Count Dracula- Book Review

 Count Dracula was written by Abraham, “Bram stroker”.  Before vampires became a fad of the 21^st century reader, he wrote count Dracula packed with action, thriller, and horror. This book is a classic page turner. The book is written in the form of diary entries, letters, and telegrams.

The story is about Count Dracula, a vampire. He is blood thirsty. He is physically strong and could control and change into a lot of animals. Count Dracula has many different supernatural abilities and is believed to have gained his abilities through dealings with the Devil. Dracula has superhuman strength which, according to Van Helsing, is equivalent to that of 20 strong men. He does not cast a shadow or have a reflection from mirrors. He is immune to conventional means of attack; a sailor tries to stab him in the back with a knife, but the blade goes through his body as though it is air.

Count wants to move into a large city and claim more victims. He succeeds for a while, but is eventually defeated by Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker, Van Helsing, and Lucy etc. I don’t want to be a spoiler…

Th good thing about this book is that it is written in the form of letters. It gives a unique feeling. I could relate this to Hotel Transylvania movie. Many characters are the same. Even the place name is the same.

I read the abbreviated version from “OM ILLUSTRATED CLASSICS”. It took less time for me to read than I expected, as I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I could visualize the description and was involved.

This is a delightful read on one fine sabbath day. I recommend children of age 9 to 11. It has simple vocabulary and a mixed number of pictures. Sometimes you can get hooked to the book too…

Bear drawing

 Hello all,

My holidays have ended and tommorrow my school starts. I wanted to post a bear picture, drawn by me, before the school starts.

Happy days everyone.

By Arjun

Article - Arjun

I was feeling bored and hence wrote an article. Instead of posting in my blog, I sent it to Exploreabc.

It got posted in Explorebc.

Thanks to the team.

Arjun

My First Cooking Experience

 

I know it has been a long time since I blogged, but better late than never. I had exams and the excuse list is long. Back to the post

Now I have hit the kitchen a couple of times and I created things like rice, sandwiches, and noodles. But making something intricate like poha (Indian dish), which is eaten for breakfast, is truly a feather in the cap.

My grade 9 is over and I am promoted to grade 10. I have holidays till the March 1st, so I thought of trying hand in something intriguing like cooking. I was not expecting success quickly and I knew that cooking was an art, which requires some mastery. Nevertheless I thought of making our family’s favorite food- poha. I have never made poha before so I thought my poha would be a complete disaster.

However, when I started making poha I found it a seemingly easy task. After I was done, the poha smelled and looked good. I was ready to wave a green flag then the old quote popped in – “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.

Then it was the time for tasting the dish. My heart was racing; do I hit the kitchen again or the spices were a problem? We all tasted the dish and the taste was remarkable. I was overjoyed. Now this gave me a lot of confidence in cooking and have I found a new hobby??

Hoping to cook again and have a lot of fun.

Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy

Mouse: Poem by Arjun

 

There is a mouse in our house

It likes to play with clay.

It jumps on a pump;

It cries until it can try.

 

There is a mouse in our house

It lays on the money we pay.

It eats from the oven we heat.

It gives rice to its mice.

 

There is a mouse in our house

It winks when it drinks.

It eats a bun under the sun.

It tries to throw our phones like stones

 

It hates my mates

 And loves our house

There is a mouse in our house.

My Birthday - I am 10!!

It was my birthday on October 26^th. I was excited for this day. Dada wished me first in the morning (before even I could open my eyes) and then my mom wished me.

My family members phoned me to wish.

Dada had arranged a treasure hunt for my gifts. As soon as I woke up, I started that task.

As I like to become bear, I got my gifts related to that. Here is a pic of my gifts.

• "We bare bear" toothbrush stand
• Grizz bear, table organizer.
• Bear cup
• Bear T-shirt

My aunt had ordered a cake, which arrived in the evening. Even my Mom and Dad got a blueberry cake. We cut the cake and enjoyed the taste. I made many return gifts for my family.

