Revelation of stress, another perspective

Life is never easy, but it is not so hard to live by. All depends on the perspective, on which way we decide to see and accept. The glass poured with water, half of it, could always be half full or half empty.

I'm here in Kb, all on my own. Looking after myself, missing my mother and family back home. But, I can't just pack and move back. I have other responsibility, yes, besides the paycheck.

I went on to do phd in thinking of making myself more knowledgeable. However, I end up making myself miserable throughout the four years. At the end, I just wanted to comeback and be a teacher. Rushing to finish the study, I did what I always do to get by; to live day by day like a programme robot. At the end, stress was just another part of me. I ate, slept and drank on it.

So, during those difficult times, my intention changed. I would like to be a teacher, that besides teaching, inspired the students. To my postgraduate students, I wanted them to reach higher than I am. I would like them to have the joy of doing research, to understand that 'stress' is another for success. If we can ride on the 'stress', we surely can find the best looking rainbow at the end of the journey.

After four years of teaching, I don't know how much I have contributed to science or the students. Hopefully, I am doing just fine.

Maru's babies

Maru gave birth three weeks ago, while I was in Japan for business trip. A guy who works for the clinic where I took Maru for boarding was very excited when he saw me coming for Maru. He was standing next to the entrance, outside of the clinic and once seeing me, mentioned about Maru's five babies. Five! I was startled! But happy.

I brought Maru home with the babies and she was very protective towards the kittens. Even I can't get close to them. Anyway, she was too young and as a first time mother, she maybe not fit to take care of the kittens. One day, I found one of them died. And a few days layer, another one passed away. And later, due to work commitment, I went to Kuala Lumpur for four days. Few of my students helped me taking vare for them at home. But, when I reached home, I saw only Maru alone. She was not with tye babies. That night, three of them were found dead.

Maru was devastated for few days. She's now getting better.

30s facing 40s

I am a little bit fuzzy in my thinking. Past one month was havoc with fewer incidences took place. Not to say that all were bad ones, but I just need to sit and defragmented the mind. I was overwhelmed with activities and remembrance.

I will be facing my 40s next year and would like to keep intake of how my 30s is like. Gracefully, that is all I wanted to be like when I reach old age. Wanted to be able to tell my grandchildren the experiences, the activities, the steps that take and stumble, but still getting up. Eventually, I will leave this world, to the thereafter, the permanent one.

We took the road trip to Perlis, Penang and Langkawi. A memorable trip, I would say. The one that I never did in Malaysia.

A modern day tale, indeed!

I watched Maleficient today. An interesting way to capture the hearts of a thousand children, while letting them know that true love doesn't come as a package of a kiss of a young man. A motherly love is a love without boundary, that only a mother or a woman can understand. I will let my nieces watches this movie. Whoa! At least they could understand that they need not wait for the knight riding a white horse to make them feel complete. How feminist, I am today! And I love it every bit. 

Anyway, watching this movie brought back many memories. I remembered reading story books full of drawing and colors, when I was very young. The books were the door of limitless imaginations. The creatures drawn in those books came into life once I opened up the first page. They were talking and sharing their stories. I was living a tale by tale until the last page. Those feelings rarely come around these days. I wish to feel it again, to enjoy and ventures the world of the unknown and be captivated by the beauty of the kingdom, by the charm of a prince and the loveliness of a princess. Or live a life of a peasant who comes across many adventures by himself; fighting the dragon and finally learn something new about himself. 

How I wish!

Angry demon won!

I lost myself yesterday morning, losing a battle to curb my anger. And the person who took it was a girl who has been working for 3 years, but to put it simple, she can just walk away from all the work that she is doing at the moment and no one will feel like missing her.

She was too much!

But it is me who is on the losing side. I am a professional, should act professionally even with unprofessional person. To add salt to my bruised ego, I have been fighting this battle with my angry demon for quite sometime. The angry me only comes out in front of few best friends. Officemates never see my angry avatar, and they doubt it when I say that I am angry because I never shout. I will just talk to them in a straight face.

Yesterday, I did shout. Thank God, however, I was just thinking of struggling her, seconds before I stop short thinking that it can be a police report, when she answered me back.

God! It is really dangerous working when our body is too weak (I was having fever yesterday, but need to come because of running for a dateline), because the patience that one have might be too thin at that time.

Eight years of roller coaster life

Why love has been the topic on my mind lately? Romanticism has become my second name, it seems.

