not your salvation

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I am going to lament about work. As much as I hated to, because I want my blog to be a space where I can share happy moments and contemplations. I hated to have to talk about work. but I hope by talking it out, I will gain back my courage and will to strive along.

I cannot let one incident bring me down. I need to rewind my mind and thinking to a perspective that will give me hope and say this is the right thing to do. This is the job for me and no matter what my weaknesses and sins I have made, this is what I have to do, and probably my purpose in life. yes, at 30, I am not so sure if this is the purpose I have to lead.

I am an introvert and I am your forced leader, I dont even remember how I got to be in this place anymore. I think I can do the job but I dont think I am doing well enough. But then again, remember what the mufti said in a closed session. Tawakkal ‘alAllah. Tawakkal in its deepest meaning.

What is it that is making you feel down Seri? It had been a statement that the parent said via telephone that made me feel why am I responsible for all the sins they made? I am not your salvation. Why must I be dragged along if they are sentenced to hell? How can I save myself when you are putting me at the lowest point of the blaming game and putting me and my teachers into responsibility if the child doesnt learn anything? How do I face a person with such arrogance? I was glad I stood up to her today.

Anyway, I am tired of having to take the blame and being responsible of other people’s children. Here I am trying to get a child of my own. How can I not feel down and get affected with these incidents. I am truly tired. I have not rested well enough since December. My only quality time spent with my family was during CNY public holiday and when my father had a heart attack. It had to go to that extend for me to clearly see my family if you know what I meant.

So give me a break. I am going to give a piece of my mind tomorrow.

In the meantime, I rest.

being the eldest

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dad is currently home now. discharged last Tuesday. I made the decision to attend my training half day and was grateful that the chairman and the trainer was very understanding.

my father has always been an independent person, he never relied on any one. and although I think he would willingly go home on his own, I cannot let that happen. Siti and Khidhir managed to see him first on Tuesday and report back to us about his scan that morning and whether dad can really return home. once I got the confirmation, at around lunchtime, I was able to go straight to the hospital. I think my siblings kind of liked the sense of importance and responsibility of taking care of dad. sat through with Dad while the pharmacist explained in detail of all the medicines he has to take. there’s about close to 10 meds he needs to take daily.

and I have to admit, for once, I made regular visits to hougang ave 8 just to check up on him. he definitely is recovering and looking well, and staying true to his promise. I just thought this ordeal is almost a reminder to me to start taking well care of my parents. already my mother is looking frail and sickly, I had to tell her to stop whatever supplementary pills she’s taking and to concentrate on her actual medicine. all these products out there, I don’t know, now I feel like I cannot trust them. because my mother is looking too thin and my dad had this heart attack. maybe they are not to be blamed 100%, but who knows. supposed to be keeping them healthy! and their diabetes is nowhere lessened from taking these supplementary.

I need to take an active role back in that house. I left the house too long that things are getting disorganized. I don’t mind rushing there during lunch, cook something simple but healthy for dad and rush back to work, after work cook for dear hubby also. I really don’t mind doing that. I have to think through my life table again. just few posts ago, I was saying that I need to reschedule my life table due to my night classes, now I have to put in the hougang ave 8 into consideration. May or may not be long term, but I guess, it needs to be done somehow. it’s just me to be taking up and doing everything, taking care of everything and than I drown in exhaustion. balance, Seri, balance.

oh I have to say my siblings have been very helpful around the house too, and they need the encouragement. I guess we are all moving into that adulthood phase. the responsible adult. I have always been proud of them and their achievements. we will do well.

and also giving my full attention to my dear one and only hubby. this is another boy I have to give my heart and care too. but this, I will do with all my heart.

heart heart

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my family had a wake up call last Saturday.

my father had heart attack. dear calm and strong dad had a heart attack.

I was at work. got a call from my mother at about 4.30pm telling me that dad wanted to go to ttsh because he was having chest pains since 2pm. and afterwards, it was kind of a fast and slow turn of events.

I immediately called hubby to fetch me and straight away to get my dad and drove to ttsh.

