Cabaran belajar di Perth (episod 2): First time renters kene baca nih..

Lip lap.. lip lap... bunyik mata kita pejam celik pejam celik....
Tau2 rupanya dah September 2012. cepatnya masa berlalu. masih teringat lagi first day melangkah keluar dari  departure hall KLIA, dengan perasaan yang excited campur risau campur gementar... semua ada, bercampur baur macam rojak, kita cekalkan jugak hati untuk tinggalkan family tersayang untuk sambung study dekat Perth ni. sepanjang perjalanan walaupun dihidangkan dengan in flight entertainment bertali arus, rasa duk dak duk dak dalam hati tu tetap tak mau hilang.

Pastu bila kapten announce "we have arrived in Perth, ground temperature is 7 degree Celsius...bla bla bla..." masa tu barulah minda ni start nak terima kenyataan, wah.. I'm in Perth. I'm in Perth.. there's nobody here except my hubby & me. wah! boleh buat sesuka hati mulai sekarang!! wah!! seronotnyers!!!!! (oh yea, lupa nak cakap... kadang2 saya memang tak berapa betul. especially bila terover eksaited..  =D ngeee).. kisah seterusnya on how we all survive first few days dekat Perth ni telah dimaktubkan dalam entry yang lepas (here, nyah)...

Haha.."Perth.." dulu dengar nama jer..kedudukannya dalam peta pun kita tak pernah amek tahu.  dah dapat surat approval untuk sambung belajar ke sini baru sibuk2 nak google map kat mana tempat yang dinamakan Perth ni. walawey.. skrg sudah dekat nak 5 tahun kita duk kat sini rupanya. cam tak percaya jer.


(Gambar diatas nie sama sekali BUKAN rumah kita kat Claremont tu ok.. ni rumah kita kat malaysia..hikhikhik..rumah contoh jer..rumah sebenar dalam pembinaan)

dalam entry kita yang sebelum nie (yang dua tahun lepas tuh....kikiki) kita ada cakap pasal camner nak cari rumah sewa kan. sebenarnya dalam 4 tahun setengah we all duk sini, 4 buah rumah jugaklah yang kitorang duduk. boleh kata setiap tahun pindah rumah tau. bukan suka2, bukan main2 tapi cobaan... betul2 punya cobaan..

rumah pertama kitorang kat Claremont, Western Australia.
jaraknya 6 km dari my school (university of western australia: UWA) tu..kalau jalan kaki 30 minit..kalau naik kereta 5-15 minit bergantung pada traffic light nak hijau selalu ke, atau nak merah selalu... kalau tanak naik kaki atau naik kereta, boleh naik bas juga maa... beberapa sen je kalau uols ada student pass. tp kita tak pernah naik bas sbb my hubby (Mr Hubbs) sentiasa hantar dan amek kita pergi balik sekolah. minyak kereta AUD 40 kot sebulan. duduk within 10 km radius from UWA nie, jangan mimpi indahlah nak dapatkan parking permit yer.. dorang akan suruh kita usaha sendiri pergi sekolah. no free parking. duduk jauh baru dapat parking permit nie.

rumah nie 3 bilik, 1 bathroom, 2 wc, 2 parkings... we all menyewa dengan the other couple yang datang sekali with us tu. Zaman tu (2008), rumah 3 bilik nie sewanya hanyalah 450 jer seMINGGU..bukan sebulan okeh, tapi seminggu. so kitorang split the rent kpd AUD 225 each. sebulan bayar AUD 900 jer. Inilah sewa paling murah selama 4 tahun lebih duduk kat perth nie..

cabaran besar for first time renters ni ialah nak memenangi kepercayaan realty (realestate) agent yang kita nie responsible, dependable and trustworthy utk dapat rumah yang kita nak tu. I mean, rumah memang banyak yang for rent dekat perth ni, but our priorities adalah dekat dengan UWA... so area yang terlibat ialah sekitar nedlands & crawley... maybe extend sampai claremont & cottesloe... tak banyak rumah sewa yang murah kat area2 yang hotz macam ni..

kalau ada rezeki mewah, time kita cari rumah tu ada laa beberapa houses open up, yang harganya berkadar terus dengan budget kita.. TETAPI kita kene ingat yang bukan kita jer student yang baru sampai dan sedang mencari rumah.. raaaaaaamai lagi student yang sama2 tgh cari rumah cam kita.

