seize.the.day

When we do something impromptu

embrace sunday

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Its a sunday i preferred. Not so lazy sunday coz i got to cook and did some laundry which includes folding them all.

While folding them clothes, i thought to myself and realised that i like doing these housechores. That it gives me pleasure feeling the warm bedsheets after a few hours hanging under the sun, ironing them, yes i iron my bedsheets. My husband thought it absurd, i mean he doesnt mind it unironed but ironing them makes me feel happy like all the germs dead and creases gone looking so smart. I think its just in the mind. But whatever.

Oh yes, like a child happily achieving something, i would squeal happily everytime my cooking tastes nice! Haha. But being a latebloomer, i never really thought about taste when it comes to food, but after watching all them foodshows, and the opportunity to go nice eating places, my tastebuds are awakened. And i can judge and criticise my own cooking. And learn what works and what isnt.

And now just lazing with husband, watching tv. I get to blog a bit and i get to read. Pure bliss.

A few more days to 2013. I dont do new year resolutions, although moneywise, i have learnt to spend only when needed sans books, that i cannot resist. And i know its always good to shop during sales. But what i want to do now is to do a monthly saving for knowledge or learning. i have a bit of saving this year, so next year i want to start keeping a sum aside just in case there are classes or workshops i want to go to. I know i have a list of workshops i want to go to, latest is floristry. But one thing at a time. Next year, i dont care, if i have the opportunity to attend some classes, i will.

Before i get pregnant and have a child, i think this is my time to learn as much knowledge and skills as possible. And i do not want to make work a reason for having no time to do things that i love. NO.NO MORE. I refuse to be dictated by my job.

So i look forward to a fulfilling year. Nervewrecking it may be, but i promise myself to be happy and enjoy life while i can. I do not want my mind to be bogged down by my work. I think i have had enough of that.

Well, its also going to be an interesting year because the big 3 oh is claiming its time soon. I do not wish to be a boring plain all work and no play person. God forbid!

Hello 2013 then. Bring it on.

royal groupie

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it had been a very interesting week i must say. i have become a groupie.

but it’s all because this could be the only chance i had of ever meeting the royal duke and duchess of cambridge, in my homeland nonetheless! some people might say why the heck i go all the way and why the fuss…but i couldnt think of all that. i just felt doing it, what’s more all this while i’ve been ‘stalking’ kate middleton online and loving her by the day with her gorgeous gorgeous dresses. i had to do it! don’t care what people say! 🙂

since the day news came out that the royal couple are going to have their asian tour due to the queen’s diamond jubilee, i have been waiting day in day out for news of where they might be visiting when they visited singapore. so when details came out, i’m desperately excited about it! they were to go places such as gardens by the day, botanic gardens, queenstown and kranji war memorial. being a newbie groupie, i thought i had to park myself somewhere in queenstown the whole day just to get a glimpse of the royal couple. but thankfully no.

it was made known to the media their whereabouts, even ‘recommended’ areas for the public to see them! i’m doubly excited! having known they are going to be at the gardens by the bay at 10am on 12th sept, i know that’s my call. haha.

took a half day despite having an administrators’ meeting and my mosque being the host somemore, i couldnt step back and let this opportunity go. it’s only for half a day, and the meeting will take a whole day. i had to take this chance!

and i did. my beloved babies Nuri and Khidir accompanied this crazy sister of theirs. ‘dragged’ them early on a wednesday morning, battling the morning train crowd, with take away kfc breakfast just because i want to be early. but alas, when we reached gardens by the bay, there’s already a crowd! quite a surprise though because apparently there are many others like me who wish to see the couple live! it’s heartwarming!

and so the wait begins and i got excited by the minute! but of course they had to be fashionably late but despite it all, it was worth it!

i got a good spot i must say. i mean, gardens by the bay had put barricades around the supertree area and after a good hour’s wait, the couple came in a buggy with their entourage and already people started screaming and shouting their names. so the buggy passed exactly where i’m standing and kate was waving her hand with that bright smile of hers! but alas, the buggy went quite fast and i could only got a glimpse of her and couldnt even get a nice picture!!

and i thought that’s it, but seeing the crowd further up were shouting and cameras all up above everyone’s head pointing to the couple, i thought no, i cannot stop here. i went all the way up and rightly so, the couple are still hanging around there shaking hands with the crowd! i braved the the hustle. i really did!

