Good Weekend!

I would say that I had quite a good weekend. It was Eid-Ul-Adha on Friday, which was really nice. My family and I didn’t go out or anything, as both my parents had work and my brother had university classes. So my family was busy overall, just as if it was a normal day.

Overall, we just had a peaceful and relaxing afternoon and evening, with us all just watching TV and just generally chatting together

Oh yeah and the time changed on Sunday. I read some of my messages on my Facebook account, and a lot of my friends were awake before 7am. I had to check the date to make sure it was Sunday, and not Monday, otherwise that would mean that I would have been late for work, which is a big ‘no no’. But waking up on Sundays before 7am seems so pointless for me. I guess I am one of those people who prefer my sleep, rather than watching TV or doing something else, whatever it is people do early mornings on a weekend. Although, saying that, I guess it is good practice for the weekdays, so we can get used to the time change.

On Sunday, my aunt and uncle came over to my house. My aunt is my dad’s sister. It was quite a long visit and for some reason I wasn’t feeling so sociable. I have seen them quite often over the last two months, so their visit wasn’t so exciting or special. My uncle is going back to Bangladesh on Wednesday, so that was his last visit before he goes back to his home country. I didn’t mind them coming to my house or anything, but I guess I was having one of those days, where I just wasn’t feeling so chipper.  

Bundle of Joy and potential winter wedding

Last Sunday we received news that my cousin had a baby boy. Aaw he looks absolutely

adorable. My uncle sent me pictures via text. My cousin and his family live in Bangladesh and the last time we saw each other was last December when he got married. Oh those were such exciting times.

We may be going back to Bangladesh for this Christmas holidays again, as his younger sister is due to get married on the last week of December of first week of January. We are very close to their family as their mum and my mum are sisters. Nothing has been confirmed yet, but as the weeks pass by, things seem more and more likely.

Yesterday was quite busy as one my uncle, aunt and his whole family came over for a lunch invite. We hadn’t seen them much since they got married back in February, so it was nice getting to know each other since the wedding day. We were supposed to go to my cousin’s house yesterday also for lunch as the whole family were going to meet up and just have lunch together, but we were unable to attend as my uncle and his family. It’s not too bad as Eid is coming up this Friday and even though most of us will be studying or working, we have the weekend to catch up with each other and next term is half term for all kids(except Uni students). Although saying that my brother has reading week next term, which is sort of like half-term, but I guess with lots of reading and other assignments to complete throughout the week.

So it seems like I have lots of things to look forward to and I can’t wait for the next 2 and half months to go by.

Busy weekend

This upcoming weekend is going to be quite busy for me and my family as we are holding a dinner party on Saturday night for my dad’s colleague and his family. I haven’t seen them in quite some time so I guess the atmosphere is going to be different compared to just having family or cousins over for an afternoon.

On Sunday, I’ve got a wedding party to attend. We are from the bride’s side and it’s my dad’s cousin’s daughter who is going to get married. I am very much looking forward to that as it’s been approximately a month or so since I last attended a wedding. Weddings are generally a good opportunity to socialise and talk to lots of different people.

Last month, I attended my cousin’s wedding. I was from the groom’s side. It was a really fun and interesting event and once again a brilliant chance to meet cousins and just generally spend time with them. The day was great in general. All the cousins along with the groom got to sit in the limo on the journey towards the wedding venue, and some cousins got to come back on the journey home.

Overall, the day was really enjoyable and fun. At the end of the day the wedding ceremony went smoothly and all my cousins and I gained a wonderful sister-in-law.

New Beginnings

Once again another month has passed and we are in the middle of September. Thankfully the weather is bright and beautiful today which is always positive news. So, after anticipating my brother’s exciting news, he has now received his results for 2 A* in Mathematics and Biology and 2 grade A’s in Chemistry thus securing his place at the University College of London to study MEng Biochemical Engineering a 4 year full-time degree with intercalated masters. He will commence his study from 24^th September. He is thrilled to be accepted into such a prestigious institution to study the programme of study of his choice.

As for my youngest brother, he will now proceed to his final year of A Levels with his subject choice of Economics, English Literature and History. As much as my eldest brother (eldest in terms of age compared to my youngest brother, not necessarily older than me) is into Sciences and my youngest brother is into Humanities. I suppose he is looking forward to completing his final year of college and then proceeding onto University. Although if you ask him what programme of study he wants to go into at undergraduate level, he has no idea. Hopefully he can sort his ideas out soon enough as he has approximately 4 months till he needs to submit his UCAS applications to different institutions for which ever programme he wishes to study. So far, he knows that he wants to study a degree related to his A Level courses. I have suggested that he could do a combined degree, for example Economics and History or English Literature and History. If he does decide to go ahead with a combined degree then I would advise him to study a joint honours with a 50-50 combination rather than 75-25 as he is equally good in both Economics and History and he enjoys both those subjects, however for all I know, he may just end up studying a single honours degree in BA Hons English Literature. Well whatever he decides to study, I will support him all the way. 

