Fatima's Archives

Since the last four or five months, I have developed a new interest, that is significantly different from all of my other interests and hobbies. Soapmaking! If you aren’t familiar with the concept and idea behind it, it might sound very strange to you. But that is why I’m posting this: to tell you about it and how simple it is, my own personal experiences regarding it and the challenges I faced, and also, to convince you to start soapmaking as well. If you’re interested, please read ahead. I had been interested in the idea of soapmaking for at least a year before I learnt how to make it, and started making it. I think my initial interest in this area arose after our family’s transition to natural hair care, which was about two years ago. After reading a number of blog posts on natural living and even attending a couple of workshops on the topic, I found myself determined to try out soapmaking. I had tried making a few DIY natural beauty products before as well, such as face scru...

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was working on an article and would post it soon. This topic had been bothering me for a long time; I started writing this several weeks ago. I had nearly completed it when I got distracted by something else (don't remember exactly what distracted me, this happens to me all the time), and I lost focus from this work. Then I got really busy in some other work, so busy, in fact, that I nearly forgot about my blog. But of course, I couldn't forget it for long, and here I am, back with this new article on age restrictions. Basically, it is an argument that young people should be given the same rights, and opportunities as adults. I'd like to know about what you think about this. Do you agree with this perspective or not? It would great if you could take out the time and leave a comment below. Thanks a lot! :) In most countries of the world, an individual is considered to be a ‘child’, and not an adult, before s/he reaches the a...

Eid-ul-Azha is just round the corner, and no-body can miss that fact, especially in Karachi. The already polluted air of Karachi has now an additional stink of animals in the air. Every now and then, you can hear the sounds of an animal being led on a walk by its owner, accompanied by the screams, yells and shrieks of children who are taking the animal on its walk. Eid-ul-Azha is one of the two Eids (festivals), that Almighty Allah has blessed Muslims with; the other being Eid-ul-fitr. The history of Eid-ul-Azha goes a long way to the Prophet Ibraheem AS, who was willing to sacrifice even his son, Ismail, on Allah's command. However, God replaced his son with a ram when he was about to slaughter him, making Hazrat Ibraheem slaughter the ram instead of his son. Eid-ul-Azha is celebrated by Muslims every year to remind us of Hazrat Ibraheem's sacrifice, and to make us realize that we should be willing to sacrifice whatever we have for Allah, on his command. Muslims have to sac...

Hello Readers!  Sorry for not posting for a long time. Here is an article I and Zainab wrote for the Blogging Workshop we conducted. Zainab wrote it first, and then I edited it and rewrote the first two paragraphs. A week after the blogging workshop, it was distributed in the ERDC Seminar, Classwork Homework Interdependence, where it was distributed among about  400 people  in the audience! (Cool, isn't it? I can only say that at least half the people didn't know it was written by kids!) Here it is: During our childhood, we all do some amazingly creative work, like a piece of artwork, an interesting story, some craft work, and more, which is really appreciated by everyone around. But of course, it won’t stay forever. After some time, the stories written with ink fade away, and the drawings get ripped and torn, and a time comes, when these things are thrown away. These things do not deserve to be thrown away. They could be the initial stages of a genius, or a scien...

In the 21 st century, when the use of social media is on its peak, a child making his\her blog to share his\her writings and other work with the world is definitely something to appreciate and encourage. So, how can we encourage young children to keep on blogging? It takes just a few words of encouragement in the form of a comment to make a young blogger happy. I recently got to know how many people visit my blog. At a program a couple of months back, several people told me that they regularly visited my blog and read all my writings. My Dad had told them about my blog. I was really surprised; I  didn't  think that anyone other than my immediate family and close friends visited my blog at all. I said; “Really? I had no idea! How would I know that you’re visiting my blog? You should comment on it, so I’d know.” (By the way, I  didn't  get any comments from those people even after telling them this) So, my point is,  you've  got to ...

I wrote this article for Thinkers' Club. It is also published on it's blog along with the research work of many other members.  Please visit:  http://www.thinkersclubonline.blogspot.com/ To travel by using the help of stars, I think we need to understand the stars first. We’d need to know which star appears when, which stars are moving, and which stars can help us find the way. (This whole subject is called astronomy). Once we can understand the stars, we can travel by their help. For example, if I have to go to a certain place by the help of stars, first, I’ll have to locate which star is directly above the place I want to reach. I can travel by following that star and reach exactly the place below that star. I read a book called The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and in that book, caravans are crossing the huge Egyptian desserts with the help of stars. Although that was just a story, people do actually travel by the help of stars. In fact, sailors use stars as t...