Silamat Ali Layerrr

For the past couple of years aku mcm tak suka text org wish hari raya. Rasa mcm typical. Kalau ada pun just reply wishes orang out of courtesy.

Tapi tahun ni, tah kenapa, mungkin sbb taktau nak buat apa masa khutbah raya (ok sangat berdosa buat ayat ni, tapi aku rasa khutbah raya di masjid aku agak political, so not totally my fault ok), aku sms semua org dalam phone book. At least korang tau aku masih ada nombor korang kan?

Hehehe.

Minal a'idin wal faizin.

For what it's worth...

Have you ever encountered moments in life when you'd stop and think "is it worth it?". Over apa2lah, be it what you did or what you saw other people did. I'm sure you had.

Coz I had one recently. I was at a jualan amal that my Yayasan Salam friends did to raise fun for charity event we're gonna have at 2 orphanage homes during fasting month...

We were closing the stall for the day, most of us busy packing up the stuffs, and one guy was counting the "proceeds" for the day, in the end he said out loud "seratus empat puluh tujuh ringgit" and everybody cheered...

I paused for a while and thought to myself "really? with all these time and with all these volunteers for this amount of money?" well, it was kinda expected when you sell everything at just 1 ringgit, but still... and that's when the multimillion dollar question "is it worth it?" strikes.

It's not long before I got the answer. I was driving home when I think I found it.

You see, the seratus-empat-puluh-tujuh-ringgit is not the end for all these effort and time that these group of people put together.

It is only a material, explicit reason that brought all these together. But it's not the real cause. There's far greater good that was created from all the efforts and time the volunteers sacrificed, much more that the mere ratusan ringgit...

And that, my friend, is the inner self enrichment that is created when you do something good with no expected return. It is a selfless deed that you do thinking just to help someone else out there, knowing for sure that you ain't gonna get anything in return, or at least materially.

It is a satisfaction that you cannot get with money. You know, like when you let one car from the other side of the road to cross in front of you to get to this side of a turning when the traffic is really bad.

Or, like when you help a total stranger by the roadside who is asking for money, and you know full well that the stranger could just be a part of a complicated syndicate trying to syphone money off hardworking blue-colar workers like us, but truth is, that stranger could as well be a genuine unfortunate human-being undergoing difficult moment in his/her life. But you helped anyway. And you feel good afterwards.

Those examples that I used would of course do very little justice to what my friends did. But it's just an easy metaphor.

You see, when you put together a bunch of people who are so looking forward to do selfless, good things, the eagerness and spirit sort of multiplies. Because you are with friends. And I proudly say that it is these kind of people who would ensure that us Malaysians do not turn into our southern neighbours, who are so obsessed with material achievements in life that they disregard societal value and the need to care about others, and thus in turn the need to care about their inner self. And what does it mean in the end - nothing. It creates a feel of nothingness in life.

I am so proud of my friends...

......s

Funny to think how things could turn totally in a way that you can never expect it to be. Or people. Whatever. But then again, who am I to judge?

Sometimes you'd think, why did that thing that happened, happen?

I can choose to continue torturing myself by thinking of it over and over, trying to find an explanation. Trying to justify.

But I can also choose to let it go.

I do hope that I can let it go. Forever.

It just hurts so much when sometimes it came flashing back to mind slicing through like a poisonous wound. And I know it will. These things won't just go away like that. Even how much you want them to go away. They just don't.

I just want to forget the misery, go to sleep, and wake up to brighter days ahead.

Tunggu...

Dah lama gile tak hapdet blog ni. Mcm best jugak hidupkan balik.

Sekarang aku sedang menunggu. Menunggu email dari seseorang dengan penuh sabar. Harap2nya respond dia seperti yang dihajati.

Tak sabar nak mulakan suasana baru.

Tapi aku mesti akan rindukan si dia....


Aku pasti kembali.

One world one nation

I am only 2 weeks here but am so fucking pissed off already over how ignorant this country is. They seem to be living in a world of their own, totally separated from the beautifully diversified world that we all know. Most don't bother to understand even simple english words. They even have a chinese name for every single english name, just so that non-chinese speaking foreigners will really suffer in this country to even do the simplest stuff imaginable e.g. telling the taxi driver the name of your hotel, let alone to find "halal food" - renaissance is known to the locals as "ren pe yek kau", fraser residence is "fau ka you". Ok i made those names up. But it's true. And worse, these chinese names are, of course, written only in chinese. So how are you supposed to know? Ask the hotel staff? Good luck, i say. It might take you at least 7 attempts to get your question right into their head.

To those true fighters of bahasa kebangsaan in our country, i suggest you come to china for maybe a month and you will know just exactly what i am talking about.

Tremor

I was interviewing some girl (well, for work, obviously) when suddenly there were some commotions and panic in the office. Then that girl asked me if i feel kinda dizzy, which i did. I asked what is about, and she said there's an earthquake. Oh man, that was my first encounter with earthquake (i somehow missed the one that hit KL last year sometime during the tsunami), and i was not totally amused. When i arrived in hotel at about 8pm, the death toll as reported on CNN was somewhere around 100 (including 900 students trapped under the collapsed school building). But by now, 12.01am, the total fatalities has hit a disastrous 7000+!! The center of the quake is a province called Chengdu, and only last week did the team have a small discussion on whether we should include Chengdu or not for field visit, which we eventually decided against it in view of its less consequential activity as compared to other provinces.

Dear friends, pray that I will be back to KL in one healthy piece.

Freezing

Beijing is so cold, with temperature between 5 to 10 degrees celcius. Aku plak dengan tshirt murah petaling street, memang menggigil2. Orang2 lain yang berjaket bagai, semuanya pandang semacam je. Jaket yg bawak pulak kotor, kena antar laundry dulu.

Sesampai je kat sini, dah memalukan diri sdiri - lepas dah jumpa driver kat airport, dia bawak aku ke kereta, dia tolong letakkan beg dalam bonet, aku plak dengan spontan terus ke pintu depan sblh kiri. Tiba2 dia cuit belakang, kemudian bagi isyarat tangan yg aku tak paham (oh, by the way, language is really a problem here, much like bangkok). Lama aku fikir, pastu tergelak besar. They are right-hand driving, so pintu yang aku bukak tu seat driver. Tah apa2 lah agaknye mamat tu fikir, hopefully bukan "berlagaknye dia ni, baru sampai dah nak pandai2 drive"

For dinner, had sthg that i wish i could immediately erase from memory, forever.

And before you ask, no it's not pork.

Nor was it frog.

Yucks.