Time flies by

Wow times passing by really quickly and we are nearing the middle of August. I’m so so excited for next Thursday which is… A Level results day. Yaayyy. Both my brother’s results will be released on that day. My oldest brother’s A Level Results and my youngest brothers AS Level results will be released on this day. Yes as you can probably tell by now, they are quite similar in age; there is only a 15 month age difference between them. I think my mom and I are more nervous for their results, than they actually are. Hopefully this means that they feel they have performed well in the examinations and will both receive brilliant results.

My cousins are also due to receive their final results this year. One of my cousins will receive her AS results on the 16th August and two of my other cousins will receive their GCSE results on 23rd August. So overall, there is quite a bit of pressure in all four families for the youngsters to perform well. Obviously the better grades they achieve in their A/AS Level and GCSE Examinations will mean that they can apply for good courses in college and University. The higher grades they achieve will open up more opportunities for them. 

In terms of other news, my closest friend text me the other day wanting to meet up and just generally catch up. We haven’t seen each other for nearly eight weeks now. So she suggested we link up after Ramadhan is over, that way we could probably go out for a meal together. My friend has text me and left some Facebook messages over the past two weeks so I guess she misses me. I do miss her too, but I'm busy with work nowadays, and I mostly spend my weekends sleeping, so I don’t have so much time catching up with friends, unless they text/message me first. It’s kind of one sided I know, but after another 6 weeks or so, I should be a little bit more free. After Ramadhan is over, I won’t need to sleep so much during the daytime in the weekends, so perhaps my friends and I can catch up then. 

Ramadhan

It’s the 11^th day of Ramadhan, and I feel as if this blessed month is fading away fast. The first day of Ramadhan is determined by the sighting of the moon the night before. Originally, my family and I thought that the first day would be Saturday; this would have been great news for me as I could have had the whole weekend to get used to it, and then start work on Monday. However, on Thursday night, I received 2 texts from my friends confirming that Ramadhan would start on Friday.  Consequently this meant that I would have to start my evening prayers earlier than usual because I have to pray Tarawih(special prayers that Muslims pray during the 29/30 days of Ramadhan, in between the evening prayers). This can take some time – some people take 45 minutes and some take 1 hour to complete the evening prayers during Ramadhan, so it’s best advised to complete it early (the whole prayer should be complete before midnight)

This weekend I had quite a lot of family over, due to this I couldn’t catch up on my much needed sleep as I would have liked. I thought it would be a bit strange and awkward for people to visit other people’s houses during Ramadhan, considering everyone would be fasting, so we can’t offer them any refreshments, etc. They were unwilling to stay until Iftar(the meal used to break our fast) as we break it at sunset, which is close to 9pm nowadays, and my relatives left at like 6pm because they wanted to break their fasts, in their own homes, which was understandable.

On Sunday my cousins came. This was a pleasant surprise. As my cousin brother is due to get married on 26^th August, they bought all the wedding dresses for the bride earlier in the day and they bought them to my house to show me and my family. I thought that this was a very sweet gesture. All together, they bought one lehenga and 5 sarees. They now need to send it over to the bride so that she can buy all her accessories, jewellery and shoes to match each outfit. My cousins parents who currently live in Bangladesh are due to come over to the UK a week or so before the wedding and they plan on living here for 6 months. My cousin’s mum and my dad are siblings, so we are quite close to each other in terms of family relationships.

 Overall it’s a really exciting time in our family with lots to look forward to.

Birthday Meal at Tayyabs

Well it’s been a few weeks since I’ve last written a blog. The last four weeks seemed to have just flown by. I’ve been busy with work and just life in general.

I had my birthday on Thursday and received some great gifts from my family; an Asian dress (called Anarkali), a teddy bear and pink flower tall glass, and a glass plaque with a wonderful message from my brothers. I don’t really remember what the message was, but it was really sweet. I haven’t really touched the plaque much, after receiving it. It’s really precious to me, considering it contains a thoughtful message from my brothers. I don’t want to mess around with it too much in case it scratched or slips from my fingers and breaks. Lol. So I’ve kept it in the box on the highest shelf of my room.

So last night, I had dinner with my family at Tayyabs, in Whitechapel. This was just a little outing, for my birthday which was last Thursday. We didn’t do much on the day, because it was a weekday and my parents and I were working on that day and Friday too. On Saturday evening, my dad had work once again, so that’s why we had the meal on Sunday evening.

The food was delicious. All five of us chose different dishes (Mom, Dad, my two brothers and I) and then we had a taste of each others with naan bread. Then for dessert, we had mango lassi. It was an extremely wonderful evening out.

My youngest brother was the most anxious to come home, due to the Euro game, England versus Italy. It turns out he didn’t have much to be excited about considering Italy won the match.

In terms of other news, my brother has finally finished all of his exams. He had his last two exams on Friday. At least he’s all done now and the whole house is relaxed. For some reason, there is always a little bit of tension in my household, even if even one of us (my brothers or I) have exams. Tension in a good way, like we support each other in terms of giving each other space and stuff; not watching too much TV or playing games whilst the other one is revising. It’s like if two of us are having fun, then naturally the other one will want to join as well. So we have to keep it low key. But yeah, that’s all over now and we can all have fun.