Transience

Books I've read this summer : 1. Ulum Quran from the previous post 2. I, Too, Am Malay by Zaid Ibrahim 3. The Boys Who Saved the World 4. Lisa Randall's Warped Passages 5. Brian Clegg's Infinity 6. 100 Essential Philosophers Oh wow, what slow progress, but at least it's better than the regular term where I only managed two books in 8 months, compared to getting through 6 in two months, which makes 3 in a month so roughly, a week++ for each book. Man, I used to finish books within 2 to 3 days or even in a day, and I'm talking 300-400 pages book in one day. This is making me feel old. On to read list : 1. Syed Hossein Nasr's Islam In The Modern World 2. Islam, Jihad and Gender Issues 3. The Four Imams 4. Kitab al-Iman 5. Unifying Truths of World Religions 6. The Shroud Codex 7. The Scientists 8. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk 9. Civilization by Niall Ferguson 10. Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol 11. Geraldine Brook's People of the Book 12. Naom...

1. The objective is to allow one to be spiritual in their own way. We believe in the philosophy that every individual is different and is free to pursue his own way to God. Faith is essential and is unmeasure-able by any human standards, except God's. This is for deviant non-conformists to conventional approach to cultivation of spirituality called "usrah". 2. The modus operandi is for the individual to contemplate his own relationship with God. i.e. it starts off with meditating on "What do I understand about God ?" and "How do I relate to Him ?" and "Do I really believe for certain in a God ?" and "If I do believe, am I certain that I love Him ?" and "what comes next after that ? " This modus operandi is the anti-thesis of the typical usrah where their mantra has always been "you fake it until you make it." Their pedagogy lies in the lack of faith in its own members to contemplate spirituality. i.e. they have...

Spoiler alert, beware. It was enjoyable. I really enjoyed the short at the beginning of the movie. Animation was almost realistic, in fact, a lot more than it was all these years. The movie itself was tonnes of enjoyment, although it is not particularly perfect, there was always that cliche'd uni-life story-telling, the usual felt betrayal, trying to win you back, bla bla bla, but I felt that despite having the tried and tested formula, execution was well done. I felt that it did well in the execution of character development, most notably, Sully and Mike. Randall had a more of a cameo appearance. The no-nonsense female dean of the School of Scream rocked the eyeliner. Animation wise, it was a lot more colorful than the Monsters Inc movie. Some elements of college life although cliche'd but now it seems a lil' more relatable at this age, in addition to studying in a North American (Canada! Canada! NOT North AMERICAN) university. I sometimes feel that these Pixar people are ...

Moving clouds on a sunny day Set against a sky so blue Each one going its own way No idea where it's headed to Contemplating on the ethereal image I think of all the ties I couldn't salvage All the complements left unsaid As I let the line go dead Dancing daisies in a field of green Kind of your run of the mill meadow scene Each one swaying so gaily So naive and carefree completely Remembering the innocent faces Seeing them morph into hazard warnings I yet have been to many places but the grasp of the painful reality is dawning Colors fade, and petals eventually fall All good things surely come to an end I thought I have seen it all well, trouble indeed is a friend As I lay among the tall grass I am overcome by the beckoning silence I thought I could have it all but I was wrong, at second glance.

Erik Satie - Gymnopedie No. 1 (Orchestrated by Debussy) For some reason it's emotionally provocative, but I'm not certain what kind of emotion it evokes. Some people may find it boring, but I really love the crescendo. Number 2, is not as good as the first and the third, but I'll include it anyway. Number 3 is my favorite. There's a sense of getting lost in a magical forest, you're in wonder, but also, you feel overwhelmed by the loneliness. Haha. The crescendo is the best. I first heard of Erik Satie's Gymnopedie was from a ring tone on my Nokia phone, I decided I loved the song but it didn't occur to me it was a classic. Then, earlier this year, one of the Taylor's College CPU lecturers previewed his photo book using one of the Gymnopedies as a soundtrack, you can check it out here. I'm not really an orchestra/classical music buff to fully appreciate or properly interpret the works, but I listen it just for fun, and some really get to m...