believe me, normal situation time home viewing, biasanya rumah sebijik je yang available, tapi orang yang datang menyerbu nak view rumah tu kadang2 sampai 24 orang! kalau semua tu couples at least ada 12 couples yang kita nak kene fight utk dapatkan rumah tu.. tapi macam mana plak kalau semua tu singles? kita nak fight for that pretty and cheap and close by house dengan 24 orang yang lain.. akan terpilih kah kita? so disini saya nak bagitau pada first time renters dekat wilayah Perth nie... apekah tips & tricks utk dapat rumah yang uols idam2 kan tuh..

Tips pertama, contact agent nicely & professionally masa tgk website www.reiwa.com.au atau www.realestate.com.au tu. bagi tahu situasi uols dengan terang dan jelas. inquire on availability of the house, your interest to view the house and when is the viewing. (gunakan perkataan kindly, and please banyak2 kali dalam email tu)

keduanya.. tengok rumah tu under realestate aper? then pergi ke website realestate tersebut dan download dari website tuh house application form. dah download tu aperlagi, isilah borang2 tersebut beserta lampiran2 yang dikhendaki. obviously kita kene sediakan some form of ID.. yang nie guna photostate passportlah, kalau dapat scan and print kaler lagi bagus.. kalau rasa2 macam takder printer kaler, elok buat siap2 dari malaysia tanahair tercinta kita tu.. fotostate byk2 passport tuh kat ofis... kan ke free je...

yang ketiga, setiap application perlu disertakan dengan "option fee". usually option fee nie sama harga dengan seminggu sewa rumah tersebut.kalau uols benar2 yakin that's the house that you want berdasarkan gambar2 yang telah diuplodkan kat website reiwa atau realestate tadi, bolehlah seidakan yang option fee tu. tp jangan bank in dulu kat agent.. view rumah dulu!

keempat, time view rumah tu nak buat aper ek?
OK yang nie kita kene guna prinsip first impression lasts a lifetime.. kalau kita nak bagi impression kat agent yang kita nie reliable, patutkah kita pergi home viewing pakai kain batik ngan t-shirt pastu pakai selipar jepun? tak patut kan.. so yang gentlemen tu  pakailah kemeja & seluar slack cam nak gi BTN tu.. tak pun pakai kemeja-T berkolar dan seluar yang kemas. koyak2 lutut tak comeylah...yang ladies pulak, pakai baju yang korang selalu pakai utk gi kerja / majlis formal. baju kurung boleh, jubah seluar pun boleh, asalkan nampak imej professional jadilah.. kalau rambut plak, jangan kasi itu rambut mengerbang2.. biar tersikat rapi.. cleavage juga jangan kasi ternampak... ok! dibuatnya agent tu jelles sbb Uols terlampau hotz.. tak dapat plak rumah tu nanti... huhuhu

tu baru pakaian.. dah sampai kat rumah yang uols nak view tu, say hi to the agent. camner nak tahu saper agent? biasanya agent yang pakai blazer tu. tak kira laki ke perempuan, dorg mmg selalu pakai formal time home viewing. borak2 ngan agent kalau boleh. flaunt your english yang berhabuk tuh.. IELTS kan dapat cemerlang hari tu... disinilah masanya nak praktis! kihkihkih. =^.^= kalau ada anak2 bawak budak2 tu sekali. pastikan masing2 pakai their best outfit, pastikan baby2 semua kenyang dan dah tukar lampin so takder nak nangis2 and on their best cutest behaviour.. then hopefully budak2 tu buat mata "puss in boots" supaya agent tu cair dan dengan hati terbuka akan bagi uols rumah tu..hikhikhik =P

time nie uols boleh pergi kat agent tu cakap "Excuse me, Miss/Sir, I have completed the application form for this house, should I hand it to you or should I go to the office?" masa tu agent akan faham lah yang U mmg serious nak rumah tu..
Now, kalau uols tamau hand in application tu terus, tapi nak view sahaja sbb ada byk lagi rumah lain yang berkenan di hati, kita suggest Uols jgn tggu lama2 sangat utk berfikir.. paling lama pun biar overnight je.. sbb gerenti melepas. especially klu ramai org time viewing tu..