I can't figure it out. Even if there is a reason, no one bothers to ask or know. But, this is my blog, I should be able to write anything under the sun. Well, I've decided to write about love again.

Let me be frank. Doing PhD is not an easy job for me.

I was alone there in Tokushima and every burden has to come under my own responsibility. For four years, I took in the desperation to finish the study, bite my lips and hold the feeling together. I did that for four years, intact. It would be very irresponsible of me if I poured all the bad things to my mother, who herself just lost a husband. And kept losing a close relative, one by another; from her father, stepfather and finally her own mother. I can't be so selfish at that moment, though I wished that I have someone to talk to. Being me, I can't trust just anyone to read my heart and my soul. Hence, I was there on my own.

Coming back to Malaysia was another story. I was in need of a best friend, who somehow keep herself far beyond my reach. I can't blame her if the fate had played us. I still have many friends, who helped me all along the way. But, being human, the pain of losing one diminished all others that were there. That was four years back.

I think those 8 years was roller coaster years of my life. I kept losing myself, living with fear of opening my heart to the next person. I kept people distance, at arm's length, the nearest they can get close to.

Slowly, God showed me the way back to my old self.

I want to feel love again. To be able to give and get without prejudice and conditions.

And Maru is amongst the ones that He gave for me to start loving again. She is heavily pregnant with mood swings, but she makes my day.

Short visit to Tokushima

I just came back from Japan, from Tokushima. It was a great but short journey,  brought back all the bitter sweet memories. After all, there's no way for me to detest this place where I found the strongest me.

I found that I have a tremendous respect towards my former supervisor, Prof Hosoi, and that I missed him. I missed to work in that laboratory, with Akamatsu-sensei, Hasegawa-sensei and Yao-san. I missed having everyone around.

Then, it is dawn to me that we can have many experience, but only the sweet ones survived.

Of love, dopamine and emotion.

Love in science is just an after effect of dopamine, a chemical substance produces in the brain. Simple and the only explanation.

But if we study love through emotion point of view,  it can be a lifetime story or a movie or a song. Some of the stories is made up in order to justify the love or the sacrifice of the love. A lovely stories, that is all that I can say.

I am in love with love itself, which is another topic of love.

Falling heart falling one self

One thing that I know by my heart is the feeling of falling in love. It's like heaven. It's like the world only have you and the next person sitting with you; your lovely feeling just drown the rest of the crowd. You are building a world that consists only the two of you. You want to hang around with the person at the corner of your so called world forever. Other things do not matter anymore. It is nice feeling. At times, it's calming, other times, it's like a storm but in a great way.

But then again, I tend to lose myself, my identity in love. And that for me is not a great thing to do. I know that. But what can we say to the heart that is in love? Nothing. Only a prayer can save a soul.

For her

Love comes in many forms.

She was missing for ten days and that's enough to send my life spiralled down. I was heartbroken. Till one night, when I saw her rushing towards me with him chasing behind. She was thin and unkempt. That was the moment that I knew I need to take her in, no matter how much she loves her freedom and how much I love her to let her have her ways.

She is now pregnant and may give birth next month. But, this is her first pregnancy. She is a bit loss not knowing why she is tired most of the time. She sleeps a lot these days.

I will keep her safe and hopefully things will be okay for both of us. Yes, this is also the first time I am going to assist a cat delivers her babies. My Maru is going to be a mother.

Facebook page's idiot- part II

And so, after I've spent USD17 on my Facebook page, I had made my first USD10 selling online, today! Although I need to find another USD7 to cover the loss, my offline sales will do that in the meantime.

I got on into the 'Like' agenda and paid USD1 per day for seven days. It gets me around 500 likes, but with no purchase, only 'Like'. They really deliver whatever that I've asked for. Thus, I made another advertisement to get more people engaged, hoping for an increase in sale. I got two online inquiries, but win only one. So far, that was how the story went.

I won't give up so easily. This is a good challenge, especially on something that I have never ever done before. I need to be more focus, alert and organized. Loving this period so much!

Young always!

I am almost four decades of age, considered old by Asian standard. But that is not what I am going to write or as if I do care. Age is just a number for me. 

I do get young every now and then. Two things that make me young; knowledge and being with the young ones. 