Overall it was a nice family birthday. For the first time, it was just four of us, without friends.

Do Cheaters Win the Long Run?

 

Winners never cheat and cheaters never win

Recently, I had my online mathematics exam. For this exam, I had prepared a lot. I wanted to get 40 out of 40 i.e. 100%. However, I did not know the answer to one question. I was about to cheat and google the answer, but I did not. I also did not change my answers of the question which had the same concept to that question. I had lost 2 marks in that exam.

Then a thought cropped: Do cheaters win the long run? Be it an exam, a job or a shopkeeper. Someone or the other is watching you. For me, it is god and karma. Maybe it can be anybody else for you. Let’s say you cheated your friend and you get a 5 minute joy but that does not put you one step forward in life. It puts you one step backward. You cheat yourself/others, one day you would fall in your own pit. I believe that when you do good, you get good and vice-versa.

Let’s say I cheated in my maths exam, it will not give me a higher stand, it would assure me that I don’t know the concept and with that I would be a professional cheater. All I want to say is; the good path has thorns, but it always wins, and the bad path is a straight road but it always losses. You have to make the decision

Cheaters will do anything to keep themselves happy but they completely self-isolate themselves from friends. They may win the short-term race, but they have lost in the long term one.

The Adventures of Mr. Pink Whistle

 

Author- Enid Blyton, Type- Fictional short stories, Series- Happy days

Characters

·         Pink Whistle

·         Dogs – 2

·         Rabbits – 2

·         Kids  – Jimmy and Margery

·         Mrs. Spink and her children and many more

Summary

Once there was a man. He was half brownie and half human. He believes that life is not so fair, so his thought comes true. He wants to help people who are in a fix by his god gifted gifts aka superpowers- Invisibility and the ability to speak to animals. Throughout the book he helps people. 

The incident I liked the most is Jimmy’s day in the country. Here there was a boy named Jimmy, he was going to the countryside for a field trip. A girl named Margery ate his snack as she was in his team. Margery gets hurt while going to the bus, Jimmy carries her. Unfortunately, they missed the bus and they asked Mr. pink whistle for help. The message the author is trying to convey is helping others is good and you will feel very happy (may get rewards)

Rating- 5 out of 5 stars

*****/*****

Recommended for people like short fictional and happy book

Where there is a will, there is a way

My mother is a big-time believer of this phrase “Where there is a will there is a way”. Well, I started believing this too.

I got multiple wins over the past two months. 

• In Inter school GIIS on “ How stuff works” competition, my team got third. (Newsletter)
• IMUN 23.0 Conference: I got Special Mention award. I was representing India as part of G20. 

• Got selected to attend the RWCC digital conference for student council. Every year it is held in Singapore. This year will be online!!!

Hoping for more such wins and opportunities!!

Cartoons that we watched

 

Haje Maro

Timmy Time

Chota Bheem

Word World

Horrid Henry

Huddy the Buddy

Motu Patulu

Little Einstein

Jungle Junction

Doraman

Ninja Hatori

Shin Chan

Roll no 21

Badbud

Bablu Dabalu

Berenstein Bears

Mickey Mouse

Thomas Train

Shaun the Sheep

My Friends Tigger & Pooh

Mighty Raju

Ben 10

Handy Man

OSO Special

Oswald

Pokeman

Oggy and Crockaoch

Ena Mina Tika

Pakadam Padai

Mr Bean

Peppa Pig

Noddy

Bob the Builder

Tom and Jerry

Just though of listing cartoon shows that we watched in these many years!!!!

Season 11 SPN Review

SEASON 10 OVERVIEW

Ah! Season 11 was quick. In Season 10 finale- The Mark of Cain gets removed from Dean’s arm and The Darkness aka God’s sister is set free.

