water over wine

Hello. This is a repost from my old blog. Just wanted to update my blog (cause I know you people are just DYING to read my posts. NOT! haha!) but I am too busy to sit on my aß and write. anyways, this was published on 30th August 2009. Enjoy and enjoice!!

 

I’d like to quote from Dr. FK, ‘Allah turunkan musibah kerana Dia menyayangi kita. And tidak mahu kita berputus asa. Kerana di hujungnya, Allah akan menghadiahkan kita dengan nikmat dan rahmat’ Cant remember the exact words but that’s what he meant.

 

So maybe when you see someone living a good live and starting to have envious thoughts or comparing your live with them, think for awhile. What that person has gone through to be where he / she is now. The hardships, the sacrifices, the difficulties. They might not share it.. simply because perhaps it was too painful or personal.

 

I don’t memorize versus and quote from them, I wish I could though. Perhaps my knowledge is like a tiny stone in the middle of the ocean. But I learned from experience, mine, and others.. All apologies if this post might have offended anyone. I am just another blogger, with thoughts coming in the middle of the night.

 

Just take things one step at a time, and everything will be ok cause I know He listens to every thoughts and prayers…

 

Having said all that, would you choose, water over wine to hold the wheel and drive.. (think really deep. the meaning)

 

*p/s : i wanted to make the post title ‘all apologies’ by nirvana but i thought ‘water over wine’ is wayy cooler, dont u think ?

the hit song was Ryan Cabrera’s True

I think many would agree with me when I say time flies so fast. Believe it or not, it’s already September.. (again.) Seems like it was just yesterday that I celebrated New Year’s Eve with a bunch of friends. I can construct so many sentences starting with ‘seems like it was just yesterday that….’ . And when it’s September, I can only think of one thing. Seem like it was just yesterday that I met with a new old-friend again.

It was eight Septembers ago. The year was 2005 and Ryan Cabrera’s True and Alicia Keys and Usher’s My Boo were the hit songs. I just resigned from my job to pursue my studies. An old friend had messaged me in friendster asking me out for coffee. He was back for Summer holidays cause he was studying abroad. We were good friends for a while after school but somehow we lost contact in between the seven years.

I remember it like it was yesterday. 1st September 2005. We were supposed to meet up at 2.00pm at San Franfancisco Coffee Sungai Wang but I turned up at 2.30pm. I chose the place to meet cause I wanted to buy a memory card. I was a bit nervous because I haven’t met with this guy since after school. Butwe had a nice time talking and catching up over coffee. I felt that I could really be myself and I felt so comfortable talking to him. I didn’t feel awkward at all even we hadn’t been talking for years. I knew that he was so into engineering when he talked about this high tech fast train in Hong Kong and I was fascinated at him being fascinated by it. At the end of the day, he texted me and said that he would love to hang out again someday. It was at that point that I found a best-guy-friend. From that moment on, we talked a lot almost everyday. After a while, we became closer and I was for sure that we were in the friendzone. Of course I like him but I didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship by telling him how I felt. But I guess it was fate that brought us together and I am so happy that we crossed path again. Love had found its way and we decided to become more than friends.

Time flies so fast. It was about 7 years that I lost contact with him. Now we have been together for 7 years. Before he flew back to Germany that summer, we were both so sad because it was September 2005 that we met again, became really good friends and fell in love. I told him that I didn’t want September 2005 to end. He asked me to wait for him and said that he will make sure that we will always have September 2005. He kept his promise and I kept mine.

He is now my husband and still is my bestfriend. I love him 🙂

Alhamdulillah I am eternally thankful.

Eid Mubarak

There was this picture posted in FB that intruiged me. A church wished all Muslims Eid Mubarak and praying that Allah bless us all. That was really amazing. And a German Muslim told us that his friend asked him why do people say ‘Eid Mubarak to all Muslims’? Why do people restrict it to only Muslims? It was an interesting question and I honestly do not know how to answer. Can anyone help?

