Mengisi masa bagi cuti yang panjang

Aku dah seminggu bercuti. Tengah 'study leave' . Kena  're-sit paper' untuk program Certified Islamic Finance Professional (CIFP) di INCEIF. Last sem aku kantoi disebabkan lecturer tak terima assignment yang aku dah hantar. Silap aku jugak tak periksa dengan dia.

Hari ini bawa isteri ke Kompleks PKNS sebab dia nak cari buku untuk buat modul latihan untuk kem cuti sekolah nanti. Sampai di Kompleks PKNS, kami bersarapan sekejap di warung nasi lemak yang terletak dekat dengan Restoran FC. Warung ini best, sebab harga makanannya yang murah. Di zaman harga barang meningkat dari hari ke hari ini, tempat yang menawarkan harga murah untuk produk & perkhidmatan amatlah  dihargai.

 

Kami sampai pukul 10.00 pagi, suasana sekitar dah ramai orang. Parking dah penuh hinggakan ramai yang meletakkan kereta di bahu jalan. Mulanya risau tak dapat tempat untuk 'park' kereta, pergi ke bahagian basement, Alhamdulliah... banyak kosong. Rupanya ramai tak tahu yang hari minggu, kereta awam boleh letak kereta di bawah. 

Menu sarapan, nasi lemak paru, nasi lemak telur, air Horlick, air suam & tahu sumbat, semuanya RM8.10 tapi Taukeh bagi diskaun 10 sen. Pergi ke kedai Saba' Islamic di tingkat satu tapi malangnya kedai tak bukak lagi walau pun di pintu tercatat waktu operasi -Isnin ke Sabtu   pukul 10.00 hingga 8.30 malam. Isteri talifon pemilik kedai, dia kata bukak hari ini tapi mungkin budak dia keluar minum atau ke tandas. Kalau dah pukul 11.00 pagi takkan pergi keluar minum. 

Malas nak tunggu kami ke MPH di SACC mall. Suasana di luar bangunan amat panas, masuk ke dalam SACC Mall, hmmm nyaman... mula la terdetik dihati, "kalau kat rumah aku air-cond sebegini kuatkan bagus" ... tapi bila fikir bil elektrik melonjak akhir bulan nanti, tanam balik impian itu. 

Banyak buku-buku agama yang menarik di MPH. Rasa macam nak beli, tapi budget tak ada. Lagipun dirumah banyak lagi buku aku tak baca. Asyik menghadap facebook, mana nak bukak... Kena work out sikit dengan time management aku.

Dalam banyak-banyak buku itu, aku tertarik dengan satu buku - Syurga Yang Suram, Neraka Yang Indah... tajuk yang berunsur sindiran...

Belik isi kandungannya, satu ayat memetik hatiku yang aku kongsikan bersama isteri. 

"Di syurga nanti, ahli syurga akan diberi istana, di dalam istana tersebut terdapat 70 ribu rumah, di dalam rumah terdapat 70 ribu bilik, setiap bilik ada 70 kamar, setiap kamar ada 70 pelamin, Setiap pelamin ada 1000 tilam, setiap tilam akan ada seorang Bidadari .... 

Isteriku mula bersuara... "Hah, dah tau dah nak kata apa,  tapi takpe, bila di syurga kita jadi ketua semua bidadari... " 

Hahaha... baru nak susun ayat dia dah pangkah niat aku nak cakap apa.  Aku teringat akan suatu ceramah yang  aku hadiri, ustaz kata " kalau lelaki di Syurga akan dihadiahkan bidadari yang rupawan, wanita Syurga pula dihadiahkan dengan 70,000 persalinan dan 70,000 macam cadar katil. Itulah fitra manusia, kelihatan sama, tapi punyai impian dan hasrat berbeza. Maka kalau para suami diluar sana ada yang pasang impian untuk berbini dua atau lebih... Kalau agak-agak boleh bagi 70,000 persalinan itu, silakan. Kalau tak satu cukup lah... Yang paling penting, fokus kita untuk berusaha untuk mendapat ganjaran syurga kerana di dunia ini cuma nikmat yang sementara. 

