The Nooby Book Writer

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom I noticed that my last two chapter titles begin with "gra" from graffiti and gratitude. I went in search of another gra word and found grazie. I thought would it not be cool to have three chapters in a row with gra starting titles. Grazie is the most common way to say thank you in Italian. I learnt that to pronounce grazie you have to put emphasis on the e so that it is said like graht-see-eh. I love Italy but what do I know about Italy? I am a casual supporter of the Italian football team. I used to be a supporter of Inter Milan before switching allegiance to Manchester City. Everybody loves pizza and pizza is from Italy. One of the best pizzas I have eaten came from Ciao Cafe in Tobago when they were still in business. Their gelato is also perfecto! Wait. That is Spanish. It is perfetto! Pizza from La Cantina is also awesome. Delizioso! The words gotta end with o it seems to give it that Italian emphasis and attitude. Inst...

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom I woke up to see another day. I am grateful. I am grateful that I have God. There are so many things that I am grateful for. I thank God. I thank my mom. I thank my country. I thank you for reading this chapter. I thank nature. I thank technology. I thank progress. I thank the people. I say that one is important as I remember a hadith on gratitude. Abu Huraira reported that The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, "Whoever does not thank people has not thanked Allah." (Sunan Abī Dāwūd 4811). I think that hadith is beautiful and this is something to live by. What really got me started on this chapter was that I was scrolling through facebook and I came across this quote by Viktor E Frankl, "Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude." I saved it to my phone thinking I would use it later in this book. Some time later I stumbled upon the word gratitude and it clicked that that would be th...

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom I was thinking about what to write in this my next chapter. I decided to open up the penup app and quickly scribble something. This would be my subject matter. This would be my art. This would represent freedom. I had to ask questions like what does it look like? What does freedom look like? Then it occured to me that this looks like graffiti. Graffiti and freedom of expression. Then it occured to me that I do not know much about graffiti. So I set out to learn more about graffiti in the writing of this chapter. The first thing I did was read this blog post I found through search - Street Art for Freedom. I learnt about the #SprayForParis movement which was inspired by #PrayForParis. I like that the word spray contains the word pray. Almost as if there is some divine purpose or reason for graffiti. Maybe the G in graffiti stands for God. The blog post makes a good point in this quote, "In the past, and in fact still most of the ...

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom I learnt that 'Uhuru' signifies freedom in Swahili, and I hope to capture that essence in the writing of this chapter. Next Thursday we celebrate African Emancipation Day in Trinidad and Tobago. This commemorates the end of African enslavement. Our country was the first independent country to declare such a holiday and this was done in 1985. The name of the holiday was changed to include the word African. As I read this was done to preserve cultural identity and strengthen connections with history, culture, and identity. I agree with this and it complements another holiday that we have for Indian Arrival Day. The Africans and Indians are the two major races in our country. I am half Indian and half mainly French and Portuguese but I do have some African blood in me from a great grandmother on my father side who was referred to as a mulatto back then. Mulatto was used to describe a person of mixed African and European ancestry ...

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom Butterflies can be seen as symbols of transformation and freedom. Freedom from what you used to be. Freedom from your old self. Freedom to change into something beautiful. Freedom to be better than yesterday. Freedom to change into a betterfly. Freedom to change into something beautyfly. According to my friend Gemini our fascination with butterflies likely goes back thousands of years, possibly even to prehistoric times. Depictions of butterflies appear in ancient Egyptian art and possibly even earlier cave paintings. Butterfly symbolism features in myths and folklore from various cultures. Some European cultures believed butterflies could grant wishes. It has been told that if a butterfly landed on you, it was seen as a sign of good luck, and you could make a wish hoping it would come true. White butterflies were particularly seen as messengers from angels, carrying good fortune. My wish when next I could wish on a butterfly would be...