OK tricks kalau rumah yang uols nak tu dah perfect sangat.. besar dan luas, murah, dekat plak tu dengan skool, jalan kaki 5 minit je dah sampai...tapi 40 orang datang view sekali dengan uols.. muka semua professional, masing2 pun nampak cam postgrad student yang dah penah ada karier yang berjaya sblm nie... basically mmg intimidatinglah uols punya saingan tuk rumah tersebut... one thing you could do masa nak apply rumah tu ialah.. increase the rent. kalau agent tawar AUD 450 seminggu.. you letak kat situ 460/week ke..ikut kemampuanlah, ok.. kita selalu naikkan 5 dollar je seminggu... dan everytime kita wat camtu dapat rumah yang diidamkan tu.. so if uols nak ikut trick ni ikutlah tp at your own risk ok.. hehehehe..

Baiklah, sampai disini sahaja buat masa nie..
kalau terasa macam nak tahu lebih lanjut pasal apa2 jer tentang cabaran belajar kat Perth ni, silakan email sahaja tuan punya blog nie ok. tee hee hee. till then.

Wassalam,
Ana

Getting it out of the chest

You know that you can do absolutely nothing,

You can say nothing wrong,

You can try to be nice by smiling or greet people good morning,

You can dress appropriately without letting your hair loose or your tits hanging by the cleavage of your blouse,

You can try to remain at the sideline all the time so as to not interfere with other people's way,

You can go to a great length to plan your experiments so that others still get the chance to also use the equipment that you would otherwise hoard,

You could pick up all gloves that people threw and missed the garbage bin, 

You could pick up all empty pipette tip boxes, threw away the insides and arrange the empty boxes ready for refill, 

You could clean the benches, 

Change bench coat, 

Clean fume hoods 

and dirty beakers 

and bloody, smelly pestle and mortars that others used but forgot to clean, 

You could refill the paper towels, 

Change empty glove boxes, 

Rehang coats that have fallen to the floor, 

Walk to MCS to buy dry ice so that you and others could also use them, 

you could nicely ask for help or for information, and remain calm when others rudely dismiss you, ignore you or ask you to find it yourselves..

You could do all these and more..

BUT some people would still.. just hate you or no reason,

hate the fact that you smile weird, 

hate that you dress weird and baggy and ugly,

hate that you are selfish for hoarding the machine at night (when no one wants to use it).

hate that you are so into yourselves that they never see you in school social gatherings.

Hate the fact that you are a muslim,

Hate you for the fact that you already have a medical degree, what are you showing off doing PhD here? Go BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY!!

Hate that you think you are so good, so awesome that others would have to abide by what you want or what you like,

Hate that you never ask around, do you think you are so good already?

And then, one day you would make a human mistake...

By doing your experiment at an inappropriately empty bench at one empty corner of the lab,

or switch off the light for 15 minutes for a light sensitive assay,

or bring the shaker to the cool room,

or suffered poor internet connection that you were unable to cancel an equipment booking,

or had an bleeding emergency that made you unable to attend a meeting or a booking,

That is all that it takes for everything to blow off proportion. 

for an angry mob to come complaining to the authorities for your general unprofessionalism, 

unhelpfull-ness, ego-centric working attitude.

THIS IS A TRUE STORY.... 

And you would only whisper to yourself,

6 more months..

only 6 more months to go..

and when the 6 month is up, I will gladly mention each and every one of these people in my thesis, or in an all-school email. 

to thank them for an unforgettable experience I had over here. 

and may be mention a little bit more than that too...

And Ramadhan leaves us eventually...

Alhamdulillah we have all performed our duties as Allah's servant during the last Ramadhan and finally the fully anticipated Eid is here. I disagree with the saying that the older you get, the less merry it feels to celebrate Eid. However, it is kinda obvious that the childhood merriment of Eid is somewhat muted now that we are older... not because we put less effort into it, but because as we age, we learn to feel the sorrow and to feel the emptiness when Ramadhan leaves us. Well at least that was exactly how i felt. 

It is bizarre that Muslims talk about Ramadhan with such passion and devotion. It is bizarre that despite not being able to eat and drink during the day, despite having to go to mosques every night for tarawikh, feeling tired and thirsty and just plain weak sometimes... we still adore the month of Ramadhann to bits. There is no explanation for this other than "the eyes can not see what the mind does not know." 