Once registered, when we mentioned he complained of chest pains he was immediately sent inside, without waiting for any of us that when I came in to follow him, I found myself in a busy room with nurses moving everywhere and beds with patients waiting to be tended to, but no sign of my dad. I asked a busy looking nurse at the counter and asked where my dad is, they only mentioned he’s in ‘resus’. I was like what the heck is resus and can I go meet him now? no, only the patient is inside. so I waited inside not knowing what to do. after about half an hour inside, hubby called and guess what, a doctor already asked for the family members outside and requested to go and wait at another room. hubby sounded serious and he said they don’t always requested for family members at a&e unless it is truly dangerous. my heart raced. honestly, it all felt like blur and a fast movie playing in my head.

it was another hour or more of waiting. we were the only family waiting there.

dr ashok came out with a serious and stern face, I was already worried. Mr Kamir had a heart attack. a serious heart attack, he said. at any moment it can turn out really critical. but he is safe now. my brain had to digest two different news in a split second, I do not have time to react. he could have…

they did a stem operation on his heart. although another artery is almost as bad. this was his second stem operation. he had one while I was in Uni around 2006. he stopped smoking for quite a long time and only in recent years, he went back to smoking, and that caused the attack. except this one was more serious. he had to stay in the icu for two nights.

we went to see him and for awhile there, he looked real frail and exhausted. tears coming out from his eyes but still giving us a smile. always the one to give a brave face and saying ‘it’s ok I am fine now.’

I am blessed he got through this one. he is home now and back to normal. but it hit me hard and I realised this is the time to really take care of my parents. the responsibility just sinks in. because if anything happened, I am the next of kin, the first person to call. it’s just, my parents are looking so frail nowadays.

I am blessed that I have my husband around with me. the shoulder to depend on.

I am exhausted. and I have a sore throat coming up.

back to school

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I have finally braved my self and sign up for a specialist diploma course. with the support and consent from my husband. it is a specialist diploma course on counselling for children and youth.

I am still digesting this idea of becoming a part time student and honestly pretty nervous of how my body and brain going to react on having to study extra 6 hours per week to study. I am just glad that this course will be dependant on assignments rather than exams, but who says assignments are easy, hmm..

but I guess I need to have some form of learning in my system before I go stagnant, so to speak. I think the course will be helpful in some ways to understanding the students and most importantly, be able to help them. I mean I know my line is in education, but at this point of time, I am not able to commit to long periods of learning. So let’s try out 6 months first and see how I can take it. Anyway, it will only start in March, I hope this month I will be able to do some rescheduling of my life timetable and body system as well.

It’s going to be exciting, I hope.

😉

chai latte

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I am your minah teh tarik, kakak teh ais, and now your chai latte lady 😉

thank you to the babes, I tasted my virgin chai latte and instantly fell in love with the taste. especially after a hard day at work (ok, not really, a day at a course) and knowing I have a presentation I have yet to prepare the very next morning, I challenged the odds and spent a bit of time with girlfriends. because, well, we just needed it.

it was supposed to be a café hopping kind of gathering, but what how many cafes can we cover from 6.30pm onwards? well, 4 actually.

tiramisu hero has the best ambience, I Am have the best crepe, ogopogo for the oh so refreshing chai latte (and personally pretty vintage design as well) and hmm, I don’t know, your back to basics by the street café Nasrin for a fun polaroid session!

I am glad I spent a bit of time with them. oh yea, got to work on that social bit of thinking. I totally fail in this friendship/communication department. I have always been so quiet and yea, I get it, introvert, psychologically speaking. I have been blessed with some very understanding friends, I mean that is what friends are for, accepting the way you are. but I get frustrated with myself for rather being the listener than sharing my stories. I definitely take time, a long time, to get used to a person and open up to them. so like if my friends bring their other friends or spouse along, I kind of shut myself off. its a natural response. I do not have control over it, eh. I will work on this slowwwwly I promise. but when a cool friend says you’re cool too because of the music I listen to, well, that is a compliment for your timid little seri ok! haha!

to dear friends, thank you for knowing me and understanding my need to be quiet. I enjoy your company all the same. 🙂

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cycle noob

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one thing about turning 30 is the ability of knowing your body well. I am more in tuned with my body, I listen to my body and what I need and/or capable of. i know when to stop and when i can push my self further.

you see I was never a sporty person. I didn’t do sports back in school all the way to high school, hey, my school don’t have sports back then, being an all girls’ school. the sports we had was all self initiated. there was that occasional badminton games we play among friends and for a while, a soccer fever in the all girls’ school with kains and all until the teachers couldn’t say anything to us all because we were always playing ball! I knew then I was never going to be interested in soccer. back at home, dad was an avid badminton player. he was our unbeatable badminton hero. 🙂

and then there was ye-ye, an old school game rubber bands tight together to make a rope and two persons will hold each ends going up from the knee to the highest level while the rest will take turns to go over it. i can say i was among the best in the game.

so i was choosy. but what i know now is i love badminton, second only to cycling, and always will be, archery. (Now, archery, I am so going to return practising that, I had so much fun during Uni years and I never regretted taking it up as part of my extra curriculum activity, and its a sunnah plus point).

