awan collection

clockwise:
at lahad datu, sabah
at manchester, depan kedai faluda
at lahad datu, tgh jalan-jalan back from the beach
at london, window view from hostel
on the london tube, leaving heathrow

told you i love awan. 


ps: click for a larger image. and i like the weird awan in manchester. ('',)

above others

dah ready ke eit? sometimes i wonder whether my friends who are getting engaged and getting married, are ready for the future that they are undertaking. maybe because i have for so long been indoctrinated by a belief that marriage is when you're done with your studies what-not etc. and maybe because even in my family, they all started getting married at the age of 24 onwards. (engagement included)

after much pemerhatian and reading (not in a creepy way, sambil-sambil je la ni) i came to a conclusion that, you are ready for it, when you are prepared to put mr Right above everything else. be it your parents, your family, your friends, your work, everything. Except of course, Allah, Rasul s.a.w and your Deen. other than that, bye bye. 

leads back to the importance of getting the right Mr Right, kan? haha.. but jodoh ketentuan Allah. yakin dengan pilihan Allah. senang. tak perlu susah-susah fikir. doakan yang terbaik, bukan yang perfect di mata kita. tapi yang terbaik untuk kita. He always Knows better. ^,^

anyway, so i think this is what women need to be prepared of. getting married is not just a lovey-dovey thing. it's a whole new world you're getting into. a whole new responsibility that you have to carry. mentaati suami. sounds simple enough. even Allah janjikan syurga kepada orang-orang yang mampu mentaati suami. but i remembered back an article i read with a friend of mine back in Dublin. a list of sins, leading to women occupying most of Jahannam. banyak sangat. but i realized that most of the sins are related to your wrong-doings towards your husband. meninggikan suara, keluar rumah tanpa izin, tidak menjaga keperluan suami.. the list is endless. kenapa ada list macam ni? because of course, they are all being done carelessly by wives all over the world. *isk isk*

mentaati suami. macam senang nak buat, tapi rupa-rupanya senang jugak untuk tak buat. maka senanglah jugak untuk 'ter'masuk dalam neraka. *nauzubillah*

"Sekiranya aku (boleh) menyuruh manusia menyembah manusia nescaya aku akan menyuruh isteri menyembah suaminya." 

hadis riwayat Abu Daud

Rasulullah s.a.w even gave this kind of analogy. this is how serious our responsibility is. but the fact that so many women failed to realize this when they decided to accept Mr Right, leads to all the careless sins that i mentioned before. of course, putting Mr Right above others is not as easy as it seems. kalau dah kene buat OT, or ade meetings what not, how can you put him above others? but Islam always have guidelines for us to carry our responsibility the right way. kan?

so i guess being ready is not when you are done with your studies, or when you are reaching the right age, or when you are a pinky finger away from the age limit of being an andartu. but it's when you're ready to carry a huge responsibility; mentaati suami. putting him above others. i think this is how i define ready. (lain orang lain definition though..)

as for now, i think i should stop thinking about this. saje je tulis this post. it crosses my mind the other day. and sementara i still dont have that kind of responsibility, i might as well should be focusing on other huge responsibilities that i already have, as;

Allah's faithful servant

a part of Rasulullah's ummat

a Muslim student

a devoted abahmama's daughter

a loving sister

ya Allah, bantulah aku menjalankan tanggungjawabku di Bumi-Mu ini. ameen (",)

my mission

it was my 2nd year in KMB. it's the usual friday night ceramah in the surau. but we had a special guest that night. a prof from CUCMS came; Prof Latiff. he talked about the Gaza mission he joined just recently. to see a doctor, trying his best to be a devoted Muslim through his God-given abilities as a cardiologist, left me amazed. i remembered how in awe i was listening to his talk, because somehow that night he taught me that choosing this path as a doctor is actually an opportunity given by Allah, for you to help people. 

yeah it has always been a very schematic answers for doctors-wanna-be; "i want to be a doctor cuz i wanna help people." but that was the time i realized that all these opportunities to help are given by Him. the only thing up to us is how well we make use of it. Allah is giving us chances all the time. let's just grab it, shall we?

and so after the talk, i went back to my room with a new aim; im gonna join a relief mission at least once in my life. i remembered abah seemed a bit worried with my intention when i told him, saying "just dont get yourself shot in the legs or something," haha. abah will always be abah. worrying too much. he imagined me going to Gaza mission already. *someday insyaAllah*

after almost a year, i heard of IMAM Symposium held in Dublin. eventhough it was exam time for UCDians, i went to the final day of the 3-days event. Didn't know much about IMAM at that time, so i listened to every bits of info i could get. my interest grew as at the end of the event that day, groups of students gave talks about the relief missions that they have been to the past year. cambodia, baling etc. i was so psyched. as i asked around, it seems like there are no more places left for the relief missions for the summer. i was seriously frustrated. *sob2*

but Allah always works wonders kan? somehow *dont need to include the details* i got into the sabah mission. *yippy* i was in charge of the flight tickets. things got busier towards the end. i was psyched for the whole event. losing pak ngoh few weeks before the mission left me with not being able to help my friends. but i was very thankful cause they were very understanding. jzkk =)

8th july. finally i was in sabah with my team. most of them are people that i've met, but never ever spoken to once. perhaps only virtually when we were discussing things. but after 7 long days together, alhamdulillah i think the ukhwah was built. =) btw, you guys are the best!!

back to my story; i have always said that Allah works wonders, right? listening to Prof Latiff a year ago was when Allah opened my heart to join such activities. and i was pretty shocked *in a very excited way* to know that he joins the sunathon team for my first ever relief mission. hehe. he shared a lot of things with us. i was jealous of CUCMS students to have all the very dedicated Profs at their college who are also devoted Muslims; trying to help us becoming good Muslim doctors insyaAllah. (jealous in a good way hehe..) 

among the things shared was that to be a good Muslim, you have to be with your brothers and sisters. amar makruf nahi munkar should be done together right? cuz only then you can feel the sweetness of it all.  we should be building ukhwah everywhere we go, while in search of redha Allah. he said that sometimes these kind of events are just reasons Allah made, for us to meet. and behind the meetings, lie reasons and hikmah too. i learnt so much from stories shared not just by both Prof Latiff and Prof Ikram, but from fellow friends, the new CUCMS buddies, the teachers of desa kenchana, the students that we met, and even the poor kids    who became our 'victims' for the sunathon. all with izin Allah. =)

so basically, apart from having a great time with fellow friends, i definitely learnt a lot. it all started with a niat, and im very much thankful for all the opportunities that Allah had given me. friends met, ukhwah built, stories shared, beautiful pictures taken, minor surgeries done, techniques learnt, jokes shared, crazy teka-teki session made, beach visited, sardin-like van trip undergone and alas, very great memories created. 

i pray that all the things we done there is a form of ibadah, insyaAllah. and more importantly diredhai Allah. cuz at the end of the day, that's all that matters most.

sabah mission has definitely been 

shoooooo shweeettt.

alhamdulillah (",)

everybody ^,^

the very nice peeps from cucms (",)

at taman kinabalu =)

haih..missing everybody~(",)

lets do this again next year!!

insyaAllah