Di dalam buku tersebut ada tercatat- Bau wangi bidadari boleh dibau pada jarak seribu tahun jauhnya. Namun begitu ada tujuh golongan akan tidak dapat menikmati bau tersebut iaitu:-

- Orang yang derhaka

- Orang yang memutus silaturahim

- Orang tua yang penzina

- Jaziyah (Orang yang tak merasa kenyang dengan nikmat dunia)

- Orang yang menabur fitnah

Lagi dua aku dah lupa... sebab sekarang dah pukul 3 pagi. Ok ni dah ngantuk dah ni. Otak dah jem maknanya aku kena tidur.. nanti subuh takut tak bangun.  Nanti kalau aku beli buku tersebut akan aku ulaskan isi kandungannya disini. Salam bahagia & mari kita berusaha menjadi ahli syurga. Amin... 

Kembali ke dunia Blogger ?

Sudah lama dah aku tak menulis dalam blog ni. Banyak sangat kekangan yang melanda dan kesibukkan dunia yang perlu ditempuhi. 

Saat negara sedang dilanda peperangan pilihanraya ke 13, saat diriku tengah kepeningan untuk menempuh peperiksaan pada 9 Mei ini, saat kesibukan tugas2 di pejabat, saat aku merisaukan pelajar2 tuisyenku dan saat diriku teramat merindui anak2 yang tiada disisi, tak ku sangka blogku ini menjadi suatu 'escapism' buat diriku.

Saat masa menjangkau ke pukul 3 pagi... otak & mataku masih lagi segar. Macam manalah agaknya aku nak menahan mata agar tidak terkatup dipejabat nanti... hmmm... Isteriku sedang nyenyak tidur dibuai mimpi. Esok beliau akan keluar ke pejabatnya seawal 7.30 pagi. Tidur yang cukup amat penting kerana beliau akan berhadapan dengan karenah anak2 kecil 'Brainey Bunch' atau aku lebih suka gelarkan sebagai golongan ahli2 syurga hatta kerana jiwa mereka yang suci bersih. 

Politik, suatu benda yang aku tak berapa suka tapi perlu juga tahu. Terlalu banyak fitnah bertebaran, terlalu banyak penipuan dicanangkan dan terdapat banyak penindasan menyelubungi tindak-tanduk perjalanannya. Aku, sebagai insan yang kerdil hanya dapat memanjatkan doa agar Allah memberi kemenangan kepada pihak yang benar. Semoga Islam akan dapat ditinggikan dibumi Malaysia ini. Sesungguhnya kezaliman itu lemah. Semoga Allah memperbaiki segala urusan diriku dan semua kenalan2ku dan juga memperbaiki pegangan agama kami dan juga amal ibadat kami ...Ameen. 

Dinner Treat

My wife's friend from Sabah was in town recently. She came with her husband and stayed at Melia Hotel KL. Their names are Hamidon and Fida.

The reason they were here was because the husband had to attend training while the wife wanted to do  some shopping for her business in Sabah.



Earlier that day, my wife accompanied her friend to shop in KL . They really shopped till they dropped. It was an absolute eye opener for her. Here's why :-

First, she gets to expand her knowledge about the roads in KL. Secondly, improve her driving skills, and brace the KL horrendous traffic and lastly and most importantly, she gets to explore all the shopping hot spots in KL.  This is heaven for her as she loves shopping!. Now, she's thinking of another project to support her training business during its off peak period.

That night, I had the opportunity to meet up with the couple at their hotel. They are really friendly and down to earth person. Very cheerful and loving couple.

From our conversation, I have learnt that they are not actually from Sabah. They are originally from Klang. They moved to Sabah in 2004 and fell in love with the place. They still maintain their house in Klang.  They did not rent it out though due to bad experiences and kept the house as in its original condition. They only brought some clothes and their car to Sabah. (And their kids of course!)

En Hamidon was sharing with me about the membership that they had with Melia hotel. The hotel apparently offers a very good programme for their membership. It includes a 2 night stay at the hotel, 2 free meals for 2 at the hotel restaurant, a myriad of discounts of up to 70% discounts. On top of that, a free usage of its gym and other facilities. And the best part is, all these only costs a mere RM588 per annum.


The couple treated us to a buffet dinner at 'The Kitchen ' restaurant that night.






















