Saturday, March 27, 2010
Caring beyond...
Someone posed a question that sets me thinking. He asked whether teachers have the right to still advise or to put it bluntly, 'meddle' in the lives of students who have graduated from the school. On one side, the relationship as in the status of 'teacher-student' is of course severed once the student left school - teacher is no more his 'teacher' and he is no more the teacher's student. But, question is, does the relationship of a teacher and student binded by the mere physical presence of a school, under the umbrella of an institution only? I would hope not. More so if the teacher and student has developed over the years, a sense of care and trust and concern for one another... I would like to think that it is the heart that binds and this bond goes beyond any institution, and physical formality. Yes, i do agree that the teacher has to learn to let go - let his students learn the ropes of the real world, stumble and fall and then stand up stronger and wiser, insyaAllah...but please forgive a teacher if out of his care and love, he voiced out strong disapproval of his EX-students' behaviour..afterall, even if he is no more their teacher, he is still, with regards to Islam, an elder who should be given the right to right a wrong and respect when he speaks - don't you think so? :)
Things happen for a reason, a very good reason...
When I first discovered that my Lenovo laptop was gone, kaput, Anang's song, 'Separuh jiwaku pergi', came to my mind. Just like that. I then felt so ashamed. Afterall, alhamdulillah, no one was hurt in that morning most memorable, painful and fearful event. Alhamdulillah, both our cars were there and my children and us were not harmed. But my laptop....come to think of it, it is amazing how much of my 'life' was in that square, nondescript technological gadgetry - almost all records of my professional life - test papers, test results, video teaching resources, letters, forms...you name it. All gone. Gone too were parts of me - family photos, records of my works and my students' creative works - yes, including The Writer's folder as well - i will miss that....really miss that...my favourite music..MasyaAllah...
My only 'defense' was to NOT think, nor LIST, what i actually lost...the enormosity of it all has just began to sink in...and i fear drowning in that realisation.....you see, together with that laptop was also my only, ONLY, hard-disk...so there was no back-up as well....
I still want to believe that things happen for a reason. A very good reason...
No one can ever be too careful, nor anyone can be that evil to cause so much trouble to others...
May Allah replaced the misfortune with His blessings and pity and rahmah to my family...Amin.
My only 'defense' was to NOT think, nor LIST, what i actually lost...the enormosity of it all has just began to sink in...and i fear drowning in that realisation.....you see, together with that laptop was also my only, ONLY, hard-disk...so there was no back-up as well....
I still want to believe that things happen for a reason. A very good reason...
No one can ever be too careful, nor anyone can be that evil to cause so much trouble to others...
May Allah replaced the misfortune with His blessings and pity and rahmah to my family...Amin.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Pesan Tok Guru
Tok Guru Mahzan berkongsi:
Jangan di lawan akal dengan akal
Tapi takluklah akal dengan khayal
Jangan di sambut yang keras dengan yang keras
Kelak binasa dek suhu panas
Tapi sambutlah pedang dengan angin
Penatnya tangan yang mencincang
Pasti berhenti .....sedangkan angin tidak akan melukakan dadanya...
Fikir-fikirkanlah! :)
Jangan di lawan akal dengan akal
Tapi takluklah akal dengan khayal
Jangan di sambut yang keras dengan yang keras
Kelak binasa dek suhu panas
Tapi sambutlah pedang dengan angin
Penatnya tangan yang mencincang
Pasti berhenti .....sedangkan angin tidak akan melukakan dadanya...
Fikir-fikirkanlah! :)
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Mencari kasih manusia
I was going through my drawers when I chanced upon an old diary of mine - it had its earliest date as my 21st birthday! MasyaAllah! That was like 23 years ago! :) Alhamdulillah, Allah has given me a good life, thus far...:) Would like to share some of the things I wrote - they do bring back, oh! such memories of who I was and scarily, how some things have not changed...:)
(Oh! My poems were normally written in the Malay language..) *hic*
Mencari kasih manusia
Bagai berlari mengejar pelangi
Indah dan nyata
Tapi hanya sementara
hanya gugusan udara,
hanya ada selepas turunnya hujan,
Tak kuasa bertahan
apabila mentari berleluasan
Ibarat mimpi di siang hari,
Satu senyuman hanya illusi,
Satu harapan, hanya fantasi
Tapi, cinta pada Illahi
Bagai lautan yang tak bertepi
Ombak senantiasa memukul pantai
Semakin jauh lautan diteroka
Semakin dalam juga dasarnya
Gelap kelihatan dari permukaan
Tapi indah apabila di kedalaman
Lautan menyembunyikan berjuta rahsia
Keindahan dan penghidupan
Niqmat dan harapan
Yang tiada tandingan
14.5.1987
(Oh! My poems were normally written in the Malay language..) *hic*
Mencari kasih manusia
Bagai berlari mengejar pelangi
Indah dan nyata
Tapi hanya sementara
hanya gugusan udara,
hanya ada selepas turunnya hujan,
Tak kuasa bertahan
apabila mentari berleluasan
Ibarat mimpi di siang hari,
Satu senyuman hanya illusi,
Satu harapan, hanya fantasi
Tapi, cinta pada Illahi
Bagai lautan yang tak bertepi
Ombak senantiasa memukul pantai
Semakin jauh lautan diteroka
Semakin dalam juga dasarnya
Gelap kelihatan dari permukaan
Tapi indah apabila di kedalaman
Lautan menyembunyikan berjuta rahsia
Keindahan dan penghidupan
Niqmat dan harapan
Yang tiada tandingan
14.5.1987
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Shauqina: Chapter 2
Short-sightedness = I hate Maths!
I had not realized there was something wrong with my eyesight until the nurses came for their routine check-up of us. It was soon after Zak joined the school. There we were, wide-eyed ten year olds, some fearful, some curious and some not caring whether the world was going to end even. I fell into the third category. I was just following the tide, going from one station to the next, even yawning in boredom until I came to the last station – the eye-check station. It was my turn and as the nurse covered my right eye, I tried to read the letters on the white card about 20 metres away. All I saw was a blurry image of white and black prints happily merging with one another. I squinted and squinted and I thought I was starting to hyperventilate out of sheer desperation when a soft voice behind me whispered:
“Capital L”.
I dared not turn my head for fear of reproach from the nurse so I muttered out the alphabet. The voice was loyal. It helped me all throughout the test. “Small letter ‘v’”, “Number 4” and as I grew more confident, my voice was louder, steadier, haughtier. I smiled triumphantly at the end of the test, but my wide grin somewhat faded when I turned and saw Zak. It was him all along. I remembered being puzzled as I saw him smiling sheepishly back at me, his face expecting some kind of gratitude from mine. I did not receive any smiles from the nurse though. She saw through our act. When she handed me my card, her voice was gentle but firm,
“Hafeza, you need to put on spectacles. Give this to your parents, understand?”
I remembered nodding my head, a bit dejectedly. Spectacles? Where would my parents find money for that?
We were not rich but neither were we poor. My parents were frugal people who always ensured that there was decent food on the table and enough for us to put on decent uniforms to school. My mother sewed our clothes and she was a darn good tailor too. My parents, my other two siblings (before the youngest boy came along) lived in a house built by my own father. It was half brick and half wooden, with a zinc roof. It was in a Malay ‘kampung’ – a village- in the well-known Geylang/Jalan Ubi area. Jalan Kayu Putih – that was the street we lived in. Life was idyllic then. Waking up in the freezing morning to bathe in the equally freezing over-the-night water in the large, self-made brick cauldron was an experience that remained indelible. I remember every morning trying to avoid wetting my hair, but to no avail. Mak would come along, invading my privacy in the bathroom, and with one fierce look, or one sweep of her motherly strong hand, the ‘gayung’ would cascade down cool water onto my head. It was refreshing but frustrating as well. I remembered going to school with my short, wet hair plastered to my head. To add insult to the wound, my hair was oily too, from the green ‘MGR’ oil, popular among the Indians, as the icon on the hair oil bottle was a popular Indian actor. It was greasy and I could never get used to the smell but for some unknown reason, my mother seemed to think that this was a beauty tip not to be missed. Imagine me with hair oil right until I was in Secondary 1! Tomboy that I was, I would still look forlornly and longingly at my other friends – Natasha would have her long, curly locks in two beautiful braids, some have theirs in long ponytails and even those with short hair would have their hair nicely fluffed from brushing and put down with nicely pokka-dotted head bands. I did try to protest – why I could not have long hair, of which my mother would confidently say:
“I want you to concentrate in your studies, not fiddle with your hair all the time.”
