Stop right there, thank you very much

My heart almost never agrees with my brain. About anything. Things would be so much simpler if they did. Whenever I get a bit emotional, most of the time, it's all just in my head... Or heart.

The thing is, it's not that hard for me to like someone... Even when the situation is unideal. Even when I know that the person is not good for me. Even when my brain tells me that it's not a good idea and that I would only end up getting hurt (sebab syok sendiri, haha). But I like them anyway. Usually it's nothing more than a crush, but I ain't gonna lie, it's still enough to make me sad at times.

I don't know what it is. Have I been single for long enough that I suddenly feel lonely??? I was doing just fine all these years. And now suddenly I find myself trying to not like someone. How do you even stop feelings. Macam useless. I feel like I'm trying to stop a bullet train with my own hands. And I know that the more I try to brush it away or deny it, the more I like that person. Ugh. Isn't it stupid. I wish the brain could share some logic with the heart.

I don't like having feelings for someone. Why can't I just be emotionally unavailable until I get married?! Sigh, penat la. When I like someone, I tell my friends who it is, but mostly, I try to keep my feelings to myself. Sebab the most part of it never makes any sense – I like someone who doesn't know that I like him, and then he goes on living his life, as he should, and then he likes another girl and then I just patah hati sorang-sorang PADAHAL I have no right to be heartbroken pun -___-

It's annoying that no matter what my brain thinks, my heart does not concur. I've been telling myself, "No no no, you shouldn't be feeling this way, heart, please just STOP whatever you're doing!" This is probably just a short stupid phase (let's hope) that I will soon laugh about (with myself). But right now I just find it a bit overwhelming. Do you know how frustrating it is when you can't see a future with someone but you have feelings for them anyway. Hah.

I suppose that's not really my call. God knows best. "Kalau dah jodoh, takkan ke mana." But then again the uncertainty does not make things any better.

I hate feelings. Where is the Off button on this thing.

Ya Allah, please do not attach my heart to what's not written to be mine.

(Sorry that this post sounds very high school. Just needed to vent it out.)

Oz

Hi. I know I said I'd write about my winter break after my exams but... Hahaha I'm sorry I got too carried away with life. Anyway. So let me tell you about what happened.

A few months back, my parents had decided to go to umrah for our December holiday. We were supposed to hand in our documents for our visa by mid-November, but with me & Najwa being all the way in London, that couldn't be done. That being the case, I thought that was it. Khalas. Another time then, insyaAllah.

Nope. The morning after we arrived home (from London), my mom woke me up and asked me to take pictures for the visa. I was like "What?!" It was already so late to submit the documents but my dad still wanted to give it a shot. I was a bit reluctant to be honest, because it was so last minute and I just wanted to stay at home for the break and study for my Jan exams. I felt a bit guilty for choosing home over Mekah. I have always wanted to go there, but given the circumstances, I just didn't feel ready. I was pretty conflicted about it. Part of me wanted to go so much, but another part of me wished that we wouldn't get to. Everything was just so rushed.

In the end, we got the visas, our bags were packed, but no flights were available. So that was that. And I thought we were just gonna stay at home for once over the holidays.

But nope.

My dad didn't want to waste his days off from work, so, long story short, 2 days later, he went to MAS' office. My mom got a call from him in the late afternoon. Saying that we should pack our things because we were going to Melbourne. The very next morning. At 10am.

?!?!?!?!!!??!!

So we had to unpack our umrah things and then pack a whole different set of clothes for Melbourne. Guys. I'd left all of my clothes in London, and my favourite jeans were in the wash. I spent the whole night trying out everything I had in my wardrobe at home, playing mix-and-match. My room looked like it'd been hit by a hurricane.

Aaanyway. Melbourne was scorching hot and dry. And very expensive, might I add. A small bottle of mineral water there is $2.80!!! I keep telling people the same thing hahaha but I just find this so absurd and unreasonable. And I thought London was already expensive. Yikes.

