Holding Back the Years
Damn, OOP is so full of himself it really stinks of arrogance in this room. I actually prepared a damn long post but it totally disappeared and I really got no energy to go and write it…….but I will lar. Cos I wanna look back on this a few years from now and remember what stood out this week.
Meeting Up
The past weekend was fun, Jerrard came over and we watched soccerm, watchin Chelsea completely obliterate Charlton. It was boring, really boring. And Johannson is officially a pale shadow of his former self. Now he’s just a “justin timberlake” lookalike who has lost all his clinical finishing. We talked about SMU and all, and of cos the topic of pleasing yourself or your parents. For the record, Jerrard I really hope to see u at SMU.
Anyways I woke up at 0745 on Sunday Morn, and met up wif my RI frends to play soccer. We went to a nearby street soccer court5, and started playing. More and more teams joined in and we started off well. Eventually we came up against a team of Chinese guys. They were ok, not rough or anything, but they began to adopt a fucked up style of play. The keeper would pick up the ball, throw it real high, and a guy waiting just outside our D would be waiting outside the area and flick it into the goal. Cheap skate bastards. I told off one of them, a pony-tailed son-of-a-bitch and his excuse was dat we din tell them they were not supposed to at the start, and dat it was street soccer anyways. Ppl often have the misinterpretation dat street soccer was like street basketball, where rules were relaxed. In fact street soccer has even more rules than field soccer.
So I decided that the best way to get back at that pony-tail bugger was to let my feet do the talking. So I subsequently rocastled the fucker, and even said “That must be worth at least half a goal”, to the laughter of the nearby crowd. Sweet revenge. I really hope dat guy remembers the rocastle.
We walked away soon after and found a basketball court where we played against a more decent group of guys. It was really fun, and we played till about 12. We ended off the day with a Chinese vs Malay/Indian game, a throwback to primary school, when dat was the easiest way of splitting up into teams. We were 1 down but eventually beat them 2-1. sweet. I really wish I could play this coming Sunday, but cause of the ops….sigh.
Hanafi’s Place
Finally, I made my way to Hanafi’s place this year after much procrastination and stuff in the past. It was real fun, cos I joked a lot wif all the other guys, it was great to see that about 11 of our batch was there, including Prashanth, which I thought was great, cos I really feel that Hari Raya should be shared with all. We joked about all our bloody antics in RI in the past, and it was great to see my seniors like Hassan and Adib, whom I had not kept in touch wif in a long time. I had a great time and ate about 3-4 dinners. Ooops. Oh well, my only regret was not remembering to take down the mobile phone Nos. of the guys there.
Sigh, its now 2230hrs and I’m still slogging away at the office, and worse still, drawing a measly salary. Some people I know don’t even do half as much but earn twice more. But that’s really life right? Sometimes I feel that the true meaning or essence of life is its uncanny way of belittling u, making u depressed, and unfortunate. But I’ve gotten past dat. Nowadays its just accepting and moving on, I can’t wait to get out of here.
I haven’t asked for leave on Thursday yet, this is so fucked up. I really hope to spend time wif Uni. Realli.
Sufian, Hakim, Khairul Anuar, Khairul Yusof, Zameer, Syarif, Farhan, Prashanth, Alfian, Adib, Hassan, Haresh, Charlie, Kelvin, Ashok.... thanx for the great time!
Out.
Lets stay together...
Meeting the Parents (part deux)
Yest Uni came over to my place, and we had quite a nice time, i was quite happy my parents took the trouble to sit down and have dinner wif us, i mean knowing my parents, they'd rather do other thing, like relax and watch tv, but still they spared the time till ten to sit down and talk-cock. We had a good conversation bout lotsa things, uni didn speak much, but she laughed a lot, esp at my dad, who was doing his normal comedic antics....I notice the more people there are, the more comedic he becomes....haha, not that he is damn extra or something lar, at least he is realli funny, rather than ppl who try and fail. All in all it was a good night, and the 15 buses were kind too, i got back home by 1120 after sending uni back,
piece of cake.
The short and winding road
The coming week will be an exciting one i think, and hopefully it will pass by fast. Hope towhack at work and stay late on monday and tuesday, so hoepfully by wednesday can send out the ops orders, and spend the night wacthin idol at Bert's. Then on Thursday, if all goes well will be on leave and can spend time wif Uni before she leaves for East Timor.
