when he came after me as i walked away, and he told me with tears in his eyes, that he had never bothered to come after anyone else, i knew that he loved me more than i thought he ever did.
alice sat at her desk in their bedroom distracted by the sounds of john racing through each of the rooms on the first floor. she needed to finish her peer review of a paper submitted to the journal of cognitive psychology before her flight, and she’d just read the same sentence three times without comprehending it. it was 7:30 according to their alarm clock, which she guessed was about ten minutes fast. she knew from the approximate time and the escalating volume of his racing that he was trying to leave, but he’d forgotten something and couldn’t find it. she tapped her red pen on her bottom lip as she watched the digital numbers on the clock and listened for what she knew was coming. still alice, lisa genova i managed to squeeze in some reading time while accompanying atok to the hospital just now. i must say that this was one of the best reads, ever. it felt so .. real. anyway, i posted up a question on my tumblr and i hope that you guys can help me out. (: it is not as often that my sister is that generous, so i am planning to squeeze every cent of her $500. (i am just kidding!) if you feel uncomfortable leaving your name and email, you can always leave me a note at ask. thanks alot!
the first 16 years of my life, i had the shortest hair ever.
when i was in kindergarten and primary school, my mother believed that girls my age should have short, neat and fuss-free hairstyles. she told me that i was not old enough to take care of my own locks. i had always envied my friends who had long hair falling past their shoulders - braided and accessorised with lovely colourful bows and rubber bands. i hated my slope hairstyle cause i felt that it made my elfish ears more apparent.
my mother told me that i was 'old' enough to care for my hair when i turned 13. however throughout my entire 4 years in secondary school, i kept my hair cropped really really short. i guess at that point of time, i wanted to portray the 'cool vibe'. i had frequent self-haircuts, haircuts by my friends and sister and there was even once, the school aunty helped correct my hair in the toilet in school! those were the days. i have to admit though, the short-do helped me out on the track. i wanted to scan those secondary school pictures but the thought of having to score for them somewhere in my cupboard made me really lazy.
and then, i, uh, grew up.
while i was in jc, my hair had grown nicely past the short stage and i had splashes of these pretty auburn in my hair thanks to makngah, who started the entire let-me-dye-your-hair during the month stay at iran.
ruben, an australian, was born an atheist. he came to a point of life where he was faced with many challenges and realised that he needed a strength, a belief, that would guide him through his darkest days. he began exploring different religions - christianity, catholicism, hinduism, buddhism, but none of them appealed to him.
one of his close friends, who was a christian, told ruben to list all the religions he had investigated. after rattling the list, his friend asked, "what about islam?" ruben looked at him appalled and said, "islam?! they are terrorists! i'm not going to investigate their religion! they are crazy! why would i even look at their religion!"
but ruben found himself walking into a mosque one day. he strode across the prayer rugs with his shoes on and walked straight in front of a guy praying, who was about to perform the sujud. he nearly stepped on that guy's head.
ruben looked over and he saw this huge guy walking towards him, with a long beard and his abaya. ruben thought he was going to die, however, abdul hamzah's first words to ruben were, "g'day mate! how you're doing?" his friendly and warm gesture took ruben by surprise. he was treated really warmly by the brothers in the mosque and they served him tea and biscuits.
so ruben found himself coming back to the mosque and exploring islam. each time he asked a question, the brothers will refer to the quran and tell him the answer. this made ruben frustrated as he perceived that these brothers had no opinions of their own. so he asked them what were their opinions on the matter. one of the brothers replied, "how can i have my own opinion when this is the word of God?" that really hit ruben.
one night, ruben decided to make his leap into the faith. at that point of time, he had explored islam for 6 months. he brought home the quran (tafsir) and decided to read it. however, he felt like he needed a sign - any sign from Allah, to show that islam is the path he should take. he hoped for a bolt of lightning, a flicker of the candles, or something- just a small sign, but absolutely nothing happened. he felt disappointed and told himself that he would give God a second chance to prove. again, nothing happened and he felt terribly disappointed.
he felt that islam was not the religion he was looking for.
ruben turned the quran to where he stopped reading, and the very next verse he read was,
"for those of you who ask for signs, have We not shown you enough already? look around you, look at the stars, look at the sun, look at water. these are the signs for the people of knowledge."
less than a week abandoning this space and i am already missing it. i just feel a certain emotional attachment to it just because i have poured out so much here throughout the years. i feel that i cant really express myself on tumblr and i see it as merely a space to reblog those pretty and inspirational pictures, as well as short random thoughts and notes. i can see that i am not leaving this place anytime soon.
anyway while i was eating polar's sugar roll cream cake, i got reminded of the abundant hay rolls lying on the gorgeous rolling hills of adelaide, australia. i wish that there was a holiday destination i could look forward to so that it could spur me to study for the upcoming exams. i hope i will get the green light to go for the kl trip with nurul. at least there is something to look forward to - the pigging sessions of 'non-halal' food and of course, shopping!
well, that can wait.
i feel that linguistics this semester is harder than last semester's. for this module last semester, it was more of having to grasp only one concept thoroughly and apply it to other situations. not much memory work is needed, as long as you know your fundamentals. this time, there is so much more memory work for countless of definitions and explanations.
it feels like im studying for biology, which i totally suck in. seeing that last module was easier and i managed to only scrap through a B, i should be nervous about this wednesday's paper.
hello beautiful people.
i have a tumblr now and it seems more flexible for everyday random thoughts and postings.
i feel that i do not have to write coherent and proper long sentences when i post something up there, as compared to this space.
“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect - you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break - her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there.”— Bob Marley