This morning, during the journal club, we spent a good one hour discussing science related to our subject of interest which is stem cell. Although at times, the post-graduates students seemed anxious answering questions or had to asked one, at the end of the session everyone looked content. I just want them to express their thought freely. They might feel under duress, nevertheless I wish they learn something after that one hour. 

And this evening, I spent sometime before coming home with two young lecturers. They joined academia's world about a year ago. However, I can felt their vibration, a good vibration. They talked about the past one year and how they adapted their life as a lecturer. 

I always realise one thing that happen during these two events, whenever it happen; there was an adrenalin or epinephrine flow, freely. 

Maybe I was excited during the discussion because we are training the young minds to think or excited to be part of new leaves trying to venture out their life journey.

Thank God!

She is too young...

I am her caretaker. I have been looking after her for sometime. Thus, she is my responsibility. I would not let her go so easily considering her young age, naivety. She is a well-bred one.

But, he has been looking for her for sometime. He sits in front of the house every morning. He calls her up, although she rarely throws a glance. He even chased out an intruder one day. He is just a smart street one.

My cat, she is too young to fall in love.

Facebook page's idiot- part I

Well, nothing much can be said, unless we try and realized our mistake. This is called "tried and error" in science. Since I am a "scientist", I need to try this. Hypothesis null, 'It is difficult to make a sale using Facebook'.

So, after exhausting most of my friends on Facebook who I think would likely clicked the 'like' button by inviting them to like my sale page, I made about 60 likes out of it. This was considered as a zero move. Then, the first hardcore act started. Before we jump to the story of it, I just wanted to acknowledge that the zero move was based on an article that I read on Entrepreneur online.

The first move is to get as much like as I can, by buying the advertisement on Facebook. Not to waste much money, I spent around USD1 per day and for the past two days, the page gathers around 200 likes. Impressive! But that is not all that I learned from the status of 'likers' of my page. There are actually people who live by the Facebook just to click the 'like' button. Interesting!

That's probably one of the reasons Facebook has come up with 'an engagement button' when I tried to buy the advert. And probably this is one of the many reasons that only one person had ever asked me nicely over the message option if I had any other design. And this one person is not becoming my 'fan' (because she liked my page) through the advert. The others, no contact at all. I just wish that amongst those 200, there are genuine 'likers'. Or by time, will be.

Anyway, I will let the advert run for another 5 days, including today for the sake of increasing the number of like. And then, we will switch to engagement button, which will cost 5 times higher!

Maybe, if I could finish this task, I can start writing for the business section of Yahoo! Consider this as a job application, boss.

Flying kites of hope

I saw a woman with her two children the other day at the Bukit Keluang beach of Kuala Besut, Terengganu. She was there not to spend the time enjoying the sea breeze or the scenery. In fact, she was working,  selling kites. Many of them. The children just sitting near to her, not wandering around.

Many bad assumptions regarding her life partner came to my mind. But, I stopped short of thinking into it. It will not help her a bit. Instead,  I prayed for her good life and hopefully she will do well in selling her kites and enjoying life as it is.

Lets do that, folks.

Great life!

This weekend was a grand one, to me. The house has been very lively since early August because mother came to stay with me. It was actually difficult to ask her to come to stay with me, even for a week. Bu this time she was here for almost a month. It was with a promise from my younger brother that he will come to take her back at the end of the month. And well, he did came with his family. We had a blast celebrating the get together, minus my other brother and his family who cannot make it here.

And it was a good one because we were also celebrating our 57th Independence Day.

Facebook page's idiot on a trial phase

I am now trying out a Facebook feature to sell hijab and dress known as kaftan. Well, it's not an easy job though. Not as easy as it is being said.  I have been constantly looking over the news feed and messages, hoping the orders will come in bulk. No order as yet. Only from my auntie. Few friends were asking.

And I am not quitting. I will try many more steps and tricks available. We will see the next outcomes.

By the way, I am a scientist and this is a challenge for me to overcome. Let's treat this as one of the scientific problem.

Wish me luck! Visit me at this fb page 'Tudung bawal & kaftan Kb"...but it is in Malay. :-)

We are being watch...believe me!

Now I know that we are being watch, apart from the One up there. This is how the story goes.

