Transience

So school's ended for me for undergrad and it seems I am becoming nocturnal in the summer and my recent activities include poring over reading materials that I never had the liberty of perusing through them during the last two years of my engineering undergraduate career. I am unfortunately most effective at reading and ruminating around the wee hours in the morning, so I adapted this nocturnal sleeping pattern. My recent reading material happens to be Raden Mas' Hidup Bertuhan Hidup Beragama. I don't normally read philosophical texts in Malay, so this is a first. I thought about writing it in Malay because some terms are best described in Malay, though I personally feel that my capacity to express my thoughts in Malay is limited since I myself have thought processes in English and I made English annotations during my read through, but I will do to the best of my ability to unpack what I've read. I read through it twice. I usually read through once, but lately I hav...

I realized I wasn't as idealistic as I was back in my high school days. I tend to retreat to the background, focusing on getting my share of the pie of reality. Maybe even indifferent sometimes. Or perhaps I was just uninspired ? I feel like I'm on the cusp of that age where I can actually make meaningful change, realizing those teenage ideals, and that age where performance really matters and will determine what comes next for me. I do notice though, some of my peers who I once spoke of ideals with actually carrying on with it, even initiating movements, while some remain in the background, and some other peers, who, during school, didn't really tried standing out as much, but have started their own movement. It's surreal. There's several groups in which my peers choose to gravitate to, especially for those studying overseas. I must mention the UK, the middle east, which have very prominent student organization activities. Well, I suppose, every individual ...

So, the new semester's officially started, and it almost feels bittersweet. I'm back in the grind and I'm anticipating the sweat and tears ahead that await me for the last two semesters I have, inshaAllah. I can't believe I spent a full 4 months of not doing anything academic or career-related in Canada (not that I've ever had anything career-related in the past summers). It feels surreal because just last summer I was telling myself that I'm halfway through, now I'm almost done. First two months was basically the Vancouver trip which I've put off blogging about, Bruce Peninsula trip, last minute bonding with the graduating seniors, and recuperating from a brutal third year which I really did stretch myself to my limit. I'm about to do that again for the capstone and this weekend I basically have to start crunching my mental cogwheels and come up with a plan and a direction, not to mention reviewing all the math I left behind for 4 months as it l...

I've never been a gamer. Ever. My dad has taught me well that games are a waste of time. Back in the days, the PC was off limits and I don't dare use it, but that was the time when laptops wasn't the norm and my pops would be using the PC. Now in the time of laptops, people are sitting in front of their laptops from the moment they wake to the moment they retire to sleep so the desktop is free for non-laptop-owning people a.k.a. kids who are not yet in university that own laptops for work. Even so, I am not one to be so driven to play games either. My hand-eye coordination sucks and I quit at every difficulty stumbled, and the fact that I could "die" and be revived in games, sometimes leave me abandoning my game character to die to end the game without even putting up a fight. Even in my playing style I tend to recklessly rush in and hack and slash my way which is why any form of upgrades I select in the game is to enhance my character's health or shield or ...

My status:  According to Amina Wadud, "To claim full or perfect knowledge of God's will is to challenge the singularity and uniqueness of the Divine perfection." So, sapa claim, "ahh! aku dah belajar agama cara betul macam amalan Rasulullah" and "kau bersubahat dalam maksiat, nanti ramai berdosa ikut engkau" isan illustration of that statement. Syrol Akmal Shaharom   Like the status but 'unlike' amina wadud... Kamilah Kamil   kenapa unlike dia? Syrol Akmal Shaharom   to 'conservative' in Islamic way, know that you cannot force human reasoning to completely comprehend the divine, it is divine for that reason. Amina Wadud is known for her conservative and literalistic point of view. She tried to find equality defying sunnah once, Kamilah Kamil   okay, you can help me out in this, my ISU is about Amina Wadud. What else do you think of her? Muhammad Shahrul Izwan   amina wadud nie bkan yg jdi imam solat jumaat kat new york ke...

Have you ever heard of this: "Hoi, kau nak tegur aku, kau tu bukanlah betul sangat." "Kau dah sempurna sangat ke nak tegur aku?" Being a prefect, I came across this quite often, but the context that I'd like to discuss for today is that of giving sage advice. Okaylah, in simplest terms, "tegur kesalahan" orang. The typical human being would generally tend to judge the speaker first before listening to what he or she says, so, to some, they think that only some people have the authority to speak about certain matters and zone out from listening to other people who don't match up to their criteria of having the authority to speak about a certain topic. I have to admit, sometimes I do judge people too, but those are mostly in cases where I need to understand why they would say such a statement or if I doubt the truth in their sentences. For example in doing literary criticism, I am required to do that. Even so, I am still able to admire the...

I wrote this a while back also: As always, religion has ALWAYS been an issue with me. Well, not because I am denying the notion of the human need to have a religion, but it's about the way I think or I see things is...unconventional. I know I don't have a "religious" family, they never bug me to pray and what not, but they're not freethinkers either, I think. I am very much aware that I lack religious knowledge (despite the fact that I almost always get A's on my Agama) and religion is only implemented loosely. Don't take it the wrong way, they do teach me morals, like what's right and wrong to the extent that I am almost overprotected. And I assure you, I don't go around rubbing boys' arses, mind you. But due to bad experiences with supposedly "religious" people, I become hard-hearted and ironically prejudiced to this group of people. I can't help it. Sometimes, you just can't get along with certain people. As acquain...