18 whole days. And I still haven left her for even one, but its ok i guess, as i say to phil always....
. whatever rox your boat, and i mean it in a good way dear. At least shes doing charity work and all, so its ok, but i will be worried lar, East Timor aint the safest of places. Sunday will be Ops day, shit I have to walk around wif OOP, man, this is gonna be such a waste of time, but at least i will keep remindin myself that I won't be seeing his ass for about a month after dat, so its all worth it.
Maju United - A preview
Today is Maju day again, am looking forward, but at the same time dont wanna get my hope up also lar, the pass two weeks we have been concentrating on basic stuff like passing and heading, and I have also improved in passing wif my left leg. Two more ppl are coming today, but at the same time, both Jem's and Mini's frends prob wont be coming....oh well I guess we just gotat keep askin ppl to come and join, and see if they feel like it....I think Russell will stay lar, VJ soccer has always been abou commitment, and I have confidence in him. Will also be interested in Terence's friend.
Oh well, I think i pissed my dad off today cos I was too lazy to follow him to ICA in lavender to renew my passport....u ne some days u just dont feel like movin, maybe if i get thursday off I will do it myself.
Out.
Don't give up on yourself...
Today I'm back at work again, sigh, but yest well the course wasnt realli of as much use as I wanted it to be. Let me tell u more.
Adventures with Attitude
That was the title of the course that I attended yesterdae. It was at Parkway Centre, which is directly opposite Parkway Parade, so I knew my way round the area pretty well. The guy conducing the course, or the "coach" as he preferred to be called, was a Mr Louis Sim. He had only one working eye though, yes one eye, his other eye appeared to be kinda fucked up, cos of an accident he had when he was five, so he was effectively blind in that eye. Talk about having an evil eye.
But he was realli nice though, he was very kind, and kept encouraging us throughout the process. The group that I was with wasn't realli very enthu at first lar, and we only all warmed up towards the end. I don't wanna go into what was taught, cos I wasn't realli paying attention anyways. To be honest I realli din learn much lar, and neither did I leave at the end of the day knowing that I was gonna "create better partnerships" with other people.
As gilbert said,
"it takes two hands to clap".
Its no use trying your best to forge better partnerships/friendships/relationships with other people if they do not want to themselves. Too bad I din learn this earlier on, it would have saved me a lot of time/trouble with people.
Anyways the course was still a good break from normal work lar, at least i was somewhere else rather than the office, bleargh.
Yesterdae, Uni came to the airport and we sent of Amirul to Prague. we all wanted to take pictures with him but as expected the bugger was super stubborn and preferred to go and talk to his friends. Later I sent Uni up to her place and made my parents wait downstairs for a few mins, maybe bout 3, she was vehemently protesting, kept saying "
no need, no need". Ppl only trying to be nice mah.
Girls, always saying these kinda things....haha.
Out.
......
I am realli bored.
I wish I still had Jem's PS2 to play wif and challenge myself with, but those days are long over. But well, I guess I realli have to try and cherish these times, cos once i get back into the rat race next august there'll be no turning back, more late nights, more early mornings, more depression and a hell of a lot more stress. Yucks.
Warming Up the Engine
I like keeping fit. I'm not saying I'm really fit, but I just like exercising and trying to keep myself fit, cos truth is I hate struggling in exercises. After a month's break, (2 weeks ramadhan and 2 weeks raya), I finally went on my first long run yesterdae. As expected I struggled a bit, went really slow at certain points...and I relli hate it. I just ahte he process of trying o regain fitness, I always wished that I was like some people who were naturally quite fit, and din have to worry much about slacking off when not training. For me, I have to keep training just to be fit, and expectedly I can't do it all the time. So whenever I stop, and have to start again, the process of going thru the motions really suck. I'm givin myself about two weeks of long runs before i start proper conditioning in preparation of next jan's division cross country.
