seize.the.day

When we do something impromptu

staycation at last

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i have to mention that i am truly having a staycation. in the comforts of my own home.

i am grateful for this home and a temporary heaven on earth.

i love the breeze and windy-ness, the leaves and trees brushing along with the wind making hushes and the man made small waterfall by the pool, the sound of water rushing down, gives this pretty home a resort feel. and when i was sitting at the swing in my balcony, reading….it’s almost perfect. alhamdulillah.

and now sitting in my reading room, on my writing desk. i just had a nice hour writing journals and goals overlooking my balcony and looking at the leaves and trees. it’s so inspiring and motivating and feel like my mind is full of ideas just waiting to be flowed in ink and paper.

i feel i could almost understand what rejuvenate oneself really means and i feel rested. except now i feel like i want to go out and enjoy the nice day and feel the sun on my face. just, don’t know where to go where there’s less crowd.

but I’m truly enjoying my vacation 😉
truly, home is where the heart is.

we are all completely

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beside ourselves!

i am surprised that i am enjoying reading this book by karen joy fowler. i have seen this book featured a few times on book sites and instagram pics of it, and i have been contemplating to purchase it for so many times. i hold it i touched it and then i put it back on the shelf. i finally bought it, ironically, online from book depository.

i have been having a book hangover since it finished angelology and angelopolis. i took Sisterland, which i bought all the way from santorini but sadly, i am not meant to read it now. i couldn’t continue after the first few chapters. as much as i love reading about twins, this twin sisters couldn’t hook me at the moment.

i picked up purification of heart, which is academically spiritual and it is a book which is not to be read at one go but read and paused, digested, understood and applied. so its going to take a much longer time for me to finish it because it is not just reading, it is about self improvement mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

somehow, i just took We are all completely beside ourselves, and after reading its prologue, i am hooked and it brings me back to those periods where you just can’t stop reading it. it gives me that desire to just sit at home and read the whole book. i couldn’t put it down.

just totally me to rant about books and reading.

Al-Ma’thurat – Checked

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So I set a goal this year that I will memorise the Al-Ma’thurat and makes it a habit for me to recite it every day and pray that Allah receives this as my ibadah and do’a to seek guidance from Him.

It was a goal I was not sure if I am able to achieve because my brain is not as sharp as in the younger years and I was not sure if I can allocate time to spend memorising.

but alas, I set my mind to do it. it was not without some difficulties. Al-Ma’thurat (AM) is a compilation of do’as by Imam Hasan Al-Banna that is recommended for recitation every morning and afternoon. every do’as was based on hadiths and has its benefits.

So I tried. I had a small booklet I received as part of an Al-Qur’an I bought. Actually I have tried reciting AM since last year, quite loosely. my intention was to read it every Friday morning because it was my off day I do not have to rush. so it was a once a week basis. Also I only read when I felt like it, ie, when I don’t feel like sleeping or I just have a certain extra energy in the morning. it was not a consistent thing.

Except when this year, somehow, I felt like it’s about time I take it seriously and read it everyday because, let’s face it, I’m a weak human and I need all these extra deeds to help me through. I even wrote it down in my planner as part of my habits checklist that I must read it everyday.

slowly and gradually I picked up the habit. seeing it checked day by day gives some satisfaction, although there are ‘cheat’ days still. and on ‘lazy’ days I put on a youtube video of an ustaz reciting it and follow the recitation.

somewhere somehow, it just clicked. I built up the habit, it becomes a deed that I feel complete when read, and incomplete when I miss reading it. and I guess it helps also that my ‘red days’ occur once in two months so I have longer periods for doing it after Subuh. even if I’m having my red days, I still listened to it.

the few weeks before Ramadan, I started reading it ‘memorizing’ style. I read it closed book. only when I forget a verse, I refer to my AM book and repeated it few times. and knowing my visual learning style, I had to picture the page in my mind to recall it.

and on two days before Ramadan, on 16 June 2015, that morning, I read it through, with some pauses here and there to recall the verses. and Alhamdulillah, by Ramadan, I declare myself AM memorized!!

This is such a relief and quite a deal for me because I have not memorized anything since I finish my studies, and its an indication that it is not too late to memorize! and I finally could read it without referring to the AM book throughout this Ramadan, except for one or two times when I got a bit confused on its sequence. I finally memorized it. I am so happy and grateful that I achieved this goal. I have been wanting to do this for so long and I finally did it!

