CAHAYA KEMULIAAN

Salam pembaca yang dimuliakan, moga di bulan Rejab ini, kemuliaan mu bertambah-tambah, benar, ujian yang mendatang bukan sahaja mampu menggugah iman, malah mampu mengkufurkan, moga-moga kaki mu tetap teguh berdiri bersandarkan kalimah Lailahaillallah.

SPONGE BOB

Kami semua nya Sponge Bob, cuma seorang sahaja Elmo. Walaupun ia bukan karektar kartun yang saya gemari kerana saya lebih memilih Calvin, Sponge Bob is actually a nice character. He is so honest and lurus bendul (am I like that ????), lots of silly things happen to him, but eventually, like Min said, he will always turn out to be well. I hate the yellow colour, perhaps if they repainting it to red, i might consider to like him. And the words of caution to all the Sponge Bobs, do not befriends with the traitors and jealous persons. However, as Zeah pointed it out, how could we recognize that they are traitors? Ehmm, true, how true.

But Zeah, we love Elmo too.

WISHES

Lots of my dreams have come true this month. I would like to write it down and share it with you, but as my eyes have rebel againts my heart (traitors!), I bid you good bye, good nite, and may Allah’s love and grace and rahmah be with you. And to those who are struggling againts the laziness and writer’s block syndroms, have no fear friends of heart, let’s enjoy the summer while it lasts (and don’t believe my advice, I’m trying to lure you to the forbidden path of happiness. And this advice is applicable to all of my friends here, in UK, not you, the students in Malaysia). I have, indeed, been blessed with the good food, good friends and good books in this summer.   

But as they are saying, every good thing will come to the end. And I’m dread to wait for the end. Perhaps I will say this again and again, there is no use to love people, to love anything, because ultimately, it will be taken from you.

But, I cant resist to love, after all, I’m alive.

Bimillah hir-Rahman nir-Rahim,

Salam pembaca yang dimuliakan, semoga diberi keberkatan dalam apa jua bidang yang dilakukan. Mahu menulis lagi, ia, kegilaan meng “update” blog ini datang tiba-tiba, tapi saya berfikiran positif -  ia penting untuk keselamatan kewarasan saya.

Semalam, dan kelmarin-kelmarin jua, saya sudah bercadang mahu menulis entri ini. Bagi saya, cukup sebagai peringatan ngeri untuk diri sendiri, serta adik-adik dan sahabat-sahabat yang dicintai.

Penglihatan. Anugerah Tuhan yang Maha Agung. Semalam mata saya termasuk syampu, subhanAllah! Mahu apa rasa nya, dibasuh dengan air berkali-kali sambil berselawat syifa’ (mungkin sebahagian anda berkata saya bida’ah, kata sahaja, tidak berkudis pada saya- kerana lidah saya alhamdulillah, at least mengagung kan lelaki paling mulia itu, dan bukannya mencarut dan memaki hamun, kan? ), sambil berdu’a, jangan jangan jangan nerve atau neuron saya diambil Tuhan, jangan dirabun kan saya, dan paling teruk, jangan dibutakan mata saya!

Disaat itu, saya sangat menghargai anugerah penglihatan ini. Kerana saya pernah mendengar nasyid oleh Imam Shaykh Mishary Rashid Ghareeb Mohammed Rashid Al-Afasy dari Kuwait (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_iVH1qfQ5I&feature=related) berkenaan dengan nikmat peNglihatan – seorang anak yang buta bertanya kepada ibu nya, owh Mother, what is the shape of the sky? What is light? What is the moon? What is the beauty you talk? And I see no trace of it. Is this world full of continuous darkness?

Runtuh hati saya saudara, dan bagaimana kah agaknya perasaan ibu anak muda itu? Dan saya ini, dengan izin-Nya, boleh melihat bintang bulan dan matahari?  Dan daisies dan bunga biru?

Dan anak muda hari ini rata-ratanya melihat perkara-perkara yang diharamkan oleh Syara’. Paling teruk, menonton filem lucah yang bersepah-sepah dijual dimana-mana, yang boleh di download dengan mudahnya dari internet. Hati-hati ya, jangan tiba-tiba kamu dibutakan sekelip mata. Tidak percaya? Pernah dengar seorang lelaki muda tiba-tiba hilang penglihatannya diatas sebab-sebab yang hingga kini doktor masih lagi mengkajinya?

Teringat saya kisah adik lelaki bongsu saya, yang konon-kononnya bermalam di rumah kawan nya, tetapi dikatakan niat mereka adalah untuk menonton cerita lucah (Sebab itu lah sekiranya saya in charge dengan adik saya itu, tidak saya benarkan dia keluar dengan kawan-kawan nya yang mempunyai akhlak yang meragukan). Tetapi belum sempat niat suci murni mereka itu diteruskan, abang saya yang sudah diberitahu tentang itu, datang ke rumah tersebut dengan membawa kayu hoki. Nah, jangan main2 dengan anak Pak Marwan.