SEASON 11 REVIEW

After the Darkness is released, she is infecting people, but she does not have a true vessel, so she took birth as Amara. Amara and Dean are bound because Dean only set her free and only God and his archangels can lock her back again. They must not kill her, if she dies a very powerful force will attack Earth. Sam gets infected by Darkness while Dean is helping a sheriff with baby Amara. Sam cures himself by burning holy oil and burning his skin. Sam prays god as he is helpless. This is the time; he feels that god is sending some signals to him. Little did he know that it was Lucifer who was asking Sam to come to his cage, as his cage has become loose due to the arrival of the Darkness.

Castiel is suffering from the dog spell, which Rowena put on him, and later Sam and Dean force Rowena to fix Castiel. The quartet (Crowley, Castiel, Winchesters) go to Lucifer’s cage with the help of Rowena. Castiel thinks Lucifer is the only hope so he invites him in.

So many twists and turns and finally we come to know that Chuck is the god himself. Chuck? Out of all these options?

Castiel becoming Lucifer and torturing Crowley was too much.

Hand of god is a one timer. Seriously? We thought that hand of god will defeat Amara!!

Team Defeat Amara (in attacking order)

4 witches + Rowena

Angels from Heaven

Crowley and his minions

Castiel aka Lucifer

God

The Winchesters

Plan

First the weakest- witches with their spell “Attentuare” that will affect her. Then Crowley and his demons will join the party followed by Lucifer’s one on one attack. God will transfer the Mark of Cain to Sam, Dean as the commander. After doing all these, Amara accepts defeat and is ready to die but God was trying to lock her, so she whacks God and God is dying and exorcises Lucifer from Castiel. The sun was starting to shrink so Rowena is making a soul bomb to balance the equation. She gives this bomb to Dean and Dean accepts Death (First time). In the end he consoles the Darkness that God is family, so she treats God and brings back Mary to life.

Questions

SPN hyped the Darkness too much but in the end, she was consoled by Dean. Why? This looks so lame…

I am ending Season 11 with so many questions. Have started watching season 12, hope this is good and better than Season 11.

If I was a smart phone, how will be my life be?

If I was a smart phone, I don’t think so it will be good. Why? Because people won’t give the importance that they give to other people. They can be careless; I might fall and break. I can get lost, get stolen etc. People can scratch me or dirty me, while playing some games or doing something.

This is how my life began.

THUD, THUD, THUD!!.

“Where am I? What is the noise”

Slowly, I am going on home screen and some machine is touching me. When I opened my senses, I found myself laying in a factory with 100% charge. I guess I am born.

Once again, I heard some ponding noise. Some machine was lifting me and putting me in something.

Again, I asked myself the same questions. Where am I?

In meantime, I figured out that I was in a cellphone box.

One human, opened my box, saw me and closed it. It was the first time I met a human. I thought he would be my owner, but nada.

He was carrying me to the truck. I was in the first box to be loaded in the truck, and I was on the top and he was just checking before loading. I was happy, until I got to know that the other boxes will be stacked on me. I felt I am being crushed!!! Was it true?

After a long drive (which was for 5 days), they started transporting all phones from India to USA, including me.

Oh no, again someone is holding me. I don’t like being tightly held because I get squashed and they put their ditty hands on me.

Anyway, where I am I now? How does it anyway matter? Wherever they want they can take me.

I was shouting with other phones. “Don’t hold us, don’t move us”, but unfortunately, we are non-living and no one could hear us.

At last somebody opened the big box and we could breathe fresh air. One cell phone yelled, “We are free, that is the feeling of freedom”. Then I said, “Now, we are free but later?”

They now put us in separate boxes with our cover picture on top of the box. We got repacked.

Now, I was gossiping with my cover picture. I don’t know about the other cellphone. But I was liking this part of gossiping with my own picture.

Suddenly I put torchlight in the night and woke my cover picture and I liked scaring him. I kept changing my wallpaper. It was different. It is said that the other phones don’t work on their own. However, I could fully control myself.