Now that I have memorized AM Sughra, I am adding verses one at a time to complete it into AM Kubra. Insya Allah.

The power of the unconscious mind and setting your mind to achieve your goals and objectives. Masya Allah.

precious weekend

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having a full two days weekend is a luxury to me and whenever i had that chance, i just want the days to go very slowly because i have many things to do in two days. haha. or sometimes i just want it to go slowly because i just want to enjoy tranquility, of just resting reading a book or watching movies without my brain thinking too much about what’s happening at work or if everything is alright or otherwise.

i want the two days to go slowly please. work had been fulfilling so far. except for these two days, i really feel ‘blank’ and just doing menial tasks. and doing outstanding fees is just so boring and tedious now that we have more students. but lately the teachers have been doing surprisingly well like for the the workshop and fieldtrips and even clearing their teachers’ office willingly without having me to ask them to do. maybe they kind of get it how i sometimes go to their office and clearing small stuffs or maybe they just had a eureka moment that for now, finally, having a room to call their own, they are more than willing to play a part in keeping it clean. im glad they finally understand that i like things to be clutter free and i believe everything has its place. where home is still quite a challenge because hubbylove is able to live in a cluttered room. in my deepest heart, i love cleanliness.

so ok, im kind of distracted by this movie HER on HBO, so cutting this short.

ciao.

tomorrow is a busy day at parc vera for me and finally becoming somewhat mam of the house.

sugar free

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hubbyLove is back safe and sound. alhamdulillah. my hubby is one of the most reserved and shy person i have known but at times he could forget where he is standing and could even portray public display of affection. like a hug and kiss on the lips after being away from me for four days. at times like this, i feel like the shy girlfriend whose heart beats with anticipation for the boyfriend returning home. blushing and smiling to receive the boyfriend. haha.

it is March already. Already?! i feel like i have not stop rushing through the days.

but i finally learnt to let go today. it is a sunday and i had a clear mind and not worry about work. sometimes i am still teased by the thoughts of quitting and had enough of these constant anxiety and busy-ness and managing expectations from every corner of my life. ideal would be to work lesser hours, and take care of both homes, one which require me to care for my parents. but since i may not have that chance yet, i am trying to make do with whatever time i have and have the best of both worlds.

this month, the plan is to cook for lunch and dinner. lunch meaning something which hubbyLove can bring to work because he’s been skipping lunch a few times already. so i am now researching by the day how to make this happen. one thing for sure is to wake up much earlier and prepare them fast because hubbyLove goes off at 6.30am. i have set my mind on this and i will do it.

i have also set my mind to have a sugar free month this March. i know it already sound hard and i dont know how i will do after a few days. but something clicked in my brain the past few days and i have declaring in my diary that i had my last teh ais and my last iced lemon tea. i want to see if i could finally live without these two fave drinks of all in my whole life. i wanted to go ‘slow’ and perhaps have a one sweet drink per day. and then move on to have totally sugar free days soon. let’s see how it goes this first week of March.

and yes, ‘i am in training for kinabalu’, so even if i work a whole 8 hours a day, i am going to make it happen. start with small exercises, have more walks perhaps, cycle more hopefully and perhaps finally take up running one of these days. i will do it.

and all these in addition to my habits tracking. i have a lot to accomplish.

write it down Seri. it made more sense.

Sugar free days here i come!

made sense

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it was not meant to be. manuscript found in accra. I stopped just after a quarter of the book. its just too straight in your face preachy and I don’t need preachy at this moment. I did made a bookmark to match the bookcover. but between reading manuscript and 7 habits, the latter becomes more exciting and made more sense.

although I got distracted by Angelology, the book, not the ebook. even though its going to get draggy because I have read halfway from the ebook but well, we’ll see how it goes. I will always be distracted by other books. actually, some part of my brain is thirsty for some Islamic reading. as soon as I finish Angelology, which I am going to read super fast. Im going to take one of those Islamic themed non fiction books to fulfil this emptiness intelligence-wise. I think it’s just about time.

hubbyLove is away for the week. it is only the second day and already both of us are feeling this distance. both of us not feeling so well. him probably too tired from the lack of rest from travelling and straight to work. me, similarly, tired from work, and I have been moving around too much this week. and not having him around feels empty and alone.

looking forward to see him again Friday evening. pray for his safety. always.

quarter year

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my quarter year resolution:
1. cook better meals for husband (let’s bring out the nigella in me haha)
2. exercise/train as though i am preparing for a kinabalu hike (Everest next time, let’s start ‘small’)
3. follow through the habits

in addition to my:
1. borrow more instead of buying books
2. be less serious

see, i do remember my resolutions.

follow through

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time is going too fast this year. already we are one week away from the third month! the third month of the year already I tell you. I somehow felt we should still be in January now.

