A Week After They Are Gone
25 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Everyday Life, Inspirational Tags: facebook, kindergarten teacher, solat jenazah
Two of my friends died last week. She died on Sunday, January 15th. He died on Tuesday, January 17th. They both died because of car accident.
She
She and I were close enough for me to feel her absence. We sat in a meeting just two weeks before she went away. She died in her forties. She were not married. But she was a kindergarten teacher, and thus the lives of children that she has touched were, perhaps, more than a mother’s worth of love.
People who prayed for her (Solat Jenazah – a special prayer for the dead) said that
“there was a sweet odor coming from her dead body while we were gathering for the prayer”
SubhanALLAH…
- Allahyarhamah Zainon: The left-most
He
He was a friend I knew when I was an active member of an NGO. He was always the father-like one. It has been a long time since we last met. But before his wedding reception, we chatted on Facebook and he happily invited me to the ceremony. He also sent me his invitation card via postage.
But I didn’t go…
No more than two weeks after December 25th, his wedding reception, he got into accident and coma. And then he went away.
Allahyarham Fikri: Standing behind, in brown.
They went away in blessings
One day, my time will come. When that time comes, I pray for taubah before that, I pray for rahmah during that, I pray for forgiveness after that and I pray for relief during sakaratul maut.
Kak Ainon and Fikri, my heart and du’as for both of you. May we meet in heaven, Ameen.
A Motorcycle
25 Jan 2012 4 Comments
in Everyday Life Tags: burning sun, deep in thought, haze, motorcyclist, walking on the road
A: Riding motorcycle is dangerous, isn’t it?
B: You are asking a motorcyclist, thus my answer would be bias, don’t you think?
A: Right. But still, I think it’s dangerous.
B: *silence* You still want to hear my opinion?
A: Definitely. Go on.
B: You watch Final Destination, the famous movie?
A: Yes, I did.
B: *smile*
A: *deep in thought* OK. I get your point.
If I get to choose a car over a motorcycle, I will definitely, undoubtedly choose car. But this motorcycle, I have considered it my friend. It had been by my side when I cried in the rain, when I ride under the hot burning sun and whatever weather.
When I saw people walking on the road under the scorching sun, I’m grateful I have it. When I saw people running under the rain while I’m speeding on it, I’m grateful. Whenever I saw a family of four riding on a shabby motorcycle, I’m grateful.
When the weather gets hot, I just look into the sky and I see beautiful clouds. When it started raining, I simply stare as the fog starting to form and the haze disappear, cleansed by the rain.
My mother asked, “When will you buy a car?” I answered,
“Just a little while, Mak. Just a little while.”
Books and I
25 Jan 2012 4 Comments
in Books, Everyday Life
There’s a saying from a man I’ve forgotten. He said:
‘Show me one’s private collection of shelves, I can tell you all there is to know about that person.’
Bibliomaniac vs bibliophile
Bibliomaniac – someone who loves collecting or buying books.
Bibliophile – someone who loves books, read them from cover to cover and digest the philosophy or gist of the book into his/er life.
I was, once, convinced that I am a bibliophile. But as I looked at my shelves and pointed out some books I intend to read but never get to it or books I read but never finished or books I finished but never understood some of the contents, my confidence wavered. I realized that I’m far behind an epic bibliophile. But I resolved that I’m satisfied as long as I don’t fall into the trap of bibliomaniacs who believe that they are bibliophiles.
Books and Dreams
Every single book on my shelve came with sentimental values to me. I usually wrote down the date and where I bought it. Sometimes, I even wrote down with whom I bought the book. If it is a gift, I jot down the event. I can give reasons to every book I bought – the content value, the font type, the letter size, the texture of the cover, the smell of the papers, the introduction of the writer, someone’s or some blog’s recommendation etc.
My dream house, when I was a kid, always features a big library – full of books heard and unheard, popular and not so popular, found everywhere and rare. This idea was inflicted by my favorite fiction The Shadow of The Wind (still my favorite after years). The idea of donating books and funding libraries around the globe really fascinates me – like Red Stevens in the movie The Ultimate Gift.
Nowadays, my mind dances around the idea of
‘how do we produce a legacy of book readers (or bookworms, as many people like to call them)?’
since reading is not yet a popular habit that Malaysians can be proud of. Furthermore, the statistics produced turned out to be doubtful. My guess is even as the number of book lovers increase, the gap between book reader and non-reader widens, resulting in the stagnant average number of books read by Malaysians per year.
