Project 365

A very funny and entertaining video discussing about issues concerning Ramadhan (e.g. moon sighting wars, super speed taraweeh, 8 vs 20 rakaats, etc). This video serves as a reminder for all of us, the Muslims around the world 🙂

You are the reason why even at the saddest part of my life, I smile. Even at confusion, I understand. Even in betrayal, I trust. Even in fear of pain, I love.

— Anonymous

Tomorrow is my first day of fasting! I hope it’s going to be smooth. I’m planning to stay at home the whole day tomorrow so that I won’t be wasting my energy too much. I need to get used to the whole 17 hours fasting. I used to fast days before Ramadhan, so that by the time I had to start the “real” fasting, I wouldn’t be struggling so hard. But for some reasons, I didn’t do it this time and I really hope I could handle it :). I’m sure I will. Insya Allah.

I spent almost the whole day today being a proofreader for my friend, who’s currently doing his thesis. Just wanted to help, nothing else. I then went to see my friend Yaqing and her boyfriend, Chris in the Centrum. We had dinner together and had such a nice conversation. We hadn’t seen each other for 2 months already! The last time I saw Yaqing was before I went back to Indonesia. I was so glad that she had found someone to be with :). Kinda envy her a little bit haha. But anyway we talked about so many things: politics, our life, and not to forget… our traveling plans! It turned out Chris really wanted to go to Iran! What a coincidence! I’d loooove to join in 😉

I’m quite full with the dinner today. I still have some left overs in the fridge and that’s what I’m going to eat for my sahur. One of the hardest thing about fasting during summer (besides the long duration) is that we only have about 7 hours before Fajr! So, you break the fast at around 9pm, eat some heavy meals and by the time you want to eat for sahur your stomach is still full! Most of the time I eat heavy meals once during sahur, otherwise my stomach won’t take it anymore. I’m still thinking how I’m going to do this, should I just eat heavy meals in the middle, say at 12am… and eat some cookies, deserts, or light foods for iftar and sahur? Yeah, maybe I should try that first.

Ok, time for Qur’an reading 🙂

I remember I borrowed the book Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia when I was in Australia 3 or 4 years ago. I couldn’t follow it for some reasons. After few pages, I dropped to sleep. I borrowed the book because it was the best-selling one and it had Indonesia in it! Perhaps, I should just watch the movie! 😀

One thing that disturbed me when I watched the trailer of the movie was when Julia Roberts said:

I’m going to Italy, India, and I’m going to end the year in Bali

Why Bali, I wonder, instead of INDONESIA?!? Arghhh. People always think Bali is a country by itself. I’ve met some people in Australia who didn’t know where Indonesia was (Oh yeah, talk about ignorance!), but knew where Bali actually was! How ironic! Let’s learn geography, shall we?

Ramadhan is the (month) in which was sent down the Qur’an, as a guide to mankind, also clear (Signs) for guidance and judgment (between right and wrong). So every one of you who is present (at his home) during that month should spend it in fasting, but if any one is ill, or on a journey, the prescribed period (Should be made up) by days later. Allah intends every facility for you; He does not want to put to difficulties. (He wants you) to complete the prescribed period, and to glorify Him in that He has guided you; and perchance ye shall be grateful.

— Al-Qur’an 2:185

Ramadhan kareem! Kullu 3am wa antum be7air 🙂

So I stayed in Helmond today with Jessie. We planned on a trip to Berlin, but it didn’t turn out very well. We had a very low budget and we had no friends who wanted to come with us! I didn’t know if we eventually would go there.

We both did nothing so extra ordinary today. Just stayed on bed, chatting, eating, and so on. Having a good company was enough to make me contented. I wonder why I’m becoming more dependent on other people?!

I’m going to stay another night, eventually :D.

I went to Pesta Rakyat (literally: People’s Party), organized by the Indonesian embassy in Den Haag to celebrate our beloved country’s independence day from the Netherlands 65 years ago. The event was held in Sekolah Indonesia Nederland (SIN) in Wassenaar (near Den Haag) — closed to the house of the Indonesian ambassador. It was my first time going to the school. I went there with my lovely friend Jessie and her family.

There were a loooot of Indonesians! There were music performances and food stalls which sold many types of Indonesian foods. I spent quite a lot that day! I just wanted to treat myself nice Indonesian foods, although yes, I was in Indonesia less than a month ago! The foods were of course very expensive compared to the ones in Indonesia, but oh well… If you compared everything in Euro then you would end up not buying anything! I bought some sate for 5 Euro and I was surprised that I only got 3 sticks (tusuk) for that many lontong! Talk about suicide, eh?! Then I also had a cup of delicious cendol and nasi rames for dinner. We were there almost the whole day! When we were too bored, Jessie and I went to Scheveningen beach, but we found ourselves not doing anything over there because it was raining!

