7 Tips for An Awesome Ramadhan

7 Tips for An Awesome Ramadhan

1. Plan the day around your solaat. Not the other way around.

2. Show gratitude towards Allah SWT for everything He had given to you.

3. Smile prettily. Always. Even if you don't feel like doing so.

4. One page, at least, of THE Love Letter a day.

5. Tarawikh. As sincere as you can.

6. Close your eyes, your mouth, and your ears from 'lagha'ness :)

7. Be modest.

Bie 2013

The Opener

In The Name of Allah, The Infinitely Compassionate and The Most Merciful

Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the worlds

The Most Compassionate, The Most Merciful

The ruler of the Day of Reckoning

You alone do we worship

and You alone do we ask for help

Guide us on the straight path

the path of those who have received your grace

not the path of those who have brought down wrath

nor of those who wander astray.

Assalam.

This morning I just felt like sharing the translation of this surah, this very first surah in the Holy Quran hence the name Al-Fatihah, or The Opener. The name itself has shown how beautiful our Holy book is, that no other beings can create the same or anything similar to It.

This surah also is the one we recite at least seventeen times everyday, in our prayers. Now here comes the big question, do we recite them for the sake of completing our prayers, or do we UNDERSTAND and FEEL each and every ayaah when we present ourselves to our Creator? Haaaa... Well, this is more of a question to myself actually. Honestly, I'm not sure myself if I ever encounter the feeling of loss within prayers, being too grossly involved in my conversation with Him, yes I admit that. But it IS what I aim to have everytime I pray, just that my dunyaa temptation is too.. tempting.

I realized how compelling this surah is that it actually greets us before the other surahs do. I especially feel its greatness last weekend, when Br Yusha Evans talked about it in the event Being Me in Putrajaya (finally get to hear his talk live). This is the very surah (and a few ayaahs coming after), with its powerfulness that moved him, that made him chose Islam when he was searching for the true religion. That no other religion book can ever be compared to our Holy Quran - truthful and complete.

Then this struck me - how ignorant I was that I actually did not 'feel' this surah (and other surahs) and its translation when I recite it astaghfirullah.. The very surah that I read thousands times of my life, I failed to grasp it, such a waste. I was taking advantage of the fact that I was born a Muslim and took things easily. 

Living overseas for 3 years actually did me good alhamdulillah - I got to open my eyes to everything real. Now, I'm striving to be a better person inside out, and a better Muslim inshaAllah. And I tell you, there's always time for self evaluation and think for a while, have I been a good Muslim so far? :)

Assalam

luahan hati yang dah lama tersimpan

dear you,

no matter what happen next, i just wanna let you know, that, you already had me at your very first effort. so i won't blame you if things got caught up, or your feelings changed and there's no 'us' anymore. i'm not gonna ask you what's going on with us (though i really want to cause i'm dead curious) sebab saya malu dan malu itu sebahagian daripada iman- a very good thing :)

a bit worried of myself but really, jodoh itu ditangan Tuhan. and if there's still no sign of my future other half, or even you, then it's a sign from Allah that i'm still not ready for relationships. Jazakillahi khairan to a friend of mine for that reminder :)

sheesh, sekarang saya lagi malu!

My Garfield

I realized how my blog is just... words. So now, it's gonna be a bit different.

Introducing.... my new 'garfield'!!

Isn't it cute? it's actually a coin kitten- piggybank lol. I don't know what it is called but it's a tabung la basically.

Noy and Asilah gave it to me last week as a gift. And I had to color it myself, how awesome is that!!? It's been a while since I last used water color so I got really excited! Also, I got to do what WongFu once did in their WongFu Weekends yeay! (check this out and you'll get what I'm talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Zn8cTbOFY)

'Wongfu4lyfe'!

Now it adds up to my collection. A bit childish, but yeayy!!

ridiculousness

...thought i'd give you guys a warning ahead:

What you may read in a few seconds later may sound a bit emo-ish cause apparently #emotweetsfortheday is just not enough

This whole week is just plain ridiculous! I got 2 exams, 2 quizzes- no make it 3, 1 team project that needs to be planned, work, da da da. Yeah, i know it's not as crazy as yours, out there, but believe me IT IS CRAZY, i wouldn't say as hell, but yeah, believe me.

Exams. Right. What would students do without them. pfft. Business law- the most ridiculous midterm I ever had. Literally. 8 crazy chapters, full of theories and believe it or not, actuaries apparently are made for numbers, not reading law, pointing who's right and who's not. I'd rather do 100 pages of life contingency practices (with breaks la of course) instead of reading 100 pages of freaking law stuff! I spent the whole weekend till today eating up that 8 freaking chapters and really, how the exam was? Stupidly hard. Well, my dear lecturer, if you want to make the exam that long, at least give us a full 2 hours perhaps. Or better, shorten it up. Or EVEN better, just be straight forward. Thank you.