But then I think…
Screw unreliable statistics! And begin the process of cataloging my personal collections (which I intended to do since a year-or-so ago =P).
Hopes, Dreams and Wishes
20 Jan 2012 3 Comments
in Everyday Life, Inspirational
Last night was exceptionally calm. I was standing in the lawn as I listened to my surrounding. All I hear was silence. The wind was quiet, the trees stood still. I could feel the heat touching my cheeks even though it was late at night. The sky was so clear I could see my favorite stars – The Southern Cross. I was reminded to the future – a date not known and unlikely anticipated but coming all the same.
“By the sky containing great stars. And (by) the promised day. And (by) the witnessed and what is witnessed.”
[Surah al-Buruj 85: 1 -3]
There is something similar about rain, the sky and the sun to me, apart from their beautiful creation – they brought childhood memories to me. I used to read astronomy when I was 10 to 12 (thanks to my Mom who rarely rejected my requests when it comes to books).
My imagination ran wild when I think of the skies. I’ve forgotten of what I thought about when I look at those illustrations of star, the sun, pulsars, black holes, neutrons,white dwarfs etc. When I re-read those books in recent years, I wondered ‘What exactly did I understand from those when I was little?’ because I read them so diligently like I read comics and watch cartoons. I used to sleep with those books and dreamed of those cosmic objects.
Then, there comes my childhood resolutions – I wanted to be an astronaut. Thus, names like Neil Armstrong, Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova protruded my childhood vocabulary. (And now I realized why I was termed ‘weird’ when I was young =P).
But later, when I learned about the trainings (read: sufferings) astronauts have to go through before the rocket-launch and the long queue before they can actually go to space, I changed my mind. I resolved, “I don’t really want to go outer space. I just want to investigate those beautiful creations out there” and decided that I was contented with being an astronomer. <—— Reminder: Assume this story from a 11-year-old point of view.
As I read about astronomy, space, stars and all and surveyed my future university, I came to find there was no course with the word or phrase equivalent to astronomy and its kind in Malaysia. Thus I dug more and found an alternative – physics! And so there came the answer “physicist” every time anyone asked about my ambition. <——- Another reminder: …this time, I was 12.
My high schools witnessed the vague period of resolutions not renewed, consisting of a few years of loving numbers, hating memorized facts, sleeping in classes, skipping classes and enhancing irrelevant skills. The consciousness finally came back when I finally had to decide where I want to go after my SPM (Malaysian High School Certificate) and I was like “OMG!” but stayed calm, steady and nonchalant all the same. I just went with the flow and finally settled down at UTM for my Maths degree.
Maths was my second choice and my first choice was Physics (obviously). I was not so enthusiastic at start. I loved numbers, yes (in fact, I still do). But I was determined that I can get as close to astronomy as possible via Physics. Then, I fell in love with Maths and so grateful till now. I realized recently that I can still pursue my childhood dream when I talked to a friend about his research. It’s a long way down, but it’s still related, anyway.
I’m happy for this possibility – as happy as when I stumbled upon the story about Cat’s Eye nebula in kalamULLAH:
Like all things beautiful, perfect and joyful, we must work for it. Things don’t just come our way in a blink of eye. But this happiness of an opened possibility, I want to share. Never stop dreaming!
Aurora ~ Oh, I can stare at the sky a whole day!
P/s: I’m reminded of an unfulfilled childhood birthday wish ~ a telescope!=)
‘Scientific’ Discussion
26 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Everyday Life, Inspirational, Toastmasters Tags: mathematics, physics, postgraduate, study, toastmasters
A dear friend of mine, who is going to fly to US in a short while, suddenly asked during our hang out earlier today,
“Did you realize that our discussions revolve around scientific ideas lately?”
I realized it too and to admit it is quite a funny thing that we chuckled. She’s doing her PhD in Physics. I’m studying in Mathematics. Since we live near the university, most of our mutual friends are students from various field. But it’s not in our habit to talk about our studies or researches when we hang out, because naturally as we go deeper into our field, it is harder to find the same point of interests to talk about.
(In fact, I don’t understand one of my friend’s research in Statistics who was also my classmate in a few classes. Even though we both study Maths, I major in Operational Research.)