This is my 444th post :D There are things that I love and loathe about summer. I love that I don't have to wear thick clothes, yet at the same time I also loathe when it gets too hot. I like the fact that I get a break from school, but I hate it when there are uneventful days where I end up sitting about spending away money on food, but one reason that I like summer for is that when people are going away, they leave their books behind and I pick it up and read :D So, I read this book by Ahmad Von Denffer, 'Ulum al-Quran, or in English, Sciences of the Quran, it's available in pdf, here , at least part of it. It's kind of one of those books where you go to Islamic seminars and they open booths that sell books that are introductory in nature partly cuz maybe there are some people who are new to Islam and want to take baby steps in understanding the religion. It's pretty much introductory about what 'Ulum al-Quran is about. I actually took the time to read ...

I admit, I've been watching wayy too much anime, but I'd argue that it's not just a waste of time. It actually sets the cogwheels in my head to think and reflect. (Although it is debatable if the thoughts are productive or not. You know I tend to spend time in my head). Futuristic dystopian animes are my favorite. It's like any other dystopia stories you've heard of, and mostly in dystopian literature, it may exist as a form of social commentary which is why I adore it so much other than the fact that I like to see how convincing the story teller puts this "new world" together. What I like about dystopias is although it makes it seem like a different reality, but it does not give the same feeling as a fantasy world. Dystopias generally try to be as realistic enough to the point that you question yourself, "what if this is what the world to come would be like ?" Since it's based on some social commentary like a fable, you kind of get the unc...

Too lazy to think of any other blog post titles, cuz that's what I've been doing. Too lazy to spend money going out. So, this time around, I'm gonna talk about this . Since my generation is at that age when we're starting to think about things more seriously now, I've noticed there's a wave of young people, who supposedly support "new" ideals of how one must run the country. A majority of them (on my FB at least, it feels kind of sad to always assert this as to avoid generalization to the whole masses), seem to yearn for "kepimpinan Islam/ulama'" and is based on different ideals and interpretations. Yeah I know I seem like a broken record as I keep repeating the same things over and over again macam dah taksub, ha ha ha ha, I apologize, I just don't feel like blurbing on my activities. I completely agree with the concept of having religious scholars as advisers in any leadership. I can accept that there are religious scholars ...

So, 9 pm May 4th, I had accidentally downed a tall mug of coffee, and I couldn't sleep. At all. Since I wasn't doing anything anyway this holiday, so I just sorta catch up with some friends over Facebook, and my leg was hurting, and then, of course, it was the elections, so what the heck. 6 am on wards, my whole household was in on the vibe. So, I've noticed not only massive campaigning prior to the election day itself, where in the end it ended up with videos of hooligans, and on the election day itself, social media has not yet ceased its deluge of postings of accusations of fraudulent voting process with vote-buying and phantom voters. Accusations still fly during the announcement of the results right up to the end and after. What with the sudden blackouts, and now issues of racist statements were raised. I'm not saying all of them were true, I am merely stating my observation of what people were purporting. I'm not going to comment on whether or not it is a ...

Hey, I'm home the whole day the whole weekend for once cuz my legs hurt from all that going out. I'd had planned to go see cherry blossoms today, but too bad I can't take anymore walking, and I just found out that the buses that go to the cherry blossom place doesn't run during the summer. I mean, for crying out loud, Hamilton, that's just so lame. The park opens only during Spring/Summer and you cease service to those parks come Spring/Summer ? Hello ? Common sense ? Okay, fine, so students go home and there's fewer people, so you cut costs by cutting bus route services, but still, it's not like the Mac kids go there during the term anyway or live around there anyway, so what gives ? Yeah, kinda sad that I have to stay indoors. The next time I'll get to see it is probably next year since cherry blossoms only lasts for a few days and there are only a few of them around Canada since they had to bring them in from Japan for the Canadian-Japanese partnershi...

