Wednesday, December 23, 2015

2015 to 2016

It is now December , the end of the year 2015.  Quite a few major things have happened.  First and foremost, we got ourselves cats. Not just one but four. I'll probably write about it later but err that's not a promise.  

Secondly I am back in Malaysia for good. Yeah lover was made redundant last June and we headed home last august, four months shy to our tenth year in Qatar. Basically we are in square one as we were in 2005 before we left. Except now I am not working. Alhamdulillah ala kulli hal.  The year 2015 is the year that is quite challenging for the oil and gas industries. You see many major oil companies are laying off their workers. Qtar is still at The process of laying many expats off. 

Naturally we tried to find work there so we can continue living in qtar. Haziq has not finished his ALevels and going home quite unexpectedly can be topsy turvy. Qtar however is adamant to make people leave with no possibility of allowing us to continue.   To save money, we decided to leave, sold most things and shipped the rest.  Now here I am, slowly building new home, readying myself for new adventure with my lover, kids and cats.  

So what can I offer the world next? Guide me Ya Rabb.    

Friday, May 22, 2015

Mental Strength

I am still taking my Quran and arabic classes.

While my Quran lessons have been progressing forward, I am sad to say my arabic class have regressed. I have cut down to one arabic class and I am only learning Quranic Arabic*. And even then, I am making a hangat-hangat tahi ayam effort for it.

So I had exam last week. As expected my arabic results does smell like a warm tahi ayam and it is not the flowery kind mind you.

I do, however, put a considerable effort on my hifdh classe. Signing up to any other classes that I can. Because, I have to tell you now, it is not easy. Allah Mustaan.

I often read some simplistic tips that people give for one to memorise that go something along this line : One ayah a day and you will memorise the Quran in XX number of years. If it's that easy, then perhaps yeah, but truly the effort goes beyond that.

First you need to memorise the new ones. Meanwhile you must make a huge effort to retain the old ones. The more you go, there will be more old ones. You must remember all of them. This include you should not miss any harakat, you should not be confused with the word 'wa' and 'fa' or omitted or added them to your whimsical desire. or confuse 'hum' and 'kum' or is it 'ka' at the end of the word. You must not mixed up all ayat that are similar but are found in different surah.

Meanwhile the teacher will give you longer new ones because your brain is also doing weight lifting.

And all of these require a huge amount of time in your day.

I am not complaining, mind you. I do enjoy it. It's the best distraction that I need. Everyday you learn something new both in the Quran and also about yourself.

And certainly I am finding out something about myself. Mostly it is very humbling because I know now, I taklah pandai mana pun. And secondly many times you'll learn something in this surah and you will find something bigger in another. Then I learn to shut my mouth because I know, that I do not know much (making it difficult to blog).

But now, at this very moment, I need to learn to have mental strength.

You see, when practicing in the class or reciting in front of people, I could usually be fluent and actually feeling the ayah while I am reciting it. This is when you'll find that your tone is just right and words just come out smoothly.

In the exam room though, I became almost blank. I make mistakes major and silly. I got confused. I feel there is a voice (Insya Allah not schizophrenic), so what's the next word, this is difficult. What is it? what? what? I will forget. I will forget . these are chants in my head making a mantra.

This year-end exam was quite a disaster. I forgot the simplest of ayah. I got stuck here and there. My tajweed pusing-pusing macam gasing.

Perhaps I am not asking Allah enough. Or have been neglecting some duties. Or are not sincere enough. Not making repentance enough. Or all these combination above. Ya Rabb I ask for taufiq and hidayah.

And also I need to find mental strength and learn not to allow my nerves get over me. I need to be in control of my mental strength to be in a battle. The battle is in my head.

I ask Allah to open this door for me. This is on top of other effort that i should do. If you have suggestions, I welcome them.

But meanwhile let us hold on to this. Many times repeated in Surah Qamr.

And We have certainly made the Qur'an easy for remembrance, so is there any who will remember?

I am certain, that this journey will reveal me more of my inner layers and I must learn to deal with. Surely there is no success without pain. Ya Rabb send me guidance.

*Quranic arabic concentrates mostly on grammar thus you will learn why is the harakat the way it is and so forth. The downside is you will probably not learn much on how to speak or construct a sentence or even know many vocabularies. It helps the memorising though. 

Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Bring the Weight Back

I started to blog sometime in 2004. My last post, before this one was written in 2014. That's ten years! That's a whole decade.

Anyway among pet peeves topic that i would probably mention here and there during this ten years blogging is, I'm fat lah, makin tembam lah. Someone said i nampak sihat and berisilah. All the work.

Tell you what, i want that weight back! Yeah the weight that i used to complain about, i want it back! Because however fat i think I was, it is not as much as now. 

Hello 2015!