It was an early morning surprised. Well, the morning was not so different from any other morning.  I was on my way to work with a big plastic bag, a garbage in the back bonnet. Mother had reminded me a few times to get them out of the kitchen as my cat was very fond of the plastic (because she thought something fishy was inside). So, I drove off with the plastic bag and made a detour to the garbage bin placed next to the main road. As I parked the car next to the bin, I saw a Mercedes benz car waiting for the red light on the other side of the road. I was admiring the car but can't see the driver clearly. The car was similar to the one own by a friend. Opened up the bonnet, I took the plastic bag out and went to the bin which was knocked down, lying on the ground, not in the upright position. I saw few other garbage bags were left around the bin on the ground. Since I was already there, it make no difference to just bend down a bit to see if the bin was empty and pushed in my plastic bag inside. When I turned around walking towards the car, I heard a car honked,  twice. I looked up and saw the driver of the Mercedes car gave me two thumb ups. I waved back initially thinking the driver was a friend. But then I realised from the driver's silhouette, he was not because my friend is a young woman, not a male.

Anyway,  I never thought anyone will take notice of me throwing away the garbage bag. But, those honks really made my morning.  A little appreciation of a little good deed is good as a morale booster.

Moral of the story,  we are under surveillance by another human being.  Remember to do good things,  always, then.

Less expectation is better

Everybody can give opinions,  suggestions,  plan and finally comments.  But not everyone can execute the plan. Thus, give some thought and think a little longer before open up our mouth and do the above. Have a little patience before thinking of your own needs. Think about others who have been going around to make sure things work out. Numbers of calls they make, numbers of letters they write and countless sleepless nights they went through.

The event that will happen today,  have so far taught me a lot about people.  It is easy to simply withdraw oneself before anything because you don't feel like doing it. Come to think of it, maybe this is the last time I would expect your commitment in things that I might do in the future.  I need support and it should comes from a friend. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Well, this is life anyway.

Death of humanity

Humanity is dying a slow death. There is no alien invasion or meteor crashing that caused that, unlike our expectation.

The reason is bigger.

Anyway,  we used to know it as 'power'. But, the basis is much simpler. None of us, the humble human being could have guess that. I call it as black heart. Heart full of hatred and high importance of oneself. Or sometime,  just lack of anything,  cold-hearted.

This is the reason of thousand death in Gaza. And MH17. And Syria. Myanmar. And many other places.

This is just a beginning of death of humanity.

Missing him always

I missed him so much!

Few years ago, he went on to meet his Maker. And that fateful day still plays I my mind until now. The day which we thought as just another day of him to be in the ICU. After a week,  his vital sign was getting better though he was not yet coming out of the comatose state. It was also a week into Ramadan and we were breaking fast at the hospital, just outside the unit. And on that day, I had decided that I would go home instead of my mother to prepare the breakfast's meal. Thus, I reached by his side about two minutes late.

I am his daughter,  how would I ever forget that.

He was misdiagnosed for having diarrhea. Admitted when one of the doctors whose he visited and suggested that he might had something else. I just arrived in the hospital, early morning, and then I saw a pool of blood stained his bed sheet. He was thinking that he just defecated. That afternoon,  he was induced into comatose state. That was the last time I saw him 'alive' and then five days later, he breath his last.

But, I just missed not having him around, really. He is with me everyday, all the time. How? Because,  he is always with my prayer. I pray for him and my mother well being every day.

Who am I without them? They give me their world so that I can have mine. I love them, God! Please give them heaven for that. Ameen.

Heartbreak...

It was a heartbreaking news and it still is.

First, it was Gaza. The slaughtering is happening and there is no hint that it will end anytime soon.

Then, the MH17. I still cry now and then, wherever I think of the victims and their families. How one of them used to cross path with me some 30 years back.

Power play in this life will not last forever...

I just do not understand. This point of view is absolutely ridiculous. Unless we are an atheist, all of us should be believing in God. Then, why certain quarters act as if they are the God. They thought they are so powerful that they could blind the One and off course,  the people. They are not cheating God, they are cheating themselves. I wish the will come to their senses one fine day before its too late.

Power can only last a lifetime but there are life after death. Do they think they could persuade Him as they do here, in this life? Yes, there are 30 million individuals that could be the witnesses in front of Him. But then again, forget people. The witnesses could be the angels who are with us 24/7. Or our own body. Remember,  although no one have ever come back from death but death is not a myth.

Good luck!!!

These two weeks are examination weeks for year 1. Both students and lecturers are affected during this time. The students are busying themselves preparing for the papers,  while the lecturers are busy marking the papers. All have to be out for a school board meeting this coming Thursday. I am now eagerly waiting for the results so that the students eligible for the distinction viva session could be identified.

