Salam ‘alaikum wa rahmat Allah wa barakatuh…

Last Friday saw the end of the annual Islam Awareness Week on the Uni Level at UoA, and Saturday for the national level. We had a couple of activities on campus… and I’m in no way trying to be modest; there really was just a couple.. we had the mandatory information booth (thanks to sisters for their effort), the opening BBQ (thanks to brothers for their effort, a live forum about the importance of the family unit in society (thanks to me for my effort! hehe… no, we did it all as a team.. ;), and lastly the appreciation dinner for lecturers and key uni staff.. the Minister of Ethnic Affairs was there too, which was a nice surprise, kind of..

I’m sure, all the muslim groups in NZ were also doing their bit in conveying the beautifully immaculate teachings of islam to the community. May Allah reward them for their efforts.

{urg.. my fingers are freezing through, there’s a freaking cold front here and i’m not even safe in my room!}

{plus we found ourselves locked out of the apartment, coming back from subuh, the security system’s jammed up for some reason…}

Anyways… not much I can ’story’ about IAW this year; I only manned the stalls once, but the dinner! oh that was good… chatting with the lecturers (outside of uni) was really enjoyable.. who’d have thought? haha..

we had this lecturer Nawawi Chouw, who was real hard out, as locals say it.. very Fadhilah Kamsah-like in character.. he was telling us all about how we can learn things, and the psycho stuff about breaking our own barriers.. it was cool, trust me.. shame he doesn’t teach mechanical.. then there was my favourite lecturer: VOJO, or Vojislav Kecman in full.. funny guy.. he talked a lot of comedy. We did get to talk about religion a bit suppose (sorry boss! lari objective sikit.. sikit je..)

so yup, that’s the background setting for what i wanna discuss a bit here, before realising that i’m running late for lectures.

while the muslims in NZ and OZ and many other parts of the world are busy propogating the ONE MESSAGE to those who haven’t had the privilege of knowing about it in detail, something happened back in Tanah  Air Tercinta (’Ter’cinta tak sengaja ke past tense?)

to be honest i have no idea what the real, whole story is, and i dont claim to. ’semua pihak yang terlibat’ may have their reasons for doing what they do, but let’s face it people: you have to open up to the people around you if you want to be better understood. that’s a lesson the muslims everywhere else BUT Tanah Air are learning and applying in their lives (most probably, again i claim ignorance with facts and figures)..

is it a sensitive issue? Yes! …is it??

should we just not talk about it? Yes! …should we???

should we be a closed society where nobody else is allowed to ask questions and learn of our way of life except for that which we decide to tell them of, only in the manner that we deem suitable for them to learn about it???

i won’t even answer that one.

in the same way that the teachers and academicians and pakar-pakar motivasi tell us each day on TV and on radio and in camps: To be an effective learner you gotta ask questions. ask SMART questions. questions that force the person with knowledge to THINK. Think CRITICALLY.

and also, by being asked these kinda questions, the person with KNOWLEDGE will better understand what it is he KNOWS, and gain WISDOM.

so that is my one dollar and seventeen cents of thought for you on this freezing cold morning.

now I shall act poikolothermic by soaking up some lovely heat energy from a steaming hot shower…

reminds me of thermal engineering…

"…so we take energy from a high-temperature heat source and supply it to a heat engine, thereby producing some work and dumping waste heat into a low-temprature heat sink. this will generate entropy (disoder), (ds >= 0) thourgh an irreversible process.."

yeah, keep generating disorder until the whole universe dies out from a terrible heat death.. don’t believe me? look it up.

sekian wasalam..