'Cause Pigs can Fly

One reason I hate discussing with other people the books or authors I love is because they will either tell me they hate that book or author or that they read that book ages ago. That second answer, that's what I really hate. It doesn't matter at all, but the way they stress on the 'ages ago' makes it seem like they are showing off. It's as if you can only enjoy or truly understand a book if you read it ages ago. I'm just beginning to really understand books. There are still so many stories and poems I don't understand but I feel like present-me understands books more than, say, fifteen-year-old-me. I know that if I read Haruki Murakami when I was fifteen, I wouldn't have really understood the story or the stories wouldn't have had such an impact on me. Thus while I'm just beginning to really understand stories, it's only now that I buy books that I want or have heard of. When schooling, I did manage to collect my pocket money but I could...

I’ve been at The Nation since the beginning of 2013 and I’ve always been a freelancer. However, this doesn’t mean I rarely go to office and mostly work from home. I don’t make much use of the ‘free’ in freelancer. Instead, I’m usually at office from 8.15 to 5.15 (thanks to the staff transport van) at least four days a week. From time to time I’ve been asked if I want to join full-time, which to me means signing a contract, being tied to the company (a thought more terrifying than marriage) and having to answer to the company. This is how I look at full-time employment in general and in the two jobs (three months as a substitute assistant librarian at school and 2 ½ years at The Nation) I’ve never signed any sort of document that will tie me to either place. However, I was in my teens when I started working and as a teenager I obviously shouldn’t be signing any contracts. But I’m 21 now and suddenly I’ve been pushed into the adult world where I’ve been forced to think about pe...

Published in The Nation Pic by Ravindra Dharmathilake Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus users find a classic way to give back something to the country’s war heroes We picture them in crisp uniforms and crew cuts. We expect high discipline from them. There are certain characteristics, for instance fun-loving, that we don’t associate with men and women of the military. However, breaking this stereotype were those at the Ranaviru Sevana, Ragama. On July 25, a group of over 30 left for Ranaviru Sevana. The organizers and participants weren’t there to represent well-known companies, nor with the intention of gaining popularity through this good deed. In fact, they were all from social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. RanaViruMeetup was an event that started with a simple discussion on Twitter on the best way to give back something to the country’s war heroes. The twitter discussion grew and within a few weeks, RanaViruMeetup was held. The progr...

Published in The Nation When you work with words and your job is mostly about article-writing, the act of unconsciously pressing Ctrl and S comes to you naturally. In fact, one of the first things you learn in the field is to save the document after each new sentence. And when you are battling writer’s block, you tend to save the document after each word. Saving is important, whether you are saving a document, money, or someone’s life. More often than not, we regret not saving before it’s too late. Imagine you are typing a long document. It could be something personal, may be about a recent breakup, epiphany or experience. You keep typing and pouring your heart out to this Word document. And then suddenly the power goes off and you realize you’ve lost everything. You regret not saving the document. Save but also delete. If you are lucky, you will find everything or most of what you typed saved by Word itself. However, there’s a chance the most important paragraph is lo...