I wrote before about having memories of Ramadhan. And since it is the festive season, and i am not able to celebrate Eid back home, reminiscing the memories of previous Eid made me feel like I am there.

Every year my dear sister will remind me of the time I threw her shoes down the stairs at our Arwah Nenek’s house in Klang. Yes I admit its embarassing. But being the youngest, my siblings enjoy teasing me.. Even until now. Back in 1988, Yong (my eldest and only sister. We call her Yong because Mama is from Perak) teased me by saying ‘Dowa tak cantik’ as she put on her make up. She was 17and i was only 7. Out of jealousy or i dont know what feeling was it, i threw her shoes down the stairs the minute we arrived at Nenek’s house. This story has been on replay mode almost every raya. Its funny everytime I think about it.

Now that we are all married and having our own families, Eid is more meaningful. This year Mama and Papa’s youngest daughter is not around. But we have whatsapp and viber that keeps us close knitted despite being far away.

Honestly, I dont miss the Malaysian food so much. We have plenty here. I only miss my mother’s cooking. But mostly I miss the company of my beloved family. And i kinda miss being bullied and teased by my siblings. One good thing being far away is that I wont get asked personal questions that I find difficult to answer. It can be frustrating as it seems that people are never satisfied with any of my answers. Yeah they can still ask me in FB but I can always choose to ignore or to purpose not read them 🙂

Now that Ramadhan is over, I hope we continue doing good deeds even though the rewards are not multiplied like in the holy month.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Eid. We did too. A bit different though. nevertheless we are thankful that we had good food, made some new friends and gained new experience.

Papa once told me, Eid is Hari Kemenangan, Victory Day, after fasting and fighting our Nafsu for a month.

A special wish to my beloved family, in laws, relatives and friends.

Eid Mubarak everyone!

when you wish upon a star

Two days ago my soon to be 6 year old nephew, Farhan asked me this,

‘Cu, ingat tak masa Farhan umur 3 tahun, Cu ajar Farhan nyanyi lagu Twinkle Twinkle little star?’

‘Mesti la ingat.. Farhan ingat jugak ke?’

‘Ingat!’

I didn’t know why he asked me that but it really did my made my day. Last night before going to sleep I received a Whatsapp message from a friend, Kak Faiza, telling me that there will be a meteor shower on Sunday. I immediately googled and read that it could also be seen last night. It was 11pm and we were almost asleep. I told my husband that I was gonna wait for it because I am always fascinated by these things. He said, Ok and goodnight. I pulled up the blinds and looked up the sky. Our house here in Erlangen is quite far from the city so it was relatively dark. And luckily the sky was clear and I could see all the stars and learn them thanks to Google Sky by Android. I also saw Venus and Jupiter and the crescent moon.

I wasn’t sure that if I was too excited or if I was imagining it but I think I saw the first one at 12:20am. But it was too thin and short that I decided not to count that one. I was starting to get sleepy and I decided to read up a little bit more on the meteor shower. The internet site said that it can be seen clearly at 1:05. So I waited. I was about to give up at 1:45 and almost took off my glasses when I saw a bright shooting star right at the spot that I was looking. I repeatedly said Subhanallah (Glory to Allah) and thanked God that I am given this opportunity again to witness this.

Flashback in 1998

I was 17 and was in boarding school. A couple of my friends and I stood outside of our dormatry from 12am to 4am to watch the meteor shower. How was it? You may ask me. Unbelievable Unfassbar, the Germans like to say it. Imagine looking up the dark sky with bright stars, and suddenly you see stars flying around like balls of fire. That you don’t get to see everyday. I counted each and everyone of them. I saw 13.