He's Leaving on a Jet Plane
My youngest bro Amirul will be leavin for Prague tomorrow night. Bummer. Ihope he realises how lucky he is to have my parentss end him to prague, when I can't even get a lift from my dad sometimes from home to Bedok MRT, just cause its not along the way. Evr since a long time ago, I rekond that Amirul has been my parents' favourites, but I think now they are slowly seeing his true colours, he has been really moody and realli insolent nowadays, and i think now my parents prefer the much mellowed Azrul, though I still am a bit rude at times. Anyways, Prague is supposedly freezing at -5 degrees right now so all the best to him, I'm quite sure I won't survive the weather there, I'm even frozen in a 21 degree seminar room. As for me, I still patiently biding my time wif the UK trip. With the recent inflow of cash, i will now be able to complete my savings for UK by March. Hooray!
I'm still thinkin on whether to invest in the PS with Gilbert. Sigh wat a dilemma, I still have the Malaysia trip coming up. I dunno why but I'm disgusted at myself cos I act like I'm some rich guy, who has money flowin out of his ears. I gotta make a decision soon.
Out.
Honey......Its been a long time coming.
Today has been a super tiring day, man, we went to 4 houses in the west and north, and had sanity not prevailed, we would be on our way to the 5th right about now. Luckily, my mom decided we were all a bit too tired, and now here we are at home, lazing around and watching Austin Powers.
Meet the Parents
Yest night after Maju, I made a trip down to Uni's place, to met her parent officially for the first time, popped by Marks and Spencer to get them something, haha, was quite expensive, but wat the heck rite? Reached her place bout 1955hrs and started talking to her dad, we talked about work and stuf, and thank god we found common ground in NS, and he talked about police and stuff. Uni's mom was busy preparing dinner.
Then we had dinner, had cajun and dory fish. Wow, it was realli nice, and the thing is it was quite healthy too. I loved the kejun fish so much, that i actually cut some to put into my fishball soup. Dinner was fine, I was very careful not to be clumsy or anything, or appear uncouth, which in itself was a feat for me.
Me and Uni's mom talked a lot, which got me kinda worried if I was ignoring her dad. We talked about business, and MNCs, and work, and bosses......Uni told me her mom talked about work 80% of the time. Well it was fine by me, cos i do enjoy talking bout such things actually.
We then sat down again, and I looked at Uni's baby albums, and dat of her mom's and dad's trip to New Zealand. Uni's mom kept encouraging me to go there, and Uni asked if she could go wif me.....haha.....and her mom said
nothing.....hehehehe.
After a while, her uncle and aunt came along, so I made my way home. It was an awesome, visit,and well as Uni's mom mentioned, I could come anytime I wanted healthy food. Oh well,then I'll def be there more often.
Seeing Life ebb away
Pri, grandpa passed away today, and I'm realli sad for her, especially considerin the already great amount of stress she has been facing day in day out at school. I was talkin to Shuli bout the matter and how as a friend, u cant realli do much to help. The feeling of helplessness is esp overwhelming for me, when it comes to pri, who's a close friend of mine.
It also brings back memories of when m own grandpa passed away, all the sadness, the frustration, the helplessness, sigh it was all too much to take at the time. And the worst thing was dat I din even see him draw his last breath, in fact no one did. Talking about it is so horrible. But it just refuses to go away, and it never will. Death comes to all, and its something all of us have to face. The sadness and grief is what hits me most. Evry single time.
Life is slow dying.
You were right Mr Larkin.
Making Music
Lately me and my smallest brother Amirul have been jamming together. I thought him how to play the piano, well at least the chords and stuff, and wif the help of the drum machine installed in the keyboard we have, we've come up with some decent tunes. We've managed to play "somewhere only we know" and "we might as well be strangers" by Keane. right now we're working on Embrace's "Graity", whose tune I've been humming myself the whole day. Maybe one day I'll put i up or somethin.
Anyways before I go I just want to share a freakin funny story....I was playing the Tennis game on my dad's h/p when I decided to just see his msgs, then I saw a name NORASHAND?(the question mark was upside down btw) but I cant show it here.The msg went somthing like " I love you, see you later.." and I was
freakin shocked. Who was this woman? Holy shit I was super speechless. Could it be? Well I din say or act upon it, cos I was afraid that perhaps I was assuming something which wasnt.
So later on at nite i dragged my bro into the room, and told him about it....and he was quite shocked to, till I told him the name.
"
That's Mama's handphone lar."
Oh shit. It was. In mymoment of madness, i failed to realise dat NORASHAND? was actually NORAS - HAND?, right...
How stupid did I feel then?
Cock.