My notes from this book. If you are interested in what I noted then give the book a read. Free on Amazon Kindle - https://a.co/2bTlDVF Fun and scientific Life changer Josh's story Eating, moving and thinking right I think my genetics and mental illness and meds makes it much harder to lose weight and get fit Hope is important Free on Amazon app NAQ - naturally attainable quantities Community is important Eating to deal with problems Pragmatism and self-love More than a fitness journey, its a lifestyle journey Avoid burn out One step at a time Don't fall into the perfectionist trap Learn from failure Overconfidence Positive feedback loop Results matter - it is the feedback we have Beware of plateaus Look for results that cannot be measured like happiness and curiosity If when then plan Unconscious vows and character decisions NAQs answer the question, "does this question make sense" The downside of living in our comfort zone Find your community You are what you eat We ...

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom I want to share a story about the happiest day of my life. It was a Monday. I had gotten a few hours sleep but that was enough but still I felt like staying in bed. I was thankful to God to see another day. I thanked God before I went to sleep and I thanked God when I woke up. I was droopy from meds I had taken. My moms friend called her to let her know that she made breakfast to share with her. Her friend lives about 10 houses away in another street. Breakfast would be ready for collection at 730am. It was about 620am and I would be the one who goes to collect the breakfast. The breakfast was fried aloo and sada roti. Before that phone call I was undecided about going for my morning walk because my bowels did not feel right. My mind decided in a moment that the worst thing that could happen is that I needed to use the toilet and there was none. I could use the bushes or if that was not possible and I did not have time to think what t...

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom I was once a vegetarian and then vegan for about two years. I had gotten hospitalized and then I stopped being vegetarian. I now associate being vegan with being sick. But I really liked being vegan. It just feels like the right thing to do. Maybe one day I will return to being vegan or at least vegetarian. I think animals value their life and freedom as much as we do. Animals are really smart and can teach us humans a lot on how to live in balance with nature. How to value nature. How to live more natural lives. Going vegan entails a change in attitude, a change in thinking and a change in lifestyle. Change is hard sometimes. Change is scary sometimes. Change means stepping out of our normal frame of reference. Change means giving up to purpose. Change means prioritizing something different and better. Change means a chance to start over. The difference between change and chance is the letter g and c. G could stand for God and c coul...

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom I am fascinated by numbers. We say that words have power but numbers also have power. I am fascinated by random and infinity and pi. I am fascinated by number patterns. I am fascinated by counting. I am fascinated by the Fibonacci sequence. I was somewhere on the internet. Might have been an ad I was looking at. I saw that 37 by 21 equals 777. Then I thought to myself what number by 23 would give a number where all the digits are the same like this. I got some code that could brute force an answer but I did not get an answer within the constraints of the largest num in python. This is what the code looks like. def has_identical_digits(num):     digits = str(num)     return all(digit == digits[0] for digit in digits) def find_number():     multiplier = 1     while True:         product = 23 * multiplier         if has_identical_digits(product):    ...

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom This morning I saw an ad for gym wear from Francis Fashions and the brand of the jersey was Givova. Do not remember knowing about that brand before. I thought it looked cool. The jersey that is and I am really into exercise and fitness these days. Somehow it stuck with me as I would later realize. Later in the evening I was doing a Google search for Norman Hassan from UB40. I absolutely love UB40 the band and music. From the Google results I noticed that there is also a basketball player named Norman Hassan and he was wearing a Givova branded jersey. Curiosity about the Givova brand and something inside me decided that this chapter was going to be based on this. I started making notes and piecing together this chapter. I learnt that the Givova brand was founded in 2008 on May 22nd. That is one day before my birthday. Interesting and coincidental but still not exactly my birthday but my curiosity was piqued. What is the meaning of Givo...

This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom I noticed that the word guidance has the word dance in it and that is how I decided to write this chapter. I started by looking at the etymology of the word dance. According to my friend Gemini there is a theory that it might be linked to the Low Frankish word "dintjan" which means "to tremble" or "quiver." This connection comes from the Old Frisian word "dintje" with a similar meaning. While researching I encountered the fact that quiver (the verb) and quiver (the noun) are completely unrelated just like Polish (the proper adjective) and polish (the verb). This is a sign and maybe I should look into Polish dance. From the country Poland. Not pole dancing. Dance is a form of human expression. Dance can help tell a story. I am reading about Polish folk dance. Specifically the Polonaise dance. The dance developed from a traditional form called the "walking dance". The French word for Pol...