I have always loved cycling. the funny thing is, i only realised my body relationship with cycling today. it helped that hubby loves cycling too but he has more stamina and he cycles much faster than I can. so it always makes me wonder (I just realised I am an analytical person anyway), what works and what don’t for me. Cycling is almost becoming like an art that I need to learn.

Well, today I realised that this bike hubby bought works best for me (I have tried many other bicyles, they don’t always come out as faves). It was not heavy, light tyres and the gears, thus far, I know I can go gear 5 and mind you, up a hill at that gear ok. I was smiling ear to ear when I could cycled up ok! and your noob here just realised that even the height of the bike seat also determines whether I can cycle fast because otherwise, it just feels terribly hard to pedal comfortably, your leg should stretch out the whole length so the thighs will not be too strained out when you pedal down. your posture as well, how at times you just need to bend forward to preserve a bit of energy. hah, it take me to be 30 to finally realise these! but i still havent mastered the art of breathing though. It was fun nonetheless.

psst, I have been cycling 25 km all this while. Yes, just found out about that too. 😉

Starting out as not a sporty person, I can finally say I am taking care of myself by doing sports, and doing it with the man I love nonetheless.

hmm no, no running please, my knee cannot take running.

there I know my self.

virgin trip.missed

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I miss New Zealand.

It had been my virgin trip, so to speak.

It was my honeymoon.

It was a place I never dreamt I could travel to.

I thank my husband for that.

And always, there will always be a minute in my days that I will miss it.

I will cease to miss it.

I will definitely go back there.

Can you put two items of the same thing in your bucket list?

survived january

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Came out of January alive.

Thank goodness. all the rush heh. and January really goes very very fast. its February already and I finally am able to breathe for a while.

It is just getting interesting though. I have set my mind on studying this year and I have a few courses in mind to go already. excited much! already I am now going through this mosque officers development course for three months till March.

I had the opportunity to meet the two local leaders, for whom I have great respect towards to, in a sharing session and I find the courage to ask for their advice to face these challenges. and I was glad I did. their message was quite simple but at that point of time, it really touched the mind and heart. Every hard work that we do has its sole purpose of gaining the redha from Allah swt. Matlamat kita hanya kerana Allah. And after every hard work, we must remember and believe, tawakkal ‘alAllah, that at the end of the day, it is truly Allah alone who can give hidayah. Believe in Him and He will guide us. (Al-Baqarah: 282)

We always forget. We take our work and responsibilities, no doubt, with much dedication…and that, in my line, we felt we are not doing enough, we are not teaching enough, and we are not educating the parents enough. maybe we did our best, already gave our best, but at the end of it all, truly, it is Allah who will put in Nur and Hidayah to the people that we are trying to teach. I have wronged myself, and I have wronged Him. I always felt I was a failure for not doing enough, well, I still feel that way, but more enlightened and relieved in a sense that I can still continue do so much more. But I must tawakkal and leave it to Allah swt to do what He wills. Truly guidance and Hidayah comes from Him and Him only. Subhanallah. You know its the simplest things that needs reminding.

We are so bogged down with paperwork we forget the very basic things of our purpose of life. It is all because of Him. This job is not easy. But I pray and pray that Allah forgives me for my weaknesses and wrongs. Forgive me if I am unable to do my best. because I will be accountable for what I did today. I can still move on, I will. until a day comes that I think I had enough. that Allah has destined me to do only so much, I will back down. because I really do not want to be, when at the judgement day, be the person they dragged along to meet His Wrath, I cannot be, Ya Allah. I seek Your forgiveness and Your guidance.

Looking at the two leaders, I am brought down to reality. we are not doing this because we want to, because we have to. all the money does not mean anything, barely a comfort in this world. but there is that end of the road we have yet to go. the real end. no one can barely save one self. except Him.

Forgive me Lord.

I strive to do all I can. Allah will guide me through.