I'm writing this blog as a  challenge given by Peter Eastey. I didn't take any help from any source including google. In above paragraphs I only wrote what came to my mind.

Hello, Everyone!

I hope you are having a great day. I am an old member of MyEC and as long as I remember I joined this platform back in 2009. It helped me improve my English and I made a lot of good friends here. In those days MyEC was a very active place and blogs would receive hundreds of comments. I tried to come back many times after I left MyEC but since my old friends weren't around and it was not as active as it was before I lost my interest. However, this time I've decided to stay here for long and I hope to make new friends and write lots of new blogs.

As I am writing this blog after a very long time I don't really have any thing on my mind to write about. What should I write about in my next blog? Kindly suggest a few good topics.

Btw, are there any old members who still remember me? I just saw a few familair names on MyEC activity feed like Fizzy, Nadira and Mr Joseph.

I have been planning to take IELTS academic in a month or two and I'd love to meet people who have similar plans.

What else? Hmmm....tell me how's weather at your place, friends? Is it hot or cold or pleasant? It's hot and humid where I live. Although this summer temperatures were a lot lower than previous years and we had unusually heavy rainfalls which made weather quite pleasant, since the begning of the month of the August it is unbearable. It's cloudy yet very hot and humid.

Kindly leave a comment when you read my blog post and make corrections where needed. I'd be really grateful.

See you around friends. Please don't forget to suggest a good topic for my next blog.

Thank you for passing by my blog and taking your time to read it. I apprecaite it.

MyEC is the place where I not only learned English but also made awesome friends from across the globe. I once used to be one of the very active members of MyEC and would spend most of my time here. Then I got busy and stopped logging in to MyEC. However, I have always missed MyEC and my friends that I made here. I'm back now but really disappointed to see that all my dear friends are gone. I wish to meet to them all again. 

I dedicate this lovely poem to all my old friends......

Old Friends

By Edgar Guest

Dear Friends,

I'm so grateful to you for reading my blogs and leaving comments on my blogs and page. I've read them all and I appreciate that you took your precious time to write those comments. Honestly speaking, I've been feeling very stressed because of the IELTS test I'm going to take in the first half of August, and even though replying to comments is a good way to practice my writing skills, I can't do that at this moment in time. So via this blog, I'd like to thank you all.

Stay blessed always! :)

Nowadays, I've noticed that MyEC members fight too much on the issues like gender and religion. It seems like everyone is too stubborn to understand other person's views. Irony is that people keep fighting and keep trying to convince others despite knowing the fact that they would never succeed in doing so. Everybody wants to speak, but nobody wants to listen, or more correctly, people only listen to get more reasons to continues their useless debate.

Sometimes I read people's comments and replies to each other and think why don't they just get tired of doing the same thing over and over again? Most of the members would say that this is their way of improving their writing skill. Although I do agree with this to a certain extent, I think people cross their limits more often than not and aren't afraid of hurting their fellow members' feelings. I believe that even the freedom of expression and freedom of speech should have certain limits. The moment someone reaches the point from where they start hurting other human beings' feelings, they should be stopped. This is the very reason all the civilized societies have ethics, laws and values. It looks like, however; that MyEC, which is a virtual society in my personal opinion, doesn't have any, unfortunately. We, the members, come from different countries, have different ethnic backgrounds, have different religious beliefs/or don't have a religious belief at all, etc. If we refrain from indulging in activities that turn friends into foes, MyEC would be a much better place to learn English and make friends.

P.S. Don't even try to start a new debate here. :D

I had been away from MyEC for quite a long time and now that I'm back I'm very much disappointed by the number of the mistakes I make when I write something. My English wasn't good before I joined MyEC many years back but then I improved my English language skills to a degree that I was able to score 8 out of 9(btw, I consider that score more of a miracle and a blessing of God then a true reflection of my writing skill!) in writing section of IELTS Academic Test when I took the test about 2 and half years ago. My IELTS result has now expired and I've to retake the test, however; I'm not sure if I'd be able to score like I did before. I'm so scared! Any suggestions to improve my English in the shortest possible time will be highly appreciated as I plan to take the test by the end of July.

Hi there, friends!

