Monday, September 26, 2011

Cerita Basi~~

Well, almost..hehehe..after being kept preserved in my laptop for more than a month now, here it is. My last working day before raya was 25th. So, just for fun, I organised an iftar session with the singles the day before. I made one 'new' dish, as none of the girls have tasted it before.

I did cook some, but the girls also brought more food to top up :)

The menu were:
from yours truly:

  • Nasi putih
  • Ayam Bakar
  • Ikan Bakar
  • Mix vege
  • Sambal tumis kentang
  • Cokodok smashing pumpkin
  • Dates
  • Hot tea

from bazaar:

  • Ayam bakar (yes, she did not asked what I was cooking)
  • Kuih-muih
  • Murtabak
  • Twister orange juice, air tebu, air kelapa

We also had extra dessert~ the next day was one of the girl's birthday and we decided to surprise her!! :D

It was a great catch up session, especially most of the girls works in various department. Normally we would do catch up during lunch (more like once a month) but in Ramadhan, iftar is the only time and I think by second week, we were all scratching our heads what food to buy next :P

Minus 1 is because the amoi is not single, her husband has been posted elsewhere, and she is single for the time being until they are reunited sometime later this year ;)

Friday, September 23, 2011

Once in a while....

Hola~~!!! que tal? muy bien si? Lo siento por no haber escrito durante mucho tiempo, yo soy muy muy ocupado....hehehehe.. :D okeh, cakap melayu pulak, oh no!! This is supposed to be in English :P

Been meaning to write about many things but have not been able to sit down and properly write (or type!!). Was going through my email, and found this that I have penned down sometime this year, in the height of a very emotional roller coaster.

Once in a while....
It still bothers me..
Once in a while....
I still thinks about it...

Once in a while....
I dreamt of things to be the way they were...
Once in a while, I hope this never happened.

I am sorry...
For the fact that I have wronged you
I am sorry....
For pushing you away
I am sorry...
For not being the friend you hope I was to be

I am sorry...
For all that has happened is beyond my control
I just hope...
That we can move on
I just hope...
That we can all let this pass by
 
I just hope....
That we can be happy...together
I honestly hope...
That you can forgive me and be my friend again
 
But then again, I can only hope, the rest is up to you..
 
5th April 2011
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jadila kan? daripada biar blog ni bersawang? ;)

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Raya tak berapa sakan 2011

Ayang and I reached SP on Friday early morning, and yes, ayang is my younger sis (xde maknenye ayang lain2..huhuhu...) As mentioned before it was raining cats and dogs until the day before raya, so some of the things that we planned never happened.


Normally we would have buah melaka at the very first few days for iftar, sort of like a family tradition, but since this year we only managed to gather with mum towards the end, so it was a late appearance for the sweet treats.

Despite the rain and slight objection from mom, I vetoed to buy the paint and proceed with the original plan. We painted the bottom half with a new colour, this was almond cream, and left the top part to its original colour. The border was intentionally blue to match the new drapes but still would match if we were to change to pink drapes next year :)


Sebelum start cat, dah warning mak budak dua orang ni, kalau dorang nampak gaya nak mengacau, kita cat anak dia dulu, so that tak kira cammana dorang kacau, the paint is not affected, amacam, kijam tak mak ngah ni? hehehe....
For the first day raya, my older sis was not with us. She only make it to SP on the morning of 2nd day raya, but by that time kakdik has already left for the hubby's side in Perak. So yet again we could not get a complete family portrait.

This was taken on the second day raya. Cucu sorang lagi, si Tisya dah lepas ke Perak.

Selalunya first day raya dah sampai ke umah njang and lang, but this year we only went after kak arrived. First pit stop, Pokok Sena, umah Njang. There's a new addition of nephew, my cousin, abang chik (my age btw) just got his second son, and this time nobody bother to ask when is my turn :P
Next, we went a little bit up close to the border, Changlon to visit Lang, normally all of her kids would be there, but this year some can only go back later, so I only saw 2 of my cousins there.

The rest of the raya was spent with more shopping (stocking up the groceries), running errands and doing odd jobs. We only managed to cook something up for people visiting on the Saturday. We have the begedil-less soto. Dah siap baru perasan x buat begedil..hahaha...and we had another not so northern cuisine, lontong (kat SP dah boleh jumpa tempe...very the globalised you know, ye la, kat Texas ada, kalo kat SP xdak, malu weh...)