Last night I saw 5 but 3 was too short and went by too fast. I only saw two clear ones at the exact spot that I was looking. I’m sure that I could have seen more if I moved around my room but I didn’t want to disturb my husband sleeping. But it’s okay. The two that I saw was amazingly beautiful. Words can’t even describe it. By 2:45am, the moon was shining brightly straight at our faces that it almost disturbed my husband sleeping. Jupiter was standing beautifully next to it. And because it was too bright, I couldn’t see anymore meteor shower and I decided to bring down the blinds at 3am.

Before going to sleep, I thought about what happened that night. About the four hours of looking at the stars, thinking and praying, hoping not only to see the meteor shower but also praying for many other good things. For me, for my husband and my parents, my family, my in laws, my friends, my students and for all mankind. I also thought about how bright and beautiful the moon was and how amazing that I could see the planet Jupiter with my own eyes. In my head I was thinking about how the moon was really stealing the limelight from the meteor shower. Since how rare it is to have a meteor shower and how you can see the moon every month. 

It got me thinking about life. We often are amazed by something so bright and shiny but norm like the moon that we sometimes forget that there is more out there. There is something else that is rare but uniquely beautiful in it’s own way, like the meteor shower if we look hard enough. The moon will somehow steal the limelight and win at the end of the day (in this case, night), but if you are lucky and if you are patient and wait long enough, you get to see a shooting star. And even if it takes forever, in my case, 4 hours last night and 14 years since 1998, the wait is going to be worth every second.  

And just like a baby, I slept after singing in my heart,

Twinkle Twinkle little star,

How I wonder what you are

Up above the world so high

Like a diamond in the sky..

 

If you are interested and have the chance, you can witness them tonight from 10pm to 4am 🙂 Thank you Kak Faiza. May Allah bless you 🙂

keep on walking

I love listening to inspiring stories like how a girl who had to amputate her leg because she injured it while playing soccer made a stunning comeback. even though everybody was saying how impossible it would be to do so. Or how a successful businessmen started his empire of tomatoes after he failed for an interview because he had no email account. And if you listen to most success stories, you will notice the similarity. The one common factor that makes amazing success stories is that they all had a very difficult beginning. Or at least, the journey started when they were at the very bottom point of their lives.

But what made these people so extraordinary is not that they are super bright or super rich or super talented.. its because that they believed in the possibility of having what they want so bad that they persisted their struggles even though the obstacles during the journey may seem uncomprehandable. You see stories like these are great reminders whenever you feel that you are at rock bottom or when you are just feeling down.

Everyone for surely must have their own success story. Be it big or small. It doesn’t matter. And sometimes your journey will take a pause and you might not know the reason why at that time but eventually it will make sense to you why what happened, happened the way it did.

Just keep on walking and soon you will reach your destination.. or if you don’t,  you will surely reach a better place that was meant to be for you at the first place.

Stories to tell my grandchildren

In life, you are bound to make mistakes, take a wrong turn, experience embarassing moments, have an adventure and so much more. At the end of it, I’ll always say, ‘well, at least I will have stories to tell my grandchildren..’

Yes it sounds so far away in the future. Sure go ahead and ask me that question, ‘You bila lagi?‘ or ‘Ada apa2 ke?‘ since I have 3 years plus of experience of answering that question. And my answer will still be, ‘Doa – doakan lah ye’ 🙂

Times like these, I have so many Ramadhan memories to tell them. I have been collecting pieces of memories for each Ramadhan and one day it will become a beautiful collage. The things I miss most is having Iftar at home. We seldom buy food at Pasar Ramadhan or have buka puasa at Restaurants because my mom cooks the best meals ever. During my younger years, at sahur, us siblings will be like zombies and sort of like sit on the table looking at the food without really looking at it. After that we would all sit at the living room in the dark holding our mugs of milo until its Azan and drink it as fast as possible.

I have had some embarassing moments during school. The one and only time I came down for sahur was the time that I wore my baju kurung terbalik without realizing it. That was one embarassing moment I will never forget. Another one would be me accidentally exchanged shoes (I was asleep in the car) with my colleague and only realizing it after one week.

