Walk With a Whimper
The second wave of Covid-19 put the lock on my university. I got the bus ticket and my room welcomed me once again with open arms. I joined the Amal Academy. The very first session of Amal Academy was quite entertaining and different from formal education. This helped me in breaking the monotony of life brought by Covid-19.
In the first week, there was an activity in the breakout room, where we dig the strengths and weaknesses of ourselves. Here I came to know that weakness is actually an opportunity to improve yourself. I mentioned 7 strengths and 11 areas of improvement in only 7 minutes.
I mentioned in my strengths that I am an outgoing person. But the pandemic marred this strength of mine in a way. Remaining in your home is something dreadful for the outgoing persons. Here I realized that pandemic is eating this strength of mine. I got the fear that may be staying at home become the normality for me in the post pandemic time.
I introspected this thing for a few hours after the session. I then decided to go outside for a walk at 4 am. This is the time when there is almost zero movement of the people outside. It was quite difficult for me to get up that early in the morning because I thought of being a night owl.
The challenge of rising at 4 pm was resolved by staying awake till 4 am. I pledged myself to go to bed after the morning walk. I started the morning walk again after a long pause. This thing brought my close to the nature once again.
I live in a village surrounded by the green fields and a charming canal. Sitting on the canal bank and listening to music or reading a book while having my legs in the water has been my favorite occupation in the morning walk. It was a bit of winter at that time. I walked on the canal bank road. I felt that nature has the deep link with humanity. The caging in the home can prevent a person from the humanity but one cannot keep himself/herself away from the aesthetics of nature.
I have taken a number of tips on YouTube regarding the photography. Outgoing persons have relatively more closeness with camera. I learnt the new things such as how to focus on a key object while capturing that object. I also got myself familiar with “Rule of Thirds” to have a balanced photo. I also got to know about the “golden hours” of photography. Shaking camera can result in a not good picture.
I decided to have a photography for the project work from my morning walk. I also decided to take the picture on the golden hour when the sun is dawning. For that I waited for the sun to awake and appear from the other side of the canal bank. Finally the read light start appearing on the north-eastern side. I got my camera ready. I captured the moment of the nature in a beautiful way.
As you can see, the sun is appearing and I have captured the moment with the reference of the berry tree. This was the moment of love. I realized that William Shakespeare had rightly penned down that: “Earth has music for those, who want to listen.”
This click made my day. I used the Canva to edit this picture. I expressed my feeling my writing that I’m in cloud nine now-a-days. This thing is also relatable to my experience at Amal Academy. I learned to be happy and optimistic from the courses of this academy.
I also decided to capture the dusk of the sun. I kept waiting myself for the time when the sun gets lazy and tried to escape its rays from one part of the earth. At Amal Academy, I come to know that follow the things which you love. As I was required to share the 2 images of an object illustrating your experience at Amal Academy. I decided to take another image of dusk.
I captured this stunning image at the second time in order to visualize my experience at Amal Academy. Canva also helped me in writing my feelings on the image. Here I can say with the confidence that this journey of 12 weeks is helping me in improving myself. Now, I go to the walk regularly. This thing is making my connection with nature stronger and stronger with the passage of time.
I will conclude this by saying that the first two weeks of Amal fellowship brought many things to me to consider. Now, I do go for the morning walk daily in the wake of the fact I got this thing in my mind that I am an outgoing person.