While browsing through the members' pages a few moments ago I came across a new word "gourmand". I saw the meaning of it and found it very interesting. What I like the most is the fact that I am a gourmand myself! ;)

Can you guess the meaning of this word without looking up in a dictionary and do you consider yourself a gourmand, too? :)

Image given below is a big clue! :)

Hello Again everyone,

A few days ago I wrote a blog just because I wanted to practice my writing skill. It wasn't a very interesting blog and when I posted it I was sure that hardly anyone would read it or comment on it. However, the response was beyond my expectations and I'm so grateful to all of you for your priceless kindness.

My previous experience has given me the hope that sometimes even meaningless ranting could be a way to practice and improve writing skill and I'm so happy about that.

A few days ago, Seeker challenged us to write a story in just three sentences and so many members have been taking part in it. All the stories, except mine of course, are so splendidly written that for the first time during my stay here in this learning club I've come to know that I'm surrounded by such talented writers! Don't misunderstand this statement, friends, because it doesn't mean that previously I didn't think of members as talented. Of course, they are extremely talented and I knew this before Seeker's writing challenge. My point here is that writing a story in just three sentences is an excellent example of how highly they're capable of expressing themselves via fiction and writing something in just three sentences can not be thought of as something ordinary. It shows how much creative the members of this club are and perhaps we have so many potential best selling authors among us. Maybe, one day we'd hear that some of our friends and fellow members have written wonderful books and have taken the world by storm.

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A few days ago I came across a story on BBC.com. It said that facebook was turning into a growing and unstoppable digital graveyard. A lot of its members were already dead and 8000 of its alive members were dying every day! If you're interested to know the details, you can read the full article here. By the way, I was wondering if one day our club will also meet the same kind of fate? Perhaps, it's already true for all online forums for some extent, however, on a much smaller scale as compared to facebook.

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These days a lot of countries across the globe are facing an obesity epidemic. It's not only the people, who are obese, suffer but also the countries as a whole suffer as medical conditions that result as a consequence of obesity put severe financial burden on governments. Obesity, as you may already know, causes a lot of life threatening illnesses like cardiovascular diseases, a variety of cancers, Diabetes and a whole range of other diseases. To prevent obesity, governments try to implement new laws from time to time. The latest being the UK government is thinking of banning junk food ads. I thing the idea is just great. It's duty of us all in general and governments in particular to save our younger generation from unhealthy eating habits so that they don't suffer.

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That's all for today, dear friends!

Please, do correct mistakes. Please do!

Have a splendid week ahead! :)

Title: The Tale of Feeling Hungry! LoL

I woke up in the middle of the night and felt extremely hungry. I got up, went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. I ate as much as I could and then went to sleep again until morning.

The END!

P.S.

I wrote and posted this blog and then read it again and realized that it doesn't feel like a story at all. So I hit the edit blog button to add this note. I don't want to delete it because it might become a happy memory for me when I read it after many many long years. As far as Seeker's challenge is concerned I'll try my best to write a story that does sound like a story at least.

Hello Everyone!

I hope you're all doing well. I was away from MyEC for what seemed like an eternity. I'm back now and I'm happy that I am and I wish I continue to be an active member of this awesome website forever and ever. Although I'm back my problem is the same old one i.e. what to comment or blog. I know that I need to write something/anything to improve my writing skill but my mind is blank the moment I sit down to write anything. I read blogs and then want to comment on them but know not what to write, so I just press the like button and move on and read another blog and the same story continues. When I read other people's comments I so wish to write down something but always fail. What a pity, isn't it? This bothers me a lot! :(

I'm going to try to write down a few lines even if they make no sense at all.

I love reading fiction. Novels to be precise. In the past month or so I read first three books of The Maze Runner Pentalogy by James Dashner, The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I really loved those books. Currently I'm reading Anne of Avonlea which is a novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery and it's so wonderfully written. I read Anne of Green Gables a few years ago and now I feel that I so want to read it again.