Or what about this one,
“If your head is dry – otak pun kering!*”
(*Translation: dried up brains = stupid)
Life was thus placid and pretty much a routine of school, afternoon naps, playing till twilight, home, dinner, study and sleep. Free time was spent roaming fabulously around the village, exploring dirty, filthy, clogged up drains for beautiful rainbow-coloured guppies. Or stealthily scouring leaves of low shrubs to catch the elusive ‘champion’ spider and triumphantly caging it in matchboxes.
I was so hooked on those colourful guppies that I would pretend to take the mandatory afternoon nap and slipped out to the nearest drain to catch them. Unfortunately, on one of those days, as I was spooning the gooey, dark slime to get to the fish, I felt my right ear being twisted and pinched ever so painfully. My dear mother…
So, that routine was pretty much upset when I came home with that card from the nurse. My mother read it, looked at me, then looked at the card, then back at me again. What she said was totally unexpected for the sheer novelty of her thoughts:
“Amboi!! Melampau!! Suka-suka nak melaram!*”
(Literal translation: Wow! You’re too much! You are a vain pot!!)
At Primary Four, I could not see the connection between short-
sightedness, wearing spectacles and vanity. Everything my mother said was final though. Everything. So I just kept quiet and ‘suffered’ in silence.
The subject that ‘suffered’ most because of my eyesight was none other than Maths. I remember being asked to complete an additional sum on the blackboard and in front of everybody, I would have the wrong answer because ‘0’ looked like ‘8’ and ‘5’ looked like ‘6’, if you know what I meant. I was beginning to have many ugly, red crosses in my Maths exercise book, because in those days, the teacher had no worksheets for us – we copied our exercises from the blackboard. I was the brunt of jokes of my Maths teacher who seemed to think her jokes were funny and that my skin was kilometers thick! I became withdrawn and anxious in my Maths classes. It was not until primary six that my dear mother finally had the common sense to realize that her daughter needed to put on spectacles by which time my degrees was pretty high ( I started at 400 degrees!). And yes. Another long lasting effect was that I simply hated Maths. My love-hate relationship with Mr Mathematics went far beyond my junior college days. Not to mention that my Maths teachers were one of a kind – one talked to the blackboard as she taught, another announced to the whole class that my name was ‘ugly’. Yes, I hated Maths. Period.
I had not realized there was something wrong with my eyesight until the nurses came for their routine check-up of us. It was soon after Zak joined the school. There we were, wide-eyed ten year olds, some fearful, some curious and some not caring whether the world was going to end even. I fell into the third category. I was just following the tide, going from one station to the next, even yawning in boredom until I came to the last station – the eye-check station. It was my turn and as the nurse covered my right eye, I tried to read the letters on the white card about 20 metres away. All I saw was a blurry image of white and black prints happily merging with one another. I squinted and squinted and I thought I was starting to hyperventilate out of sheer desperation when a soft voice behind me whispered:
“Capital L”.
