Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
BORED with separating sets of numbers into piles of bijections and Cayleigh tables, this weekend, I took to rummaging through a seldom opened cupboard.
Digging through the dusty rubble, being avalanched by knick-knacks and odds and ends, this little excavation quickly became a nostalgic childhood flashback.
I sat there sifting through battered Uno cards, infamous miscellaneous Tazos and stray yellow Lego bricks.
The nuts and bolts from an old mechanics kit, a frayed jump rope and kites that haven't flown in ages - these toys that most kids of the 1990s had, the same toys that are a rarity nowadays.
Now, instead of light-up shoes and monopoly boards, six-year-olds have fancy videogames and virtual reality headsets. Game Boys have become X Boxes, Battleship has become Call of Duty - we've progressed even in the field of play.
Though these modern marvels are certainly impressive feats in the toy industry, I prefer the old school charm of my simple schooldays with Sea Monkeys, Tamagotchis and Etch-A-Sketch pads.
Looking back, it's astounding the number of toys and gadgets that define the 90s ... to think I was born in the era of the Frisbee!
Being a 90s school kid in Bahrain has its distinct memories too. In those days, it was a unique ritual for kids in Bahrain to stock up on packs of Sour Punk and OK chips, to save up on pocket money to buy Yin-yans and to inevitably get sick on the Octopus ride in the old Adhari Park.
It also meant being able to go to beaches, armed with shovels and buckets, collecting exotic shells on the way to waterfronts which have now largely disappeared thanks to land reclamation.
The Corniche air was usually thick with the wafting smell of grilled corn and shrill with the shrieks of toddlers playing outside, rolling in the grass or cycling on the pavement.
Things have changed and people have grown up, but there are certain memories that will always stay fresh in my mind.
I'm proud to be a 90s kid - to have used a Hula-hoop, to have watched Friday cartoons on Bahrain TV, to have used cameras with film and to have experienced the world before it morphed into an almost unrecognisable place.
Though I look forward to a technology dependent future, I'm glad that my childhood was a simpler time.
As I stuff back curios into the cupboard, carefully stacking over-exposed developed photos and tucking away action figures, I can't help but feel like it was ages ago that I was seven, na•ve and cheerful.
Getting back to reality, I force the door shut; sure that the next person to open it will be pelted with the disorganised debris that's waiting to push out and hit them with a blast from the past.
I pick up a stray toy that has missed my big shove-in. It's a Rubik's Cube. I smile.
Wouldn't hurt to hold on a little longer now, would it?
I sit down, cross-legged and proceed to atempt to solve it. My maths homework has waited for this long, it can wait a little longer.
