Persistent
If you desire Allah to be persistent in granting you the thing you love, be persistent in doing the things He loves.
– Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal
If you desire Allah to be persistent in granting you the thing you love, be persistent in doing the things He loves.
– Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal
A chat with my lovely little brother…
Bro: When are you going back to Jakarta? I’ll be there in 4 days until after Eid.
me: I don’t know!!! But I think I’ll go straight to KL
Bro: Why?! Ira is going to be in Jakarta next month.
me: Really???
Bro: Wallahi
me: Well, if she’s in Jakarta, then I need to go there then. Let’s see when I’ll graduate
Bro: what if you don’t graduate? hahahhaa…
me: hey!!!! at least pray for me! ckckck
Bro: oh so it’s still mishwar. Hopefully you’ll graduate 😉
me: So, do you miss me? 😉
Bro: Hmmm… I don’t think so… hahahaha….
me: hahahahha. I know you do!!!!
He never wanted to admit it. LOL.
The Arabs have a weird way of greeting their friends. They would ask the following questions:
And what’s the answer to all those questions?
Alhamdulillah. All praise is due to Allah SWT.
In Saudi Arabia, when you greet a person, you’d kiss him/her on the cheek. So if you ask him/her four questions above, then you’d kiss him/her for four times. So it all depends on the number of questions that you ask. And all of them must be answered with alhamdulillah.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I suggest you watch this funny and short video made by MTV Arabia about Saudi kiss:
My brother and I used to make fun of the way Arabs greet. It’s funny, when you think about it. I mean, you ask so many questions and no matter what you ask, the answer will always be alhamdulillah! It’s soooo “basa-basi”.
Anyway, it turns out that this way of greeting has existed for so long — it was once the habit of salafus shalih (the ‘pious predecessors’ from the first three generations of Muslims) which has been passed down until now! The reason why they did it was so that they can say the word alhamdulillah for so many times. In other words, they deliberately did it so that we can praise Allah SWT more often — i.e. so that we can be grateful to Allah SWT more often.
Subhanallah, I didn’t know that!!! I’m such a loser for thinking about it in another way. Oh God, please forgive me.
* Taken from a book titled “Kaya & Bahagia dengan Syukur” by Ahmad Hadi Yasin.
Eindhoven was found to have the highest crime rate in the Netherlands for 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2010
I was quite shocked to read it! I mean, I knew that Eindhoven was the most dangerous place to live in terms of crime rate, but I never knew that it had the highest crime rate four times in 5 years! Wew.
Actually, I live in the least safe neighborhood in Eindhoven (or maybe one of the least safe neighborhoods). Most of the people who live in my neighborhood are immigrants — the Africans/Caribbeans, Moroccans, and the Arabs. And I do get scared of going back home late at night, but thankfully I can take another route that is longer but safer.
Last week, I had the most scariest experience ever! Somebody rang my house door at 1 AM for multiple times and there were no one in the house except me. Yes, ME. Alone in the house. A-L-O-N-E! Can you imagine that?! 😐 I couldn’t do anything but be extremely scared. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. A potential burglar wouldn’t ring the bell before hand, BUT he could do that to see if there’s somebody in the house. RIGHT?! Right?! Am I right or am I right?
Anyway, I was actually soooo scared that I caused the twitterland to panic :P. I did that so if something ever happened to me, my friends knew and could do something about it. I locked my door and turned off the lamps in my room. My friend actually told me to go downstairs to ask who’s ringing the bell so that any potential burglar would have the second thought of going into my house, because the house wasn’t empty! BUT COME ON! I was not brave enough to even go downstairs! What if they decided to break the door, knowing that there’s only a woman in this house?! A lot of things seriously ran into my mind.
The best idea I could come up with when I was in “danger”? Pretending to sleep! Not a very smart move, eh?! Actually, it was the stupidest thing I had ever done! I didn’t even know the emergency phone number, until I wrote this post hahaha. Can you imagine that?
But anyway… thankfully, nothing happened. Alhamdulillah. One of my housemates came home 15 minutes later. It might had been him or his friends. You know me: paranoid in everything haha. Well, weekends are the scariest time to live in the house, to be honest. All of my housemates are usually not home. Grr.
Well, this stranger-rang-the-bell scenario didn’t only happen to me. It happened to my friends as well, who lived not too far from my place but located on a much busier street than mine. Another friend of mine even told me that her apartment was rang for so many times by drunk people.
Oh! Another friend got her house almost robbed two weeks ago! The outermost door was already damaged and the burglar was already inside the house, trying to open the second door which lead to all parts of the house. Thankfully, her brother screamed and threaten him with knife or something. So, the burglar ran away. Her house isn’t that far from mine too 🙂
Eindhoven isn’t THAT bad, I can tell you. I feel so safe here. It’s definitely much safer than in Jakarta. The only thing I’m worried about is robbery and drunk people 😛
Whatever pearl you seek,
look for the pearl within the pearl!
— Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Yesterday, I talked to a friend (A) about another friend that I never saw:
me: Oh I don’t know what he’s up to now. I don’t see him these days.
A: You are the one who is nowhere to be seen, mel! You are the one who disappears.
*glek*
Nowadays the world is becoming increasingly materialistic, and mankind is reaching toward the very zenith of external progress, driven by an insatiable desire for power and vast possessions. Yet by this vain striving for perfection in a world where everything is relative, they wander even further away from inward peace and happiness of the mind.
— Dalai Lama
This past week has been TOO much for me. The sudden change, the endless desperate Skype calls, and the uncertainties. The pace is just too fast. Have you had a feeling or thought of crying all day to let everything go? You don’t know what’s wrong with you. You just want to cry for no reason. Ok, I’m in that position now.
I need to take a break from everything to cool myself down. See ya in a while!
In the previous post, I wrote about the most important thing that men need, which is respect. For them, respect means love. If they’re angry or they walk away from the conversation out of the sudden, most probably that’s because they don’t feel respected by the wives.
Now… Moving on to the women’s issues… What’s the most important thing that women need…? *drumroll* EXACTLY, yes. Thank you! 😛
The answer is of course love. To feel loved and cared for. And let me tell you guys, women do need this all the time. They need assurance. They want emotional security. They don’t want to be ignored. It doesn’t matter if you’re married for 2, 5, 10, or 40 years. Women always need to feel loved and they need to be assured by it. Never get bored of saying ‘I love you’ every day or give her rose every week (every women is different in terms of what they want), because THAT makes a lot of difference.
A lot of men say: “I show my love to my wife through my attitude or approach. I don’t need to say that in words!” Seriously, that doesn’t help at all. You need to express your love according to her dictionary, not yours. It may not have any meaning to you, but it does for many women. Affection and expression of love is what they need. That’s how most of them measure the relationship. It makes them happy. So be realistic.
A woman may complain to her husband, “You don’t love your family!” or “You don’t care about us!” while the husband has worked so hard to make sure the financial needs of her and the children are met. Well, the thing is for women, emotional closeness is more important than materials and money (I don’t speak for materialistic women because I’m not one. But I do think at some point in time they actually need more love rather than money). Emotional closeness can be in the form of having dinner just the two of you, without the children. Or basically just spending time together (while I also think the men and women need to have their “boys time” or “girls time” respectively with their own friends… but that’s another issue).
One important thing that ALL men are blind about is how to deal with women who want to “curhat” or vent out, either because they have problems or they just want to complain LOL. Most men just jump straight away into “how to solve it” (like in the company: you have problems, solve it right away). But this is not a company! This is a relationship with a complicated creature called woman! In order to deal with women, you have to listen to them and make them feel good and okay. They actually don’t need any solutions (unless they ask!). They just want you to listen to them and be there when they feel down. Hug them and that will make them feel so much better.
So for us, the formula is:
sharing = listening = love
As simple as that! Hahaha. And this is actually true. I’ve experienced it before. When my boyfriend knew how to deal with me when I had problems, that’s when I felt he understood and loved me. Even if he’s not romantic, when that’s fulfilled, I was happy. Compared that to a guy who’s all about romance and sweet words but when it comes to sharing, he doesn’t know what to do and gets panic. I guarantee you that the woman will complain and ask why you don’t understand her and so on… hehehe. I’ve been in both situations hahaha.
Source: @alissawahid‘s tweets, which were actually based on a book titled For Men Only by Shaunti Feldhahn and Jeff Feldhahn. Her tweets were very long (it’s called kultweet = kuliah tweet = tweet lecture?), so I put them together into a single post that can be easily understood (and add my own interpretation or opinion of course hehe).
I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again. I’m not excited about working in KL at all. Part of the reason is that I don’t know the country! I hate this feeling of not knowing what to expect. I’m kinda lost and intimidated and I’m not confident about it at all.
For studying, I’d prefer to go to a country that is unknown and foreign to me. Before I went to the Netherlands, I didn’t read anything about the culture or the people or even the country itself. I wanted to surprise myself and experienced that culture shock. I deliberately did that.
But for working, I’d rather go to somewhere I’m familiar about. I’m not sure why it matters so much. Somehow, working in a familiar place boosts my confidence. I know how to deal with the people. I know the tricks. I know what to expect. I know what to do. I know my way around. I just feel more confident about myself.
But, seriously Amel!!! You just have to dive into it whether you like it or not!!! What’s so different about working and studying in a foreign country, anyway?! Both of them are foreign to you and you just have to get used to it!
Meh. Oh well.
I’m trying to list the good thing about living in KL/Malaysia so that I’m not too stressed out about moving there: