of a warrywart

bismillah, 

while i wait for my fish & chips to cook, i'll spend a bit of time to update my life. as I am into my 3rd week into my obs & gynae rotation, i bump into a lot of ppl. ppl who are inspiring as well de-spiring, if there is such a word. hehe. but Alhamdulillah, more of the former.

i have also witnessed some miraculous events in life which is delivery.  and i think it is truly an eye opener.  how the fetus can twist and turn to fit in the pelvic bone, at very specific and strategic points to avoid injuries such as shoulder distocia.  Subhanallah, Allah has pre-programmed us a way of keeping our lineage and generation ongoing. as you may well realise, westerners, whom most are atheist, often refer to Allah as 'nature'. Nature has provided us with such and such. which we, interpret as Allah's intelligence. 

and slowly, just really slowly, i am in the midst of searching for myself, yet again.  i guess it never ends, until someone tells me who i am, and i believe them (which there aren't that many i can assure you, i.e: mama & the family), i will never grow out of this phase? or until i feel i have achieved something great in life? or is just the temperaments of a medical student who hasn't quite decided what she wants to be and what will her future be like? Allah, i'm sorry, sometimes i forget, that i need to always remember to tawakkal to You. or i will constantly be a worrywart.

p/s: help! daddy long legs are attacking my room! 

-nmj

for my eyes only

silly me..i think i've fallen for someone 2 days ago, the next day, i discovered he was married, with a baby girl of 18 weeks, named Olivia. and he's going to finish his electives in October and fleeing back home to Trinidad (btw, he's a white trinidadian). His wife is chinese and she seems lovely. I think he must miss them terribly, that's probably why he showed me the pictures.  such a nice, good looking (as pointed out by Claire, NOT me), young (26 yr old) man. i pray u and your family will be shown the path of Islam and become great Muslims insyaAllah (however random this thought is, i pray for the best of you). thanks for being so kind to me. i hope i don't bump into you again. if not, i might just hate your wife and your beautiful baby.

oh Allah, i wonder if there's a nice Muslim young man, as cool as the trinidadian guy out there for me. if not, maybe just anyone cool? haha. this is total madness. please do take me really seriously. :p

rambler,
nmj

of breast fed babies

and it's kicking in. 

homesickness. again. :'( this time, both bristol and malaysia. 

huu~ yaAllah please strengthen my fickle little heart. 

-nmj

of a perfect balance

Alhamdulillah. such a simple word with such a huge meaning to it, right? 

today, i slept after class due to pure knackedness. so after asr, i slept for about an hour.   Alhamdulillah, Allah helped me to wake up in time for my Maghrib prayer with a knock from my next door friend. I've just started my placement in Swindon for O&G and Alhamdulillah the accomodation, hospital and groupmates are fine so far. She wanted to borrow my internet since hers is strangely not working.  and i prayed Maghrib while she was doing her thing on my laptop. i did inform her beforehand just so she wouldn't get weird out by my telekung..hehe. 

am currently reading 'Milestones' by Sayed Qutb. another book i nicked from home.  in Malay, I think it's called Petunjuk sepanjang jalan.  funnily enough, the book was bought in 1981, 7 years before i was born. i know i could just bought a new one to bring back, i just wanted a homey feel and hopes that mama & abah will also get some 'share' from me using this book.  insyaAllah.

macbook's weirdly mirror imaged camera.

Jan. 1 1981. 30 years old.

a beautiful excerpt from the book, 

"All this was possible because those who established this religion in the form of a state, a system and laws and regulations had first established it in their hearts and lives in the form of faith, character, worship and human relationships.  they had been promised only one thing for the establishment of this religion - not victory, or power not even that this religion would be established by their hands, not related to anything of this world: - one promise, that of the Garden.  that was the only promise given to them for all their striving for all the trials which they had endured, for their steadfastness in the face of the opposition of the forces of Jahiliyyah to that call, "There is no deity except God," which is abhorrent to those who are in power in any age and place." - Syed Qutb

sometimes, we are meant to be thinking big, to reform or 'islah' the community towards a better Islamic way of life. but it all starts from within, from an individual wanting Islam for him/herself first.  I guess that's where the balance lies, trying to reform oneself, at the same time calling others to it as well, a continuous process. hehe easier said than done? wallahua'am.

-nmj

all praise is to Allah

bismillah 

as fickle minded as i could be, i decided to attend a seminar on family upbringing today at the very last minute. like. literally. 

20 minutes to bus departure time and i'm still clicking on my laptop to confirm my online payment. hm, i guess it's true. if Allah will's you to be at one place you will be there, one way or another. biiznillah.

it all started a long time in a faraway land called malaysia..when i read the email i wasn't really bothered. partly because i didn't have good internet connection, partly because i didn't want to hear about building a family yet. to be honest, in my mind, i was thinking there was only so much that one can learn from theories but a bigger part of it is in applying it.  and so i just kept a closed eye. 

back in Bristol, i was still contemplating, should i go, or not. since i'll be leaving for my placement on sunday, i was worried i wouldn't have enough time to get back to bristol and pack.  to make matters worse, i was terribly homesick. and i still am. i don't know if there's some minor dysfunction in my sense of smell but i keep on smelling mama's scent since i came back to Bristol.  on my tudung, on my clothes and even my books. a bit weird but maybe mama accidently rubbed her fragrance when she was helping me pack.  so it wouldn't help to hear a talk on family in this current condition as i would only think about them more.  and so i thought.

eventually, after a long and strenuous thought, i buckled up and went.  i guess i had a few reasons:

