the short wanderer

We are just over two months into 2021, but I am still pretty much in a reflective mode - oh well, who wouldn't, considering how the past year has been, right? Planning to visit the beach more often this year :) I am not sure how to go about writing this post, but I guess you can look at it as a continuation of my reflection of 2020 that I have written previously. But before that, I want to take this chance to thank and appreciate my internship manager, who has been there to challenge my thoughts, provide me with new perspectives on life, offer me comforting words, and most importantly for being available when I need support. The points that I am going to share below, are the product of the conversations I have had with such a supportive manager for the past 6 months - and for that, I can never be grateful enough. So, here's 3 simple yet SO IMPORTANT things (of maaany other things) that my manager had constantly remind me of: 1. Take it slow One of the most frequent words that ...

It has been a year like no other. Not only because of the pandemic or outbreak or lockdown etc, but also due to the fact that I'm stuck at a junction where I have no clue of where to go and just spend almost the whole year trying to figure things out (and guess what, I still am). Spotify summarised it well for me this year; my top song for 2020 is 'Tomorrow, Today' in which the lyrics I have also quoted in a post I wrote back in May, and the song has indeed been put on repeat for the rest of the year ever since haha   Oh wait, hello! I hope the past few months have been good to you. Oh, how I miss writing. Or rather, I miss being able to write. It has been a struggle to pour out my thoughts into words. Remember how I said writing is part of my mental therapy? That said, yes, I did have days where I feel like my sanity is threatened as I'm not able to do proper reflections though I am still able to journal on my bad days. I tried writing in October and November but it ...

I don't think it's too much to say that failures are underrated.  Did you know that a professor at MIT offered a course on failure  - because she claimed that, "failure is a more common experience than success"?  And while that is true, in my opinion, more often than not failures render more meaningful lessons than what success can offer. p/s: I am certainly more than aware that I may not be the best person to talk about failures as a life lesson, especially as I'm barely reaching halfway through my life journey - if I'm ever going to live to the age of Prophet Muhammad at the time of his death - but since this post is nothing less than a reminder for myself, I decided to put this post up anyway, after contemplating it for months  😅 In the span of exactly a month - from April 15th to May 15th - I had received the responses to four applications that I have sent in February and March (while I was still in London). The first one was an exception because I went f...

K embaraku  Beribu batu memakan hari Kembaraku Membawaku mengamati  Indahnya senja Tika terbenamnya mentari Kembaraku Membawaku menyantuni Makam imam-imam Sufi Kembaraku Membawaku melewati Runtuhan tamadun Yunani Kembaraku Disulam kisah berwarna-warni Lazimnya musafir Kembaranya di tanah gersang Namun keringatku mengalir Bukan dek dihantui  Hausnya berburu di padang datar Tapi lelah diburu nafsu dunia  Dan ujian nikmat tanpa henti Kembaraku Bukan gelap bertemankan pelita Tapi diiringi sinaran mentari Yang ku sangka hadir  Menerangi denai sang pengembara Ternyata hanya menyilaukan  Pandangan mata hati Bisikku andai dijemput Izrail Di akhir kembara nanti Pabila kudrat ku  Tiada lagi membawaku meniti hari Semadiku tidak ditemani sepi Tidak pula ditemani mimpi ngeri Tapi diiringi Munajat kembaraku  Dalam mengejar  Keredhaan sang Ilahi

Naja.  Das Leben ist nicht einfach. Es ist schwer und ermüdend.  Geduld und Dankbarkeit , no matter how many times I have heard of it before; no matter how many times I have talked about it, ist leichter gesagt als getan. I realise that some of my posts for the past few months have been a bit sloppy and gloomy - this might be just another one of the kind; I wish getting over things is as simple as telling myself, "get over it je lah, duniawi je semua ni uhuk" But of course, I have to put this here because life is not a bed full of roses; neither it is a garden full of thorns, and I can't express enough how important it is to manage negative thoughts by being aware of it and acknowledging what was going on. So, here it goes.  I was a bit sad (again) as the fasting month brought its curtain down - not because Ramadhan was leaving, but because I was yet to move on from the fact that these unanticipated things happened. I have never thought that I would find it quite dif...

"...the questions that probably run through your mind would be, 'What's next?' , 'How do I proceed with my life right now?'... " Nur said. "Those are genuine questions that a lot of people asked after being in a long-term relationship , after they have invested all of their time , all of their effort , and they have expressed all of their love for that particular person. They have cared for that person for so long." Ustaz Mizi responded. In my case, it's not a person. It's a long term relationship I have been in for the past 15 to 16 years. A relationship that has formed quite a substantial part of me. I have sacrificed my time, my energy, and even my love life (?) for it.  ... (Okay I'm not really sure about the last one - well, when I was in school I don't think that a love life is necessary anyway, and knowing my 'easily distracted' self, I think it would probably bring more harm than good to my studies huehue) Funnil...

