Insightful

"Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving."

 Dale Carnegie

Help me find them

It's just so random. I need your help, yes you my lovely reader(s). From now on, if you happen to come across this blog and read any of my entries (in English) and you find any grammatical mistakes, be it silly ones or serious. Just correct them in the comment box.

Yes, I'm taking it seriously since I guess I'm in need of improving my language.  So, help me do it.  I guess you guys know more than I do on how to you know, comment or criticise. I just hope it'll be more of constructive ones, please..? Not merely on finding mistakes only.  But anyway, just do it your way, yea?

Thanks in advance for your time and of course, effort ;)

I'm so sorry guyss

I've to put this up.

RINDUUUUUUUU

*nanges*

Usrah?? ewwww

That's how i used to interpret it as. Tak suka gila. Dengar je rasa cam urght!

Sebab dulu-dulu dekat sekolah, first time usrah ni diperkenalkan dengan cara yang agak 'keras' bagi aku. Apehal extreme sangat neh? Datang usrah confirm nervous punya, reflect balik what i had been doing on that week kang tak pasal-pasal nama kena pick. Usrah bagi aku memang tempat untuk betulkan kesalahan dengan cara mencari-cari salah. Benci oh!

Bila introduction nye macam tu, macam mana la fikiran ni nak jadi bersih, kan? Dah la tak pernah tau apa konsep yang sebenar-benarnya buta-buta datang terus macam rasa tak nak datang dah lepas tuh. Nak bagi kesedaran based on the top down approach. Terus jump pada kesalahan. And the tradition continued...

Macam mana lah sesama juniors and seniors tak timbul persepsi. Or even in the same batch. Kalau dah dari akar umbi nye dengan cara kekerasan macam tuh. Yea I admit there're some good things I could dig on, nak ajar hukum-hakam, adab, ilmu fardhu kifayah etc etc sebab benda tu penting. But what I could see was at the end of the day, it was more leaning towards creating groups yang jurangnya, mak ai! Group alim-alim yang sentiasa ada usaha dakwah which a) berhikmah, b) paksa. Lagi satu group sederhana, kiri tak, kanan pun tak. Lastly group yang memang anti perkara-perkara usrah ni.

What I intend to mention here is why are there such gap? And group anti tuh memang confirm kene chop sampai keluar sekolah. But why? I guess it may seem simple kot, kalau da approach nya macam tu, macam mana orang nak suka kan? Kalau adik usrah lebih takut, lama-lama memang benci ah. Kalau dah yang bagi usrah asyik pandang salah, mana tak yang diberi usrah menyampah ye tak?

Manusia mana ade sempurna. Jadi daripada berniat nak mengajar, mendidik but at the end of the day timbul endless perception, IMHO i guess lebih baik jadikan perbincangan. Semua orang ada pendapat masing-masing. And please, bukan dengan cara mengambil pengajaran based on others' misbehaviour.

And bila dekat sini, i was purely shocked on how can the approach be vary! Tak rigid, tak sempit, tak terkongkong dan mengongkong. It's not merely on a small circle discussing on religiously content topics, but it could be any sorts of knowledge, inside and outside books. I could see the values and significance of it.

I believe, human beings, tak banyak, sikit, mesti akan rasa tercari-cari, sometimes rasa terkapai-kapai sorang-sorang. Rasa kosong. Lepas tu rasa tak ada support system yang betul. And mulalah nak tuding jari pada sekeliling bila perasaan-perasaan tu datang while supposedly diri sendiri yang nak kene luruskan dulu. Why'd i say this? Because I used to be in such state, and I may be, again IF diri sendiri tak nak cari jalan penyelesaian sendiri. And for how long we'd want ourselves to be in such situation?

One of the biggest solutions is by having this- usrah which i used to look down, and misinterpret the real objectives of it. Bila dah duduk sama-sama, and have the sense of the bond-ness, at least akan rasa gembira, tak rasa kosong, MALU nak fikir benda-benda remeh yang before this duk asyik fikir.  Kenapa perlu rasa kosong, buka mata, hati, fikiran luas-luas and pandang sekeliling. Banyak je peluang untuk penuhkan rasa kosong tu. Tinggal nak dengan tak nak je.

Alhamdulillah, at least I have the sense that the term 'usrah' may never  be the same as what I've been introduced back in school. I'm not putting exactly 100% blame on it but of course I felt a bit upset and disappointed of how wrong could the concept be taken by people. And that could be misleading like, forever!

There's no such thinking as 'eleh, kau ingat kau baik sangat nak berusrah bagai?' or 'hipokrit gila kau usrah bagai' (no offence intended!) No, there's no such thing. At least what I've been experiencing is the eagerness to learn and improve. Rasa pentingnya knowledge yang maybe tak dapat dekat tempat lain and tak pernah tahu pun. Even more surprisingly from the people yang selama ni tak rasa mcam nak kenal pun, at last dia lah yang banyak bagi turning point. No judgement. Kau judge orang, kau ingat orang tak judge kau?

No poyo-ness intended, (whatever you wanna think). But I'm just so upset of how it'd been misleading inside my brain, pass through my veins all these years.


I'm just upset that's all.

How they all ended

I've been meaning to blog about all of those things I've been busy with (yess apart from classes and all those never-ending-essays I've had to kill every other week!) I shall start with week 6, where we had our massive 2011 Malaysian Night. We'd been practising since before  winter break. Gila kan?