There was one time in university, my room mate weren’t around so I asked my other friend to sleep at her bed. Back then, I was scared sleeping alone, still do till now. I woke up my friend up for sahur. As she opened her eyes, she looked at me and suddenly screamed on top of her lungs. It was 5am. I thought she saw a ghost and I too screamed. After the both of us had a good half a minute scream, she asked me, why are you screaming? I said, I dunno. Why were you screaming? ‘I jerit sbb I tak biasa ada orang kejutkan I pagi2, I slalu bangun sendiri‘. The next morning there were rumours about a hysteria case, when in fact, it was us both screaming. Haha.

Right here right now, Ramadhan is very challenging. But somehow, Allah made it easy for us. And in some ways, I can feel that He is listening to me and what’s in my heart. It’s a truly amazing feeling that words cannot describe. I hope and pray that you have a great Ramadhan. We are halfway through and I will surely miss these days..

the time of the year

Friday morning. And it’s raining and all you could think about is the weekend.

To be honest, this week went by very fast for me. Maybe because I went to ObiMarkt twice to get a gadget for our bicycle but both times I got it wrong and still have to go there again next week. Or maybe because I have been feeling that time goes by so fast (totally different from the song Unchained Melody) since I can’t even remember when. Is that a good or a bad thing? I’m not sure. But I just felt like writing in today. I developed this new habit which I wanna share with all of you. Productive Muslim says that you should try not to check your emails or facebook the first thing in the morning or the last thing before you go to sleep because it might distract your day or your night. So before I go to sleep I’d check out other sites pertaining to health, productivity or other things that makes me happy. And I have to say that it has slowly changed my lifestyle and also the way I think. Yeah sounds corny right? But try it and you will see what I mean.

On another note, Ramadhan is just around the corner. And I love Ramadhan. Somehow the air is fresher, the days are better, and everything is just so different. Even though fasting in most European countries will be about 18 hours or longer since it’s Summer but inshaAllah, I believe Allah will help us as He has helped me and the rest of other Muslims around Europe before. Of course I can’t help but to remember how I used to celebrate the first day of Ramadhan back in Malaysia. My mom would make caramel jagung, and meehun and all the nice² dishes on the first day of Ramadhan and we would all do Tarawikh after Iftar sometimes at home because our family members are quite big with my nephews and nieces.

When I was younger I would sit by the kitchen door and wait for Adzan from our Mosque to break fast. Sometimes I would sit and just wait with the Kurma in my hands right in front of my mouth and once I hear Allahuakbar I would recite the Doa as fast as I could and just pop the Qurma right into my mouth and gulp as much as air sirap as I could. Of course as I grew older I stopped doing that, but it’s nice to remember how silly I was back then 🙂

Ramadhan here is equally exciting. It’s a totally different experience for me. I am thankful that I have my husband with me and friends around who reminds me of home. This will be our third Ramadhan together inshaAllah and I look forward to it.

I had an amazing day today.I can’t write about it because it would sound so ordinary. But the feeling is amazing.It’s just something I’d like to keep it to myself. With that, I’d like to end this post by saying, always, always have good thoughts and good prayers and good wishes.. because Allah is always listening to you..

May you and me have a blessed Ramadhan 🙂

Tuesdays with LJS (Little Jerry Seinfeld)

I was riding my bicycle LJS (Little Jerry Seinfeld) and I remembered about a friend on FB wrote ‘Silence is Golden’. I couldn’t agree more. And yet here I am blogging away. The irony, huh?

When you talk a whole lot about yourself or about others, it says alot about you. And many times, in between those sentences, in a way, people are analyzing what kind of person you are. As what you are doing to me right now, at this very instant. Well, to save you from all the trouble, let me sum it up for you.

