In any working environment, there are two types of people you always find. People who whinge constantly about their work and people who don’t. Not surprisingly, the lesser you talk about work, the more work actually get done.

I have long learnt that we are what we think we are. Whinging, spreads negativity into this world and only reflects the weakness of one’s character. I actually pity a person who talks about how she had to wake up early because she has to send the kids to school… then she had to fight the traffic to rush to work. In the office, she still has so many work to do with presentations to give and datelines to catch. After work, she still had to rush back to pick up the kids from day care before hurriedly has to cook for dinner, fold the laundry and iron the clothes for tomorrow…

In my head, my typical response to these people will be, “Oh my God, stop it already. You are not even the Prime minister… yet you whinge like the country’s burdens are on your back!  Face it, every other person in your office is probably doing the same thing every single day, but you never hear them say anything about it!”

Not only that whinging about work is annoying, but in Islam, whinging is actually not good. Muslims are fostered to do everything that they do sincerely. Which means we need to do what we do, Lillahi Ta’ala (for the sake of Allah). Your life, your kids, your job and your position in the society are not only your personal responsibilities that is up for you to do as you please. Allah obligated us to do our responsibilities to perfection. I am not doing my research for my boss nor for me, I am doing it for the sake Allah. When I whinge about the workload, when I whinge about the hours spent on sitting in PCF and lifting heavy burdens, when I whinge about anything, I am actually complaining and being ungrateful to Allah. Nauzubillah.

So I don’t see the point of telling other people about my work. Suffice to say that I have a lot in my plate right now and therefore, please have some respect and don’t add to my problems. I understand that some of the concerned people out there would say that sometimes “ventilating” helps to ease the burden a little bit. But more often than not, when we attempt to ventilate, we will succeed at whinging too. Again, nauzubillah. I always say that if I feel overwhelmed by work, I will ask for help. Which literally means that I will pray to Allah to send me someone to help me and Alhamdulillah Allah never fails me.

So seriously, whinging… not good. no matter from which angle you are looking at.

the truth is, all working females at some points of their lives have problem managing work & family life. But

you don’t hear all of them complaining do you?

Da,

Ana 

 

My sister, My friend

Today I miss my sister. Separated by the great Indian ocean, living in different continents, connected only by sms messages, and extremely slow broadband connection, our relationship maintains strong as ever. I call her my soul sister, but we are only sisters by marriage.

We have different parents and different upbringing. When I was small, I live in a big family where parents chase their small children up and down the stairs simply to put diapers on them. Mom used to cook and do the laundry while feeding my little brother all at the same time, and I customarily found myself doing my homework using the washing machine as my table while waiting for the laundry to finish. My sister on the other hand lived as an only child, independent and self sufficient.

Come weekend, Dad will pick me & my two brothers up to his house. The whole journey to his house always feel extremely long because I just could not contain the excitement to see & play with my sister. Younger than me yet we are as good as twins. Her immediate addition to my family was a God sent. I have always wanted a sister. And through her I found my prayers answered. She is a friend, a sister, and all in all, my other half.

I love her creativity on deciding what princess are we going to pretend play today? which butterflies to catch and then let go? What colour of my step mom’s lipstick are we going to put on today? She thought me childhood fashion, what was the ‘it’ songs that I should know, how to make a fashionable bun out of my long hair? how to use microsoft word? excel etc etc etc…

Because I was the quite outsider who would sit in one corner and not play with all the other children, she thought me to be friendly, to learn to make friends. I borrowed her outgoing personality, her confidence, her charm and her independence and make them mine. I could never be the person that I am today if I hadn’t met her.

I used to think that not seeing her during the weekdays was unbearable, now, I only get to see her once a year, if I was lucky… and only get to hear her voice probably few times a year. Well, all the more reason to finish my study as soon as possible...

Now that we both have grown to be women, she never forget to tell me how I have always been her steel, her source of strength. She always thank me for the encouragement and support that she needs to survive the world. I want to cry hearing these.. Darling, it is you who are my steel, my strength, my source of encouragement and my strong supporter… I would never have been here without you beside me. Sister, I miss you now more than ever.

Remember this song? you dedicated it to me 10 years ago. It’s my turn to dedicate it back to you. Love ya, Ana.

Tsunami, God (read: Allah) and Al-Fatihah

I was analysing my data when I first heard the news about the earthquake in Japan and the subsequent tsunami that followed. The news it self sent chills down my spine. Especially the fact that the entire east coast of Japan was affected. Such extensive areas, surely a lot of people are involved. I immediately said my du’a. “Ya Allah, help them survive this…I know everything that happens, happened for a reason, but please let them survive this…”

Soon, many videos recording the event were posted on the net and from those videos I saw how devastating the actual tragedy was. When nature destruct, immediately people would relate to God. Some say it’s the proof of His existence, his wrath and in the aftermath, His love. Others would say, it’s nature… it has nothing to do with God and God believers are merely trying to instigate His existence by relating “nature” to his “power”… I was even shocked by several people who asked others to stop praying to the “non-existent” God and start donating money instead. “Praying will not do any good to the helpless people of Japan,” they said.

To me, think whatever you want, the most important thing is, those who pray and those who would rather not, would join hands in helping Japan earthquake and tsunami survivors in any way possible… be it in the form of warm blankets, used jackets, canned food, good monies or sincere prayers, everything is counted for. When a friend cries, if you can not offer a tissue, a good shoulder to cry on is good enough. And at times of sorrow, a simple call or a text message from a friend who live faraway would be very much appreciated. The same thing applied here only at a magnitude several times higher.

Of course, not everyone would offer help. Even the tsunami tragedy in Acheh with more than 100,000 fatalities, people who were resistant to help, remained resistant no matter how devastating the condition were. Weddings, parties and concerts were still on despite the hundreds of people who died during Victoria’s Black Saturday tragedy. Because life couldn’t just “pause” for a moment when earthquake hits the other side of the world, or when hurricane and volcanoes erupted in a continent different from ours. But our thoughts(read: and prayers) are always with them.

Most events would acknowledge the tragedy and the lives that were taken by it, by spending a minute of silence as a sign of respect. I don’t know how this one minute of silence would help those who have passed on, but at least in Islam, one minute worth of Al-Fatihah will insyaAllah help the souls in the after life… 

So indeed, there are so many ways to help Japan tsunami victims. And money is only one of them.

Till, then.

Love, Ana.

International women’s day entry

There are women, and there are Muslim women. Physically, these women are similar. We go to school, graduated and then go to work. We get married, have children and take care of our young. We go to tupperware parties, have girls day out and host baby showers for our friends. We love neatly folded laundry, clean crisp white school shirts, and the lemony smell of a newly cleaned floor. And I for one love the look of a freshly made up bed and of course the irresistible sparkle of a diamond ring. =). as long as the creature is called a woman, she is bound to love all these.

So, today is the 100th International Women’s Day. All women from every walks of life celebrate it or at least acknowledge the celebration. The celebration that women finally earned respects from men and that we were put back to our rightful place; beside the men not below them, as equals not as servants. It’s a breakthrough from traditions that we women were allowed to go to school, to learn and have a career. But do we know what women’s day really is? It’s a day to commemorate total freedom for women. Not just to be recognized as equals, but to have a say in choosing the government, to have a say on when to get married rather than to be forced into one and to be given a chance to run a government and become a prime minister. All these rights that were once considered as  “none of our businesses”, were given to us due to the work of feminists 100 years ago…

But before long, the feminist movements started to realize that women, by nature will always have one weakness. We are tied to our family. Once we have offspring, we all decided (or are expected) to give up everything and devote ourselves to raise our family. So in science, women find their freedom, their total freedom in the form of  the contraceptive pill. The pill allows women to gain ‘equality’ with men. Finally women can be with as many men as they want without consequences, without the risk of getting pregnant. Finally, women and men are “real” equals. not only that we are capable to think, act and perform like men, we too can be as reckless as them… Really people, are we well and truly that shallow? They said women have nine desires and only one intelligence… but if this is what reflects our intelligence then, I feel sorry to all of you “women”.