Us, joget team, or *cough* jojet. haha Last year we did zapin. No, we didnt call ourselves japin. Haha

Dikir, awesome as per usual. This year, they got a Singaporean singer ( check him out here ) and this humble lady, Tharwana, a Bruneian. Yea, we're that muhibah. haha

Sabahan, with their perfect jumpo over the bamboos

*pictures courtesy of Nako and Ain :)

We got modern dance ( with this as one of their songs. Cuteness.), chinese fan dance (so nice, I like ;) ) and Indian dance (hotness exploded!). And the play, too bad I didnt get the chance to watch it, fully. Managed to peep through some scenes but all in all, it went well. But i was less excited than in last year's, maybe it was my second time and I was just too tired of many things happened in between. Nearly gave up, but I knew it wont get me any better, so i repeatedly said to myself, 'just bear with the hiccups'. And it worked!Alhamdulillah. And to top it up, I had them came all the way from Oxford to watch *nangis*

And there's an after party later that night, featuring Monoloque, Altimet and Dj Fuzz ( which  I'm not one of their fans and I had a competition to attend the very next morning.). Rushed to Leeds at 1.30 a.m, I wonder where on earth did I get all the energy from! I slept all the way and woke up to a snowy weather there. No wonder it was freezing cold. Those footprints, they're ours. Pencemar kesucian betul!

Cik Kiah team. LOL

The host performing while the judges were pulling their hair out deciding the winning team. HAHA

So that's it about Nisa Nasyeed Extravaganza 2011. Big thanks for the warm hospitality, felt so touched. We didnt win, but fair enough to say, I got to know some new faces and got myself out of my usual space. (ceh ceh, ayat nak pujuk hati je!Haha)

The following weekend was as well filled; bonding session with the jojets. Haha baru seminggu je babe! It was actually a surprised one for Arif, he had his birthday on the Saturday. So, sekali lah, birthday party cum jojet gathering. My stomach ached, not only with all the food but the endless jokes  from one topic to another. Went all crazy talking about tender makanan, makcik kantin and many more I just couldnt tell, was laughing alone while typing this! @_@

I just thought week 8 would be me slacking off the whole weekend or maybe working on my assignment due the following Thursday (pfft) but it so happened that I had to replace my friend to teach the kids of postgrads'. There're 3 levels of them, Level 1: all the cutey adorable toddlers, level 2: primary school kids, level 3: secondary schoolers. The entire reason is to get them practice Malay language (since some of them were born here) while learning. So i got level three (lepas pulun ber'lat ta li lat' hahaha). And i was given a book; 'Merawat penyakit hati' :O I went all panic thinking what on earth shall I discuss with them, or rather 'teach' them. Terpesong budak ni kang! 

But it turned out not so bad. The 10 of them were all so behaved, and quite eager to share and learn. Quite impressive except for those challenging questions I went all sweating to answer, and I had to translate phrases and words I said in Malay language to English! And there's this boy, proudly claimed himself as a British (puke LOL) he's been watching those Malay movies with English subs. Good la for him, at least he's the effort kan. I found it interesting, though. 

Maybe I want to try deal with toddlers next time since my friend said susah gila. Had to chase them around merely the whole lesson just to get them interested to learn. But I find them cute though in their accent. Confirm natural punya! 

That was how it ended. Two things I shall keep in mind; the post-grads' very lively community and the difference in the way those kids deal with their *cough* teachers ;p I'm out of idea to explain in details but here's what I can conclude, it's rather simple and cliche I guess; you gain respect by giving it ;)

Week 9; we waved good bye to one of our lecturers since he's back to his place in Argentina, dealing with those students and school syllabus there. He was once an education officer (dealing with school syllabus) back in his country.

He kept telling us that he's been disfavoured by his students for some reasons, maybe because of the pile of works he often gave or he's just plain strict. Well, I cant tell. I kinda like the way he maintains the students-teacher relationship no matter how close he'd have been or funny at times, at the end of the day, he could just say 'hey, I'm your teacher and you're my students'. Not so authoritative ,knows where he stands and so does he want the students. 

The weekend was spent in Sheffield, the nasyid competition for guys pulak but the whole point was to meet my old friend from my co-curricular trip to Medan back in 2004. I met her last year, during Notts Games and we met again in Leeds and I said to her I'd come over to visit. So I made it.

She was busy selling some Malaysian food and I dint get the chance to have her be my tour guide around her place, but luckily I had another friend accompanied me. I dint get to see the city though, after been mind-poisoned by her the city isnt that special so off we went to the park and museum for some photos and souvenir hunting. Jadilaaa

Been calling her acik kantin. HAHAHA

I just knew that Siti Sifir (rancangan Along dulu dulu tuh) is studying here. Macam mana la dia sekarang. HAHA

Preggy wifey doing house chores hahahaaa..Orang gaji pun bolleyyy

 Cuteness!

We had our catching up session later that night. Good laugh, good memories we reminisced while I helped her prepared Nasi Ayam for the next day. She's still the same her, the way she talked and her voiceless laugh, so much reminding me of those days during the trip. (will share this later, if got time) 

The actual competition was the following day. (Forgot to mention, it was Sheffiled Games on the Saturday). So our Kerisik Muslim went on as the first performer. Didnt win, but good song though. Tak ada rezeki.

We went back that evening, bye bye Qilot, shall we meet again. 

And bye2 Sheffield, I'm not sure I'd come again (for any reasons). Wallahualam.

So that's about it- how the previous weeks ended. One thing for sure, I'm gonna miss them so mucho! But as much as I find it hard to let the days pass bringing all the moments away, I surely have to open my arms, welcoming more things to come. Good memories, they'll stay if we care enough to keep them in mind. 

So, how're yours? Share la sikit ;)

Weak

Those memories,

weak;

I'm just too weak to get rid off them,

or weak enough to let go,

It's been ages Ive been trying to convince myself,
having this silent little voice in my mind
saying

it'll soon fade away,

but

they haunt me still.

Maybe,

I didnt mention you much in my prayer. Yes, you.

Too paranoid.