I hope for the best!

Sayonara beautiful voice...

Malaysia is mourning for her loss of yet another beautiful voice.

God has gave her a long life as a singer with a series of ups and downs. She had a lengthy list of admirers and fan but not without hatters. But then again, that was an expected way of life of a celebrity.

As a human being, she sometimes made headlines for a wrong reason. But, those attitudes mean she was behaving as a normal individual. Who are we to be a judge of characters?

I respect her the most when she decided to sent her only son to study on religion and away from the limelight. For me, that was the best a celebrity mother could do for her child, although the price that they need to pay was to live separately for many years.

May her soul be at peace. Good bye for now, Sharifah Aini.

From Him we come, to Him we will go back eventually.

She had me

I cannot be thankful enough for having her. She has been living with me for three months now.

Initially,  I was quite reluctant to be close to her,  but she invades my heart effortlessly.

Yes, my life may have been a little bit 'busy' from its flawless schedule. Nevertheless,  it is becoming much richer than it used to be. There is always something to look forward at the end of the day. Her antics make all my troubles fly away because she has made it a rule that after works, it is all about her.

I guess by now she must have known that she had me, wrapped around her claws.

Maru, my smokes coloured cat.

Ramadhan in Malaysia

Ramadhan is here. Tomorrow is the day when all Muslim start fasting. Non-muslim may assumed that this fasting is a difficult task to be performed. Nevertheless, it is not.

In Malaysia, it is like a month of festival ending with an eid. You may find food sold at a stall only during this month. And that too at special 'pasar ramadhan', a place like like market but open early to sell food for breaking fast. Hotels will come out with special buffet offer just for breaking fast. In Kelantan, this is the time where we can find many variety of colek. I will upload a picture of colek if I manage to have one.

But then again, I am not able to go back to my hometown to breaking fast with my mother. All due to the Phase 1 Professional Exam which starts tomorrow. I know she must be sad to be alone. I am sorry but I wish I could make it up soon. I planning to go home for few days to spend some quality time with her.

Lastly, i wish Happy Ramadhan to all Muslims. This is another chances to do good deeds.

I missed you already

A friend who is also a colleague and probably more like a big sister is going to move to Kuantan in the end of July, which means that she will be leaving USM as well. She is leaving a big hole in my life in PPSG and in Kelantan, and need a lot of courage to fill it up.

As I was from Kedah with no relative in Kota Bharu, she was the first friend who I met when I started working in PPSG. And she was the one who introduced me to Ina, my best friend. During this 12 years, many things had happened. We are friends, we quarrelled, we make up. She went for her PhD. I went for mine. She came back before I came back. We did what friend does and it is now coming to the other end of our friendship. It is not the end, end. The end here means that we are not going to see each other as much as we wish because Kuantan and Kota Bharu is like 6 hours drive.

The pain is like a gentle stroke of a pin into my heart. I don't know where to point the pain is, but I know my heart is crying.

The wind is changing direction

I can feel that there are wind of changes in my professional life. Personally, I want it to change and God is helping me in shaping it. I don't know about how would it be at the end, but I am praying that it will be for the best, for everybody. I am not moving out, but I guess I will be moving about.

I want to note here that I am happy with my plan of evolving. I have done this once 24 years back when I was in secondary school. The life and my decision to live my life at that time made it very dull and static. Well, I was one of the students living in the hostel of Sultanah Asma Secondary School. The decision to stay at the hostel was handed down from my father with a consensus of my mother, although my great grandfather (who was very dear to me and pampered me a lot) was against it. At the end, the power of the parents has been always above everything else that matters. Then, there I was, away from home and families. And what can a young, timid and naive girls at the age of 13 can do much. I was a geeky kind of girl who read, study, cheer others up, eat and sleep. I can't help that my English language was tremendously weak that I can't understand some words lavishly spoken by most of my classmates. Which at the end, all that we can get was a young girl with budding inferiority complexes. Adding to the pain was the fact that there were differences in social-economic background between us. However, I endured all the troubles and not so interesting life and never once allowed it to jeopardize my academic life. Why? Because it was my ticket out of that monotonous life.

I was among the top 10 achievers of SRP examination that year of that school (and I got a prize given by the Sultanah of Kedah during school awards giving ceremony) and was offered a place in MRSM Beseri. I went there with an intention to go against the current, get into the power, be in charge and live happily. Although I never really had the power, the life was improving a lot. I became talkative, more approachable, had many friends and laughed a lot.