Last month, I was supposed to meet up with someone for a catch up session. I have talked about her  in my blog before; she is a lovely lady, half Malaysian half Irish, who is working at the library of my institute for... I'm not sure how long lol shame on me XD Her name is Safina but I call her Kak Fina, because... that's just what Melayu people do 😂 I can't recall a moment that we don't chat whenever I bumped into her at the library - even when she had someone to attend to at the counter, she'd always look for me in the library after she's done with her 'customer'. She always asked me how I am doing. Well you know, when it comes to people that I'm not really close to, the answer has always been "I'm good". But since she has passed that 'boundary of strangers', my answers vary a bit from time to time (I think, lol). When I was not feeling really good about something, I would tell her, " Oh well, x happened, and I'...

I've been meaning to write something for the past week; more like, have been looking for motivation to write, or sometimes, inspiration to note something down. When one is there but not the other, it can be quite challenging to get my head around things I want to express or just to get my fingers tapping on this full-of-germ keyboard of mine (oh sorry I just found out that desktop keyboard has hundreds of times more bacteria than the toilet seat - erk what a gross way to start my entry) Alright then, let me start this post with a story of 'The White Shoe' and we'll see where this will end up going because I don't really have a clue what this is gonna be about either lol (I'm writing today because I just feel like doing it huehue) I think it was somewhere in October, when I went to a store in Camden with my sister and decided to get myself a new pair of shoes - because the one that I used to always wear was torn and not waterproof, and London was embraci...

"The thought of losing so much control over personal happiness is unbearable... ... You love someone, you open yourself up to suffering, that's the sad truth. That's the burden." October had passed without an entry published; my mind has been all over the places for the past weeks. In spite of the hassles and inconveniences, I have been watching Bones, an American crime TV series that I have always enjoyed merely due to the fact that the main character is a forensic anthropologist. I actually thought that if I am ever going to share anything from the series it would be something more forensic or anthropologically related, yet here I am, quoting an excerpt from the deleted section of Brennan's novel (above) - nothing akin to forensic nor anthropology. I just find it very complicated to discern how over time, I have transitioned from one extreme side of the scale to the opposite end: from someone who never seemed to care at all to someone who cares ...

A month before I finished high school four years ago, I started passing around a black notebook to my teachers for them to hand over their 'amanat terakhir' to me before I leave the boarding school. There's so many wise reminders that they have shared with me, but a few days ago the page with my former Vice Principal (HEA)'s signature at the bottom caught my attention. It says: Adab dan akhlak biasanya diibaratkan seperti pokok, dan kemasyhuran adalah seperti bayang-bayang. Tapi malangnya, kebiasaan orang lebih suka melihat bayang-bayang daripada melihat pokok. Fikir-fikirkanlah. Four years ago, I might have told myself: "I know what it means". But knowing its literal meaning doesn't necessarily mean that I understand the underlying message its trying to convey. Triggered with his last words "fikir-fikirkanlah",  I decided that I was too naive too understand what the two-sentence quote really mean at that moment - I might not be mature en...

No incident in life is an accident. When my best friend first gave me the book 'The Art of Letting God' by Ustaz Mizi Wahid, I somehow had the gut that it will become something I really need in the not so distant future. Only a week after that I came to realise why Allah sent me the gift through her. Being a scholar of this one particular organisation (if you know, you know) for more than three years now, I have always been convinced (by my own self if not other people) that we will be guaranteed with a job by the time we graduate from universities. Not to say that I've been working less harder than I'm supposed to all this while, but I cannot deny that part of me has always been having this assurance that the beginning of my career is kinda sorted out by the time I got my degree scroll in a few years time. But...the reality turns out to be taking a whole different path; life seems to be harsher than what we initially thought. Little did I realise I was a bit dis...

'Ulul Albab' , satu frasa yang tak asing lagi bagi aku sejak melangkah ke alam sekolah menengah - salah satu misi/visi alma mater aku selama lima tahun itu adalah untuk ' melahirkan generasi ulul albab, yang cemerlang dari segi quranik, ijtihadik dan ensiklopedik '. 'Ulul Albab' yang disebutkan sebanyak 16 kali dalam al-Qur'an ini membawa maksud "golongan manusia yang menjadikan kisah silam sebagai pengajaran dan iktibar untuk memperbaiki diri dan meningkatkan taraf kehidupan supaya mereka mencapai kejayaan dengan petunjuk Ilahi". Salah satu ayat al-Qur'an yang menyebut frasa 'ulul albab' ini ialah ayat 111 (ayat terakhir) surah Yusuf: Sesungguhnya pada kisah-kisah mereka itu terdapat pengajaran ('ibrah) bagi orang-orang yang mempunyai 'akal (ulil albab). Al-Qur'an itu bukanlah cerita yang dibuat-buat, akan tetapi membenarkan (kitab-kitab) yang sebelumnya dan menjelaskan segala sesuatu dan sebagai petunjuk dan rahmat...