A for Alpha, A for Aspire

Over the last year I've off and on seen friends participating is an AtoZ Challenge. I've wondered what it was all about, after all it looked interesting and fun. But somehow I've never got a grip of it. I don't know whether it can be started at anytime, whether it's done individually or as a group. I don't know if I have to declare that I'm doing it anywhere. I don't know..., so much :D

All said, it's something I've wanted to do for a while now. So, today being my birthday and the start of a new year, I figured it's a good day to start my own AtoZ Challenge. (Growing up, Mom always said a good start on your birthday makes sure the rest of the year will go well. And today is the Tamil New Year too!)

So here's my attempt at an A to Z Challenge. I'm hoping it'll break my hiatus from my blog and force me to get back to blogging everyday. I'm planning to chose words from A to Z for my coming year, words that will push me to do more with my life and dreams. Ok, enough of all that and onto the words.

A is for Aspire

The dictionary describes the verb aspire as 'to direct one's hopes or ambitions towards achieving something'.
A late Middle English word, it originates from the French aspirer or Latin aspirare, where ad is ‘to’ and spirare ‘breathe’. It's first known use was in the 14th century.

Some synonyms - aim, intend, plan, propose
Some antonyms - decline, descend, drop, plunge

This year I aim to get productive with my time. Pack in as much as I can do into my day. Push myself to realise my dreams that I'd shelved while I sorted house, dogs, work and life.

So I'm Aspiring, aspiring to breathe. To feel free. To feel the rush of self-fulfillment. To feel happy and satisfied.

14th of April in History

Today is my birthday but over the years aside for that I've found that so much has or happens on this day. Some good, some sad. I was born on a day that is significant enough to be deemed a holiday in a lot of places. :D
Here's some things that make the 14th of April significant, other than ofcourse the fact that I was born on this day. :P How many of these do you know?

• Black Day in South Korean - A day when single people get together and eat white noodles with black bean sauce to celebrate their singledom.


• Tamil New Year - Puthandu


• Malayali New Year - Vishu


• Oriya New Year - Maha Visuba Sankranthi


• Tuluva New Year - Bisu


• Punjabi New Year - Vaisakhi


• Assamese New Year - Rongali Bihu


• Bengali New Year - Pohela Boishakh


• Burmese New Year - Thingyan


• Nepali New Year - Bikram Samwat / Vaishak Ek


• Sinhalese New Year - Aluth Avurudhu


• Thai New Year - Songkran


• B. R. Ambedkar was born in 1891


• Trainspotting actor Robert Carlyle was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1961


• The Sikh Religion was formalised as the Khalsa - the brotherhood of Warrior-Saints - by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699


• Noah Webster copyrighted the first edition of his dictionary in 1828


• Abraham Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth in 1865


• The Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 23:40 in 1912


• The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck was first published in 1939


• The Human Genome Project was completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99% in 2003


• Nearly 2,700 were killed in a 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Yushu, Qinghai, China in 2010

I've just included the ones that are significant to me coz the actual list is oh, so long! And some of these even I didn't know :P

Special Thanks to Vidya Sury, for I saw the A to Z Challenge first on her blog :)