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that’s how close i got to the prince

i’m like pushing my way in this crazy sweaty crowd holding my iphone tightly and not daring to take out my camera. i was scared ok! but i got as close as i can to get a look at the prince!! he was such a polite man! one disappointment for me was when i got that close, kate was nowhere near! she must have been escorted away already. but seeing the prince is good enough.

and that was it, the prince was escorted away and the crowd dispersed and i had to go back to my normal life. i didnt regret doing it, i enjoyed it and it was a nice experience. i will continue to love this royal couple of my generation.

well, i was my mother’s daughter. she was head over heels with the late princess diana. i remembered those magazines with diana in it, newspaper cuttings about her, i grew up watching her flipping through those magazines over and over again. i remembered too well how angry she was at prince charles during those turmoil days of the royal life and definitely that night we all found out diana was killed in an accident, she cried and mourned for diana, although at that time, i was sad more for my mother than diana’s death. i didnt think i could have developed this interest when diana passed away, but kate middleton has re-ignite that love and interest. heh, my mother was all supportive when i told her i wanted to stalk the royal couple when they are here.

it was nice while it lasted. the royal couple is now moving on with their tour. i am back to normal routined life, but for that half day, i am happy.
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beautiful post ramadhan

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indeed a beautiful reformed ramadhan and syawal which i hoped i get to maintain till the next ramadhan.

a night of touched heart and soul. a day of gratitude and prostration. a habit revived.

and visits to my elderly uncles and aunts in which i found the need to visit. for they remind me of my grandparents despite their flaws and past mistakes. who am i, as their niece to judge?

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and will forever be missed my beloved grandparents. never. never forget.

two nine

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July has been great so far. alhamdulillah.  or maybe its just the state of mind. maybe its just that time of the year when things going a bit alright. but for all that has happened, i am grateful for it.

there was the visit from my fave singer Sami Yusuf to our mosque. i mean who could have thought Sami Yusuf right in front of me. haha. but anyway, its his songs i like and listen to. and as i have been telling the singer himself, we were very surprised to have him because my teachers and i had been discussing about our graduation this end of the year and choosing his latest single forgotten promises for one of the songs and here he is, right before our eyes. and best thing next to that are complimentary tixs i received for his concert the next day!! went with my mother to the concert and it was fabulous. he is really a talented musician.

to add on to my exciting july 😉 is my fave author Tariq Ramadan came down to Singapore to give a number of talks and a workshop right here in singapore! and i got the opportunity to go to one of his talks last thursday! i just love his reformative ideas and how he makes us think all the way through his talk. it’s a blessing to have listen to his talk on Religious Ethics in Post Modern Society. Fantastic.

and the letter for our Centre of Excellence (ACE) award reached us at last!! and that is another thing to give me something to smile about at work…apart from all the hustle bustle down there.

what matters most is i get to spend some time with hubby for a day and with the families on the day i turn 29.
its a weird number. and its weirder because im one step closer to another decade which starts with the digit 3. have i achieved my dreams, have i become what i planned to be, am i the person that i want to be, what can i do more and achieve more? how is my life going to be in the next ten years, if i get to live that long, will i? somehow 29 brings a lot of questions to myself. it really is. but i am blessed to have my husband with  me to face this life together now, to support me and hold me when i fall and cry. always there for a comforting hug.

oh, add on to that weirdness, i did have a weird funny day. celebrating it with chernobyl radiation infected zombies (a movie which goes from lame to a bit of horror to just plain stupidity), a wild boar and a bunch of monkeys. quite a memory i suppose.


and of course, lunch with the tweevrans and dinner with the kamirs. alhamdulillah rizq minAllah.
to my man with the heart of gold and a gift of love ❤
to my parents for a gift of life
to yati family for the much needed notebook and giving me a reason to spoil myself at the prologue/popular soon!! 🙂
to sis ipah for which langkawi trip is possible because she belanja us 😉
to the siblings for the smiles and laughter and making my hardwork a big sacrifice
i love you all.