We didn't get to do as much as we wanted to during our stay there, sadly. Since our trip was last minute and lacked prior planning, we couldn't find any available rental cars so we pretty much went around the city using the trams.

We did very simple touristy things: went to Luna Park, St Kilda beach, the Aquarium, Melbourne Zoo, and walked around the city for a bit. The boys had brought their Penny boards with them so in the evenings we would just hang out near the apartment and watch them skate.... and also take turns skating. Even my parents had a go! Hahaha I have videos of them on the Penny but, I mean, I still need a place to stay guys.

I'd forgotten to transfer the pictures from the camera to my laptop so I'll just upload a few of the ones that I have on my phone. Which is nothing much, really.

Luna Park & St Kilda

The Aquarium

One of my favourite animals of all time

These guys are really good at pretend-candid poses 

What'd I tell you

St Kilda Pier

This is probably my favourite part of our trip. We went to St Kilda Pier to watch the penguins come up at sunset. Up to this point, I'd only ever seen penguins in huge glassed enclosures in aquariums or the zoo, so it was quite amazing to see the penguins naturally swim up to the pier, waddle their way up to the rocks and call out to their friends. Quite a lot of people were at the pier, and the penguins were shy so they mostly hid in between the rocks, which made it quite tricky to spot them.

When we read about it online, it said no photography was allowed so we didn't bother to take our DSLR. Once we got there we found out that it actually meant no flash photography. And you know how suckish the iPhone camera is in poor lighting conditions. So we only ended up with grainy pictures of the penguins.

Spot the little birdie!

The only penguin that was loving the attention

It wasn't much of an eventful trip, but family time is family time, and that's what really matters. Speaking of which.... we flew home on New Year's Eve and arrived in KL the next morning, and my cousin was getting married the day after that. In Johor.

So you know what that means.

Unpacking and packing again. Ha ha ha. Anyone who knows me well enough would know that I absolutely hate packing. I honestly felt like I was being punished for something that I didn't (kidding, I probably did) do. We had like 9 hours to get a short rest, mandi, unpack and pack again, wait for the tailor to send our outfits for the wedding, and get ready. I don't even know how my dad had managed to drive all the way to Johor. Cray.

But being with my (extended) family was really the icing on the cake la. In those 4 days I laughed like a hyena and ate like a horse, and it was so so so much fun to be with everyone. (Maybe it'll be a good story for the next story time.)

After Johor, my sister and I only had a few days before we went back to London; so yeap, more packing..... *grabs a gun*

Yeesh. In less than a month I'd packed waaay more times than I was willing to. If you ask me what I remember the most about my winter break, I'd probably say "Packing and unpacking."

MIA

I almost forgot about the existence of my blog. Oops. Unexpectedly so many things had happened between my last blog post and this one so I haven't had the time to update about anything and I'm itching to write about my winter break shenanigans.

I got back to London more than a week ago, but I had exams soon after (CRIES). So basically I had to lock myself up in the apartment and sumbat information into my head for my papers and I was really depressed for a few days. I was tempted to write something on the blog then, but I try to refrain myself from posting depressing things online because I don't want to spread negative vibes to other people (this would be a good time to apologise for the gloomy tweets that were posted before I could stop myself). But I'm glad I'm out of it now, alhamdulillah. I still have one more paper tomorrow (Tuesday the 20th) but honestly at this point I just want to get it over and done with. I just can't take it no more. I want my freeeeeedoooommmm!!!

Anyway, just thought I'd drop by for a little bit. I can't wait to be done with my last paper tomorrow so that I can blog about my short trip to Melbourne and my cousin's wedding. I hope everyone's been doing great and in the best of health :) xx

Little people

Picture taken from Google images

"Isn't it cool that one day you might have little people running around your house that are half you and half the person you love?"