Pasti pucat lesi muka sahabat-sahabat adik saya itu. Argh…boleh kah di panggil sahabat mereka itu?

I found this beautifully written paragraph in one of my revisiting journal readings,

        “Once established, this configuration of beliefs ( racism and xenophobia ) serves as a foundation for calculations concerning the putative political and cultural impact of various groups on the receiving countries.  In effect, the very characteristics that make these humans suitable as labour renders them undesirable for the perspective of membership in the receiving countries. Although conventional social psychological studies tend to suggest that racism and xenophobia are associated with low education and social status, it should be remembered that racist doctrines were wrought by intellectuals, and that social elites concerned to maintain the cultural status quo have often played a major role in institutionalizing discrimination and in initiating restrictive immigration policies.”

You don’t understand any word of it do you, perhaps after reading the third line, your brain will send a message -  it is boring, let’s stop reading it. Or perhaps, you try to read it again and again and hopelessly encounter that it doesn’t make any sense. For those who understand it, it is a mockery to the racism theory, which is cultivated to protect the filthy rich. No wonder, my friends, all those theorists are from better, wealthier, more powerful families.

And I’m supposed to believe that kind of theories? And imagine this kind of readings and worse that become my everyday-reading obligation -  everyday! It is amazing that I’m still alive.

In my trying journey to finish one of the volumes of economics of migration, I feel dizzy. Here I am, unbelievably forcing my brain to meet my intellectual obligation, trying hard to not abandon my academic responsibility, then BOOM, my stomach takes over.

Ever hear about Siapa Makan Cili, Dia Terasa Pedasnya? I’m the one who have eaten the chilis. Even I know my lower tolerance of hot food, my curiosity of what is the nasi goreng cili padi UK cooked by Putri taste like triumph. I’m not like my mother, and my other best friends, who love hot food. I can’t barely eat it, I do not know why, I should be able to consume it, since Minangkabau is in my blood. And now every nerves and veins in my body are screaming for being abused.

Perhaps I’m more like a Briton then!

Some people say we can judge people by the type of food that they like- clustering people according to their preferences criteria. Food has become an industry -  a rich industry indeed. Thousands papers have ever written on it, countless students study how to be great chefs, no movie film fails to include this element, many scholars attempt to learn it in different angles – be it social, economics, politic, history, crime, science and health.

But I find it amusing, almost with a cynical tragedy, that the world can truly be divided into three categories- the filthy rich and wealthy who have enormous bellies who never know the meaning of scarcity, the skinny anorexics who starving themselves – slaves to a superficial concept of beauty, and the skeletal who have no choice but to fasting, because of the extreme poverty and famine. Face this – everyday, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes – one child every five seconds.

Damn the globalization that destroys people more than they can realize, damn the stupid politicians who put their bellies need above all, damn the entrepreneurs who savour the neoclassical concept of profit-maximization. Damn you, Adam Smith, and you Keynes – who introduced the concept of greedy government interventions, and you above all Ravenstein, who proposed that emigration was absolute in need to achieve economics prosperity – which led to colonialism.

Damn the chilis who make me feel edgy tonight.

I was driving a car for the first time in UK today, and after a break of 4 months. I miss driving; it gives me an enormous feeling of satisfactions. But this car is so small (it is a Ford actually), even my ADP is bigger than that. And the car plat is seriously difficult to be remembered, how could they register a car like that? I just remember 57 YFJ (actually I remember only the alphabet F, but thanks to Lutfi, I do remember it now).

After shopping and having delicious afternoon tea at TESCO, we had a difficulty in locating the car! I can’t even remember where I parked it (owh I know here is the part where you will say – typical women’s trait), and I forgot the plat (this was before Lutfi taught me how to remember it) and the shape of the car. We searched high and low, and I started to panic, what happen if the car was stolen? I’d die. Seriously, I’ll die.

Then, voilá, there it was, laughing at my flushed face.

Because I do not know the car, it gives me a creepy feeling when the 1^st time I drive it. I need to feel the clutch, the clutch pedal, the brake, the brake pedal as well as the steering and the gearbox. I need to get acquaintance, to be familiar with car before I can drive it smoothly. Then I can decide whether I like the car or not. But be careful; don’t ever hurt a car’s feeling, because it can give you troubles, lots and lots of troubles. Believe me.

Just like people.

Bismillahir-Rahman nir-Rahim.