It is enough to say that if happiness can be touched and if peacefulness and calmness can be physically felt, then the blessings that the month of Ramadhan brings to all devoted muslims are quite close to palpable. Bring on the thirst and hunger because it only makes us understands the thirst and hunger of the less fortunate better. it's one thing to perform money transfer to a charity to stop famine in Africa from the comfort of your own office, but it is an entirely different experience to actually suffer the thirst and hunger for 12-14 hours yourselves... But owh, I did not suffer, no I did not. It was far from a suffering. It was more of an offering to show that for Allah, the greatest and the almighty, I'll do anything. It's a prove of devotion more than anything else. 

So it is sad that Ramadhan is no longer here. I hope to meet next year's Ramadhan and preferably as a better person all in all, insyaAllah.

Girls day out

Sometimes a little distraction is good.

It's crazy how I have been living in Perth since 2008, but I have only been to Perth city a couple of times. Last Friday we went to Perth city. Just us, the girls.

I almost forget how fun going out with girlfriends is. 

In the picture above I was with Suhaili near Trinity court. We were about to enter Dome for a cuppa.

We just like the scenery. Soon after, sheeda's husband picked us up. We spent 2.5 hours for the girls only lunch. It's been years since I last eat Japanese food and thankfully we found Shimizu, an ICWA certified halaal restaurant in the city. We had a great time. I am really looking forward to doing this again in the future, InsyaAllah.

Love, Ana.

Making a u turn

Last Sunday there was an Islamic course on Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim. It was held in Curtin University by hikmahway.com. I have to admit that all these continuous lab work and lack of sleep are wearing me down physically and spiritually. A refresher on anything Islamic is usually an instant pick me up for me. So I paid the 20 dollars fee and enrolled in the course. I brought along 2 PhD support group sisters with me, and our husbands. 

We sat at the middle of the medium sized auditorium, only to realized that when the auditorium is half full, we ended up to be at the back of the class. A very unlikely seating position for me. History told me that if I ever attended anything, I was usually at the front of the class. Could it be because it is an Islamic thing that subconciously made me want to seat at the back of the class? Granted, there are a lot of boys seating at the front.  An not possibly seat close to ajnabi boys so I guess my choice of seat was allright. The three of us sat together...rasheeda, suhaili and me.

Sheikh Aslam Abuismaeel was inspiring when he told the life stories of Imam Bukhari and Muslim. It moved me when the reminded us that whenever we tried to reach for Allah by crawling, Allah will be racing towards us in return. But if we forsake Allah for most of the time, would we not expect that Allah would do the same to us in return? I wouldn't want to be forsaken by anyone, especially not by the creator of this universe.

That reminded me of how much I have been occupying myself with too much study lately that I personally think that both the frequency and quality of my ibadah had been slowly but surely scaling down the chart. I used to spend the entire time between subuh and duha with either Quran reciting or studying the tafseer or the hadith. Then I would go about my daily life as a student before devoting the entire time between Maghrib and Isyak for more or less the same thing. I used to think that no matter what life may take me, I will first and foremost honor my identity as a Muslim. Not only by wearing the hijab, not only by doing the basic praying 5 times a day and fasting for a month during Ramadhan.... But also to consiously allocate certain amount of my times for the study of Islam. You know, like psychologist seeing fellow psychologist once a month as a maintenance theraphy.. Reading the Quran twice daily or studying the hadith once a day is like that for me. 

I used to be much calmer then. There were little if any distractions. It was so much easier to focus to my other non-islamic reading. Despite many difficult circumstances I faced as a student ( now they all seem petty little problems to me) I was happy and contented. I want to experience that feeling again..and I know now why I had been missing it lately..(well for the last few year in fact)...despite the hecticness of a graduate student's life, my life had been empty because instead of crawling towards Allah. I was actually running the other way around. Nauzubillah.

I want to make a u-turn towards Allah. We all know that ultimately that's the safest most surest direction to salvation, to contentment and to eternal happiness. 

Love, 

Ana

The humbling pale blue dot

Carl Sagan, the astronomer; took a picture of the planet earth from Voyager 1 in 1990, 6 BILLION kilometers from earth. Due to the effect of polarisation, the planet Earth appeared as a pale blue dot, a mere 0.12 pixel in size against the vastness of space.

He later reflected in his book "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space."

