The world I know.....

Nauryz is a non-religious Kazakh folk celebration of the spring – I am wondering if it is the same festival as that of cherry blossom festival in japan. Nauryz is mostly celebrated in the west and central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. It is celebrated on spring equinox. The central theme of Nauryz is renewal, cleansing, the coming of spring, and the birth of new life. During the course of history Nauryz has become a symbolic New Year in many cultures. Nauryz is one of the most ancient, respected and favorite holidays in that part of the world. My university has about 70 Kazakh students and I got invited by few of my Kazakh friends to celebrate their celebration. It started at 5:00 pm but I could reach the spot only at 6:00 pm since we got lost. By the time we reached there, few girls – wearing their traditional attire – were dancing to a traditional music tune. A Turkish student performed Kanun – it looks like our Yangchen – and the small crow...

We had been planning to bring together as many people as possible from different countries and have a feast. Today is the day, yay! We will have fifteen people – all from different countries (well, consider Hong Kong and China as separate. I hope the Chinese government is not reading this LOL ) – meeting in our apartment today. Well! Basically the idea is that we will all cook some food which is native to our country and everyone will get to try different food. Everyone had been busy since morning – not me though. I woke up at 12:00 noon (Common, it's Saturday) and went to Wegmans to get my recipes. All my friends started working on their respective food from 2:00 PM. Some started chopping garlic without peeling the dry skin, some started burning eggs while trying to make omelet, and some started calling their mother back home. One of my friend brought the computer in the kitchen and loaded the page which has detailed instruction on how to prepare his food. Well, he was even follow...

"A government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Sounds familiar? Those immortal words of Lincoln from his Gettysburg speech defines the fundamental meaning of democracy. I memorized that speech for an English eloquation competition, I was in eighth grade then. I also read few articles about the battle of Gettysburg and always wanted to visited it one day. So when we planned for a trip to Philadelphia and Columbus, I took the chance and included Gettysburg in the itinerary. Initially, we planned to stay in Gettysburg for only few hours. Unfortunately or fortunately, Gettysburg's weather happened to be like that of Gedhu. When we reached Gettysburg at around 3:00 pm, we could not see the road clearly due to heavy fog cover. Hence we departed to Philadelphia that day and planned to come back for an entire day. We went to the guest information area and got maps and other necessary items. We went in to watch a short movie about th...