The restaurant was nicely decorated in black and white décor. Unfortunately, I was wearing the exact colour scheme that night, and my wife kept teasing me how well I camouflaged into the surrounding. She seriously couldn't find me at one point of time!

The food was fantastic. As a  Muslim, it is good to know that the hotel restaurant has a halal status. So you could enjoy your food with absolute peace of mind.

Of course, I helped myself to the more exquisite and expensives dishes, such as:


Sushi ...



Lamb racks





The dim sum

Quality time with Wifey

Writing this blog has becoming very hard for me. Apart from the busy schedule, i also faced a writer's block.

I know that to achieve something, one must have a determination to accomplish it. Maybe it is something that i need to work on that more. 

Today, i had a lot of activities happening in my life which i would like to share. I started the day by going to work early at 6.50 am. I'm bringing my wife along as she is having some appointments arranged in KLCC and Maju Junction area. 

She normally drive to her appointments but i'm not allowed her to do so as KL currently hot with rumours going around about the 'Bersih' demonstration plan to be held in Dataran Merdeka. I just don't want her to be caught in bad situation if anything happend. 

Personally, I think all this demonstration is unnecessary and troublesome. Why pick Dataran Merdeka. If you sincere with your cause, held other arrears that are less busy such as  Putrajaya or something.  Enough about politics. Its not my cup of tea anyway.

My wife and I had breakfast of Nasi Lemak in one of the best place in Kampung Baru which is Nasi Lemak Wanjor

    

When we arrived, the owner just finish packing for an orders of more than 100 nasi lemak by a client there. Lucky for us, if not, we end up waiting so long for our order.

Work in the office as normal as it can be which is busy. I'm assisting my colleague to complete on 2 research papers which is about the property market in Malaysia and second about Malaysian trade with China. Cannot share about the finding here as it still under progress. 

My wife called me at 10am saying that she just managed to close another deal at KLCC. Alhamdulilah. 

Her second appointment also showed a positive feedback despite having to wait for the person that she set the appointment with for more than half and hours. She got really pissed off with the guy for making her to wait. What is the use for setting up appointment if you cannot agreed with the time set. She conveyed her dissatisfaction to the staff and was ready to walk out the office when the staff referred her to another person who was she later find out was the head of training of the company. What a blessing.   

Anyway, that is part and parcel about business. 

In the afternoon, my friend and I went for our Friday prayer at Masjid Negara. We anticipate for some incident to occurs at Masjid Negara in the heat of 'Bersih' demonstration planned for tomorrow, however, we are grateful that nothing happened. Things was normal there but the authorities (DBKL enforcer & Police) had started to close the road at Dataran Merdeka. Traffic started to become congested right after that. Lucky we travelled by motorbike.

Just for your info. The shortcut road in Dayabumi building is now under renovation. So you will not be able to make the shortcut from the road in Central Market to the railway station. 

After my office hour ended at 4.45pm, I fetched my wife at Promet building at Jalan Sultan Ismail and took her for a dinner treat at Restoran Beriani Asif at Jalan Padang Walter Grenier which is near Jalan Imbi. 

I have heard from all my friend that this restaurant serve the best Nasi Beriyani Lamb in this area.  That was why i had to try it. I ordered a plain Nasi Beriyani while my wife ordered a plain roti Nan for dinner. We add a lamb shank for both of us to share. 

RM18

RM2

RM5

The taste was really marvellous!!. I highly recommended you guys to visit the place and find the taste for yourself. 

After dinner, we went to Pavillion for our movie treat. At first we wanted to see 'Battleship' as my friends all give 5 star rating for the movie. Unfortunately for us,  when we wanted to buy the tickets,  only front row seat are available. So we had to pick something else. 

Some people don't mind sitting in a front row seat in cinema,  but for a tall guy like myself... it really big deal. We would not be comfortable. 

Then there was 'The Avengers' showing to but it was selling like a hot cake and moreover, the show time was a bit late. At last we end-up buying movie tickets of  'Lockout' starring Guy Pearce (ex-husband of Madonna) as the main actor. 

At first, my wife and i were quite upset with our purchase. At that moment, we thought the right moved was to head home as our intention was not full filled but when the show started , we found out that there movie was quite fun to watch. We love the dialogue especially Guy Pearce dialogue. 