Actuarial science. Well, thanks to Business Law, I haven't touched it yet though the exam is just this coming Friday. This. Coming. Friday. It definitely won't be less ridiculous than Business Law. But at least I like doing ActSci stuff. Yeap, I like it :)

Gums. It's ridiculous how people don't know how to use gum wrappers. Well let me tell you this- those gums ain't gonna throw themselves into the bin. Just wrap your freaking gums after eating them and dispose properly into it. Wasn't that hard, was it? Don't leave them under the table, or even worse, the place where the feet are supposed to be landing. It annoys people who have to walk across the hall with that sticky feeling under the shoes..

Weather. Ridiculously cold. If I knew it'd be this cold, I won't go to class with just my trench coat. I'll take my winter bubbles for class. But I didn't, so it was really my fault for not checking the weather properly. Love you sunshine, rain, and even snow! :)

Heart. It ridiculously feels lonely. Too much thinking of the studies, works, relationships da da da... made my heart feels very empty. Totally my fault. Need to do something.

Well, this post is ridiculous. I AM ridiculous for telling about all these. Well, you know what, have a nice rest of the week!

Ready or not, here it comes

inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji'un

"Sesungguhnya kami adalah milikMu ya Allah, dan kepadaMu jualah kami akan kembali."

I struggled upon hearing that my grandma passed away, around a week ago. I had a couple of breakdowns in a day because of it. The thought of never seeing her again had never occurred to me cause during my last visit to kampung, which was more than a year ago, she was totally fine. No signs of sakit-sakit- except for not being able to walk like everyone else does (well, that's totally normal for her age), she still remembered everyone, even memorized our phone numbers. I was really shocked when my mom told me they had to rush to the hospital cause my grandma had trouble with her breathing. And 2 hours later, my dad called to break the news.

I wasn't able to do anything for the whole day despite having an exam 2 days after. Everything that I read made no sense, at all. The only way to calm myself down was by reciting tahlil for my grandma, and I thank my housemates for that.

Semoga dipermudahkan segala perhitungannya dan ditempatkan dikalangan orang2 yang beriman. Amin. Alfatihah.

Everyone will die eventually. When, where and why, only He knows. When the time comes, we won't be able to escape the call from Malaikat Izrail.

And here comes the big question, are we ready for it?

pesanan saya kepada kamu

~being ambiguous won't solve a thing. so just be true, dear you~

I am not matured

Okay, so last night, my housemates were discussing about Malaysian issue. and above all, Malaysian politics. and wow, they're sure good at it.

I mean, sure, they're already 22, they should know a lot about these kinds of things. but, the 22-years-old- me, barely knew anything. I just sat there, eating Malaysian maggi kari Shakira brought the last time she went back, listening to what they had to say. Truthfully, I was embarrassed with myself. I'm not being a good Malaysian.

Malaysia is where I live for the past 20 years, it's where I grew up, where I paced myself to be a good person, and probably where I'll meet with my other half in the future (hopefully. teehee). Well, the point is, there's no reason for me not to know about what's going on in Malaysia. After all, it's where I'll spend the rest of my life.

Plus, it even sponsored me to come study here in the United States, despite me being a bad student. Next year, I'm gonna have to start serving for it. and for that to be true, I guess there's no other way than for me to be more sensitive(?) as to what's going on in my country.

Well, to be true, again, I'm not sure when I'll be ready for all these politics issue. I have no interests what so ever discussing about it, for now. I guess someone has to be my mentor for me to start knowing about it.

heh, that's a bad conclusion.

new semester. again

yeah. it's the start of a new semester, again.

tho i said it much in a negative way, i actually felt good, am energized to study even more. can you believe that? me, excited over studying?

well, i decided to boost my CGPA back up. finally. i've been lazying for too long now. i guess the sumer break really made me think of going back to books quickly.

anyway, the semester started off quite well. couple of good things occurred and 1 of them: I AM NOW OFFICIALLY EMPLOYED!! alhamdulillah. after months, and months, and months of applying i finally started working at the beginning of august. wasn't that awesome? but the work is really tiring. but still, it was fun to go to libraries i'd never been to before :)

another good (kinda) thing happened. well, let it be my secret. only. there's only one thing that i hope and pray for it: BEHAVE YOURSELF, WAHAI HATI..

To that one uncivilized person out there,

RELIGION IS ONE SENSITIVE ISSUE!!

Yelling "Jesus's God! Moslems suck!" doesn't make you a good follower of your religion, no matter what you are!

The fact that you are yelling to ME like that showed that YOU ARE NOT A GOOD CHRISTIAN yourself! You obviously did not read your Bible carefully, cause if you do, you won't be doing something stupid, uncivilized, moron things like yelling at people with a different religion, saying "you suck"! I guess your religion does not teach how to respect others, huh??!!

Well, guess what, you're the one who's at loss!!