Project 365

I wondered if every road was connected to every other road. I wondered if I touched it, if maybe somewhere, you would know.

— Iain Thomas @ I Wrote This For You

… or maybe not 🙂

Counting down! Super excited! 🙂

My eczema kinda misses me and it’s been back! My whole body, from head to toe, has been sooooooo itchy!!! I felt like throwing myself into a pool of extremely hot water! The itchiness is beyond my imagination! I can’t even describe it. It’s just.so.itchy!!! My whole body turns red too. If I scratch my skin, reddish bumps begin to appear. My eyes are kinda swollen too! It’s just unbelievable!

I’ve been having this ever since I was in Australia. But it got worst when I came to the Netherlands. It happened at the end of fall or during winter (basically during cold weather).  I went to the doctor but she only gave me a freakin CREAM! Can you imagine that?! Every visits were the same. The only difference was that, I was given a different brand of cream every single time.

It’s annoying. And the most annoying part is the fact that I can’t sleep. I scratch my whole body day and night. That’s what makes me mad. I need my normal sleeping time back. I’m planning to go to the doctor coz I can’t seem to take this anymore. If she’s going to prescribe me another cream, I’d force her to give me a SLEEPING PILL!!!!! LOL.

But yeah, I’ve been having this for YEARS already, so I’m used to it (only the sleeping part is not). I make fun of it too! Today, Jessie told me to send her a picture of me with my reddish face and bumps. Hahaha. We laughed so hard! Damn, I haven’t laughed so hard for quite some time 😛 . The best part was that I was making fun of myself 😛

Anyway…. Alhamdulillah, I got my laptop running again with Windows 7 Ultimate. Yay! Thanks to my friend, Andi, who helped me with changing the hard disk. If it ever happened again, I know what I should do 😉

I wrote a few days ago that we’re going to hold our first angklung concert at the campus at the end of this month. The concert is titled Angklung Concert: Bamboo in Harmony and is going to be a charity concert dedicated for the victims of Mentawai, Merapi, and Wasior disasters that happened in Indonesia.

I’m really excited about it! Not only because it is going to be my first time performing angklung in front of the public audience, but also because it has a noble purpose behind it. So I want to make sure that the event is going to be a success and a lot of money will be raised from it.

So I proposed to make a video about the three disasters. Perhaps, by showing it to the audience, they’ll be touched and feel obligated to donate some money for the victims. Up until now, I’ve been busy searching for pictures, videos, and facts related to the those disasters on the internet. It turned out that it was not an easy job, because I had to look at those sad pictures and watch those heart-breaking videos… It really made me cry. There’s an angry surge inside me to do more… but again, I couldn’t do much things here. Bless those volunteers and humanitarian workers who have been working round the clock to provide the needs of the victims. May Allah SWT reward their good deeds in the hereafter. Amin.

It just happened that I was still registered to the newsletter of the Brisbane‘s Mayor, Campbell Newman. I was practically surprised to read a number of measures and initiatives he had done or was planning to do to raise awareness about the possible flood in Brisbane and to make its residents better prepared for the disaster.

+ Completed and made public local flood studies.
+ Made free flood reports available online for individual properties.
+ Made free flood flag maps available online with comprehensive information relating to flooding.
+ Installed flood warning lights on ‘at risk’ roads.
+ Implemented tough planning controls to prohibit development below the one in 100 year flood mark.
+ Conducted public education campaigns to raise awareness of the risks of suburban flooding in Brisbane.
+ Introduced a free SMS service (Early Warning Network) for Brisbane residents to advise them in advance of bad weather in their local area.
+ Funded a flood buyback scheme to purchase worst affected homes.
+ Investing more than $50m each year to reduce the impacts of flooding including desilting at 100 locations this financial

I mean, come on, Brisbane hasn’t experience any significant flooding since 1974, but they wanted to make sure that this disaster would never repeat again. So as soon as the increase in rainfalls was detected, they took some steps to mitigate flooding.

The approach that he took is EXTREMELY different than that of the governor of Jakarta, who did nothing to prevent the annual infamous Jakarta’s flood from happening. Even so, he blamed the weather for it. Maybe he should learn from Mayor Newman, or even better, the Dutch!!!

And believe in what I have sent down confirming that which is [already] with you, and be not the first to disbelieve in it. And do not exchange My signs for a small price, and fear [only] Me. And do not mix the truth with falsehood or conceal the truth while you know [it].

— Al-Qur’an 2:41-42

Some people interpret Allah’s words in order to fit to a particular agenda. They would manipulate the texts and come up with false conclusions to achieve their notion. They do that because they are afraid of a certain elements of people, backlash, etc. They also do that in order to please some groups of people. It is clear that they are not afraid of Allah SWT, but instead, they fear for other people.

There are two extremes who contribute to the manipulation of our religion, i.e. the liberal extremes and the “angry” extremes. The liberal extremes try so hard to interpret Islam in every way they can to make the non-Muslims happy. They are not concerned about the fear towards Allah SWT, but they are more concerned about what the non-Muslims say about us. On the other hand, the angry extremes are those who are angry at the condition and the state of their Muslim brothers and sisters around the world. Their anger results in the interpretation of the Qur’an that justify their anger/actions. They would bring forward some verses of the Qur’an that can defend their actions and ignore others that say otherwise.

If the Qur’an is presented genuinely without compromise and those who explain it are not affected by any other fears except towards Allah SWT, there won’t be misunderstandings and the world would see our religion differently than today.

Taken from “Lessons & Reminders from Surah Baqarah” [YouTube] by Nouman Ali Khan

None but a noble man treats women in an honorable manner, and none but an ignoble treats women disgracefully

— Tirmidhi

Keep that in mind, boys…

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere,
they’re in each other all along.

— Jalal ad-Din Rumi

🙂

Yes, I used to write a diary when I was in High School. It was started at the end of May 2002, when I entered the last year of my High School. I have long kept my diary in my bookcase in Jeddah and it was a loooooong time ago that I read it. So I decided to take it with me to Holland hoping that in my spare time I could perhaps read it for fun :D.

And I actually did! It was really weird reading back my own diary, to be honest. It was embarassing in some ways (waaaaay too childish LOL). I kinda skipped some parts of the stories, refusing to remember them. The diary is no more than my day-to-day life: the pleasure and hardship living at a boarding school, my relationship with other friends, and teenage love slash crush. It was quite memorable! I couldn’t believe that I didn’t remember a lot of things that were written there!

For example, I used to have a lot of nicknames. I did remember most of them, like MuLong (Muka Lonjong or oval face), onta (camel — and I assume you know where that one came from!), Mellie (inspired by Melly Goeslaw; I actually forgot why my friends related me to this famous singer), and Jomel (I forgot why I was called with this name, but I hated it hahaha). But I didn’t remember at all that I was called ‘Truly Asia’ before, just because I had a stupid crush on someone who lived in KL! Hahaha. I wonder where he is now actually! LOL. (Hello, You! Haha)

The diary also reminds me with a lot of things: my cat & dog and brother & sister relationship with (apparently) one of my closest friends, Anas; my habit of sleeping in the class (sorry, Pak Uya!); my first time receiving an appreciation in a form of a chocolate from my favorite teacher :); my habit of sneaking into my room to eat chocolate every evening alone :P; and the obstacles after graduating from school. Being done with school and not living in a dorm anymore was probably the hardest one for me. I was used to the non-stop routines and activities from 8am to 9pm, so I couldn’t stand doing nothing at home, waiting for the university to start. I was also used to having my friends around, 24/7. They were within easy reach when I needed somebody to talk with. But suddenly, everyone went their separate ways and I found myself alone in my room. Farewell was indeed the hardest thing, especially when we spent time together for 3 years! We knew each other so well, even in the worst possible state! We were like a little family, even until today.

The most boring part of the diary is about the hurdle of breaking up (talk about teenage love, huh?!). I just realized that it took him almost 6 months to finally let me go. It’s boring because it’s too repetitive. And it caused my relationship with one of my closest friends to worsen. She remains one of my good friends these days and whenever we talk about it, we laugh and laugh, thinking how stupid we were back in the old days! 🙂

I actually enjoyed flipping through the pages of my diary without reading them. I was surprised that I was quite creative back then! Every pages were made with different styles, colors, and design. I was so devoted to it and I managed to write the diary until I reached the last paper, which was more than a year! That was hard and that was the only diary I had! 😀 (because afterwards, I turned to blogging).

Without love, all worship is a burden, all dancing is a chore, all music is mere noise. All the rain of heaven may fall into the sea. Without love, not one drop could become a pearl.

— Jalal ad-Din Rumi