The movie is not suitable for children as it are full with violence but its still up to the parent discretion.  

Even though the movie is label as 18SG, we found out some parent still bring their children along.   

The End of School holidays

In the name of Allah, the merciful. 

 

The 1 week school holidays ends today.

Schools in Selangor will be opening tomorrow.

The traffic will switch back to its original congested mode.

Riding down the road on my motorbike to work during school holidays was really enjoyable as there are few cars on the road.

This was because many people are already on holidays with their family. Mostly, outside of KL area.

For the state of Kelantan, Kedah and Terengganu, schools are open today. I didn't get a chance to call my son, Imran, to ask about how he was doing.  There has been a lot of work at my office lately.  A higher bar of expectation has been raised on our performance for this year. 

Before the school holidays, my company had given out bonuses to all staff for last year’s performance.  Alhamdulillah.  The amount was not as much as compared to last year’s, but as for me, the amount is what Allah has set for me and i'm very grateful to Him for that. A lot of people are getting lesser than me. 

Of course, during this time, issues about unfairness of the bonuses quantum or proportionality crop up. It is hard to effectively measure the level of one’s performance with the reward system. 

Is it fair for a manager earning RM50,000 a month to receive the same quantum of three months’ bonus as his  junior staff who earns RM2,500 a month.  The answer is up to the individual to judge.  I myself do not have the answer. 

I think the real issue here is about an individual dealing with his own expectations. As for me, my expectation is simple. The  amount that i received has been pre-determined  for me by Allah. As a Muslim, I believe that everything happens with Allah’s permission as stated as one of our Pillars of Faith called Qada' & Qadar.

Every day, in our prayers, we pray for goodness and happiness in our life. Sometimes goodness and happiness come in small packages. 

There is a sign on how you could identify whether your life is bless by Allah. First is having a good wife, second, a good home and lastly a good transportation for you to go around. This three things, if its bring headache or sorrow to you, then maybe something is wrong and you need to recheck again your relationship with Allah. Of course, this sign are not meant for bachelor kind of person. 

 

Speaking about expectation, today i had a maths class for standard 2 & standard 3 students which age group are at 9 and 10 years old. 

I got this expectation that this group of students is a type of naive person, an obedient, shyness, and sometime talkative. But never in my mind, i imagine this kind of group to instil sort of sarcastic, outspoken, bullying and harassment elements. 

Actually, i'm not referring to all the student in the group. It is only involving one or two person. The way they communicated i similar to the host of gossip shows. 

Some of her statement :

" Oh teacher, she is truly stupid because she is always lazy to memorise her calculation."

" Oh teacher, in this class, there is one girl different among the others. All of us is wearing veil, only "she" not wearing one"

" Oh teacher, you also strange as you are a man while all of us are girls"

"Oh teacher, i am the smartest among all as they are all lazy to do their school works"

I know this is just words coming from kids. To come across something like this is a first for me and it is beyond my imagination. It stun on my reflexes  to responses toward  the incident. 

I know that as a teacher and as an adult, i should reprimand the student for saying unaccepted words  toward other student by explaining what she had said is wrong. 

But as a man, we are a kind of a species which could not multi-task ... hihihi...:) (It is a fact or a statement...hmm)

As my focus is more towards the subject which i'm currently teaching, i  kinda forgot to add the elements of 'attitude' goodness in my teaching. 

I will improve this in my next class. I had a discussion with my wife on how we can overcome this situation if accounted in the future. Hopefully it will turn well. 

     

p/s : The benchmark of my teaching = I do not teaches my students in anger as anger is one of the attitude of the Satan. And i remember about what the prophet Muhammad pbuh saying that it is not complete the faith of a person who do not love children.

    

Ask the Teacher (Tanyalah Ustaz)

Every morning, before i go to work, i would watch this show called 'Tanyalah Ustaz" in channel 9. The show starts at 7 am and end at 8 am. My cut off time to be out from the house and starts heading to my office is 8am. I'm using a motorbike to go to work.  If i starts the journey beyond that time limit, i'm surely would not be able to reach my office in time. When i travel by car to go to work, i need to be out much earlier than that which is before 7.30am.