I have put my whole heart mind and energy into my job and have some sense of work life balance as well. certain things I need to learn for now after two months of fast going routine.

1) I need to learn to let go. let go and let other people take the lead. because otherwise I am always anxious. learn to have full faith and tawakkal that whenever I am not around, things will go as it should be. it will be OK. I have to believe in it. it is all in the mind really. If I don’t learn to let go and let others lead, I am going to be stressed out and probably get high blood pressure, because that is how I am feeling these weeks.

2) Learn to be less serious. this has a lot to do with controlling how I react to situations. its either I take it positively and take it less personal or I start blaming myself and feel all negative about it. I used to be able to only see the positive sides of things, but being where I am now, I do have to be critical about things sometimes because otherwise we cannot learn. it is all about feedback. but it is also a balance of circle of control and circle of influence. there you go, some nlp and 7 habits practised together.

3) the planner works like….heaven!! I love my weekly planner and it has been my bff ever since. after trying out so many apps on productivity, I knew I am still a paper and pen person. it puts things more in perspective of what I am expected to do, help me to compartmentalise my work, family and personal life. made it more obvious and the magic of writing it down – it is a commitment. thank you Kikki K for just the right kind of journal I needed. it is just the simplicity and its functionality. ‘decorating’ it is not my priority, it’s more of impromptu-ness. some coloured pens and highlighters is all it needs. although i do have the life stickers that come with the journal, some small cute stamps i bought and i finally found a habit tracker that is not an app! its just an added on small piece of paper that i was able to paste at the corner of each week. i love it. everything i need in a journal.

4) i learnt that there’s only so much we can do in a day. the first few weeks of the year, i would be writing down a whole list of tasks i need to do for the DAY, but i realised, at the speed rate of work i am doing, i only managed to cross out a few items and have to bring forward the rest to the next day, to which, i had initially list other tasks. so apart from organizing my workload into days, like Mondays for research like and Tuesdays for paperworks, i decided that i can only achieve to complete three tasks only in a day. 1 major tasks and two additional somewhat minor tasks. because otherwise, i got stuck doing one thing and i cannot move on doing other pending tasks. already my job sometimes take a lot of time such as fee chasing and data records, which requires me to be meticulous. and then i don’t do other stuffs like lesson overviews and lesson planning. so yea, learn to let go (item 1) and accept that i can only do three tasks in a day. not more than that. so far, there has not been an idle day in my weeks now.

5) time is of major important factor in all this planning. and the power of foreseeing how much time you need to do a task or a meeting or whatever it is, is indeed very powerful. i have always trusted my time-thinking instinct and i am going to continue to do that. like when i know i have to chair a meeting, i projected my mind that this meeting is going to take only an hour. an hour it will indeed take. perhaps an extra 15 minutes allowance, but somehow i manage to stick to the time. if i have to attend a meeting, than usually that will take two hours max, so i will plan out my day to work around that two hours meeting and list out tasks which are manageable and doesn’t require much brainstorming or decision making. because after a meeting, depending on its subject at hand, i can get very brain drained. plan your time. it works wonders.

6) it has become a bit more easier to switch from my conscious mind to the unconscious. especially when i have a goal to achieve or something i really need to complete or accomplish. writing it down is the visual aspect of motivation. but the unconscious mind has a bigger role in making it happen. the belief that i can make it happen. it takes a while and some practice but i believe it is better for me now. it gives me that mind-nudge to just do it and follow through. same thing with the teachers when i do my contact time with them. key word. follow through.