blabbering

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barely 24 hours of telling myself to stop shopping for books, and guess what, i just bought one from amazon.com..tsk tsk tsk…

sidetrack…see lah this hubby and wifey… watching sensasi and then when a horror drama’s trailer came up, both of us would go..”dear/abang! dont want to watch!!” and then scrambling for the remote control to change the channel. same goes when we on the radio, and then there’s this mj12 trailer came up, what we dont want to hear was the sound effects. heh, 2×5 betullah!

good night… i just want to say, no more holiday! its work work back to back..im yearning for december already…

better still.. if…

fine MAYbe

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Love the past few days. Me and the teachers got to go to the Sultans of Science exhibition and the Science Centre and my goodness, a whole lot of information which our scholars had all those years. i am extremely awed by the mechanisms, the knowledge, research and inventions. truly awed. of course an hour’s visit is not enough, as i had to rush to finish a research and a meeting. but im definitely going back there! with the kids probably. and im thinking of bringing my sibs there too. im sure they will love it!

the astrolabe is my favourite, as i had always wondered how it was used. it really is complicated but truly truly a work of art and mathematics, and awesome knowledge of the stars and universe. really. they are truly sultans of science. so it seemed i got a three day off without taking leave and i really am grateful and so happy with this break. i got to do some sewing and scrapbooking, play games, badminton with hubby and reading. bliss. and i know some of the teachers were happy too to have this rare three day off. if only i can travel. but looking forward to june for a short trip to langkawi! can i just forget the fact that i have to work tomorrow?

dynamic view of my life

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oh well.. blogger has a new look. and i’m trying this dynamic view templates. i like the fact that it has different styles of columns and arrangements of the blogposts but i cant seem to change the background colour. let’s stick to this until i figured it out.

i am at home on time off since my sunday was burnt out with work back at the mosque. but coming back home, i wanted to settle some research work whose dateline is really, deadline. and i think i need to focus on this once and for all because otherwise it will be like this cloud behind my mind screaming at me to complete it. so at home, had lunch, on the tv but i couldnt concentrate on it, and my mind already reeling with this research work.

but taking a break from all this thinking and blogger has taken my interest for the past hour. haha.

so what else can i tell you besides work? on which i have a battle within myself in trying to figure out the purpose of why i do the things i do and whether i am being fair to my family, myself, to the community even? but as always, i need to be the strong entity? when things felt like falling apart and going wrong at work? there is really too many things needed to be done.

i tried scheduling my cluster of work in a day, like an hour lesson planning, another hour on becoming a loanshark, another hour as a librarian, another hour as a planner, another hour as a newsletter editor another hour as sports project event, sometimes as a youth worker but thank LORD the new youth officer is much much more reliable with the help of a young project officer. tell me what else can i do within the span of 8 hours?! i tried that and well, it did help in compartmentalising my mind, but it doesnt help me finish my work well. Lord, just help me with all the energy it need to do my work.

my workspace…i got it arranged and cleared up one day, it goes up piling the very next day.

ok ok. enough.

on to MY LIFE…

Ella concert was great, Cranberries was awesome. Hunger games left me crying for most part and in fear, praying that the real world does not end up like the world in the story.  Battleship was engaging until they had to get a museum ship which was 70 years old to save the world after the high tech modern battleships was destroyed by humanlike aliens. haha.

but this is not just what is happening in my life.

and would you believe me if i tell you i am trying to diet? yes, believe it. it is about my weight and about my health hehe. but im loving it. was going to try something called BioSlim, but it takes so much work with all kinds of drinks i have to drink. i ended up not following it. so how is my diet routine? hehe, actually its the Xbox Kinect exercise and dance central game!! that’s the only thing that makes me sweat apart from the housework i do on fridays! but it means i really have to find time to do it. some Mila seeds every morning, vitamin C and supplementary tablets and plenty of clear pure water everyday.

so it comes to this, i realise, it really is about time and just do whatever i want to do (nothing related to work) with whatever time i have. it actually gives me the satisfaction and oh yea, some sense of sanity or otherwise i will become insane because of work. really, i cannot let work rule me, right. it gives me a mental block to everything else i enjoy doing.  i am grateful of this opportunity to serve and make myself useful. but i believe i am useful somewhere else too, like at home and being a wife.