My office hour starts at 8.45am and i normally reached office around 8.30am or 8.40 am. Just nice!..

The distance from my house in Shah Alam to my office in Jalan Raja Chulan is about 40km. Hence, i travel 80km everyday to and fro. It is hard and painful especially to the butt. Sitting 40 minute on the motorbike travelling to work and back home can be really "pain in the butt'. But as time goes, you will get use to it.

It is very time and cost saving for me to travel to work by motorbike  than other mode of transportation. Furthermore, there is no problem in finding parking spot for a bike.

Anyway, I just want to share some of the info about today's preach. It is about getting rewarded by Allah by only watching.

The ustaz said

" There is 4 things that the action that we did by only watching, shall be rewarded by Allah with 'good deeds" (Pahala). Some ulama said 5 but i want to mention 4 only."

1. Watch the Prophet Muhammad S.A.W.                                                                  
        (We cannot do this anymore as the Prophet p.b.u.h, is no longer with us)


2. Watch the Ka'abah.                                                                     
       (Watching a picture of Ka'abah can be accounted too)

3. Watch the Quran.
      (But this does not mean we should stop by watching the Quran only, we should read it and the 
      rewards will be more as each of the arabic characters will be accounted as one good deed and 
      shall be multiplied by 10 good deeds. 

4. Watch your parents. 

As for the item no. 4, i'm telling myself to increase my effort to please my parents further. May Allah give me the strength and resources for me to achieve this. Sometimes, we are to caught up with work, personal problems and our own family affairs, we forget to ask about our parents conditions, their state of health, feeling and current life. 

When we were children, our parents care for us, feed us, love us and cherish us through our up and down. They do it out of love without thinking of any returns.

But when we grow up, we got our own life and set of family, we place them aside from our new life till they feel deserted and far apart from us.

May Allah forgive me of all my ignorant and my weaknesses in caring for my parents. My prayers to all my friends and relative for that too. 

Good Quote...

Syed al-Qutub said  


"Oppression even how strong it is, it will not last and;
 Good things even how weak it is, shall achieve victory. "

p/s : My doa goes out to all Muslims in the world who are currently being oppressed, may Allah grant you with patience and strength to face His obstacles and may He reward you with Jannah. Amin   
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Kata-kata Syed al-Qutub

Kezaliman itu walaupun ia sekuat mana sekalipun, ia tetap tidak akan berkekalan dan kebaikan walaupun lemah, ia pasti akan meraih kemenangan.

Exam preparation

Its already 1.26am yet I am still up, busily preparing for my tuition students' exam tomorrow. I'm doing some research on the net to find some maths questions for the topics which i have covered for my students. I am done preparing questions for standard 4. Now, i am preparing questions for standard 2,3,5,6 and form 2.

It seems like a lot things to do but with internet it is easy. As a Researcher in Affin Bank, finding information is like a walk in the park for me. I might need another hour or so to complete the task.

This is the good thing about internet, you have the choice to use it in a good way or in a harmful way. It depends on the intention of the user.  I  remembered about what was said by the ustaz during one of the daily sermons that was held at my office surau. 

The  Ustaz (religious teacher) was sharing about his son's doubt as to why the Majlis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) wanted to come out with a Fatwa (religious ruling) to ban the social media, especially Facebook, to the Muslims.

(Later MUI had denied that they wanted to impose the ban ruling. Instead, they only wanted to give advice to people to be careful when using the social media. The statement on the banning was being sensationalised by the press the increase the sale of their newspapers.)Read link here or here (for Malay version)

So the Ustaz was explaining to his son,  that it actually depends on who is using it and their purpose. Take a  a knife for an example. A person who holds the knife, if he is a cook, and his intention is to cut something for his cooking, then the ruling would be HARUS or HALAL (permissible) but if the person who holds it is a crazy man, then the ruling would be HARAM (forbidden) because a crazy person has the potential to cause injury to himself and other people.   

Even if the person is a sane man, but if his intention is to kill somebody, then the hukum (ruling) is also HARAM. So basically, in Islam, the intention of a person determines whether he/she is committing sins or good deed. Social media is only a tool. It all depends on the person who is using it to determine whether they use it for good or evil.