Though I was changing my wallpaper, no one was seeing my exquisite wallpaper. Phew, what a life!!

One day, I decided to teach my cover picture about my great features.

I thought him about face ID, fingerprint recognition timer, alarm, etc etc…

Days and months passed, me being enclosed with my cover picture.

One day, someone brought me!!! What a dramatic change in life…

Well….it is new post to write about how my life changed after that.

By Arjun.

SUPERNATURAL: Season 10 Review

At last I finished watching Season 10; I felt it was a long season. In season 9 finale, Metatron kills Dean and he becomes a demon.

Season 10 overview

In the starting of the season, Dean had been living with the king of hell. Dean had gone nuclear-only killing. Meanwhile Sam is trying to find his brother and our fallen angel is suffering with his stolen grace. Sam finds Dean in the second episode of season 10, and he started the cure for demons, but Dean attacked Sam. However, the angel with a shotgun came at the right time. He holds Dean tightly and Dean is not a demon anymore. Even though Dean is not a demon, he likes (shall I say loves) killing due to the Mark of Cain.

In this season, Crowley’s mother Rowena gets introduced. She is a head witch and cannot be trusted. In the last few episodes, Charlie Bradbury a hacker has stolen the Book of Damned from the Styne family (which Dean eventually slaughters). 

Sam makes a deal with Rowena to translate the Book of Damned (so that the Mark of Cain can be removed from Dean), which was written by a higher witch called Nadya. Nadya is dead but her codex still exists. Rowena must use the Codex. Rowena and Charlie are translating the Book of Damned, meanwhile Castiel has to babysit Rowena and Charlie. Rowena wanted Sam to kill Crowley, but the deal eventually changes - Rowena’s freedom and Book of the Damned.

The 3 things to remove the Mark of Cain from Dean.

• Something made by God, but forbidden to man: The forbidden fruit
• Something made by man, but forbidden by God: Golden Calf
• The caster's heart: Someone Rowena loves

Crowly helps to find all these ingredients.

The Mark of Cain was removed from Dean’s arm but in the matter of such moments, Dean asks Death to kill him (Dean), Death says no and a deal is made to kill Sam because he will keep hunting for his brother. In the end, Dean and Sam have a fight and Sam finally agrees. Dean was about to kill Sam but he kills Death. 

Once the Mark of Cain removal spell was casted, Darkness emerged. The Mark of Cain was like a lock and key and got removed from Dean and opened Darkness!!!

Best dialogues

Rowena: You’re just fascinating. An angel that rejected Heaven, that’s like a fish that wants to fly or a dog that thinks he’s people.

Castiel: I’d be happy to kill her, she just called me a fish.

Crowley:  Who summons these days, couldn’t you have called ?

Castiel: Your number is not in my contact list

Overall, it took a month for me to complete this season. Let us see how it goes with season 11.

Trainary

Thinking of SUPERNATURAL tempts me to see it, so I decided to write something studious.

Anyway, I will complete season 10 tommorrow.

In this post, I made my own concept- Trainary, which derives from the word “Train”.

Trainary: A trainary is a platform that gives you knowledge about different things; it collects information from the last word of the first para and continues the chain by starting the next paragraph.

So here we go….

Sketch pens

A marker pen, fine liner, marking pen, felt-tip pen, flow marker, texta (in Australia), sketch pen (in South Asia) or koki (in South Africa), is a pen which has its own ink source and a tip made of porous, pressed fibers such as felt.

This filling serves as a carrier for the ink. Sketch pens were patented by Lee Newman patented a felt-tipped marking pen in 1910. In 1926, Benjamin Paskach patented a "fountain paintbrush", as he called it, which consisted of a sponge-tipped handle containing various paint color. He died in Iowa.