This is my plan. I want to open up a bit to life, love a bit, pray a lot and let Him do the rest.

We don't have all the answers

I love science because it is an answer to me. Behavioral study divides human nature into a few types. Mine is the one who are born with a lot of curiosity. I choose to be a scientist since it helps me satisfying the curiosity. The scientist, professionally, conducting research in order to answer certain question which is known as a hypothesis. They are trying to prove it wrong. Anyway, if I could, I would like to be a policewoman, a spy or there are a lot more other professions which garnered answers based on inquisitiveness, but I guess a scientist is a cool one. 

But as much as we try, I don't think science can provide answers to everything. There are many moments in life where we just do not know the answer and have to live with it. Or we just don't know. This is where the divine one plays a role. One of the recent examples is MH370. Whatever the speculation or conspiracy theories, there are, we can't come to any conclusion. Many books will come up. Many movies will be made. Many stories will creep in. However, it will remain a mystery until one fine day, the One decides to show us who is with the real power. 

After it went missing, the first thing that came up in  my mind was that the world has never been smaller. It was us who thought so. In reality, globalization has never made this small world. We, the human race, think we have kept the planet earth in between our two fingers. This has never really happened. With all the technologies that we have to destroy the earth, "nuclear weapon", we still can't find this tiny piece of the airplane. What a technology we have! 

At the end, human remains the small creature in this big universe. As much as I want to know everything, I still know nothing.

Find the formula to be better....

Whatever others think of me, I will always say that I am not born to be this 'positive'. It is just that I read a lot when I was young and miserable and found a formula. Besides, I am readily believe in anything that I read because at that moment the way out of that sadness is my only focus.

I still remember one article in a local newspaper which discussed about low self esteemed personality. This type of personality will never even look at the mirror and never acknowledge themselves if they happened to see their own image. It then clicked me that I was the person discussed. The article also mentioned of how to changed and get rid of that inferiority complex. I did follow the advises and it took me many years to prove myself. It was a long journey but worthy.

I am not trying to tell how good I am. It is just to dispatch an idea that we may be able to change ourselves if we embrace the idea changes are possible. Be opened and leave the security umbrella, but never forget the root because it keeps us grounded.

Small talk of a mother is a big talk of love

I always perceived myself as a busy lady. For the pas 4 years, that was my new mantra; 'busy lady'. But then again,  I am busy. However, that should not stop one from having a small talk to get to know thy neighbour or colleague.

She is the tea lady who helps me a lot if I in need of something out of ordinary, such as 'serunding'. She did helped in few occasions especially when hari raya was fast approaching. But today, she did more than that. 

We were talking about serunding when she noticed a picture of an actress posing in a newspaper. Suddenly the topic switched, she started voicing her concerned regarding children nowadays. I can see her worry, as a mother and how she is now the one responsible to any of their deeds. The talked last more then 10 minutes. Longer then I expected. Her expression was truly genuine. I can see her points. 

I can't say much because I am not a mother myself, but a mother is always a mother. However,  I can't fathom whatever was in the head of a mother who was found to leave his oku son unattended till he was left with bone and skin. Maybe I don't understand her situation,  but I just want to wish her and her son the very best.

Guarding one heart

I have a successful and an ideal life, one of my friend mentioned one day. Alas, that is far from true. The truth is I might have a contented life. Anyway, that is not the point that I want to share, which is my view of myself.t

I do have friend and they are dear to my heart. At time, I will go at length to fulfill their wishes. It is easy for me to do those things because of the friendship labelled. However,  when it comes to one level up, I do not have the heart. I keep my heart closes to the chest chamber and guarded it in fierce.

It may comes from the fact that trusting is an issue when it has something to do with my heart. I know I can be easily fooled,  which is why I opt not to trust so easily in the matter of heart. Well, I might miss a lot because of that, but I can't see other options. Deep down I want to love and be loved. Maybe some other time where the life is less complicated.

Body, you belong to the mind

At the point we just let the thought wander around, we may want to pull it back to the earth. Mind wandering without guideline is dangerous. 

Our mind is is very powerful that it can convince us that we are in a bad situation. Subsequently, we will act in that manner. There have been many motivational gurus who said about this. They may say this in an absurd manner which is ideal for the audiences and it is nothing wrong that. Men are choosy and they usually choose whatever that they want to listen, or how they want it to be presented. 