The weather was indeed terrible. It was raining the whole freakin day! It was an unusual Dutch weather, to be honest. Usually the rain was quite light and there were some pauses in between the rain. But it just didn’t stop until late in the afternoon. As a result, many people went back home really early. There were not many people dancing too in front of the stage. They were dancing and holding the umbrella, so you could imagine how ribet it was. The poco-poco seemed fun, but I didn’t want to join in because of the rain :(.

But I met my friend Putri today! I was surprised myself but it was a spontaneous meet up! I haven’t seen her for months already and it was great to meet her although yes, we needed another meet up to catch up! I also saw an Indonesian singer Delon, whom I had no idea who he was until Jessie’s mom told me that he was the winner of Indonesian Idol or something LOL. I took a picture with him, as a proof that I met somebody famous :P. Hehehe. To be honest, he’s just okay. Nothing special about him. Not handsome or anything like that. No offence hahaha.

Oh! One thing I forgot to mention is that, there were some people from the RMS (Republik Maluku Selatan) demonstrating in front of the gate of the school, demanding the political prisoner, Johan Teterissa who waved the flag of RMS in front of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to be released.

After spending our time there for quite a long time, we eventually headed to the house of Jessie’s mother’s friend. While the elders did some catching up, Jessie and I went to the McDonald’s nearby and we had some really nice conversation about the future, Indonesia, the Netherlands’ society, and many more! 🙂

We reached home around 12am and I had decided to stay over at Jessie’s place. It was a good day. I’m thankful ya Allah 🙂

O Believers, if an unrighteous person comes to you with information, you should verify it or else you might inflict harm on a people in ignorance and then end up regretting what you have done.

Hai orang-orang yang beriman, jika datang kepadamu orang fasik membawa suatu berita, maka periksalah dengan teliti agar kamu tidak menimpakan suatu musibah kepada suatu kaum tanpa mengetahui keadaannya yang menyebabkan kamu menyesal atas perbuatanmu itu.

— Al-Qur’an 49:6

In this verse, Allah SWT ordered us to question and verify every information received to make sure it is reliable and authentic. This is a very interesting verse as it relates to our daily life and the thing that has been going on in Indonesia right now 🙂

Yes, the infotainment. The gossips of celebrities. And all those. Why are we — the Indonesians — are so obsessed with these useless information?! What’s so fun about it, really? A lecturer in Bandung told me that when he woke up everyday, he saw infotainment news. When he came back from work, he saw infotainment news. After dinner, another infotainment news. Oh for heaven sake, he thought! Weren’t there any useful news or TV shows that could be shown?? It’s really sad. We believe on those information and judge the people based on what we see on TV. Pathetic. Now, all we care about is the private life of other people who will never make a positive impact in our life in many ways! How about those people who are in hunger? How about those who still have no money to go to school? How about those who are mentally ill, being stranded in the streets? Do we care about them?! AT ALL??

Questioning the reliability of information does not only apply to the infotainment crap (coz I don’t want to call these gossip things as “news”). But it also applies to everything published on the media. We always need to be critical about them. We need to remember that some news are “created” to gain publicity, profits, or to make false information about other people in order to put them down.

This verse is also very much related to how the scholars of Hadith accept narrations. I was even told that Imam Bukhari traveled miles and miles away to meet this one narrator to prove his authenticity and reliability. At one point, the narrator called some birds as if he wanted to feed them. But it turned out he was just lying because he had no foods on his hands. Based on this behavior, his Hadith was rejected by Imam Bukhari. Can you imagine that?! This implies that the collections of our Hadith have been carefully compiled. Those narrators whose reliability is unknown are not accepted by the scholars of Hadith.

Well, the simplest thing I can say is: mind your own business 😀

* Today’s posting is based on the discussion in our weekly pengajian (Qur’an reading & study) 🙂

If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself.
The dreams will come to you

— Randy Pausch

Phew! What a day!

I was busy cleaning up my room today. Well, I vacuumed the floor and the ceiling (yes! the spiders needed to be gone!) four days ago. So now I “only” had to throw away all the junks and unused things out of my room. I collected all the papers that could be used for scrap papers and I threw some of them which could not be used anymore (but could be recycled). There were piles of them! I hadn’t been removing them since last semester! Wow, talk about major clean up!

I also hung another string which I used for hanging the postcards. I had many postcards (which I got from friends, family, or myself) that I hadn’t had the time to hang them. Because I had to put the nails on the wall so that I could hang the rope/string. But you know, I was bad in this kind of men job thing (although, yes, it was only the matter of driving the nails into the wall using a hammer). So I kept on procrastinating until today. Now I have 2 ropes hanging on my wall for my postcards! 🙂

So far, I got postcards from the States (Yale, Philadelphia, and New York — thanks to my dear Fau and San Fransisco — from my Couchsurfing friend), Japan (from my former housemates, Jenn & Mayu), Australia (Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, and Hobart — from lovely Wiza), China (from my brother), and other postcards that I purchased them myself from 7 different countries :).

The result of this major clean up was quite satisfactory. Too bad I didn’t take a picture of my room before the clean up. It was messy as hell! Now I’m loving and enjoying my room with a cup of hot chocolate… Lovely.