now i remember!

the final final paper yesterday. so here goes, "HOORAY!!! I’M FREE!!!!"

but am i???….[cue eery music]

[The following blog is solely the view of the author, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the... uh...author's alter ego... yeah...]

Salam and Sejahtera,

Phewh, what a day today has been, yup, what a sunny Sunday… ok, I really am sorry for that pun.. but I couldn’t help my self, honest…

So today I learned why a lot of us ‘intellectuals’ in Malaysia are very ‘lumpy’ when it comes to earning a good, honest living once they leave school… more specifically, why they (and by that, I may be included too, and you, and you, yes, you…) have little more interest in the labour sector than an Flik the Ant would have in meeting and Otis the Aardvark…

Well for one thing, I am sitting here with a sore back, and that was just the one garden… but then when you come to think of it, that really is the core of living life; to produce results through effort. Could you really say with that, "I got 9A’s in my SPM," or "I’ve got a Diploma" when in the end, after all that time and effort put in by your families, and all of the money contributed by your family, and by all Malaysians who pay their taxes, you end up ryte back where you started, ‘planting grapes’ under your parent’s roof, eating off their salary. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with being all grown and living with your parents, provided you take care of them, not vice versa. [needless to say, this is directed to you guys out there]

Anyways, back to my ‘experiences’…

Time: 05:40
Thoughts: Mak Aih…sejuk giler…nggeletaq aku…

Time: 07:45
Thoughts: Cool, I slept throught the 1st half of Argentine vs Mexico…missed the first two goals…

Time: 08:00
Thoughts: Thanks guys, I owe you [another] one…

Time: between 08:00 and 08:25
Thoughts: This is so cold, how the heck am I gonna play in Dunedin next month?!?!?!

Time: 08:25
Thoughts: Damn!! Was that the departure time? Oh, guess I’ll have to take the next bus…

Time: between then and arriving for work…
Thoughts: This is such a bad idea… why did I have to apply for that gardening job… i could be asleep right now, like my roommate… then I can play computer games… then have a nice lunch… then go to the barbecue…. but nooooo… I just had to apply… head shaking…

Time: some time later…
Thoughts: My back aches, my heels are blistering (hmmm… I have to size-down my khouf’s… sorry, spelling…), I think my lunch wants out…

Time: don’t remember…
Thoughts: What?!?!?! I’ve only done half?

Time: at last…
Thoughts: Well, that wasn’t too bad, was it? And look! NZD112.00 My first paycheque. Welcome to the realm of ‘WORKHOOD’… my back suddenly feels better now… hehe..

Time: BBQ TIME!!!
Thoughts: KAWABONGA BABY!!! hehe… tipo je… kat rumah sebelah sana tu je…

Moral of the story:
There’s no point in being too choosy about the job that you do, provided it is HALAL. You can’t use that age-old lame-oh excuse that the wages in the labour sector are too small to sustain your ‘elite‘ lifestyle (maybe your lifestyle just wasn’t meant to be sustained…). After all, cheap foreign labour only came in on an extremely large scale when WE turned away from such job oppurtunities. And wages dropped because…
Well, we can’t change the past, but let’s try something closer to home: ourselves.

So just remember this, your rizq and good fortune comes from ALLAH swt. What is the significant difference between your working for a 5-digit salary and a migrant earning a 3-digit one?

Where did you come from?
Where will you go?
Where did you come from?
You should know…

Ahh…it felt good that I can do something for myself, not really ‘menadah tangan’ anymore, (recieving the cheque does not count as menadah tangan, okay). And i made it back for dinner!

What a happy ending….

…rather a provocative title entry for seekers of knowledge such as myself, isn’t it?….

but then one should stop. and reflect. and think…why DO we spend so much time and effort to study all these strange things?

and being that time of the year again, (EXAMS!!!), we are often reduced to being timid little creatures whose lives revolve around the lines and lines of text and equations, and pages upon pages of diagrams….

okay, this is a reflection of the khutbah read before the Juma’ah prayer on the Mount Street musolla. insyaAllah, by posting this, both you and i will benifit from self-reflection…

living in the age of ‘Information’ and ‘Technology’, and their offspring, ‘Information Technology’ [come on, laugh...yes, you...] it would be a surprise [really?] to know that there are so many illiterate people out there…and guess what? how many of them are muslims? as i have just learned today, tremendously large numbers.

now that IS a shock isn’t it? for weren’t the very first verses revealed to our Beloved Prophet s.a.w, as follows,