Iowa

Iowa is an American state situated in the Midwest. The 26^th biggest state of the United States of America. Iowa is bordered by Big Sioux and Missouri rivers to the western side and River Mississippi to the east. The state motto of Iowa is “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain”. Some facts about Iowa- the capital of Iowa is Des Moines. Iowa's nickname is the Hawkeye state. Iowa’s state animal is the Eastern Goldfinch. Burlington's Snake Alley the most crooked street in the world. Per capita Iowa has the greatest number of golf courses.

Golf Course

A golf course is a ground where golf is played, usually has 18 holes. 18-hole golf courses occupy as much as 60 hectares (150 acres) of land; the average course has 30 hectares (74 acres) of maintained turf. Price of a golf course varies from about $7 million to about $25 million. One fact about golf course. Development of new golf courses is Banned in China.

China

China (People’s Republic of China) the most populous country in the world. The current prime minister Xi Jinipig is also the leader of the Communist Party of China. When talking of China obviously the first thing which comes to your mind is the novel coronavirus but I am not going to talk about that right now. Let me give you some fun facts about the world’s most populous country-

1. China has a pigeon army as communication back up in the army

2. PlayStation is illegal in China

3. China averages 274 protests in a day

4. By 2026 China plans to build 10 New York size cities

The path of knowledge ends here. Let us revisit our path: From Sketch pen to China.

That’s all for now.

- By Aryan

If you could have one superpower what would that be and why?

What? :  If I could have one superpower I would choose to have the ability to read people’s mind

Why? : I need to hide my superpowers otherwise people may be jealous. Maybe I can join a restaurant and help kids to choose between pizza and burger, when they are not able to decide what to eat😊.

How will I get my superpower? : I think I will get my superpower from lightning, someone who has superpower will shower a bolt of lightning on me and boom, I get this ability to read people’s mind

Where?: I don’t know, maybe New York, India or maybe Venus

When?: Anytime, I will be ready to collect my powers

By Arjun

MOVIES I WATCHED DURING MARCH and APRIL

·        Dhoom (Hindi): Lots of noise for this movie because it means noise; action packed, lots of twists in the tail

·        Cloudy with a chance of meatballs (English): Do you like tasty food and ever wished food to fall from sky, then this is perfect for you but let me tell you greed is bad.

·        Thor Ragnarok (English): Does thunders scare you? Then get ready to face the wrath of Thor, it is thundering and thunderfying

·        Pushpak : Lets not talk about this, it is gross, best part is that it is a silent movie

·         Jo jeeta wahi sikandar (Hindi): Love college days where less work and more play, this movie has a catchy twist in the end

·        Detective Dee - Mystery of the phantom flame (English): Want to be a detective with a Chinese origin, then this is best for you

·        Vicky Velingar (Marathi): If you love solving puzzles and can bring out stories with a jiffy, well you can relate yourself to this movie

·        Truman Show (English): What if your life was a movie and you didn’t know about it. What would you do?

·        Open Season (English): Don’t like hunting (not ghosts) big furry bears, this is best for you

·        Nanban (Tamil): Tamil version of 3 idiots, funny and idiotic

·        Yogi bear (English): Bears do yoga? They do much more; like inventing machines to steal picnic baskets

·        Hera Pheri (Hindi)-Comedy riot, what would you do if someone was giving you a lot of money but you need to do something illegal

·        Humble Politician (Kannada): A laughing stock and has a perfect moral: Where there is a will there is a way

·        Frozen (English)(my sister’s request): Brrr! Get some warm clothes because this  one is a chiller.

·        Jeans (Tamil): Wonder why they kept the movie name as Jeans, I feel it is a best movie for twins

·        Hum Saath Saath Hein (Hindi): Do you love family? And would do whatever to keep it together, then it might be a good and emotional one (No offense)

·        Mahabharata Series (Hindi): An old Indian epic, which teaches us do your duty and do not wait for the result as truth always wins

·        Supernatural Series (English): Do I need to talk about this?

·        Coco (English): What happens when you die? Do you go to heaven, hell, purgatory, or the land of dead, watch this movie to find out

Arjun gave this idea of open season

-         By Aryan