although right now, i am feeling sad, because some sundays i am away at work, heck weekends away at work but my heart is screaming to be with my husband. i know he is being very patient and supportive in a sense that he insisted to send me everytime i go to work weekends, bought/made me breakfast, i know ultimately me at home is what he loves most.

so why is it hard to make a decision?

one day at a time

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how i wish my day would look and be perfect. i feel like im back being a teenager when i have to arrange my life and like what homework to do first, which subject to read up first for the exam period. but after getting married, my life has changed. first and foremost for a good few months, we had a very efficient helper. but after mom inlaw left and the helper left, im back to what i have always did back at my family home. however, it was hard and very tiring. i have to arrange my days so i get to do what i like to do and what i am obliged to do. ‘like’ meaning the housework and all the wifey things i have to do. and ‘obliged’ refers to work and meetings and projects.

so let’s plan out one day at a time. some are what i have been doing while some i feel its time to do it as scheduled. so let’s see. we’ll start with monday, yes, because, monday is always the most hardest day for me. especially when i worked on saturdays and came back on sundays.

bismillah…

a rock dream

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done my normal half day friday of housechores and lanudry. i am actually happily doing it because for once i dont have to rush doing things because of having to catch up on some work, lesson plans to think of or the kabutness of having to find relief or a saturday to worry about. it is such a relief. a saturday without all this is really precious to me. and hubby.

march has been chaos. what else is new eh? but i hope everything will work out well. With the revival of the reading room which i am quite passionate about. and the maulid coming up and sports day. God, please give me enough time to do all this. insya Allah.


so on to happier things. I might be going to watch Ella Live!!! i love ella from since the Ella and the boys time, i was like, still a young kid then. I’ve always loved her rockish attitude, her hair (always wanted hair like hers) and the boots!! i think i’m quite influenced by her attitude and that love for boots haha. i just love her la. and no other female singer rock wannabe can be her. so i guess, i might be going. albeit her concert with awie, but well… i think she can have a concert on her own. still, good than never yea?

and yes, im saving up to get that dr M boots. yes i will.

gratitude

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So i have been reading. it made me reminisce those days when i have to do research. reading upon reading and trying to make sense of everything in a short time possible. only this time, im reading to plan a lesson. a lesson that i hope will make an impact to the people out there. i took up this with the thought that it gives me a chance to challenge myself and the knowledge i thought i had. i didnt think it was going to be difficult.

but this has been an opportunity to really crack my brain and recall all those lessons ive learnt back in school and uni. i will say it again, this is really difficult! Allahu mustaan, allahu yassir wa laa tu’assir. i need this to benefit the ummah. Allah please help me.

so the term gratitude. i have mentioned in my previous post how exhaustive life has been for me. so i come upon a website (pickthebrain) while looking for some inspirational articles to bring myself up up and up again. one of the tips is to focus on gratitude and the positive things that have happened, and in my case, my career thus far.

since i have graduated, i have been in this circle and i have met some very good people along the way who trusted and believed in me. given me chances and opportunities. but i guess i dont always give my best. sometimes i say i dont know how to do and dont think. ok that is me belittling myself. back to the gratitude part.

– i have a simple but close knit family
– i went to a good madrasah and passed through effortlessly all the way to A Levels nurturing and educating me
– i got admitted to one of the best Islamic universities and received knowledge from great lecturers who shaped my values and prepared me to face the world
– i got a job, albeit as a mere project officer, immediately after graduating
– i had the first hand experience to see the development of mosque madrasah’s curriculum and the challenges it faced…all that critics, mindblowing questions, the publicity it had to go through to convince people, the curriculum changes and the numerous edits done. i see this curriculum grow. i was part of it having helped developed some of them.
– i have always been able to work under pressure, in fact, i work well under pressure although at times i like to be well prepared ahead

– heck i started the madrasah, from scratch, from zero knowledge. from zero student to…now..about 800 students? it was really an opportunity of a lifetime. and it has to be one of my best achievement.

– and now i am married to a most loving caring most patient man that is always there to give me a hug and a kiss when things go wrong.

– rezeki is all in the hands of the Lord. will get what is sufficient. insya Allah.

im in gratitude of what i have and had achieved as of now. i just need to move on and improve. make interesting what seems not and make ezciting what seems to lack of it.

i can do this.