Bihah retweeted this and I can't stop thinking about how absolutely cute this is... and how much I really, really want this. I'd never been one of those people who had always known what they wanted to be when they grow up. Throughout my childhood, my ambition always changed from one to another; but, I suppose just like many other girls, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I want to be a mom.

I love kids. They can drive you crazy and tire you out (who knew that such tiny beings can wear you out so quickly?!), but I absolutely love them. Towards the end of my high school life I sort of tamed myself to the idea of becoming a child psychologist (with some helpful nudges from my own mother) and I figured that it made perfect sense – do what you love and love what you do, right? I love playing with kids, and I suppose I can say that I'm good with kids, so I thought it didn't matter much that I was opting for a rather unconventional (by Malaysian standards) pathway. When a friend of mine found out that I'm taking a degree in Psychology and that I want to pursue child psychology, he said: "DUDE, I JUST REALISED SOMETHING. YOU'RE TAKING A DEGREE ON HOW TO BE A MOTHER!" That really cracked me up, but I liked the idea – I'm on my way to becoming a 'professional' mother, guys. What up.

I think about a week ago I watched this vine of a man kissing his baby's cheek repeatedly, which made the baby squeal. MY HEART. It's just too cute!!! Is it too typical and predictable to say that I can't wait to have my own baby? My own family? I know some women don't think it a priority to settle down and start a family at this age but... I can't help it. I want it for real. (Permission to judge me for being so hormonal.)

But let's be real now. I'm not ready for all of that. Yet. My life as a singleton is all over the place as it is, and I am under no illusion that I'm ready be a wife, let alone a mother. Of course, being ready is one thing, but finding someone that I want to marry is another... and finding someone who actually wants to marry me? That's a different story altogether. Hahaha. I know that it's nearly impossible to find someone who checks all the boxes in your list, but I believe that when you find the right person, you will accept (or tolerate) and learn to love those unchecked boxes sooner or later. For me however, that kind of person has not come 'round yet.

This brings me to one of my current concerns... I think it's perfectly normal to want your future spouse to possess certain qualities and standards. Personally, I'm even quite particular about some aspects that other people might find trivial. But then again, when I think about all of the things that I want in an ideal husband, I wonder... am I really up to par with 'him'? Would I deserve this man, if he is real?

(Swallows pride) Of course not.

I want a husband who is steadfast in his religion, who never misses his daily prayers, who wakes up for tahajjud in the middle of the night and will wake me up for it too.

... Says the girl who constantly struggles to wake up for Fajr, and delays her 5 obligatory prayers more often than she is happy to admit.

I want a husband who will only have eyes for me, a man who knows the limits of his encounters with other women.

... Says the girl who still finds it extremely hard to lower her gaze, who sometimes (okay fine, many times) forgets the boundaries of boy-girl interactions, the girl who still feels shy to tell a man who extends his hand for a handshake, that "I'm sorry, I don't shake hands with men."

I want a husband who is understanding, who can lower his ego should we have an argument and admit it when he's wrong.

... Says the girl with the Arab temperament and a big ego who always has to be right, the girl who finds it extremely hard to swallow her pride and say sorry whenever she's wrong.

I want a husband who is responsible and wise.

... Says the girl who is neither very responsible nor wise especially when it comes to her shopping habits......

And the list goes on. I thought, this just won't do. I've always been so busy thinking about what I want in my future husband that I don't stop to think if I actually deserve him. So it's  high time that I fix myself and change some of my ways to be the ideal wife for my ideal husband. That's only fair. And once I achieve that, and let's hope I do insyaAllah, maybe then I can think about starting a family and all of the ways I'm going to dress my kids up.

That day won't come so soon, but when it does, people are going to quickly learn that I'm going to be one very annoying mommy who buys matching mother-daughter and father-son outfits.

I'm back where my heart is!

I'm home again! Alhamdulillah, after a very very very long journey, being at home with my family makes it all worth it.