7) and that brings me to one last thing. communicate. communicate. communicate. make time to communicate. with the teachers, full time or part time, i need to make that effort to ask how’s it going. because then that is one way to follow through. and i am teaching myself to take any setback or feedback or challenge as a positive thing that makes our worklife more exciting.

if i am down, there is no reason for my teachers to get that vibe and having that heavy hearted and down feeling as well. even if it is a mask, i will try to make myself feel better and see all these as the colours and spices of the worklife.

and my unconscious mind is set on becoming a good wife too this 2015! planning planning planning. and follow through.

my take

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my take between reading using my kindle and my ipad mini.

i had my ipad mini prior to the kindle and i got used to reading using it. i inter used between the iBooks and Kobo e reader. i also used my ipad reading digital magazines and i absolutely loved it.
after so long using the ipad, the mini is welcomed because it is smaller and lighter.

i was also able to adjust the brightness so usually when for reading, i reduce the brightness to a more comfortable setting for when im reading, either in bed or on the commute. and it is easier to enlarge and reduce the size of the page with two fingers, on both the iBook and Kobo.

and then last year, i finally succumbed to the kindle pressure and bought a paperwhite at a discounted price. i was truly excited. however, it took me awhile before i actually picked it up to use for reading. for one thing, despite the easiness of just a ‘click’ to purchasing an ebook from the amazon website, i realised not all books are available from where im living. especially new titles. and no free ebooks, as compared to iBooks and Kobo. i ended up buying YA titles, which are somehow made available to my postcode.

but i have to say i fell in love using it because of its lightness, as light as an iphone 5, and a little bit lighter than iPad mini. and its size is barely the size of my palm and holding it during commute do feels more comfortable. i dont feel tired easily reading from it. and the paperwhite comes with the technology that it is eye- friendly. battery life is also amazing. it can pretty much last a whole week.

i am now a satisfied reader, and user of both the ipad mini as an ebook reader and the kindle. i love both. as of now i take to comparing the price of an ebook between amazon and kobo before purchasing a title and whichever i could save a little, that is where i buy the ebook. but so far, my kindle is stocked up a few YA titles, while i have more titles in my ipad-kobo due to my longer relationship with it. and of course more digital magazines there as well. my whole library everywhere i go. sometimes when i feel a it greedy, i bring both to wherever it is im going. and a book as well, sometimes.

despite this, i am still a slow reader when it comes to ebooks. i honestly read slower. i dont know why. a physical book still grips my attention better. and i am able to read for hours without feeling tired at all.

oh well, a reader’s got to read. book or ebook.

embrace, me

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a proper blog this time. after a few simple book reviews and a poem at that. who would have thought. in the middle of the night, i was disturbed by a comment and i came up with a whole poem.

you know how you think you know yourself and anything that is related to your likes and dislikes and perhaps learnt of or heard of something but it sort of takes a while, a long while sometimes, to finally ‘digest’ that information or a word becomes more meaningful in a eureka moment?

well i have been having some these days. realisations and a sudden embrace of an idea, a surprisingly wholesome feeling in my heart and my mind. perhaps, my unconscious mind is awaken more these days. whats with that ‘powerful’ swings of my pendulum, when it used to be only politely telling a yes or a no. i guess it is. practice do makes perfect.

anyway.

bibliophile. i know. its a word i should have read and heard of before. and i did. but only now i feel like i can actually relate to this word. that it suddenly brings a new meaning to me. to describing me. an amateur but you have to start somewhere. my only regret. my twins at st clare’s hardback collection, which my parents bought for me during my enid blyton days, which somehow was either given away or thrown away, well, i found out it costs more than USD100 for the whole set and it can go more if bought as a whole. i suddenly realise books are valuable and their value do increase. i could have been an owner of a ‘priceless’ sets of books. not that i would ever sell them away.

i bought a new paperback sets of my beloved storybooks, and it doesnt feel the same. it doesnt. and i will continue to search for a publication suitable to the beautiful memories i had from reading them and that childhood simple satisfaction from reading. beautiful.

librarian. have i said it before i loved being a librarian once and it will forever be my favourite job? i think i have said them many times before. i guess i have not grew out of it. that idea still lingers. and i will not be surprised if one day i would just take off and find a librarian job. retirement plan at least, for now. i think libraries will stay strong despite the digital world overcoming the printed world. it will last for as long as it could. because there are still millions of booklovers out there.

comparative religion. my first love and always will. 7 years on after reading it in my alma mater, i still find joy reading about religions, finding out new information or relieving them. but also meaning that it is not about learning other religions, it is also deepening my knowledge about my own religion. i mean i knew about this, but its just a hovering in my mind, but now, it means: action. it means there are so many things about my religion that i want to share with others. late bloomer, as always, Seri.

maybe being 30 means finding something deeper within oneself. understanding and awakening who we really are.

i am ready to embrace, me.