"Proclaim! (or Read!) in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created.
Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood:
Proclaim! (or Read!) and thy Lord is Most Bountiful,
He Who Taght (the use of) the Pen,
Taught man that which he knew not."
                                                (S. Al ‘Alaq 96:1-5)

so, are we indeed being ‘muslims’ when we do not strive in gaining knowledge? at one time, we were the pioneers in all fields of science [yes, 'we know that' i hear y'all say...] but look at where we are now! ['but it isn't our fault!', you cry..., 'look at what they have done to us!'] yes, look at what they have done, what we have allowed them to do to us. our respect for knowledge has dwindled so much so that eventually, we left it for the temporary enjoyment of this dunya.

so now the knowledge with which mankind was know of the greatness of Allah s.w.t, has been perverted by those who disbelieve and turned into a tool with which to renounce the very existence of The Almighty Allah s.w.t.

as muslims, we should all know of the history of the above verses: Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. was an unlettered man, he was never taught how to read or write (but that does not in any way belittle his inteligence). so imagine the state of terror that engulfed him as an invisible force surrounded him and said ‘Read!‘. the moral of the story: Allah wants us to learn, gain knowledge to better ourselves.

something else that most of us would have missed (including me) was this message: "Wake up! Don’t sit around and wallow in your ignorance any longer! The time of ‘miracles’ has come to an end, and the age of knowledge has come to pass…. ignorance can no longer be an excuse for not submitting to the will of Allah s.w.t…."

so back to the thesis statement: So WHY STUDY?!?!?!

because that’s the ‘in thing’ with people ike you and i?
because you can gain a better-paid job?
because you can gain social prestige amongst your peers?
because of just because?
or
because….uh…[blur]…

NO!

we study because:

Allah s.w.t. commands it    (remember, …inna ma-al-a’mal bi-an-niyat…, when you do anything for Allah s.w.t., it brings you one step closer to the Gardens of Eternal Bliss)
we wish to better ourselves
we wish to better our ummah
we wish to someday, bring our misguided brothers and sister back onto the straight path

may Allah s.w.t. guide us onto His straight path…and give us strength to face the many chalenges that lie in wait on the journey there…

so, see you in the Gardens! insyaAllah…
 

Need i explain any further at this present moment in time? i think not….

<update 20:33 13/06/2006>

hmmm…..who ever said that ‘cancelling’ an exam was a good thing? for verily, one can never expect the exam to be ‘cancelled’, noo….it will only be ‘postponed’…..so there goes my ‘exam week’, and in comes my ‘exam 4 weeks’…[booo]hoo-rayy!!! but still, being the good mukmin that i am, [aiceh!! *wink* *wink*] i’m sure there was an extremely good reason for ALLAH swt to shorten my effective holiday period…only the human mind is tooo inferior to comprehend HIS plans..
we may not LIKE what we HAVE to do, but…

"Fighting is prescribed for you, and you dislike it. But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. But GOD knows, and you know not." (Surat Al-Baqarah 2:216)

so i guess complaining doesn’t help here, instead, working around the problem with what you have would be a better option, [aha! there's the engineer in me talking]…

until next time! LHK

…and that’s what most footwear tend to be made for.

hmmm…today was indeed a very big day for me; my first football boots…oooohh….aaaaaahhhhh….yeah, iknow, what’s the big deal? most reading this, if there are any, would have experienced this lang ago, at the age of six, with their dad, or something. i mean, it isn’t that i’m not interested in the game, okay,i  may not be fanatic about it…but i still enoy a good game, say, once a week…at least i try to enjoy, but who can tell me they enjoyed spending 80% of the game just accelerating towards the ball, then having to carefully decelerate as the ball changes trajectory, wait for an instant of zero velocity, then adjust your bearing, and repeat the process over and over…..hmmm…if you really must know, the coefficient f static friction of wet grass and worn out soles isn’t very large. yep, my first set of boots…good thing my friends were around to advise me on what makes a good boot…

shame though, probly have to wait till next week to try them out…

haha, thought i might tiru my sister…

The Advertising Slogan Generator

soo…..have you ever had that feeling of sheer emptiness inside, and you think, "what is the purpose of my life?" yes? no? well, the psychiatrist in me says that can be interpreted in one of 2 ways….you either have had a very real, tangible goal in life and strive hard ot achieve it, or you just don’t bother thinking about it much…me? why else am i sitting here at midnight, typing this blog?

argh!! free me of the self-imposed invisible walls called EXAM!!! i mean, i don’t know why its stressing me out as much as it is….but the prospect of getting a red card from my bosses up there is DaUNtiNg.,.,.,.,.,