ABDF

Manuela Nayantara, future author.

Hi everyone!

Meet Manuela Nayantara. She’s 13 years old, and a 9th grade student at St. Cecilia’s Girls School.

Although she doesn’t have any brothers or sisters, she has three best friends at St. Cecilia’s, from whom she’s inseparable. Which makes the fact that they are in the same class all the better. Right now, Manuela is taking math, English, social studies, health science and as an elective, Western Music. She plays the piano, which she likes, and is learning the clarinet, for which she’s not quite as excited. She also likes to play badminton, but her real passion is reading and especially, writing.

In fact she wants to grow up to be an author, an unusual choice for most Sri Lankan kids. This is partially a result of her addiction to reading, particularly books in English. She owns, and has read, the entire Harry Potter series “many, many times,” with Hermione being her favorite character. It is no surprise that her favorite movie is “any Harry Potter” and favorite actor is the star, Daniel Radcliffe, although Freddie Prinz Jr. is a close second. Her favorite actress is Sarah Michele Geller; although she’s only managed to see a couple of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episodes on DVD, she’d love to see the whole series. Although she does like Tamil movies, she says she prefers English language films because they “keep me going” with English, especially hip slang.

Her parents limit the amount of time she can watch TV, so she prefers to watch Bugs Bunny (dubbed in Tamil) and Scooby-doo (dubbed in Singhala). So what does a busy gal do when she has a moment of free time? “Cooking. I am learning to cook. My mother teaches me.” And on the subject of food, Chinese-style noodles, with a cold glass of Sprite is her favorite meal. She thinks it’s delicious, but then who wouldn’t?

Manuela wants to thank all those who helped get the recently donated books to the English Lab at St. Cecilia’s. As a lover of reading, not to mention an author-to-be, she wanted our donors to understand what such a gift means to her. “I have only a few books in English because they are high priced. So to have books here I can read is a very good thing. Now I can improve my English writing by example.”

You’re welcome, Manuela, you’re very welcome.