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

—Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, p. 6

As I looked down the cabin window, I remembered Sagan's writing. How humbling it was to see the world from a far. From where I was sitting, I saw lands that people would kill for, siblings not talking to each other for, politicians and businessmen alike would contemplate on... no bigger in size than a common 5 cents coin. The mighty huge jungle, home for thousands of various species, much too small until they looked nothing more than tiny mosses on the sides of an undisturbed rock by the river. Proud sky scrapers and modern industrial buildings were nothing more than tiny cubes that give out reflections under the striking afternoon sun. And those majestic rivers, rivers that literally formed civilisations, rivers that are so great and important to the extend that they formed natural borders between two states, between two countries and between two religious groups even, looked nothing more than a long winding thread of pale blue against the brown-green canvas of the land we called Earth.  

And of all these tiny little things that shaped up the surface of the Earth, somewhere not too far from where I was looking down at, much too small and much too tiny to compare to the rivers and the jungles and the lands that were visible to my naked eyes at that time, lies all the things I called my own... things that made up "my world."

My world is a place where there is a tiny speck of white I called my home. In that tiny white speck, I would find all the people that I love. People that matter to me, people that defined who I am. Not far from that tiny white speck is my office, the place I have strived so hard for to be a good employee, more often than not, this had been my second home, if not my first... and suddenly, I cried. my life had been spent loving all these tiny things. They were too small to even be seen from where I was at. I couldn't even begin to imagine how small and insignificant "my world" would be for someone looking down on Earth from the seventh heaven. 

The experience humbled me. All these while I thought I had been working very hard, maximising on quality and high quantity work time, never mind sacrificing on my ibadahs, my daily duas, my daily zikr..it was all OK (or so I thought)  because I was making a mark on this world..or at least trying to make a mark. But sadly, I forgot on my own insignificance. Against this world, I am nothing...against the vast space, even the Earth is nothing. And truthfully, against the eternity of the hereafter, this life is much too short to be spent worrying on tiny earth's matter. 

Masha Allah, thank you for the great reminder.

So I quickly said my istighfar..Astaghfirullahil'azim...

From now on, Ya Rabb, help me remember my actual responsibility. To be YOUR good servant despite hopefully being good in everything else too, InsyaAllah. Remind me Ya Allah, on my place on this world, whatever I do, no matter how great and important I thought they might be, they are insignificant if they are not done for YOU ya Rabb. Help me and remind me constantly because my hope is nothing more than to be accepted by YOU. To have YOUR redha.

Ameen, InsyaAllah.

Ana

 

lowest point

March 2012. 

Everything has been progressing well as far as my research is concerned. But I am having the hardest time coping with one thing. The fact that everyone else in my family are going for umrah this month. Don't get me wrong. I am the happiest person in the world when I know that my mom, step dad, brother, sister, uncle, aunty, their 5 children, my dad, stepmom, nana and anifah are going. That means they are being invited to Baitullah. But I am especially sad because Allah has not given me any invitation what so ever yet. And I am 30 this year. 30 years of no invitation. How does that sounds to you? 

There is no doubt that i have been busy. 

If I was not studying medicine, I was working as a doctor. If I was not working, I was studying for my master and now PhD. But all these business are worldly. Nothing fantastically Islamic about them. If i was busy studying Al- Quran sunnah, or treating sick children in somalia or Palestine, I wouldn't feel as guilty. If I have been not sleeping because I was trying to memorize the Quran, or I was burning the midnight oil performing solahs, I wouldn't feel this guilty and depress. The fact that all that I am doing now is W O R L D L Y, for my personal gain...made me feel sick with myself. May be this is why Allah invites everyone else but me. Because I have been disgustingly greedy, sacrificing all I have, my health even... To gain worldly success. And despite all that, I am still far from being successful either. 

So How could these do not make me want to cry? 

Constantly I ask myself, what am I doing here when I really want to be somewhere else, doing something meaningful for Islam, for Allah instead?

All that I could do is try. To try to make "this".... Whatever this thing is that I am doing, to be beneficial for Islam. Otherwise, I don't think my life would have any meaning. How am I going to answer in front of Allah, in front of everyone that have ever lived on the day of judgement... to tell HIM, Allah the almighty, that I have done nothing for Islam? That all the years that were given to me to live had been wasted? How? 

Please tell me how because think I am going to crumble...now.

T_T