Dera's Diary

Hello... I had such a mundane conversation this week that made me so abundantly happy. I was on one of my many family group calls and I was raving about this movie to my brother. The movie was based on a book and both of us were trying to find it online. It got us into a deeper conversation about books though. Us talking about books in itself was such a miracle if you know our history. Our older sister was always a bookworm. Most of our book collection was built when she was a child. Unfortunately, her passion for books inspired our mum to impose a mandatory reading time when we were younger. I don't really know how my brother felt about it, but I hated it. I really really hated it. I hated reading. I hated being forced to read. And so I would always get a book, put it over my head and go to sleep. I find it hard to envision myself doing that to be honest, but I remember doing it so... When I finally found a book I would be interested in reading, I would read it during every read

Happy Friday, Recently, I heard someone propose that we destroy categories like countries that people identify so strongly with and that strongly divide us as a species. And to a certain extent, I understand. We are a more globalised world than our ancestors could ever have dreamt of. But at the same time, we are such separate people. We argue all the time when we have differences of opinion. And even when we belong to the same group (whatever group that may be) we find a way to further divide and separate ourselves. So I do understand why people would want to get rid of countries. I understand why you would want to get rid of categories and divisions. I really do. But the more dominant side of me can’t help but disagree. A huge part of the reason why we argue so much with each other is because we’re different and we have different experiences. We didn’t grow up the same way or live through the same situations and so we have different perspectives. When we are unwilling to recognis

Hello everyone, This week I was scrolling through instagram, an act that feels more and more like a chore these days. Anyway, I came across something that really spoke to me - 'Your decisions last longer than your storms.' I just found those words so powerful. When we're going through a tough time, we tend to make really rash decisions or sometimes we have to make really important ones. The stress or anger we may be experiencing in a moment can make us to choose to do certain things or to give up particular things that just don't match our characters or our goals. I know that in moments of pressure, I have chosen to do things I didn't really want to do that I thought would make me look best and when I was really down and out, I told myself some things about my personality that are not true. From the very big to the very small, the things we believe and decide during our storms, outlive those storms. That's why we have to be super intentional about the things w

Hello everyone, I struggled a couple of weeks ago. I was falling deep into old patterns of perfectionism and was getting so down on myself whenever I made a mistake. I think a huge part of that was also worrying about how if people saw me mess up at certain things, then they would stop thinking that I was capable of doing those things and wouldn't trust me with certain opportunities. Most days of the week were like this and in the midst of it all I was trying to intentionally remember and enjoy the great things that were happening. Because I think that's how it happens most of the time; tough stuff may be happening the majorirty of the time and it makes us blind to the good things because they seem insufficient in comparison. But I tried to hang on to them. Did I succeed? Maybe not. But I tried. Two weeks ago, I wrote about missteps not having to be the end and I find that very true especially after that particular week. Was it a tough week? Definitely. But I made it through

Hello there.... Some weeks ago I had to make the decision to write an exam that could potentially transform the way the rest of my year looks. If I'm being perfectly honest with myself, I always kinda knew I would end up writing the exam, but the more vocal and dominant part of me held on to the hope that somehow my family and I would decide that writing this extra exam would not necessarily benefit me. But seeing as it is me.. things didn't happen that way. Last year, I wrote an exam called IGCSE just because my sister had written it. I didn't have any serious plans to use it and it really didn't factor into the way I had planned my university journey to play out. But I wrote it anyway, and it ended up being what got me into school last year. Granted, it wasn't the school I thought I'd be going to at the beginning of the year, but I'm definitely not upset about it. And so now, even though the prospect of preparing for an exam that isn't necessarily sc