Assalamualaikum …

Some people ask me why I chose “daisy sunflower” as my Yahoo ID. At first, I was quite stunted to be asked a trivial question. The names, at least to me, do not represent anything, do not symbolized anything, and certainly do not portraying who I am. The names simply popped out at that time just because I think it was pretty flowers. Nothing more, nothing less.

But since recently the question was impishly asked but with a grace (I wonder how could a question can be posed in these ways), I am compelled to ponder upon it. I do know why I like daisy; the word carries a promise to the wonderful dreamland. Some words, like songs, are truly remarkable; they can intrigue your nature of curiosity and heighten up your sense of imagination. With daisy - I always envisage the chain of bluest daisies and dancing with the always-a-lonely Northern Star, up in the grand castles.

The cheerful sunflowers? It is actually an attribute to my best friend back in NZ. She likes sunflowers so much that all of her thingy is in the form of the flowers. I have no preference towards the flowers, for me it significant purpose on earth is producing sunflower oils. But as I honour my friendship to her beyond anything, I revere it by making it as my Yahoo ID.

And arwennur? Of course you know why I choose the name. I’m in love with Lord of The Rings trilogy movies, and Arwen seems epitomize what my feelings toward NZ at that time – beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, magnanimous country.

And nur? Arghh…my Dad chooses it for me. Enough for saying. 

And you, does your Yahoo ID represent who you are?

Salam pembaca yang dimuliakan.

Gerimis pulak petang petang ini. Mengingatkan saya kepada suatu petang dimana Abah membawa saya makan di kedai makan baru di Batu 6. Tepi sungai. Saya selalu sahaja takut dengan sungai, kerana selalu sahaja membayangkan ada buaya bersedia menerkam. NGAP! Mati gue.

Makanan nya tidak sedap (I’m a fastidious eater). Tapinya Abah selalu sahaja makan dengan gembiranya. Dan selalu nya mencuba menu baru yang kadangkala tidak masuk akal bagi saya – contoh utama, semasa saya berumur 9 atau 10 tahun, Abah memesan sup ekor. Sup ekor! Membayangkan ekor lembu sahaja sudah memualkan saya.

Saya selalu perhati, sekiranya saya sedih (saya tidak pasti adakah konsep ini Abah praktiskan untuk adik-adik yang lain), Abah akan membawa saya seorang keluar makan. Mencuba sedaya upaya menggembirakan hati saya yang sedih, dengan harapan saya tidak akan tenggelam dalam kesedihan. Kerana dia tahu, masalah saya selalunya teramat besar-besar belaka. Yang tidak tertanggungkan oleh saya. Owh ya, dalam hidup saya pembaca yang dimuliakan, ujian nya aneh-aneh belaka, kerana ya, saya ini seorang yang aneh.

Mau sekali pulang menemui Abah dan Mak. Saya mahu sekali menangis di bahu mereka. Teringat perenggan di dalam Seteguh Karang yang ditulis oleh Tuan Faridah Syed Abdullah itu -  berkata Budi, seorang anak muda merantau dari Indonesia bekerja di ladang kelapa sawit di Johor, kepada Anisa (the narrator) – ku kira, sampai mati aku tidak kapan berjumpa ibu bapa ku, kerananya tambang kapal terbang itu sangat mahal.

I know exactly how you feel Budi.

Bismillah hir-rahman nir-rahim,

Not in the mood. Everyone that I know, well, or otherwise, is currently being enveloped in this kind of mood. Wooosh…Sweeping you off your feet. Don’t think that only love and hate can consume you this much, the depression (what other better word can I use here?) can kill you silently if it is being left unchecked.

I’m easily being effected by the people surrounding me, either they are afar or otherwise. Especially the people that I care deeply and love, that they are seem a half of me. I can feel their pains and happiness, and when they are hurting, it wounds me too, to a great extend.

Am I using them as my excuses?

I’ve became sluggish. I have been yelling inside my head scolding myself to be more productive, yet, I’m disgustingly indulging myself, ignoring the heeding warnings. I should listen to my inner conscious before I become regretful, but the concept of hedonism currently possesses me.

I’m mucking around without doing anything worthwhile since last week. I know perfectly well that I should get going, yet the momentum is never there. I couldn’t summon it, I have no power of calling it, and it has mischievously eluded me. Now I fully understand the feeling of being pure lazy – which was always used by my students as an excuse when they failed to live up to my expectations.

I know I should read and contemplating again and write, or at least owe it to myself by finishing one of my reservation books which I haughtily demanded from library months ago. Yet, it is there, screaming for my attentions. The war between my heart and my brains is always useless, because I do know which side I will be. Do I face some sort of writer’s block?

I just feel a hopeless without dreams, and starting to hate everything in life in general, and academic world in specific. All these economics theories care nothing at all of the things that I care passionately most in the world – humanity and civilization. If I were given a free reign in the direction of my thesis, what a thesis it will be.