Packing this time 'round was not so stressful because I knew what I needed to bring back: textbooks, textbooks, and more textbooks. I'll be having exams in January and I'm absolutely terrified because the class tests that we'd had for the modules pretty much killed me. I'll have to discipline myself during the holidays... which seems like an impossible feat right now... but it has to be done. One way or another. God help me.

I'd brought back 7 textbooks. Even with little else in my suitcase, it weighed 30.6kg. Dude. It was almost as heavy as I am. I had to lug the huge thing to the tube station, carry it down a flight of stairs (with Rem's help), and yank it onto the tube. Thank God I was travelling with my sister and Rem. If I was alone I'd be crying in frustration because my luggage wouldn't budge.

The flight was smooth alhamdulillah but I drifted in and out of sleep so many times that I wonder how I'd even slept in flights before this. One good thing about being petite is that I can fold myself into foetus position in the seat in economy, so basically throughout most of the 13 hours I tried to arrange myself in every angle possible to try to be comfortable. My body ached and my neck hurt, but ahhh none of it matters now because I'll be sleeping in my own bed tonight! Yay!!

When we got home just now Najwa and I were so excited because we had a little surprise for our dad from London. On Friday after class we'd gone to his all-time favourite kebab place, Taza, and packed some kebabs and the sauces to bring home. It's been a year since he last had it and I was so excited to see his reaction. When we gave it to him, the only thing he said for about 5 minutes was "Woooo!!!" Hahaha you don't understand the satisfaction that we felt. We've always struggled to figure out what gift to get him for his birthday, Father's Day, etc. Taza. Taza was the answer all along.

We did feel bad because we didn't get anything as meaningful for our mom, but we've told her that if we could bring back John Lewis for her, we would have.

I got my sambal tumis udang, which is like the favourite of all my favourites. I totally forgot that I had to control my intake of sambal until my dad pointed out that I'm gonna get sakit perut if I didn't. But of course I couldn't stop myself.

And as if the night wasn't already good enough, I got to watch the Manchester United match in HD!!! CRIES!!! One of the things that I always complain about being in London is that I don't get to watch HD football. I have to opt for livestreaming for most matches (provided that I'm even home to watch the match) and the resolution is horrible. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when I could watch my favourite team play (AND WIN) against Liverpool, with my dad and brothers, in high definition. Perfect football night.

Have you ever had those times when you just feel so grateful for everything that your heart feels like it's about to burst? Tonight was one of those times for me. Alhamdulillah :)

Rush hour

I just realised that I've been off of Blogger for quite some time now. These past few weeks have been somewhat crazy that I haven't even been reading the blogs that I'm following.

All of my weekends had been fully occupied in November. From college reunion, to Nottingham Games, to having my cousin over from Bristol. It's all been really great fun, but there were also the class tests, the lab reports, assignments, and now I've got another social experiment and presentation to carry out. If you see me and think that I'm handling it all well, you're lucky you can't actually see how much of a mess my mind is right now. Honestly? I'm always on the brink of a panic attack.

I'd love to write out my thoughts in this space and share about everything that's been happening (not that it's all so interesting), but I've got to catch up with life. As always. That's how it is when you're a top-notch procrastinator.

With everything that's happening in my life right now, I feel like I'm always living in London rush hour – walking fast, quickly slipping through the gaps between people, dodging other commuters from the opposite direction; all the while pacing my breaths to calm myself down as a slight sense of claustrophobia gently grips my heart in a panic. But alas, nobody else has brought this upon me but myself. Haha.

I really really really can't wait for the winter break, and I'm sure I'm not the only one... Not long now. Anyway, I hope everyone's doing well, wherever you are. I'll be back soooon insyaAllah xx

Yours sincerely,

It's getting tiring to see this "holier-than-thou" attitude when I scroll past a Malaysian celebrity's picture and see the rude and condescending comments underneath it. Honestly. Aren't you people tired of starting a feud with someone you barely even know? I'm all for advising people about the right things – honestly, I do it so much that some of my friends even call me their (naggy) counsellor – but advising has to be done in the right manner.