I hate that when I say “happy International women’s day,” I am partially supporting the “free sex for women” part of the deal… So I say, we Muslim women should give different definition to International women’s day.

1400 ++ years ago, when Islam returned to the world, Women had been liberated from every kind of oppression put down on us by men. We used to be treated as their belonging, an asset that they can “will” down to their children when they’re dead. A son can inherit his mom from his father and create an offspring with her.. how disgusting. There was a time when we were made to wear revealing clothes to entice men, forced to dance with our hips moving to music, how disgusting. There was also a time when a family would advertise to the village that their daughter has come of age and that anyone who desires her can come and “play” with her. So naturally, all men in the village will visit the girl’s chamber and sleep with her. when she gets knocked up and delivers her child, who ever the child resemble the most, will be the father, how cheap… In the old days, women were treated this way because they were weak. They could not physically work as hard as men, nor could they defend themselves. So they gave themselves to be their “slaves” rather than to be forced to live on the street. and men in turn treated them like their properties. Women were of no difference from their farm animals in the ranch and we were  also of no difference from the furniture they have in their living room.

So, 1400 years ago, all these were abolished and women were once again being put side by side with men. Rasulullah’s wife, Sayyidatina Khadijah was a successful business women. We also have Sayyidatina Aisyah who was well learnt and highly educated, we have women who helped with the development of Mecca, we have women who joined the Muslim army as attending nurses, women went out to attend lectures just like any other men, we have Muslim women scholars and philosophers and many more. Allah had already defined freedom for women. Even the hijab is in fact very liberating. If Muslim women truly observe the proper Islamic dress code, they will feel very liberated from the constant need to check their appearances in the mirrors. When all women dressed humbly, the most outstanding amongst them all are the ones with the best brain, not the ones with the longest legs or the deepest cleavage.

So today, I feel the need for Muslim women to stand together and give a new definition for this International women’s day. And the new definition is all about being a women as intended by Allah, the Almighty. May Allah bless us women with the best blessings and grant us happiness and freedom for us to be the best that we could be in this life and in the hereafter, InsyaAllah. Ameen.

Love, Ana

 

The Thunder: 31 & 16

- Intan Zulkafli is using BlogPress from her iPad

Location:Nedlands,Australia

Get organized with your literature

Getting organize with your literature is the latest thing that I am working on for my PhD support group meeting this Monday, despite the many PhD related work that I have to finish every week. Well, it's not a must that I finish everything by the end of the week but I just hate postponing.


Blogpress for ipad had been Very disappointing lately. I had been unable to post pictures! So I am making this pretend entry and let's see if i could post this picture or not..

Your lovey loverson,
Ana

- Intan Zulkafli is using BlogPress from her iPad

Enthusiasm vs obsession

Dear readers,
Have you ever seen a pc enthusiast having a cat fight with a mac enthusiast? Just go to youtube and you'll see alot of people posting videos mocking each other trying to proof that the product that they support is better.

The truth is, no matter what they do, it never affected the microsoft & apple CEOs' income. The supporters only look stupid, while at the same time providing free advertisement for the company who by the way, never even pay them any royalty. Tee hee hee. Oh, well... When you have nothing to devote to, I suppose devoting yourself to man made machines makes you feel good and help make you feel like your life has a purpose.

I have seen other forms of similar obsessions too. Obsession on work, obsession on football clubs, obsession on betting for football matches,
Obsession for science..hahaha. A dose of enthusiasm onto whatever that you believe in is always healthy. But to obsess about them is simply crazy.

Some of my avid readers are obsessors too, no doubt. Because I have been receiving emails challenging me to proof this and proof that about Islam that I feel really pointless when all the stuffs that they sked me about are already clearly written either in the AlQuran or in the hadiths. Go ahead and do some readings because obviously you have nothing better to do but to snoop around other people's blog.haha.

Till then. Remember, enthusiasm is healthy, obsession is sick.

Intan Zulkafli is using BlogPress from her iPad