The guest arrived until night time, but we (my sis, me and our niece and nephew) cabut pi tengok Smurfs 3D at Kulim, the only 3D cinema in Kedah!! First we thought that we need to go all the way to Penang Island and since people are already heading back to KL, the highway are jammed packed with cars, so its good that we only need to go to Kulim, and avoid the massive jam on the highway.

We drove back yesterday, thinking that most people would have driven back during the weekend, but we were wrong, still the traffic were pretty heavy but bearable, ahamdulillah no accidents along the way and we reached KL by Maghrib. Jadi itu sajalah cerita raya tak berapa sakan kali ini. Tak sakan sebab tak dapat kacau dodol..sungguh tak best :P its OK, next year, come rain or shine, I'll make it happen, insyaAllah :D

Ramadhan in Retrospect

Salam Syawal, salam kemenangan :)

This has been in my mind for the past few weeks, even when we are in the midst of the holy month. Like any other constantly learning Muslim, I too have a set of target to achieve, but not as numerical though. This Ramadhan I realized that the input has definitely weight out the output. Why I say so? because more often than the previous years, this Ramadhan I have been exposed to numerous amount of informations, wake up calls, things that I never really ponder upon in my mere 30 years of existence.

Besides the program at work, I am thankful to the folks behind TV Al-Hijrah. They couldn't have started at a better time. The programs are jammed packed of things that I take for granted. They have this slot after azan Maghrib, that only shows 2D-sometimes 3D graphics of Arabic setting, this is accompanied by a narration that discuss about certain ayat in the Al-Quran, not just about ayat, at times they also discuss about things that we do, that we never really understood, it makes you ponder even more. On the weekends, they have Madrasah Al-Hijrah for the full 2 hours in the morning. Various topics covered and the session was interactive, they made it into a classroom based discussion and not just some ustaz preaching the words of Allah SWT. One more worth to mentioned maybe Ihya' Ramadhan, run by Ustaz Don Daniyal, his presentation seemed effortless, and laidback without compromising on the topic at hand. Though I only managed to catch one episode, but to me he's good. Looking forward for more of his program.

Enough about the input that was available. Have I done enough to yield the expected output? (speaking like a true manufacturing worker..hehehehe..) Sadly, I don't think so. This year, I only prayed tarawikh at masjid when there is company function. Most of the time, I did it on my own. One of the reasons why I chose to do so, is to improve on my hafazan. I used to follow the imam reciting the short surah during prayer without actually paying attention to the accuracy of the recitation. (Kalau surah panjang apa lagi..siap mengelamun sampai ke laut....) The fact that I was following the imam makes me lazy. I must admit, up till this year, I have not properly memorized Surah Al- A'la. The surah only have 19 ayat, and yet I jumbled it up every time I tried to recite on my own. This has got to stop. By performing the tarawikh on my own, I pushed myself to have the Quran ready next to me and everytime I was about to start the next 2 rakaat, I have to check. Alhamdulillah, I think it went well.

I am still lacking on the Qiamullail though. Way behind I must say. Ramadhan is a month for us to gear up our ibadah, but how can we ramp up if the months preceeding it we did nothing? Its a big jump, big adjustment to play catch up. What more we are fasting in the daytime. The night are the only solid time to rest. You can actually get up and do Qiamullail without impacting your day time quality, just as long as you have conditioned your body to the same regime way before Ramadhan came, which I never did.

Ramadhan also is a medium to transform ourselves, to the better one, I hope. Am pretty sure most of us did a thing or two that we are proud of and would definitely loved to continue doing so. Out of the many talks I listened to this Ramadhan, most speakers pointed out the bigger challenge than to transform ourselves is to consistently doing it, Istiqamah. This topic was also covered in our last Ramadhan session in the office. Some tips from Ustaz Hasrizal on how to be consistent (istiqamah). According to him, istiqamah can be achieved as mentioned in Surah Hud, verse 112-115.

So remain on a right course as you have been commanded, [you] and those who have turned back with you [to Allah ], and do not transgress. Indeed, He is Seeing of what you do.