I love to eat, too. I mostly like spicy foods and hardly eat anything sweet. I eat or at least try to eat each and every kind of food as it's good for health. I eat and like most kinds of fruit, almost all types of salads and vegetables, beef, chicken, eggs, fish, meat etc. but I don't like to drink milk. However, I do like yogurt and I think that's a very good alternative of milk which should be essential part of all healthy diets. I hardly ever eat any junk food or drink soft drinks. I do not smoke or drink alcohol and I avoid the company of smokers as passive smoking is dangerous for a person's health. I only like to drink plain water or fresh fruit juices (not the packaged ones, of course) and lassi(a drink made from yogurt,water and salt. Some people like their lassi sweet but I like it a little sour and salty). I rarely do drink tea but I'm not fond of it much and I HATE coffee! Hey, but I love coffee cake! Yummy! I know one should eat dry fruit as nuts are an essential requirement to remain healthy but I'm not a great fan of them either but I do try eat a handful of any of the nuts at one time or the other.

I guess it's enough for today. Phew!!

Please do correct any mistakes that I made. I'd highly appreciate your kind help.

Have a really great week ahead!

Take Good Care, Everyone!

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Up Coming and Next (maybe and in either order)

-My Cooking skills ;)

-You're missed :(

Greetings Everyone!

First off, I'd like to thank all those who read my blog "A rant about nothing! :D" and took their precious time to write such awesome comments. A billion thanks to all those, too, who hit the like button. I owe you all a great debt of gratitude. It was so kind of you. I was pretty scared before publishing my blog because I didn't write in a while and I myself found the blog awful. These are not just words, I mean it. So I wasn't really expecting many comments but you proved me wrong. You know, your response made me feel nostalgic. Similar thing happened when I wrote my first blog a couple of years back. As it was my first try and I never wrote a blog before, I wasn't expecting any comments but my close friends'. However, I was extremely surprised as response was overwhelming and everyone encouraged me beyond my imagination. To be honest, if it wasn't for MyEC, I wouldn't be able to write a single sentence correctly. Thank you so much again!!

Secondly, I just finished reading "Divergent" by Veronica Roth. I didn't like it much, to be honest. While reading, I wished I didn't start reading it. Maybe, it was my mistake that I didn't stop reading the novel when I realized that it's not going to offer anything interesting. However, I kept expecting that story would eventually evolve into something decent but it didn't. I wasted three precious days of my life for it. :( Perhaps The Huger Games were still fresh in my mind and they were so impressively written that when I started reading the "Divergent", I was expecting something really incredible. That could be the reason that I didn't find the book good enough.

Last but not the least, I'm going to read "The Lord of Rings" now. I don't know why but I feel like I'm not going to waste any time this instance. It somehow looks promising to me. Wish me luck. :)

Thank you for reading! :)

Have a pleasant weekend! :)

I came back to EC just a few weeks ago but after writing my previous blog, I was absent for a whole week. I didn't want to go away, but I got The Hunger Games Trilogy and was so indulged in reading the books that I couldn't visit the EC as frequently as I wanted to. If you're somebody fond of reading, you must know how people and things come alive in your imagination. I mean reading the books makes you think, fantasize and use your imagination in a way that nothing else could ever do. You become a part of the story in one way or the other, even if you don't realize it. It's something you don't feel or do when you watch a movie. When I start reading a book, I never want to be disturbed. I only interrupt my reading when I have to do something really necessary. What makes me so glued to books is curiosity. "What will happen the next?" is something which doesn't allow me to go to sleep even.

         So I was telling you that I was busy reading The Hunger Games. The novels were very admirably written. Honestly speaking, I only like the books and movies with happy endings but I found these books great, although there were no happy endings save the third book where the end was pretty ok. I couldn't manage to finish even the first book of the Twilight series as all what I found in it was an account of the smell of Bella's blood and Edward's cold skin, however; I read The Hunger Games with great interest till the very end, so much so that I was determined to read even the acknowledgments given in the end of the 3rd book but didn't as I found them kind of boring. :D

        I personally felt that the flow of the story was such that none of novels could standalone. When I finished reading the first book, I felt I was in the middle of something and I had to read the next book immediately. The story was narrated by the main protagonist Katniss Everdeen, so basically one saw the things through her eyes. The location was 13 Districts and the Capitol in a country called Penam which came into being when North America was perhaps destroyed by some kind of apocalypse. The story was engaging and creative but at the same time engulfed in utter sadness. I read three books but for not a single moment could manage to smile. Even the ostentatious accounts of the ceremonies, food, clothing and architecture in the Capitol couldn't lessen the gloominess that surrounded each and every thing. There were, of course, some "good moments" but there weren't any "happy moments". There were absolutely none.