It will never ever go down well if you give someone an 'advice' in an arrogant, 'Listen to me, I'm way better than you' kind of way. Especially when it comes to religious matters. It upsets me when people feel that they have the right to bash a person on the basis that 'it's the right thing to say'. Your reason here does not justify the way in which you're getting the message across.

Some of you might know why I'm writing about this matter, but let's not name names. I'm writing this because I'm so frustrated by the way people are portraying Islam and its teachings. I'm not a scholar, nor am I the best image of a Muslim. But I am human, I am a girl, and I have feelings, just as other girls do. If you knew how hurtful it is to read impertinent comments that concern your dignity in one way or another, you wouldn't wish it upon anyone, let alone inflict it on others.

I know this is a sensitive topic for a lot of people, but I feel like I need to address it and I hope this post will be able to talk some sense into those involved.

First of all, yes, it's wajib for a woman to cover up. This was not ordained by the prime minister or an ustaz, not by the state council, not by Islamic scholars. This is an order from God. Are we clear on that? Yes? Good.

Secondly, yes, it's important to remind our loved ones about their obligations and responsibilities towards their deen. BUT. We need to do this tastefully, accordingly, and kindly. Reminders and advice need to be gentle. It can be likened to holding someone's hand as you guide them down a path, especially if the path is new to them. You can't yank someone's arm and tell them to follow you without expecting some degree of objection, now, can you?

You need to understand this: Islam is not spread by the sword. It can't be forced upon others. If you use force and harsh words to impose Islamic teachings on others, it won't pull them any closer to Islam. It will only drive them away. I've heard many such stories and it's heartbreaking to know that some people's hearts have come so close to Islam, only to be chased away in the other direction by a fellow Muslim.

If you see someone close to you dressing in a way that is not appropriate by Islamic standards and you feel somewhat responsible to advise them, do so with their best interests in mind, not yours. Don't ambush them. Before you advise someone, ask yourself: Is this for their betterment, or your arrogance and pride? The answer lies in how you do it. Yes, your point is valid: berdosa kalau tak tutup aurat. But if you hurt someone's feelings and put them to shame, and start a feud (which usually ensues in most cases), tu pun berdosa jugak kan? If you have nothing nice to say, be silent. The Prophet (pbuh) taught us that.

It's ironic how some people think that they can 'guide' someone to the right path by giving harsh and horrifyingly rude comments. And then they justify their rudeness by saying, "I'm only saying what is right, why can't you just accept the truth?" Oh my gosh. Get off your high horse, please.

We need to remember that advice is best given sincerely, and a sincere advice is best given gently, as I've said before, and personally, so as to not embarrass the person in front of others. If you bash someone publicly about not fulfilling their obligations as a Muslim and claim to be giving a legit advice; you're not fooling anyone but yourself. Your argument just backfired right there.

Stop embarrassing yourselves. Stop. Defaming. Islam. Islam is a beautiful religion, and your atrocious behaviour is preventing people from seeing the beauty of it. I'm absolutely terrified by the thought that I could repel some people from Islam because of my own behaviour. Nauzubillah. I pray that Allah always guides our conduct so that we will never give Islam a bad name.

So guys, please. Think before you say anything. Be sincere. Be nice. Be kind. I'm not condoning something that is wrong. What's wajib is still wajib. But that topic is for another day. Right now, what's bothering me so much is how people are sooo eager to appear as the 'better person' (ironically) by picking at other people's sins, with a magnifying glass some more. Aren't we supposed to be in this together? One body, one ummah? I really hope I made sense and that what I'm trying to convey will get through to you. I think all of us need to take a step back and reflect upon this.

Islam is not about “we're better than you”, Islam is about “let me show you something that is better for you.”

– Nouman Ali Khan

Have a nice day, everyone.