Anyways I've gotta change this skin soon lar, the lack of archives and stuff is crappy, and the tagboard is also gone. sigh gotta change it soon. BTW at Uni's place she showed me a movie-cum-slideshow she made using Windows Movie Maker. It was really nice, and the movie was about how the two of us met and stuff, using pics we had taken. It was realli nice. And when I think about how much effort this girl puts in for us, I realli feel extremely lucky.
Out.
I gotta be honest, i think u noe..
Getting into Trouble
For those of u who don't know, I got into major trouble with UNi, this past week, cos she found out about the blog. Ok, I'm sorry guys, even my bro was shocked i didn tell her, and I must admit, it was stupid of me to overlook the major repercussions of not telling uni.
However, after much talking, including 40 min on mine and hers non-free incoming mobiles. Ouch. But it was all worth it, things have never been better between us, I think. I'm realli happy with how th whole thing was resolved, and i was thinking to myself, dat Uni's such a gem for forgiving me after the whole thing. However, for the record, I never meant in anyway to hurt her. Sigh, sometimes I'm a total idiot.
Hari Raya
This year's Hari Raya was a mixed one. I was happy wif the money I got for one, it was much more than I expected. Even my parents gave me some cash, which rarely happens. But anyways the food was amazing as usual, at my maternal grandma's place and everybody was realli happy. However, at my paternal grandpa's house things werent so nice. For one, he and my dad din seem to be talking, and though I was trying my best to try and brighten/ lighten the atmosphere, it din do much good. My mom wasnt saying much either. I guess my dad and mom have not realli a good history with my grandpa and it saddens me. The thing is, when my auntys and uncles later came, everybody was talking so joyfully yet my grandad sat in one corner not saying anything. Sigh. After that i kinda spoke up and asked my dad if hwe would like it if I did the same when I came visiting ten years from now.
I realli pity my grandpa sometimes, the lack of money, the lack of love.... sigh. I realli want him to be happy cos Ive alredy lost one.
Work and Play
Today I brought the PS to work, and we played Winning Eleven in the store. It was realli fun, and despite the stuffiness of the place, at least it brought a bit of a spark to our day. Somtimes work can be realli mundane, so stuf like this does helpp us get through. Props to Gilbert for makina brilliant contraption to hide the PS in. My Wining Eleven has improved, but I think need to tighten the defence.
Anyways we then played basketball outside, and well it was realli fun. Playing basketball is always a pleasure, and the guys in Golf are great to play wif, they dont look down on me despite me being so new to it. As usual, I think my movement was good, but my shooting leaves much much much to be desired. I'm also scared to drive to the basket.
Here I am watchin wining eleven, I decided that if ever I were to take part in amazing race, I would take either of the following ppl...
1) Uni (shes light and I can carry her if shes tired! plus shes realli street smart)
2) Cecil (super strong and fit)
3) Fong ( damn good wif people)
4) Azizul my bro (cos hes my bro and hes damn street smart!)
On a slightly more sombre note, I just want to say a prayer for Pri, her family and her granpa, I realli sincerley hope everything will be ok at the end of the day. Her grandpa is ill, and pri is having her exams, I realli admire her strength in such a time. Pri, take care of yourself and for those around u k? And if anybody stumbles upon this post, please say a prayer k? And keep your fingers crossed.
Stay strong babe.
Alright dats all for now, I thought of stopping this blog cos it made Uni so mad at me. But i guess I can continue it, this time wif her blessings, cos its realli an outlet for me.
Out.
Its so hard to say goodbye, to yesterdae..
Last day of Ramadhan
Today is the last day of Ramadhan, and I know this may sound weird, but this is the first yearI'm actually sad that the fasting month is ending. Sure, some of u may think why the hell I wuld enjoy not eating or drinking for a month...but well, as I mentioned much earlier in the month, Ramadhan has come across to me this year, as more than just not eating and drinking...bt well its the other things like prayer, devotion and supplication. Sure, I'm stil as foul-mouthed and coarsed as ever(oops...) but there are many things this month that I've learnt about which I can carry along in life.