No motivation words could comfort me, could move me. I know so. This trial is too great, the temptations are too burdensome.

Yet, I worry nothing. Miracle, isn’t it?

UJIAN INI

Salam sahabat-sahabat yang dicintai ,

Kadangkala, untuk mempraktiskan konsep sabar itu, tidak semudah yang disangka. Berhempas pulas menahan api kemarahan di dada, menahan air mata dari ditumpahi, berlapang dada mahu memaafkan, sambil mengikat lidah dari mengucapkan yang bukan-bukan, dan memaksa hati tunduk supaya redha dengan takdir Ilahi.

Sabar lah wahai diri dan orang-orang teraniaya -

Bukanlah menghadapkan wajahmu ke arah timur dan barat itu suatu kebajikan, akan tetapi sesungguhnya kebajikan itu ialah beriman kepada Allah, hari kemudian, malaikat-malaikat, kitab-kitab, nabi-nabi dan memberikan harta yang dicintainya kepada kerabatnya, anak-anak yatim, orang-orang miskin, musafir (yang memerlukan pertolongan) dan orang-orang yang meminta-minta; dan (memerdekakan) hamba sahaya, mendirikan salat, dan menunaikan zakat; dan orang-orang yang menepati janjinya apabila ia berjanji, dan orang-orang yang sabar dalam kesempitan, penderitaan dan dalam peperangan. Mereka itulah orang-orang yang benar (imannya); dan mereka itulah orang-orang yang bertakwa- Al Baqarah 177.

Pinta saya Ya Rabbi, jangan ujian di bulan Rejab yang suci ini menjadi asbab kepada saya dihumban ke naraka kelak, nauzubillah. Saya jadi gerun memikirkan apakah cabaran yang akan saya hadapi kelak ketika di bulan Ramadhan.

Tapi saya percaya, disaat musibah, pasti Allah hantarkan hiburan terbaik. Aneh ya hidup ini?

Salam pembaca yang dimuliakan Allah swt. Betapa besarnya kemuliaan seorang tetamu sehingga Rasululah saw bersabda:

Barangsiapa yang beriman dengan Allah dan hari akhirat, maka hendaklah dia berkata baik atau dia diam. Barangsiapa yang beriman dengan Allah dan hari akhirat, maka hendaklah dia memuliakan jiran tetangganya. Barangsiapa yang beriman dengan Allah dan hari akhirat, maka hendaklah dia memuliakan tetamunya. Hadis riwayat al-lmam al-Bukhari dan Muslim.

Saya rindukan chess. Abah selalu sahaja bermain chess dengan kami semasa kecil. Antara adik beradik saya, cuma Cod sahaja yang tidak pandai bermain chess. Dan tentunya pabila kami bermain chess, kami bermain mati-matian. Walaupun pisang goreng sepinggan disebelah, bercicahkan susu, akan dilupakan sejenak. Dan selalunya, Abah is unbeatable. Walaupun kami adik-beradik bersatu tenaga mahu mengalahkah Abah, even victory is nearly in our hands, he will suddenly makes a move that will totally change the rhythm of our game, and BOOM, he wins. We will stare at him, speechless, how could he change the direction of the game?

We are so sure of our winning, even smiling and laughing smugly. And when we lose, he will merely smile and make a move to surau. And leave us wonder, and ponder, how could he possibly overcomes the difficult, if not impossible, situations? Clearly, we are the novices compare to him.

Ada diantara kami yang akan menangis-nangis sekiranya kalah. Memang kelakar, tapi itu lah realiti nya, sehingga terpaksa dipujuk oleh Emak supaya si menang memberi peluang kepada si kalah. Masalah utamanya, si menang memang degil. Mana pulak mahu memberi peluang kepada si kalah itu. Terpaksa lah Emak memujuk si kalah dengan membeli sekerim.

I have a love-hate relationship with the chess tournaments. The tensions are never greater than being in the best team, and sitting and playing with enormous pressure to win. If I am to have a blood pressure test, I have no doubt that I am the worst patient.

Scary. Because I’m not a gifted players like the others. Who have thousands tactical moves. Who can beat me within 5 minutes, or even within 10 moves.

But I do know, when I play for fun, I could win.

Pressure ruins everything. Including your life.

Chess imitates real life. Play safely, play dangerously. Play nicely, play terribly. Play kindly, play mischievously. Play for fun, play seriously. Play lightheartedly, play treacherously. Play humbly, play deceitfully. Play sincerely, play wickedly. Play honestly, play awfully. Play genuinely, play riskily. Play respectably, play cruelly. Play maliciously, play fairly. Play nastily, play elegantly.

Play classily.

But unlike chess, when you are stumbling, it doesn’t mean you are falling. Play it beautifully then.