I dared not turn my head for fear of reproach from the nurse so I muttered out the alphabet. The voice was loyal. It helped me all throughout the test. “Small letter ‘v’”, “Number 4” and as I grew more confident, my voice was louder, steadier, haughtier. I smiled triumphantly at the end of the test, but my wide grin somewhat faded when I turned and saw Zak. It was him all along. I remembered being puzzled as I saw him smiling sheepishly back at me, his face expecting some kind of gratitude from mine. I did not receive any smiles from the nurse though. She saw through our act. When she handed me my card, her voice was gentle but firm,
“Hafeza, you need to put on spectacles. Give this to your parents, understand?”
I remembered nodding my head, a bit dejectedly. Spectacles? Where would my parents find money for that?
We were not rich but neither were we poor. My parents were frugal people who always ensured that there was decent food on the table and enough for us to put on decent uniforms to school. My mother sewed our clothes and she was a darn good tailor too. My parents, my other two siblings (before the youngest boy came along) lived in a house built by my own father. It was half brick and half wooden, with a zinc roof. It was in a Malay ‘kampung’ – a village- in the well-known Geylang/Jalan Ubi area. Jalan Kayu Putih – that was the street we lived in. Life was idyllic then. Waking up in the freezing morning to bathe in the equally freezing over-the-night water in the large, self-made brick cauldron was an experience that remained indelible. I remember every morning trying to avoid wetting my hair, but to no avail. Mak would come along, invading my privacy in the bathroom, and with one fierce look, or one sweep of her motherly strong hand, the ‘gayung’ would cascade down cool water onto my head. It was refreshing but frustrating as well. I remembered going to school with my short, wet hair plastered to my head. To add insult to the wound, my hair was oily too, from the green ‘MGR’ oil, popular among the Indians, as the icon on the hair oil bottle was a popular Indian actor. It was greasy and I could never get used to the smell but for some unknown reason, my mother seemed to think that this was a beauty tip not to be missed. Imagine me with hair oil right until I was in Secondary 1! Tomboy that I was, I would still look forlornly and longingly at my other friends – Natasha would have her long, curly locks in two beautiful braids, some have theirs in long ponytails and even those with short hair would have their hair nicely fluffed from brushing and put down with nicely pokka-dotted head bands. I did try to protest – why I could not have long hair, of which my mother would confidently say:
“I want you to concentrate in your studies, not fiddle with your hair all the time.”
Or what about this one,
“If your head is dry – otak pun kering!*”
(*Translation: dried up brains = stupid)
Life was thus placid and pretty much a routine of school, afternoon naps, playing till twilight, home, dinner, study and sleep. Free time was spent roaming fabulously around the village, exploring dirty, filthy, clogged up drains for beautiful rainbow-coloured guppies. Or stealthily scouring leaves of low shrubs to catch the elusive ‘champion’ spider and triumphantly caging it in matchboxes.
I was so hooked on those colourful guppies that I would pretend to take the mandatory afternoon nap and slipped out to the nearest drain to catch them. Unfortunately, on one of those days, as I was spooning the gooey, dark slime to get to the fish, I felt my right ear being twisted and pinched ever so painfully. My dear mother…
So, that routine was pretty much upset when I came home with that card from the nurse. My mother read it, looked at me, then looked at the card, then back at me again. What she said was totally unexpected for the sheer novelty of her thoughts:
“Amboi!! Melampau!! Suka-suka nak melaram!*”
(Literal translation: Wow! You’re too much! You are a vain pot!!)
At Primary Four, I could not see the connection between short-
sightedness, wearing spectacles and vanity. Everything my mother said was final though. Everything. So I just kept quiet and ‘suffered’ in silence.