I attended my Physics friend’s first PhD assessment. Her research involves slow light and Brillouin scattering (which, obviously, I don’t understand and I was there for the sole purpose of supporting my friend) and the significant application of her research is to avoid congestion of signal transmission in fiber optics. We talked briefly about her project afterwards.
During the presentation, I met one of our guy friend who’s a tutor in the Physics department. We talked a bit about my study and he said that my dissertation – Ant Colony Optimization, a combinatorial optimization algorithm – can be applied to solve some problems related to random events predictions in quantum mechanics – the big picture of his major of study, nuclear physics. But I said that I am a long way to application into other fields.
Later, we went for a drink and evaluated my friend’s presentation. As we evaluated her English usage, the discussion divert to the issue of whether ‘I were’ or ‘I was‘ is correct. (Turned out that both are correct.)
As we gave our feedbacks, we discussed about another friend’s project in Toastmasters meeting that we attended a day before. Then, I realized that people like us need the Technical Presentation advanced manual so we can learn to make people not related to our field understand our study. “If you can’t tell it, you can’t sell it,” as Papa Gerald puts it.
There is a time when my friend rambles about being a book writer after completing her PhD because she was so inspired by Dr Ridzwan Bakar, the writer of Haji Muda. As the conversation went on and on and on ‘scientifically’, the topic finally divert to ambition and family. Before we parted, we concluded that all women must aspire to be a financially-free PhD-holder homemaker. Make changes to the world while managing a family and home. Wow, what an idea!
It is not impossible. It is achievable. One step at a time. A friend shared an interesting yet undeniable viewpoint about postgraduate study on Facebook – visually simple yet beautifully described:
The illustrated guide of a PhD.
“He knoweth that which is in front of them and that which is behind them, while they encompass nothing of His knowledge save what He will. His throne includeth the heavens and the earth, and He is never weary of preserving them. He is the Sublime, the Magnificent.” [2:255]
Empowerment: A Powerful Tool
16 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Everyday Life Tags: culture, empower, empowerment, groupwork, leader, team
Most of the things that we do include deadlines and guidelines. My main conflict as leader has always been in between chasing deadlines while following guidelines and the need for empowerment – apprenticing future leader, my successor. When I opt for empowerment, the work done might not be perfect as stated in guidelines and it might be done way past my personal deadlines, but empowerment is a very powerful Second Quadrant activity if I just put a little patience in it – I’ve seen this great effect on a few people.
One of the obstacles I face when I try to inject empowerment culture in a new group I’m working with is my colleagues are showing signs of stress. It has usually been easy when someone make decisions for you and you simply execute the tasks. Now, imagine when you ask your boss, “How do I do this?” and he answered, “How do you think you can do that? If you have a suggestion, I can help you work on that.” Then, you really have to start thinking and take responsibilities on your decisions.
Usually when I’m doing this as a team leader, I don’t tell openly “I’m empowering all of you to work on the tasks that we agreed on.” I just work with them that way, whether they realize it or not. Some people might not anticipate that they have to do some things themselves. Some people might even assume that I’m trying to avoid taking responsibilities. This is why, most of the time, it is so much easier to just tell people what to do than cultivating empowerment culture.
The fact is there is a difference between avoiding responsibilities and empowering people to take responsibilities. The line separating those two are very thin, though. I, sometimes, accidentally fall into the former when I lose track of the big picture, the ultimate goal.
The idea of the latter is not to leave the team members to make decisions alone, but to assist and be a valuable resource in their decision making process while at the same time letting them learn the value of taking responsibilities and making decisions. A job well done will then elevate the team members’ motivation because they really take it as their own effort.
The good effect of empowerment can only be seen after quite some time. I’ve seen team members who are finally able to work with minimum supervision. Some even reporting without the need to be asked first. They also become more creative because they feel that there is no limit for them to make their own decision as long as they are willing to take the risk personally.
Another good thing about empowerment is it enabled me to filter my team members’ working styles. It clearly distinguishes people who are more independent among others, thus letting them take on bigger roles and move faster in developing their leadership skills.
When empowerment has become a culture in an organization, the challenge is in getting the communication flows smoothly. As the team members become capable and independent, it is important for the leader to get everyone updated and collaboratively engaged to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal. The team members need to be constantly reminded of their mutual roles to contribute effectively for the team.
I still have a lot to learn in order to empower and be empowered. Empowerment is a great tool, especially in developing new leaders. Used correctly, it can make wonders.