Yest was the last night prayer session, cos technically tonight, in about 7 hours, it will be Hari Raya already, so there'll be no night prayers. I thought the imam was realli good yest, and even though I was slightly distracted at the start cos I was a bit tired, my heart realli opened up at the end, as I began to comprehend the gravity and significance of the whole occasion. I was shedding tears towards the end of the prayer, for I realli felt what the imam said. I rem him saying that it was very hard to shed tears for God. We can cry cos of getting fired, we can cry cos of a stupid movie, cry when we win a championship, or cry when we fail our exams....but rarely do we cry cos of God. Which I think was realli true for me.
So to a certain sense, even though my specs were wet, and I had trouble trying to wipe off the tears,I felt it was all worth it, cos at the end of yest, the end of one month, I truly knew what itw as to be a muslim. Took me 20 years, but better late than never. I noe this sounds bloody dram but I assure u it is true, I wouldnt be over-dramatising stuff related to religion trust me.
As I made my last round of handshakes wif the congregation, I took my time to look at evryboy's face and try and remember it. Cos, I never know if all of us will be back here in a years' time. Some may have moved away, some may have passed on, in fact I cant say for myself if i will be there as much as I want to. But all those nights of prayer laughing at the imam's hilarious tales and crying during the more sober parts, realli brought all of us strangers closer to each other. And well I guess dats the beauty of religion realli, any religion, cos it brings ppl together.
Wah since when Azrul so holy one?
Yes, I noe. LOL.
Hours ticking down
In a few hours it will be Hari Raya again, haha, as I said to Phil on Raya, u realli eat like shit, if youre gonna go 5 houses you are gonna eat 5 full meals, whether u like it or not,free flow of gassy drinks, soto, lontong, rendang, satay.....
Today we just got back from cleanin up the graves in Lim Chu Kang Cemetery. I always find going there a sobering experience, cos it helps remind us of death. Sometimes, ppl, myself included, think they will live forever. Haha. Just a doseof reality.
It went fine lar, I'm dead tired, and the weather was hot, but I had a good time, me and my dad hope to set up a shuttle transport business in the cemetery someday and all haha, my dad is damn funny lar he, forever jokin.
Anyways enough for now, been finding it hard to blog as regularly, cos busy and stuff, but once next week comes should be ok. Wanna give a big thank-you to jeremy for lending me his PS2, I have been busy playing bro, and its kept me occupied, haha. Thank you so much. Maju is at 3 today, then it'll be dinner wif Uni, our first date in one month since Ramadhan started.
Till we meet again Ramadhan.
Out.
It's not like were dead...
Tired for nothing
Yesterdae was hell of a tiring day for me, mainly due to the lack of sleep cos of the Ops. Basically Vic picked me up at 3 am, and we headed to station. I din sleep much, had maju earlier on Saturday, which I will touch on later... Then went back for dinner aty Uncle Tony's and headed for night prayers, which ended about 9 plus thankfully. I was up till bout 1115 and then had to sleep. Coudnt sleep till bout 12, so ultimately only had 2 plus hours before the Ops.
At the Ops I was super sleepy, and did doze off a coulpe off times, with the console right in front of me. It got pretty broing once all the minsters were ionside for the conference and we din have much to do. Worse still, I couldnt even eat any lunch to kill time. Thankfully though, despite time passing at a snail's pace, evrything was over by 2 lpus, and I got home by 3 plus. What a tiring day. I only slept two more hours after dat before going for night prayers again. So here I am abck in office for the start of a new week, and I'm dead tired even though its just lunch time, thought of taking half the day off to spend time with Uni, but realised it was fasting month, so had to give it a miss.
Anyways it was realli frustrating yesterdae, being so tired from the Ops, time passing so slowly, and Uni giving me the cold shoulder. Basically we had a little tiff, hmm don' think it was even dat, but well little things to us guys are magnified a million times for girls so I don't know. Anyways I apologised (as usual), but din get any reply. Up till now she still giving me the cold shoulder and its really frustratin, but not like I can do anything about it, cos it'll prob worsen things if I ask. But anyways I'm just trying to numb myself wif the increased workload, so I dont think too much about this.
But its not realli working very well.
Maju United Weekly Digest
And we started back at one.
