Homesick

Being in isolation so long has been deteriorating my mental health. I have been thinking and overthinking about a lot of things. There's so many things that I want to say to someone that left unsaid. Ahh, my stubborn and egoistic self.

Sending my dua to you.

If I died tomorrow or anytime soon, I hope that someone close to me will keep me in their prayers too.

Letters to a Young Muslim & The Two Popes

So yesterday I finished reading this book called Letters to a Young Muslim by Omar Saif Ghobash. I borrowed it from my housemate. I was expecting more from that book, so in the end I was kinda left a bit unsatisfied. So please people, don’t put your expectations so high in a book until you read them k.

Well, to sum up generally, this book is written in a way that letters from a father to his son. The writer tell us about how his father who was an arab being killed by a terrorist when he was a six years old, and how he struggled with the traditional thinking of the arab world or muslim world in middle east, hiw he struggled with his identity as his mother is russian, and he posed some questions that young muslim as his son should not be worry to ask provocative questions even though it considers as taboo in the muslim community generally. There a lot of questions being thrown here and there but the writer didn’t give any answers, because it left to the readers to find it I guess.

I think because living in muslim community in Malaysia where we don’t really have problems for extremists here, and because the issues brought up in this book for me is nothing new from what I have read of, made me feel like this is just an ok book? But I read a several good reviews from others so I think it depends on individual, of course.

And soon after I finished reading this, I watched a movie called The Two Popes which I find it so entertaining. It inspired from a true story of how Pope Francis being elected as a Pope, but the dialogues between the two of them might be fictional. But I love their conversations! The issues brought up in the catholic community like the conservatives and Church reformer, are also the issues that the muslim community faced as well.

It’s on Netflix!

Ramadan 1441 H

Ramadan kareem :)

This year's Ramadan surely would hit differently for all of us around the world because of the pandemic. There would be no gatherings in mosques for tarawikh prayers, no moreh, no bazaars, no breaking fast together with a group of people. We just need to stay at home until the lockdown/control order has been lifted. 

For me the one that impacted would be the tarawikh prayers in mosque. Usually my housemates and I would go together to mosque to join the prayers and sometimes on Friday we will go to Masjid Wilayah to have a slept over to join the tahajud prayers with the imam. (although actually I would do tahajud on my own and not following the jemaah because of personal reasons, :p). Bazaars not much because I'm not fond of crowded places therefore rarely go there.

Bless people who would be able to celebrate Ramadan with their family this year. Be strong to the students that still stuck at their university during Ramadan, and for the people who are working or stuck at their place outside of their hometown. We can do this!

I got an email from AAPlus for the bare minimum checklist calendar on what to do on this holy month. Sharing it here.

I think some of the list can be done every day, depends on yourself. This is just the bare minimum.

For me, might be less spending time on social media, finish the online course, finish the half read books and listen to more podcast about Ramadan and deen. Read the Quran together with the translation, check out your friends and family regularly, and writes more.. here or in journal. Finish the work although there's no deadline! Haha.

Have a bless Ramadan everyone.

.

Gray Area

We used to hear this phrase, "There's always two sides of the story". But as I grew older, I realised that sometimes there are not only two sides, but more than that. Could be three, four and so on. 

There are some moments in our lives, that we look the world as in black and white. If you not A, then you must be B. When in reality, it doesn't always work like that. There would be always exist the gray area. You could be C, D, E etc right? Usually I always pissed off when I met people that would make stereotype assumptions about me. But actually it's understandable if the person haven't yet know you making those assumptions, because people's tendency to judge or categorized people is somewhat common.

Now, as I grew older, you are the one who exactly know who you are regardless of people's assumptions about you. And that's it all matters. And of course, those who close to you knows your characters more than your acquaintances.

I have this conversation with a friend, asking me what I think about this certain famous figure, are they good or bad? Human is a complex thing. We cannot categorized someone as "good" or "bad" as a definite term. What we can do is when their action is reasonable, we acknowledge it. Same goes when the opposite things happened. 

Even when practicing law, there's a lot of gray areas that can be disputed. There was a JKM officer specifically saying this in a Child's Court, "The law have no heart in it. That's why as a human who practice the law, need to give a human touch in it." This one stuck in my head, until the other DPP pointed out, "But the one who made the law is also human." HAHAHAHA k. k.

Random thoughts during MCO.

Wall

"I'd like to know if you'll make an effort. Will you try to be open, and not change the subject whenever it comes too close to something that hurts or that you're afraid of?"