The subject that ‘suffered’ most because of my eyesight was none other than Maths. I remember being asked to complete an additional sum on the blackboard and in front of everybody, I would have the wrong answer because ‘0’ looked like ‘8’ and ‘5’ looked like ‘6’, if you know what I meant. I was beginning to have many ugly, red crosses in my Maths exercise book, because in those days, the teacher had no worksheets for us – we copied our exercises from the blackboard. I was the brunt of jokes of my Maths teacher who seemed to think her jokes were funny and that my skin was kilometers thick! I became withdrawn and anxious in my Maths classes. It was not until primary six that my dear mother finally had the common sense to realize that her daughter needed to put on spectacles by which time my degrees was pretty high ( I started at 400 degrees!). And yes. Another long lasting effect was that I simply hated Maths. My love-hate relationship with Mr Mathematics went far beyond my junior college days. Not to mention that my Maths teachers were one of a kind – one talked to the blackboard as she taught, another announced to the whole class that my name was ‘ugly’. Yes, I hated Maths. Period.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
me
Was thinking that I might have some time to myself - it is the holidays - just to spend on organising the messy table, mark the backlogged work, such things - but no such luck. It was two workshops back to back. On two new hi-tech gadgets. The workshops were good, informative and timely. But i still wished that i had time - sigh! I can never really do any school work nowadays...at home, i have nina, who is a handful, clothes which are pilefuls, children who are hopeful and of course, Mr Time who is never mindful of me and always running away without my permission...
I miss ME too.
If you ever see me, under a tree, reading a book, listening to some music, then you would have found ME.
If not, it's just me. No one else but me.
I miss ME too.
If you ever see me, under a tree, reading a book, listening to some music, then you would have found ME.
If not, it's just me. No one else but me.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Rewang-rewangan
Tersebut al-kisah, maka turunlah segala warga Irsyad dari tempat bersemayam mereka - dari yang di awan-awanan tingkat lapan, hinggalah ke anak-anak dari aras bawah, kesemuanya berhimpun di kolong 'istana' untuk sama-sama berkerah tenaga, menyumbang keringat, memasak santapan briyani dermaan rakyat jelata dari kota Singa ini.
Maka riuh-rendahlah kolong istana dengan derai ketawa para warga, - yang tua, yang muda, yang berpangkat, yang tidak - keletak-keletuk pisau dihayun - bawang dihiris, ayam dan daging ditetak, kentang dipotong, limau kasturi diperah.
Ada yang bersiram-siraman - panas terik tidak dihiraukan, riang-ria mencuci timun, merendam daun pandan, membasuh dulang. Lengan disinsing, mata menjeling - khuatir terperlihatkan yang tidak boleh dilihat.
Maka ramailah anak gadis yang terhiris jari-jemari halus, bagaikan babak dari sirah Nabi Yusof dan Zulaikha.
Maka ramailah para jejaka yang 'mendayung' - menumis rencah di dalam periuk belanga yang di susun berderetan walhal di rumah, mungkin mencuci sebiji pinggan pun tidak pernah... :)
Maka yang berat menjadi ringan, yang sukar menjadi mudah, yang lambat menjadi cepat....
Allahu Akbar!
Moga diberkati Sang Yang Memiliki Segalanya dengan keakraban ukhuwah dan keberkatan di dalam rezeki yang di beri.
Amin...
Maka riuh-rendahlah kolong istana dengan derai ketawa para warga, - yang tua, yang muda, yang berpangkat, yang tidak - keletak-keletuk pisau dihayun - bawang dihiris, ayam dan daging ditetak, kentang dipotong, limau kasturi diperah.
Ada yang bersiram-siraman - panas terik tidak dihiraukan, riang-ria mencuci timun, merendam daun pandan, membasuh dulang. Lengan disinsing, mata menjeling - khuatir terperlihatkan yang tidak boleh dilihat.
Maka ramailah anak gadis yang terhiris jari-jemari halus, bagaikan babak dari sirah Nabi Yusof dan Zulaikha.
Maka ramailah para jejaka yang 'mendayung' - menumis rencah di dalam periuk belanga yang di susun berderetan walhal di rumah, mungkin mencuci sebiji pinggan pun tidak pernah... :)
Maka yang berat menjadi ringan, yang sukar menjadi mudah, yang lambat menjadi cepat....
Allahu Akbar!
Moga diberkati Sang Yang Memiliki Segalanya dengan keakraban ukhuwah dan keberkatan di dalam rezeki yang di beri.
Amin...
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