Last week I came to Maju early , lokoing forward to a tgood training, after all the promise which was shown in the preceeding two weeks. Instead, coach asked us to play a game wif Rep Poly. So we did and won 1-0, missing a multitude of chances which would have given a more accurate picture of the match. Half the guys from RP were shacked out, prob cos of fasting and the trainign they had prior to the match. But we wasted chance after chance, and almost allowed them to score back, on several occasions. I played a shithole of a first half, as usual letting things in my head get to me. The second half was much better, and I think props should go to terence and damu, who handled the situation well, and stopped RP from charging down the right.
After the match, coach talked to me and fong bout club stuff, asking us to come early to see what we can do for the program. I then approached coach myself, and wanted to give him feedback bout wat ppl were thinkin. I told him we were all klinda happyw if all the training and morale was up, and ppl like Ben wanted to come back asap cos of it. All I needed was a smile, and some happiness from him, to make my day...
Instead he launched into his stupid, normal speech again about, us not having a team, and we prob shouldnt be training, bout theres no point of training if ppl are gonna go and play for other teams...yada yada yada...I was just about to rebut him when I realised that just like my supervisor at work, there will be no point. Cos wihout thinkin, they will just rebut, and bury all your arguments, using the same old lines without thinkin....stupid. Experience is good, but more often than not ppl adopt this "I cannot be wrong cos Ive seen it all " attitude.
Damu told me that as the coach he had the right to change his mind. Well he aint wrong but I just know soon things are gonna turn back to how it was before, which was less than 3 weeks back, if we dont keep this good run going. right now, I dont even know how things are gonna be mext week. I spoke to Fong bout what were gonna do next week, and I told him that there were ppl there willing to commit like me, but are not being rewarded at all.
Sometimes Fong is sometimes so damn naive it annoys me. I dunno whats going on in his head. His loyalty to coach doesnt allow him to see the bigger picture. The root of the matter remains that with whateva we have left of a squad here in Maju, we have to do something with it, so it will grow, or risk losing it foreva.
Im scared, scared that things will never progress. Indeed soccer is meant to be loved but it gives me so much pain. This pain must stop.
And stop it I will. Just how i do it is the question.
If you wanna grow a garden, you gotta start with a few flowers, which will proliferate more plants and animals in the garden. Thats how things are. Not waiting for a fucking wheel barrow of seeds that u can grow all at one time.
It may never come.
Great things start from the smallest of things, but if you wanna keep waitin and waitin, for bigger things to come, you may lose that little precious thing, and never start on that road to greatness.
Indeed a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Things in my life are realli messy right now, and evidently, not evrything is going the way i want it to. worse still when Uni is one of the problems, it hits me realli hard.
How will you bounce back?
Out.
If i could, then I would...
A view from the outside.
The Inside of the mosque.
This is Al-Aqsa mosque, located in the Old City in Jerusalem. Its a pity realli that so many Muslims around the world are not allowed to his beautiful place cos of the unrest around it. Furthermore, Israel is also planning to restrict worshippers from entering the mosque in fear that it might collapse due to "weaknesses in the structure". However, the mosque officials themselves say there is nothing wrong with the mosque, save for some small cracks, and the Israelis just wanted to get a hand on the mosque for themselves. Well, whateva the true story, I just hope no further antagonism will take place cos only God knows what the repercussion might be if Jews and Muslims clash over this holy site.
About 5000 can fit in this mosque at one time, how I wish I could be there to see it for myself.
And no guys, Im not turning into a zealot/puritan or something, just wanted to give you guys a better picture of what I talked about previously. Hope you appreciate it.
Out.
When you're close to tears remember...
Its been a long time since i blogged so here I go...
Office hell
Maybe i shouldn't juxtapose these two words together, I mean hell is a lot more worse, but well office right now is hell for me. We have been realli busy the past week for the coming event, which btw people is the PAP party awards and conference on saturday and sunday. Well dat explains why I have to be in office at 3 am tomorrow. Sigh. But anyways, actually when I come to think of it, theres only one person realli irritating me in the office.
My supervisor. Honestly, if I were to start on him, I'd never end, but let me just say for the record that
he is a poor excuse for a man. i guess it realli sux when u hate someone so much but u cant do anything cos he will be giving u your grading at the end of the day. And its realli hard to walk around knowing that in seven months time you're gonna get a poor grading no matter how hard you work.
Its hard.
But well I was thinkin to myself yest as I was walking to mosque, about how my life will be ruined by this man I hate, and I felt realli down. So I just asked myself...
How will u bounce back?