I am a very simple person. And my husband says that I am easily happy. And I recently learned that I prefer things that are private should be private. For instance, other people’s lives. Funnily though, people openly share every detail of their lives to public, like a reality show. I also learned that people are very concerned about other people’s lives. Especially the ones who would prefer their lives to be private. There is no amount of volume that is ever enough to satisfy everyone. I mean, if you share, people are saying that you share too much but if you don’t share enough, people start speculating.

I guess it’s pretty simple, if you are really concerned about something, ask the person straight up. If the person says, hey I’m okay. Then probably he/she is. If he/she is lying, that is his/her choice. Simple right? 🙂

Have a nice Tuesday people 😀

16 again

Ever experienced the it’s-all-coming-back-to-me feeling? The feeling you get whenever you smell a scent, listen to a tune or see a picture. Like whenever I listen to Regulate by Warren G, it would bring me back in 1995 when I was in Form 2 and everyone was in to NO FEAR wallets and Stussy bags. Or whenever someone plays Final Fantasy on PS3 it would transport me back to the time that when I arrived in Germany back in 2010. The scent of Elizabeth Arden Green Tea reminds me of when I was working back in 2004 and Gwen Stefani’s 4am reminds me of my struggles with my MSc.

The year was 1997. The hit song was Hanson’s MMm Bop and The Moffatts’ I miss you like crazy. It was the year that HitzFM was on air. And I could listen clearly to the station from one specific spot in my room. I would listen to Lil Kev and FlyGuy every morning while getting ready for school. Sometimes I could smell the coffee in the Dewan Selera (Canteen) from my room and I could guess what was served for breakfast. Today, an ex schoolmate and also a friend who is now an English teacher posted a picture of our school hall. And immediately I was back in 1997 and 1998, remember the year with public phones and calling cards? It’s funny how my niece is always complaining about school and how she hates it, I would always tell her to enjoy those school days cause one day, when you’re a 30 something year old like me, those days will give you smiles whenever you talk about it. And even after 16 years that we have known each other, either by name, by face, some that I have never talked to in person, only via chat rooms and social networking sites or maybe said ‘Hi’ in our random gatherings, we share the same memories. The same feeling whenever we talked about our school. And it’s a bonus for me cause I married my school mate 🙂

In life, you will meet lots of people. The good ones will keep in touch once in a while but the special ones are the ones that when you meet again after so long, the feeling is like you just met yesterday. And it’s like you are 16 again.

Here’s to batch7, to being 16 again 🙂

missed the bus

Everytime I take the 289 Bus from Büchenbach Nord to my work place, I know exactly what time I need to leave the house so that I won’t be too early or too late to catch the 8:36 bus. Yes. The bus leaves at precisely 8:36 and 8:56 and 9:16 and so forth every Monday – Friday. Somehow it has become a routine for me. What interests me though that there is this one guy, he rushes to the bus, every morning. With his hair wet and uncomb. I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t know what time the bus leaves. Why does he needs to rush? I have been observing him for quite sometime now and I said to myself, one day, he might just miss the bus going to work. True enough, one day, he really did miss the bus. As the bus driver moves, I see him running and chasing the bus, as expected, his hair being wet and uncomb. I tried so hard not to giggle. The thought that what I was thinking really happened amuses me. He thanked the bus driver for stopping and letting him enter the bus. This is very rare and most bus drivers would just driver away. The next day, I saw him coming early, this time his hair was dry and combed. When I entered the bus, he was already there and I thought, ‘boy you sure learned your lesson well’. A couple of times after that, he started with his old habit. Coming in late with wet and uncombed hair. And again, he missed the bus. Only this time the bus driver just drove away.

As I was travelling to my workplace I thought about the incident and how funny it is that one can learn a lesson very well. And how ironic that after a short while that one can forget about it. I guess that’s human. Only when we have missed the bus, that we wake up, and change ourselves to become a better person. And because we are humans, we sometimes take for granted that the bus will always be around waiting for us and giving us a chance..

I sure hope I won’t ever get the chance to miss that 289 Bus.