I felt suspended, above an absolute void. "You want too much. You should have left things alone."

"Believe me, I've thought long and hard about leaving things alone. But then there will always be this wall between us."

"It's all ugly things behind the wall," I said, not looking at him.

"I'm not afraid of what's behind the wall, only the wall itself."

But the wall was my exoskeleton. It was what held me up. Sometimes it was the only thing that held me up.

---------------

"You're not walling yourself off from heartache- there's no possibility of that. You're only walling yourself off from life."

Excerpt from: Sherry Thomas, The One in My Heart.

26

I am officially a 26-year-old woman.

But I still feel 20 by heart. Heh.

What is it like to be 26? I don't know, because this pandemic happens huhu.

Actually I'm so freaking out into turning 26 when 2020 comes. Lol. Merely because I feel like reaching nearer to 30 and the fact that I'm getting old and already pass 25 years old threshold. Okay, going to share a funny story happened earlier this year.

I was waiting for my sister to pick me up at LRT station, and there was a guy approaching me wanted to sell perfumes. As I declined, he tried to have some chit chat with me and asked how old I was? And I was like "25" and then started thinking back about my answer and coming to realisation that it's already 2020. "Eh, laaa saya dah 26 tahun ni!" Lol and I think the guy saw my astonished face upon the realisation, end up apologizing to me for asking about my age hahahaha. 

That's not the issue actually, it was just like it hit me at the moment that I'll turn 26 this year. That's all. Pity him.

I don't know what's to hope, let's just say I'm open for full surprise whatever comes to me this year. (Jika umur masih panjang, insya-Allah)

Activities During Movement Control Order

Day 20.

Our MCO was extended until 14 April. I think they will announce soon that the MCO would be extended again. Looking at the positive cases day by day, it would probably be the case.

So I just want to list down activities that I've been doing during this pandemic. Hoping that when this is over (hopefully), either I would be consistently doing the positive ones rather than just glued to my phone.

1. Social Medias

Okay. I totally glued to my phone on the first few weeks of the MCO. I was either on twitter or instagram, scrolling through the feed. I even download TikTok hahaha and I found out that the content, I mean the videos were so funny and enlightening. I even ditched instagram for tiktok haha by scrolling the timeline feed, I mean. (pss I even made several tiktok videos lol but private kayh).

Then I decided that I shouldn't do this all day long, not moving at all. So..

2. Online Course

Upon my friend's suggestion, I sign up for online course at coursera.org for Greek and Roman Mythology. Why? Because it's sound interesting haha. I always curious about greek gods and their history actually. That's why I was so tempted to sign up for this class. It was free if you don't want to 'officially' get their certificate at the end of the course.

There would be various of courses you can choose there from Data Science, Arts & Humanity, Social Science etc. You can explore and choose which courses you want to enroll. 

Hope that I would focus myself on learning through this course because I struggled to watch the lecture videos. Just survived like 3 videos so far for week 1. Yeahhh.

3. Subscribe to AAPlus

Okay so I subscribe this just yesterday. I follow Aida Azlin's Tuesday Love Letters since 2018, I think. It's almost 2 years now. So this time when she promoted through email about AAPlus, I didn't hesitate to subscribe and pay for the content monthly.

In order to surround myself with this positivity and knowledge during this pandemic, AAPlus's content are really good. You can check out at aaplus.co for more information about their online content. Specially for ladies out there who want to seek knowledge and for us to find something to keep us in check on spiritual level emotionally and mentally during this pandemic.

4. Exercise

I think this is the hardest part that I struggled to be consistent with hahaha. Okay, at least I tried to exercise weekly, but looking at how every day I rarely move from my bed and just sitting there all day long, I think it's better for me to exercise every day. At least before this I went to work I have to walk every day. Now I rarely moves. So it's better to workout every day. 

Haih. You don't want to gain extra weight right during this MCO, Hannah????!!

5. Netflix and Chill + Reading

I mean like this is totally a must every day?? Watching Netflix and searching for new movies and series to watch. But recently I have not much interest to watch anything. Like every movies and series that I watched, I watched it like half-finished. Didn't finish that one, and searched for another, repeat.

Same to my reading habits. I read one book, then stop in the middle, then move to another book. Repeat.

Sigh.

So now I just listen to podcast from AAPlus while hoping that maybe (most importantly) that my reading habit would catch up a bit.

That's all for now.