Yes, Azrul how will you bounce back? From defeat and disappointment. How?
Good question.
The Almighty
Yesterdae, after the disappointments and frustrations at office, I went for night prayers. Then I stayed back for the sermon, which lasted past ten. Somehow after evrything that happened earlier, I just felt like I had to pray to God, and be amongst people who loved him, to feel at peace wif myself. And it worked. Its amazin realli considerin in the past praying wouldnt realli come to mind if i was pissed or somethin.
How things change.
But anyways the congregation was in good voice, and it realli helps cos, well its something like cheering for your school, when the people around u are really enthu bout it, it will infect you as well, and make it a better cheer. Same thing for prayer.
Then the sermon began, and I was close to tearing, when the "imam"(head priest/father/what have u) started talking bout how ariel sharon refused to let arafat to be buried in his homeland should he pass away. And how muslims are turned away from seeing Masjidil Al-Aqsa, one of the holiest places in the Muslim world, which lies in Jerusalem. I guess Sharon has his reasons, but well I just pity all those innocent muslims who are denied the chance to see such a beautiful sight, cos of the acts of other irresponsible/disillusioned muslims.
Sometimes, I can't help but think dat the image of muslims have been scarred foreva, and no matter wat we do we cant rid of it. And with George W. Bush being back for 4 years, god knows what will happen to us.
I guess all we can do is to keep patient and to keep praying, and to present to non-muslims the better and the truest face of Islam.
Well, back to the sermon and all, it was all realli nice, and I was encouraged by the sight of fathers bringin their sons to listen to these sermons, I hope dat if someday I have a child, I will not fail him and raise him/her as how my dad has raised me, equiping him/her with the necessary tools in life.
Hari Raya
Its now less than a week to hari raya, and preparations are pickin up. Hari Raya is a damn happy day lar, for me, and well the food is magnificent, its like every house u go to youre prob gonna get a full meal. And this year I hope to invite ppl over lar, if I have the time, and if my parents dont mind. Last year even Uni din come but its ok, i'm supposed to go to her place this year and officially "meet the parents", which is nerve-wreckin cos
her mom is at times a little abrasive. But anyways one more week. Sometimes I wish ramadhan wouldn go away, but well I miss going for meals with friends.
Maju
Today I managed to free myself from the Ops, and I will be heading to Maju. Too bad I got Ops @ 3am though. Im lookin forward to Maju, coach has laid out his plan, and well I hope it goes well, its great cos the ppl around are also
beginning to be more positive. Too bad
Jerrard cant make it though. But well, the show goes on.
Hmm, dats all i would like to talk about, I do have a rather pertinent subject that I wish to talk about but I'll leave it to after Hari Raya. In the mean times no matter wat religion u are, I just wanna give my props to all those ppl who,
I know exist in every religion, give and serve selflessly in the name of God. Only God knows the rewards that await them. Amin.
Out.
Somewhere only we know...
Maju United - A Weekly Digest
This week marked a second good week in maju. Props go out to people like
Damu, Terence, Jeremy, JErrard, Fong and Mini. Wow, I think we've realli turned the corener this time around. We did this realli tough passing drill, and I realised that I realli sucked even in such a basic task like passing. In the past two weeks coach has really thought us the fundamentals of passing, the
contact, the
backswing, and well, its benefitted me and the rest definitely.
To make things better, Coach even layed out a plan for the coming two weeks, and I hope that I can do this weekend's Ops on sunday so I can go for Maju. Man, what a roller coaster ride its been, but I hope itll be ok. Ben will be back soon, and russell will be coming in. I hope when we tart playing with the other "outer circle" players we can do just as well. But at least coach is taking some ownership over us, cos I think he realises how commited we are to the cause.
So to all my Majuians, keep coming k? We can only do this TOGETHER.
This is our club.
Well, dats all im gonna update, I saw Phil had already taken my idea of the online pictoral blog of my day at work, so I will have to take a rain check on it. Its ok lar. In the meantime, the days are counting down, in a few hours I will be in the last ten days of puasa, I guess I'll be sad, cos this month has been brilliant in so many ways, but well, at least I will be able to join my colleagues for lunch.
To bert and phil....what happened to our SC breaks and lunches? It feels funny wif the regulars, not that I wanna be isolaitonist lar....
Out.