1. i have the free time now, why not utilise it 

2. it's given by ustaz, there will definitely some sort of unsur rabbaniyah (which i'm dying for) even though i wasn't too keen on the family upbringing side

3. if our niat is for Allah, any amal would bring us reward insyaAllah

4. to apply kesyumulan Islam itself. although i was all geared up for the academic year and didn't want my motivation to be side tracked by other thoughts, doesn't every aspect of life goes hand in hand with each other? 

so i guess that was it.  and Alhamdulillah i really enjoyed it, even the travel and all.  and a surprise was i got to meet my mum's naqibah, once upon a time as one of the panelist. :)

a few tips and learning points from today:

1. nk jd ibu/isteri kene byk sabar

2. kalau kita tlg agama Allah, Allah akan tlg kita

3. komunikasi yg baik penting, org Melayu byk gune body language as opposed to westerners yg lebih verbal

4. nk tidur sebut "Allah menjaga kita, Allah melihat kita" utk lembutkan hati kita dan ajar anak2
5. kene belajar hidup susah dulu, dan turunkan standard hidup kita utk masa depan yg lebih senang 

hehe. i think that's all. i am quite embarassed about my level of writing and the things i talk about. i feel it's so petty compared to everyone elses. may Allah gives us benefit from this.

for future reference, at least if my naqibah asks me why i didn't want to go, i have something to tell her. ;)

nad.

p/s: this is song is dedicated to mama&abah and anyone else, as this is the wedding season. mabrouk :D

am back baybey

bismillah..

to fight back the homey attachment i had reading the last entry, this post is supposed to bring back the Bristol spirit. huhu..

i'm currently reading Smart Heart by Rusdin S. Rauf. Despite the title written in English, it is actually a Malay book. or more accurately an Indonesian one. but i think it is really easy to understand and masyaAllah i think this person is truly a talented writer. I don't read much in Malay but this book Alhamdulillah i truly enjoyed though i still have another one third to finish it.  

what is it about actually? it's how to achieve a Smart Heart. a 'smart' heart as defined by the author is 'hati yang lembut, lunak dan bersih'. 

so just some snippets that i liked, 

Abu Hurairah berkata, 

Hati adalah raja and anggota badan sebagai bala tenteranya.  Apabila rajanya baik, iaitu cerdas, baiklah pasukannya.  Apabila rajanya tidak baik, tidak baiklah pasukannya.

"Hati adalah kuil yang tuhan tempatkan dlam diri setiap manusia.  sebuah kuil bagi menampung percikan Tuhan di dalam diri kita.  Kuil dalam diri kita ini lebih berharga daripada kuil yang paling suci di mana pun di muka bumi ini.  Oleh sebab itu, melukai hati manusia lebih besar dosanya berbanding merosakkan tempat suci di dunia ini." - Heart, Self and Soul, Robert Frager

frankly i'm not really sure about the technicalities of the quote by Mr Frager but i understand that we can take the meaning of it and to try not to upset or harm anyone either deliberately or unintentionally,  which is one of the Islamic teachings. 

and another one, tips for reading from Andai buku itu sepotong pizza by Hernowo.

1- tentukan focus. apakah kebaikan membaca buku ni? apa yg boleh dipelajari drp buku ni?

2- cuba utk tidak biarkan satu perkataan pun yg tidak difahami

3- ambil masa. jgn paksa hati utk terus membaca menjadi jenuh

4- 'ikatlah' makna dgn menulis

5- jangan berhenti bertanya semasa membaca, bersikap kritis semasa membaca. apa yg cuba disampaikan penulis dalam bab ni?

6- ulangi pembacaan dgn menggunakan kecerdasan majmuk. 

okay, maybe we can try this.  right need to get back to sleep..

salam, 

nmj

of a farewell

bismillah, 

by the name of Allah ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim..

throughout my twenty something years i have known myself to have an innate quality of being emotionally numb..though it might be deliberate at times..or it might just be a plainly sluggish emotional reaction to certain events before i truly unleash my feelings..

i'll give you an example, during the first night in boarding in form 4, my other 3 roommates cried of homesickness..and i didn't..

it wasn't until 2 weeks later that the homesick fever caught up to me..by then my roommates who were over theirs were the ones who comforted me.

and yesterday, when my family sent me off at KLIA i said to them don't cry, my friends will be there..if they wanted to, please do it in the car..hehe no one did. it was a joke.  once i was in the aero train, my heart wanted to burst out with tears making me want to run back. but i didn't. and so today, am here in Bristol having defeated by my jet lagged self, i am a wake at 2am in the morning. huhu and quite dauntingly waiting for my first day of 4th year tomorrow. please pray everything will go well and smooothly insyaAllah. 

we ols with nek Salmah and tok Om

just a bit about Ramadhan..as the majority of Muslims will definitely be full of sorrow and regret as the month of blessedness ends and awaits for the coming one.  i too, have a certain amount of sadness to see the blessed month pass away. but it wasn't much.  and today, as i was travelling back to Bristol, i wanted to cry because of Allah's mercy having allowed us to go through this year's Ramadhan and how much it has brought to us. having allowed us to spend it with our family at home.  having allowed us to learn.  learn more about ourselves. learn more about our family.  and learn more about Islam.  learn more about You. 

having allowed us to perform our ibadah to You without any difficulties. having allowed us to purify ourselves from our mountains of sins. and having allowed us to reconnect ties of kinship.  for all of this and many more.  Alhamdulillah thummal hamdulillah. truly, La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah. 

aqil at nek salmah's house, 1st raya

adah's bebito and combi with their 5 sons+daughters who were born during nuzul Qur'an

may Allah protect us all insyaAllah.

my love letter, 

nmj