When I was growing up, I know in my kindergarten-early primary school I was kind of sensitive and a cry baby, but I was pretty much a happy kid. Darjah Dua I think, the cikgu said I don't smile anymore and I'm serious. Throughout sekolah menengah pun the teachers ask if I ever stop thinking. I kind of thought, growing up, that I was ahead of my peers, despite having an attitude problem, maybe because I was always thinking of a lot of things, and reading things my peers don't read. But at this point in time, I'm looking back and I'm reassessing, was all that thinking really productive thinking, and am I exercising the same thought processes that I did then as compared to where I am now. I always thought that my maturity level was appropriate for my age, but sometimes, I think that I've assessed myself wrong, because things happen, and it takes me by surprise, and it knocks home the fact that I am not as mature as I thought I was. Then comes the question o...

Finally done with second year exams, and I have a little room before summer school starts, but boy, sometimes, I feel that I'm more busy after the exams, with all the socializing and get together. Confession: I really like to delve into work to kinda "get away from people". Not that I don't like people (maybe I don't), but generally, socializing sucks my life force equally as much as when I am working. Usually after a strenuous term exam, I'd give myself 3 days to kemas things, get stuff in order, and extra 4 days to rest, and then I'd go out and about, but it usually doesn't work that way, people go out after the exams pronto and then they'll be going away elsewhere while I stay here in the comfort of my house. It's hard to get my ass out of Hamilton, sadly. So, today's blurb will be about the stuff I think about (as usual) in Canada. 1. School. duh. That takes up like 90% of my time. I hardly ever have time to do some leisure time rea...

I just thought of saying a few words, I ain't got much time nowadays, but I sometimes feel compelled to write. I haven't expressed myself very articulately lately other than the incessant banal blurbs of Facebook or Twitter. So, today I just want to comment on the "kepimpinan ulama'" because since elections are close, many people have been piping about that on Facebook, I'm not sure if it's because my friends and I have already reached that age when you're suddenly bold about your political views or something, but my news feed seems to be awash with an impressive wave of political battle cries for ulama' leadership. Imma come clean and say I ain't got no fancy holy book excerpts or quotes from authoritative figures, it's merely my opinion of what I think about this. "Ulama'" comes from the word "ilm", so you kinda get a rough idea that these people are people with privileged knowledge about the religion. There ...

There's actually a couple of things I'd actually wanted to pen down, to kind of put my thoughts in a proper channel, and there's actually quite a few books that I'd wanted to read, quite a few people I'd wanted to talk to and things to do, but obviously, I end up asking myself "Where did my reading week go?" and bam! I'm dead centre in the busiest time of the term. I am currently typing this with a splitting headache. I have been looking at assembly codes for a midterm and there's quite a lot more slides I have to go through and labs and a sample midterm. My attention span is getting pretty poor. I currently despise being a keyboard warrior on Facebook. I'd rather write it properly on my blog with proper structure and elaboration which would at least look like it's something worth being taken seriously for (or not, depending if I meant it as a witty -har, har- journal entry, or a serious entry) rather than just some hooligan-y trolling ...

Something's over taken the comfort of old slippers it's something magnanimous estranging us of the pet names we used to call each other I guess riding fast cars made me a lotus eater it has deprived me of the memories of our little tea parties See I got this new set of frames it makes my face a little bit more gaunt it's not that I've dismissed the humor of our secret jokes It all reduces to the dust in the wind How foolish I was to think that an overturning wave would look perpetually the same and that time was relative. As the walls swallow me whole I resigned all hopes of reclaiming the intimacy of shared meals and soft whispers in the pillow I guess it's time I go.

Betrayed by the worst atrociously shameful mark of femininity, the shy, embarrassed, immature, self-conscious, awkward, school girl blush in the presence of a drop dead attractive member of the opposite sex. *facepalm* I'm gonna be fricking 21 years old, hormones, please stabilize. you know that feel, bro

                                                                                                     Richard Parker, Animal Alter Ego: An Examination of the Nature of Id in Life of Pi by Yann Martel Nurul Kamilah Mat Kamil 1007C10614 Period 3 ENG4U Mr. S. Wise 7 th March 2011             As a device of the poetic imagination and rhetorical flourish , metaphors give as much colour and emphasise to a particular message; be it a social critique or even a psychological examination (Lakoff). Animals are widely used as metaphors in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi ...