I had one of the best ifthar today at a Turkish mosque. The foods were so delicious! And there were A LOT to choose from! The picture above only shows the appetizers. I didn’t get to take a picture of the main dish (rice with chicken) and the super sweet baklava.
Alhamdulillah! 🙂
One day, I gave a gift to my friend when I was in Indonesia. It was wrapped and that was quite rare because I just couldn’t bother to wrap any gifts that I wanted to give. Anyway, so I gave it to her, she said thank you, and she immediately put the gift in her bag!
At that point, I was offended. Was she a person who didn’t like to receive gifts? Was she too busy to open it? Or didn’t she appreciate it at all? Or what?!
Then I was told that in Indonesia, gifts were not supposed to be opened in front of the giver! It’s not actually polite! I seriously didn’t know that! I really hope I didn’t offend anyone 😐
But then I’m thinking, why can’t we open it in front of the person who gives the gift?! Hmm, let’s see…
From the point of view of the giver, the reason can be that we’re not confident about the present that we give for others. We don’t know if he/she will like it and we choose to be ignorant about it (not wanting to know whether or not he/she likes it).
From the point of view of the receiver, perhaps we don’t know how to react if we don’t like the gift that is given. Indonesians are polite people, we try not to hurt other people’s feelings. Of course, most people would rather pretend that they like the gift. But still, not many people are good with it.
I admit that I’m quite terrible at gift-giving. I call myself an ignorant; I barely notice many details surrounding me, including the things that others are interested in. And I’m extremely forgetful person. Somehow my brain doesn’t allow any details to be kept. It’s a waste of memory, my brain once complained.
So most of the time the gifts that I presented to my friends were not that special. I did feel embarrassed — not to the fact that I gave a lousy gift, but because I didn’t pay attention to these important details about my friends. If these people were part of my life, how could I be unaware about the things that concerned them the most?
But whatever the outcome would be, I’d appreciate if the person opens the gift in front of me. Somehow it feels better that way. And I don’t mind if they tell me that they don’t like the gift. Choosing something for someone else is not an easy job. Everyone has their own preference; when I buy gifts, although I’d picture the person first before choosing the things… in the end, it’s based on my own liking. So I don’t actually blame them not to like my gift. Perhaps, the way they tell me matters the most. At least, I’d expect a little appreciation 🙂
Anyway… now that I know the difference between the two culture, I try to be more understanding. The next time I give/receive a present, I need to remind myself: the Indonesian way or Western way? 🙂 Either way is eventually fine.
Sometimes apologizing doesn’t mean that you are wrong and the other is right. It only means that you value the relationship more than your personal ego.
— Anonymous
Apologizing is one of the things that many people try to avoid. Some people are not brave enough to say it. They refuse to face the reality. But they are brave enough to make mistakes and betray the other person. Some people think that apology automatically puts them in the weakest position. But actually, they are already in the weakest position by the time they decided not to apologize.
Randy Pausch once said, a good apology consists of three parts:
The third part is the part which many people tend to forget. But it’s very essential — that’s how you see whether or not the apology is sincere.
So, when you screw up, do apologize 🙂
Pria yang memiliki kesuksesan cenderung lebih mudah berkhianat. Pria kaya dan sukses merasa bahwa dengan uang dan kekuasan, ia bisa mendapatkan segalanya semau hati dan menganggap perasaan cinta tak lagi penting.
Men who achieve success are more likely to betray or cheat their partners. A man who is wealthy and successful usually feels that, using money and power, he is able to obtain everything he wants and consider love is not important anymore.
— Kompas
It’s self-explanatory. And it’s so true. And I loathe it!
I should have not done it in the first place. I knew it would not lead us to anywhere. I knew it should be stopped. But I chose to be ignorant. We chose to be ignorant. Reality was one thing we could not reach. Not even touch.
The next thing I knew, we were strangers. And I was the one who felt miserable. Could there be any other way to end this?
I was invited to a friend’s house for dinner today, i.e. buka puasa (break the fast) together. I had been thinking, hmm… what food should I bring? Should I just bring the atayef that I made yesterday? Or should I make something else? As I was browsing some recipes, I suddenly craved for mahshi, a delicious Arab dish that my mom used to make. It is a stuffed vegetables — usually zucchini, eggplant, or bell pepper stuffed with rice and ground beef. So yeah, I decided to make it!
A friend of mine, Elva, came over in the afternoon. We did grocery shopping and eventually cook together. She helped me with mahshi, which was surprisingly very easy to make (recipe can be found here). We also spent some time talking in the backyard. It was a really nice day! The weather was just PERFECT! Loved it!
After successfully cooking the mahshi, we then went to the friend’s house we were invited to. This was my first time in this year’s Ramadhan breaking my fast together with other people. I had been doing it alone and I didn’t like it to be honest (seriously, stop complaining, Amalia!). And today I felt so happy to be surrounded with friends 🙂
And the mahshi turned out to be delicious! 🙂 Yum!
Yeah, I have a new orange friend here. He loves to observe me whenever I’m sitting in front of the computer. And he’s going to make sure that I don’t sit there for too long. Or else… who knows what he is capable of. Seriously. He’s just unpredictable.
You can never tell what people are thinking and feeling unless they tell you, and usually they lie. you ask them, ‘Whats wrong?’ and they say ‘Nothing’. You accept this because it’s easier than digging for the truth. People smile when they want to cry, they laugh when they want to scream and shout. They pretend like nothing is wrong because they don’t want to face the truth. Things aren’t always rainbows and butterflies, sometimes you gotta scream and cry your anger and sadness to the world, because you can only hold it in for so long before something in you snaps. so when you want to cry, cry. When you want to scream, scream. Don’t hide behind fake smiles, it’s ok to not be alright!
— Aconite
One of the things I miss about spending Ramadhan in Jeddah is the foods! Damn, I miss those Arab/Mediterranean foods that my mom always made especially during this holy month. Atayef is one of them. It is an Arab version of pancake. It is sold everywhere on streets of Jeddah during the Ramadhan (and it’s only sold during this month!). We used to eat it as an appetizer before the main meal was served.
So today, I attempted to make some atayef. It wasn’t my first time making it actually. I made it last year too and it was quite nice :).
The recipe can be found here. I used a syrup of palm sugar instead of custard to eat it. An ice cream or a normal pancake syrup can be a nice combination too!
Well, at least atayef temporarily heals my homesickness :). Ramadhan seriously improves my cooking mood!
Alhamdulillah, though I couldn’t eat for 17 hours, today’s fasting wasn’t that bad. I did feel so lacking of energy but I was sure that I would get used to it in the end. I intentionally stayed at home today — I didn’t feel the hunger and thirstiness until 2 hours before I had to break the fast.
Anyway, I was quite satisfied that today I was able to read 3 sections (juz) of the Qur’an. I also did some memorizing for juz ‘Amma — I used to remember the whole chapters (surah) in juz ‘Amma but as I got older, I forgot some of them 🙁 . My goal for this year’s Ramadhan is to memorize the whole surahs in juz ‘Amma. Insya Allah.