        There were some characters I liked and there were others I disliked. The ones I absolutely loved were Peeta (the most kind-hearted person), Prim (for being that mature at such a young age), Katniss' mother (for serving the humanity, despite being so brokenhearted herself) and Cinna(for being so ENIGMATIC! The only person I wished author had written more about and one of those I wished were alive in the end) and Rue(for being so innocent). I also liked Katniss, Gale, Finnick, Katniss' perp team, Plutarch, Boggs etc. I found Haymitch and Effie and few others pitiable. However, the one I hated the most was not Snow, the Capitol president, or any other Capitol resident, it was Coin, the district 13 president. She wasn't only a hypocrite but in my opinion the most cruel person among all. I didn't like her from the very beginning but I came to hate her particularly when she sent Peeta after Katniss so that he could kill her and when she ordered to send deadly silver parachutes containing explosives to Capitol's kids taking refuge in the barricade in front of the President Snow's residence, so ultimately killing the Prim. She was worst when she told Victors that she wanted to continue the Hunger Games. Probably the best thing Katniss did was to kill her instead of Snow. 

       Although districts were poor and hunger prevailed, I think what people did wasn't entirely justifiable. For instance, tributes could have refuse to fight each other and hence make the Hunger Games a failure right from the very beginning. I wonder why people didn't teach their children any such thing. (Was it so because they were scared the Capitol would destroy the entire districts? Maybe that was the reason behind.) Instead some of the districts, who were less poor, trained their children to become tributes and thought it was honorable to win the games. Also some of the districts weren't any less cruel than Capitol, like people of 2 who worked as peacekeepers and 13 who never intended to help other districts genuinely. Had the people of districts been a little different, I think Capitol would have never been able to enslave them for such a long period. But I guess I was wrong. It couldn't be as easy as I thought it would be.

       While reading, the only time I felt hopeful, not happy but hopeful, was when I read about Katinss and Peeta's children in epilog. So hopeful that I even wished them good luck! ::D

       While reading the story, I thought what it was that inspired the author, Suzanne Collins, to write such "violent" books. Were the novels only imaginary? They weren't anything but merely a piece of fiction? So when the real motive, in my very personal opinion of course, dawned on me, it sent chills down my spine. Is the world we live in any different from the Penam? Aren't there people dying of hunger in certain parts of the world, while in the others people are stuffing themselves with food, so much so that obesity has become one of the leading causes of death today? Don't we witness people searching for a piece of stale bread or a rotten fruit in garbage so that they could extinguish the fire ignited by hunger in their bellies while others waste and throw away food because it's too much for them to consume? Is this scenario any different from the districts' people dying of hunger while the Capitol ones turned into bulimics?

         Aren't power-hungry governments killing innocent children, children who don't many times even know what death is, in the name of bringing the peace in the world, in the very way the Capitol was punishing the tributes in the arena as a punishment for holding a rebellion a century before, a "crime' that they didn't commit. Children were forced kill to each other for what happened in their grandparents or perhaps their great grandparents time.

        Now a word about mutts. We fortunately don't see them about till now but will the circumstances remain the same in the future as well? I wonder they really will, especially after a certain country officially allowed the scientists to produce three-parents kids. Only future will tell if this and similar "experiments" benefit the humankind or we would witness a generation of mutts inhabiting our dear planet.

Thanks a million for reading, if you really managed to read it. :D

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For Lady Anne! :D

Look Anne spelled with an "e", The Hunger Games aren't something like The Harry Potter Series or The Twilight Series. Though I loved The Harry Potter Series, like other adults excluding you probably, it was written basically for kids. I can't say exactly for whom author of The Twilight Series wrote those strange tales to read, although I must admit that the movies were better and pretty watchable. However, The Hunger Games are something worth reading. They weren't intended as juvenile fiction, rather they were labelled as young-adult fiction. I personally think, they fit more in adult literature. In fact, I won't let a child to read them. There are plenty of good books out there for them to read. They could be as destructible for a child's mind as violent video games and movies. :D

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P.S. I need the opinions of those who watched The Hunger Games Movies. I heard they were great but I'd like to know if they're violent beyond imagination. Actually, I hate too much bloodshed in movies. In the books, Katniss narrated the story and she didn't witness all the killings in the arena or wasn't always a part of war which was fought between the Districts and the Capitol. Is it same in the movies? Thanks in advance for your precious help.

It's been ages since I last "wrote" a blog. Also, I had been away from EC for a very long time. So, first I'd like to welcome myself back to MyEC. :D Second, as I'd like to start blogging again, ......hmmmm.... as I've really nothing on my mind to write about, I've decided to write about "nothing"! :D

Hold on! If you're expecting you're going to read a philosophical, or a logical, or let's say....hmmm... for example, an anatomical, a physiological, an astronomical, or a social account of "nothing", you, as you might have guessed by now, are absolutely wrong. :D

My dilemma is that I have always wanted to be a writer. The kind of a writer who writes best sellers and wins prizes for their every other book. However, when I sit down to write something, I never know what to write.

Stop! Before you tell me that's what people call a "writer's block". Why? Because only a writer could suffer from a "writer's block" and I'm not a writer, at least not yet.

Smile! If you have somehow managed to read the good for nothing blog of mine this far and now your good mood has already been ruined, put a smile on your face. Even a fake smile would do. Why? Because a study says that even if it's just a fake smile, it decreases stress. So, Happy smiling! :)

Hmmm....... What else? Shall I write more or stop here? What to do?

Oh, yeah!! I forgot to greet all the great teachers, bloggers, commentators, my friends and the rest of EC members because of whom EC is shining this brightly. Hello, Everyone! :)

Anyways, bye for now. I hope I'll "write" something really soon.

Happy writing to all the great writers out there! :)

If you want to continue your education but can't afford or haven't enough time to go to a college or university, then you may find following online university courses useful. They are free, so all you need is an internet connection.

Cuteness overload!! :))

If you can't watch the video, watch it here! :)

War is a crime against humanity.

It brings death and destruction.

It brings pain and sorrow.....and tears.

It may make some people feel victorious,

but it never brings happiness.

Let's imagine for a moment,

that someone has attacked your beloved homeland,

or any place on earth where you are residing.

Let's imagine for a moment,

the fear that has started to surround you upon hearing such a heart wrenching news.

Let's imagine for a moment....just a single moment,

Someone is about to shoot your beloved mother in front of your eyes,

but you can't save her.

Let's imagine for a moment,

your daughter or son is running to save their life,

is screaming and crying,

but you can't help them.

Let's imagine... the dead body of one of your siblings or best friends is lying before you,

you want to sit beside them for a long while and cry and recall all the moments you lived together,

but you can't do that,

for you have to run to save your own life.

Let's imagine you're sitting in front of your computer,

chatting with a friend or doing some office work,

or perhaps you're just sleeping into your cozy bedroom,

and you suddenly hear the thunder of approaching war planes,

and a loud announcement that asks you to leave your lovely home and seek refuge somewhere,

you are running behind the youngest of your children so that you could take them away with you,

but they are just laughing and giggling and running faster and faster,

thinking their mom or dad are just playing with them,

at that moment a bomb or missile hits your home....and there's nothing...no life..

Or just think this other way round...

you succeed in taking away your family out of your home and then empty house is hit by a missile,

your beautiful house is into ashes now,

your all saving were inside that burnt house,

all your clothes and food have gone with it,

and weather is so cold,

it might snow tonight,

your little baby is hungry and is shivering from cold,

and then dies before your eyes crying for milk.

Let's imagine that you've lost both of your lower limbs,

because you stepped on a landmine.

Now you'll never feel the ground beneath your feet,

your dream of playing in your town's football team has been ruined....

And lots of other dreams have vanished into the thin air, too.

Aren't we the daughters and sons of Adam and Eve?

Can you ever deny this fact?

Let's stop hating each other on the basis of religion and race.

Let's think of each other as siblings for we share a common father and mother.

Let's love each other.

Let's stop fighting with each other.

Let's stop our governments from killing innocent people of other countries for some temporary benefits.

Let's become doves...carrying green olive branches in our mouths,

flying here and there,

conveying message of peace and love to our fellow human beings...

Let's do it now...

So that our future generations will live in peace and harmony!

nida.....Saturday  31st August....6:15a.m.