Oleh itu, hendaklah engkau (wahai Muhammad) sentiasa tetap teguh di atas jalan yang betul sebagaimana yang diperintahkan kepadamu, dan hendaklah orang-orang yang rujuk kembali kepada kebenaran mengikutmu berbuat demikian; dan janganlah kamu melampaui batas hukum-hukum Allah; sesungguhnya Allah Maha Melihat akan apa yang kamu kerjakan.


And do not incline toward those who do wrong, lest you be touched by the Fire, and you would not have other than Allah any protectors; then you would not be helped.

Dan janganlah kamu cenderung kepada orang-orang yang berlaku zalim maka (kalau kamu berlaku demikian), api neraka akan membakar kamu, sedang kamu tidak ada sebarang penolong pun yang lain dari Allah. Kemudian (dengan sebab kecenderungan kamu itu) kamu tidak akan mendapat pertolongan.


And establish prayer at the two ends of the day and at the approach of the night. Indeed, good deeds do away with misdeeds. That is a reminder for those who remember.

Dan dirikanlah sembahyang (wahai Muhammad, engkau dan umatmu), pada dua bahagian siang (pagi dan petang), dan pada waktu-waktu yang berhampiran dengannya dari waktu malam. Sesungguhnya amal-amal kebajikan (terutama sembahyang) itu menghapuskan kejahatan. Perintah-perintah Allah yang demikian adalah menjadi peringatan bagi orang-orang yang mahu beringat.



And be patient, for indeed, Allah does not allow to be lost the reward of those who do good.

Dan sabarlah (wahai Muhammad, engkau dan umatmu, dalam mengerjakan suruhan Allah), kerana sesungguhnya Allah tidak akan menghilangkan pahala orang-orang yang berbuat kebaikan.


As stated in the verses above, they key to istiqamah lies in the 4 main things :

1. Do as what Allah has instructed us to do, do not go overboard. Say for example, a person target to go full blast on qiamullail, decided to do 80 rakaats of solat sunat for that one particular night that was predicted to be the night of al-Qadr, versus a person who consistently doing few of the solat sunat (total rakaat might be less than 10) 2:solat tahajjud 2: solat hajat, 2: solat taubat and 3:solat witir, once a week, whole year round and probably increased in the final nights of Ramadhan. Which one would you think be able to sustain longer? In all the things that we do, there has to be a balance, by straining ourselves physically, we may not be able to do it in the long run. Its a simple concept of stamina building.

2. Jangan cenderung kepada orang yang zalim. Definisi zalim ialah meletakkan sesuatu tidak pada tempatnya (I still remember this definition from SPM days..coolll!!). Contohnya, mengumpat, kan zalim kalau perkara yang disembangkan tu tak betul, boleh menimbulkan fitnah. Dalam bulan Ramadhan, kita sehabis boleh menjaga tutur kata supaya pahala puasa tak berkurang, tapi...bila dah jumpa balik lepas raya ni, cuba tengok di pantry, memang la kita tak mengumpat co-workers yang lain, tapi dok sembang pasal cerita-cerita artis tu, tak jatuh hukum mengumpat ke? Eventhough we are just hanging around, without actively participating, we are still in the presence of people who do wrong. If you can't sway the topic to more beneficial things, then better to stay away :P

3. Hold the 5 daily prayers. Out of the 5 pillars of Islam, solat is placed as the utmost important. Logically, it is the most simple and the cheapest form of ibadah. Then why does the simplest one is the most important one? Why not fasting, or better yet Hajj? The reason is, to hold the 5 daily prayers, one needs to be consistent day in day out 24/7, all year round and even when we are bedridden. Fasting is only compulsory one month in a year, Hajj is mandated for those who can afford it once in their lifetime, but to hold solat, one needs the mental strength to keep doing the same thing over and over again. Its the real test of istiqamah.

4. Be patient. What is consistency without patience? We do things and expect another thing in return. We have been consistent throughout the years, but, if our prayers are not answered yet, must we remain steadfast? Patience will give us the confidence that Allah will answer our prayers somehow or rather, maybe in the form that we could not even fathom. Apa yang kita perlu buat sebagai hambaNya ialah berusaha untuk istiqamah, insyaAllah akan membalasnya dengan perkara yang baik ;)

That's it for now, a long post after a short hiatus. Raya post will come next, after I sort out the pictures, so stay tuned!!