Have you ever think about your latest incidence related to your colleague. Think about what he said to you. Maybe he has been saying bad things about you behind your back to the other people. Then, the other colleagues may have believed him. What if this thing has gone up to the top management. STOP. Now analyze your feeling. Do you feel bad?

We are what we think we are. If we think bad, the mind will start telling the body system to react accordingly. There will be enzymes, hormones, ion charges and lots more reacting towards the instruction of the mind. Then, we will feel depressed, lonely or sad, or anger. This is a normal process of a body system. The mind of the brain tell, the body just produces. That is why we need to always keep the mind clean. Be positive. Be strong. Be hopeful. 

What is the reason? Scientists have shown that we can only see if the mind can process what we are seeing. But how is the mind working? Do we see first or is it the mind who is allowing us to see? Or why negative people think negatively all the time? Or how can the mind differentiate the growl from the stomach is a hungry growl or because there are too much food that the stomach cannot process? Still, these cannot be answered. I think the one up there controls all these. 

Anyway, I have mentioned about guidelines earlier. I think we should let the mind wander once awhile, but always remember the common basic guidelines that we all have. But if we don't have, find one. Life is never about justice, life is more about being fair, about being good and about being true. 

He taught his teacher about living the life

My PhD student is a Syrian. He worked in Saudi Arabia before coming to Malaysia. His PhD supervisor was someone else a year before he finally became my student and since had submitted the thesis for examination.

          Starting from the time I knew him until today (almost three years had passed), only God knows of how many bad incidences that took place in his life. He is a husband and a father of 4 children, and all of them are here with him. His country is at war and his hometown was at wrecked that he can't go back there. During those 3 years, he had once broken his right hand for landed on the floor after trying to change lamp bulb. Being a dentist who basically worked with right hand, that period of time say a lot about his future. Thank God, the hand can be fixed. Apart from that, he still have elderly parents at home, who are now shifted to Jordan. That was after so much of demanding from him.

         His elder brother passed away last two years ago due to cancer, leaving behind a wife and children. The brother was a surgeon. 

          My student, ASA, was here while these occurred.  

         ASA is not a man without an opinion. He has a lot to say, but probably because these things keep happening one after another, he gets used to it and rarely mentioned about this. 

         Once a while, I would ask about his family back home and he would eventually leave my room with red eyes. Me, I would be dumbfounded by him handling all these and not showing any sign of depression or lack of willingness to go on fighting the world. I then, would be thinking about our own Malaysians who would kill themselves on the road for the sake of having fun or would end up at the Pusat Serenti.

         Being opinionated and coming from different fields of study, we used to lock horns over many things, especially regarding his thesis writing. It is hard if he too has to work with an opinionated supervisor. For me, this was a process of teaching and "agree to disagree", which I do not welcome much but I appreciated it a lot. 

          I am telling this story not to degrade him what-so-ever. It is just a story sharing to let others know that we can be the best in the worst condition. It is the matter of choosing.

          He is teaching me as much as I think I had taught him. 

Can't make everyone happy....

The dry season is good in a way. Dry and tasteless. Whoa! I started the morning after a long hiatus, by being sarcastic. Excuse me, that is not "me", but "my demon" inside. 

Well, for the past few months, there is one girl in the office who felt threatened by me (unnecessarily) had kept posted on her Facebook that someone had done bad for her. I guess she had been talking about me because she was talking about my achievement which somehow reduced her popularity in the workplace. The last sentence was my assumption because she never comes clean about it neither do I. As my gesture of disapproval, I just reserved my interaction with her. Nevertheless, I will not argue just to prove my point since it might severed any type of relationship that one may have. That is my way of finding peace with oneself.  

But, anyway, I have been working very hard starting from the year of 2011, do not just sit idle in my not so soft chair which means that whatever that transpires out of it is the gift from Him. It is a sunnatullah. You work, you get. Although sometimes, we may work but do not get. It is another story that will need another post on it.

But then again, by taking this out loud, I should remember that she is "the sets of questions sent by Him". Probably to teach me something. Then, I should deal with her in a good way that will eventually benefit me hereafter. 

Anyhow, let's just take this lightly and remember that world consists many types of people and not everyone will be happy with us. The one that we need to serve before anything is Him.