Another Entry
Monday, August 27, 2007 at 1:39 AM | 2 comments  
I was watching national geographic last Sunday about telepathy. It covered on remote viewing as well. Remote viewing is the ability to view something at the other side of the world by concentrating on the coordinates. Remote viewing became a method of intelligence gathering by the American military. The project is claimed to be closed down after 20 years. In my opinion it is probably another disinforming ploy. Disinforming is a term UFO conspiracy theorists use to describe when the governing tell half truths and wrap it with lies. Then takes back what they said and come up with some other reason. Basically, the idea is just to confuse the public so that they will eventually dismiss the whole thing as a myth. No, I am not saying that aliens exist. They are probably jinns or syaithans. I have a personal opinion that the government of the syaithan is where the Bermuda triangle is.

These are not new to me. It's the kind of things that I read about 10 years ago(i am so old). I get myself absorbed in UFOs, conspiracy theories, teleportation experiments like the Philadelphia Project. Werewolves and other creatures were also pet subjects.

Then I moved to different phases where I concentrated on different kind of books. There was self-development, psychology, html, michael crichton books and martial arts among others.

I suppose I did that to satisfy my inner world where I'm most comfortable with. I was looking for something to fill the void inside. It was a search without an end. Apparently I was looking for the wrong things. Alhamdulillah, I know better now. Now I get fascinated by science and the Quran. The history of Rasulullah and his companions. Life has to be balanced, we have to seek both duniawi (world) and ukhrawi (hereafter). Even when we seek for duniawi it has to be with the intention of doing it for Allah. Only then will life be blessed.

I know better now but trying to escape from shadows of the past can still be a pain.

"Wahai Tuhanku, yang menukar-balikkan hati. Balikkanlah hati kami untuk taat kepada-Mu."
(Muslim)
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Captured Emotions
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 6:26 PM | 0 comments  
Stringing words into sentences is a magical thing. It's amazing how scribblings on a piece of paper is able to convey a message, an emotion. Stringing words into lyrics of a song and poems is an art in itself. Whether or not the outcome becomes a positive influence to others is another question.

Writing a piece of poetry on a piece of paper is like blogging. It is making a statement from within the self and becomes engraved on paper or cyberspace for other beings to see. Like blogging, it is a form of expression. It is like saying,"Been there done that, so judge me.... i don't care."

'i don't care' is in red because this is not true most of the times. What it is really shouting for is for the connection with a fellow human being. It is like saying, "I am human too.... you know what I'm saying."

What makes a particular song, a painting, a photograph or a piece of poetry so endearing? It is because they are able to capture the emotion at that particular moment and make that connection with the person listening to the song or appreciating that piece of art. At times, the real emotion the creator expressed is not what you experience when you appreciate that piece of work. And it doesn't matter.

So here's a piece of carefully selected of poetry I wrote. Carefully selected because it is only as much that I am willing to risk exposing while quietly wishing to make a connection with whoever will be reading it.

Hope

I hope that life is better
When tomorrow comes
I would plan and plan
But the results don't come out
I wonder why my life sucks
But all I could do is sigh
I've tried and I still try
To make things work
But it's still the same
No matter the work
I always try to have happy thoughts
Like the way I felt the day I fell in love*
Just when I thought I was about to fly
Reality slaps hard on my face
I hope and I hope that there will be hope
For those who hope just to cope

18 June 1999


* love here simply means the crushes that i had, nothing more

I can't believe that I am telling the world that I used to write poems. Think of it more as songwriting or whatever. It will seem cooler that way. These are very rap worthy. Try rapping it out.
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Ukhuwah 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007 at 10:48 PM | 0 comments  
Ukhuwah is an annual sports, tele-match kind of event. We came as defending champions. Well, there were only 3 of us from the last year's team. We were all from the same PERGAS class except for one, my brother. One went off to Mekah to study. One is in national service. One decided to be a volunteer for the day, therefore did not participate. The other one completed studies from PERGAS already(imported player). Then, they had to split us up into different teams. The participants were split into 4 groups. Haziq was in group 1. Taufik was in group 4. I was in group 2, Team Dubai. Someone in my group changed places with Haziq so we ended in the same team.

We managed to complete all the games this year as it did not rain. It was fun. I believe we were leading until it was time for the final game, tug-of-war. We ended up last for that particular game. I did my best and I have rope burns to prove it. Taufik's group was the winning team. So, in a way we defended our title. Our group came in second. The class spirit element was missing but it is something that will eventually happen with the high mortality rate of the course.

Azhar was there too. What can I say, there's always next year. I'm sure you had fun. Team Bahrain was the most kecoh(havoc). No prizes for that.
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Change
Saturday, August 18, 2007 at 1:17 AM | 0 comments  
Wednesday's meeting was different. I had to tell eventually. It is something that people will eventually find out and I cannot go on concealing it.

Telling also means that people will probe for the reason. Forcing me to learn the things I should know by now.

Telling also means that people, being people, will start to form a different idea of me. It would be great to please everyone but it is humanly impossible. The better stand is to adopt the concept of mardhatillah(blessings of Allah). Whereby everything you do is for Allah. Life will become very focused.

This event becomes another memory in my head. It will be something that I compare against with my future experiences in life. My topic for today is change. We shall now go into why people adopt a particular set of behaviour in the first place. The memory, like the event that I had, is kept in the neurons in the brain. This particular memory then links to the previous experiences like a huge mind map. Feelings also get tied to memory. Basically, a certain set of memory will trigger the brain to instruct the body to release certain chemicals to the body that will create that sensation of happiness, sadness, love or any other emotion.

Why do people develop habits? Well, people are addicted to positive feelings and will want to avoid the negative ones as much as they can. When a particular kind of action is done again and again the pathways or bridges between the neurons get very strong. It is this connection that develop habits and is the same reason why people will feel a resistance against change. It is the mere act of trying to break these bridges that make change difficult.

Now imagine trying to break that bridges that has been fortified through 20 over years. Daunting... but not impossible. Just create a new set of experiences. It is only scary at that particular moment. You can give yourself a break after that.

The trick is to do it anyway even though it is hard. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Do something that scares you everyday."

I suppose that is how one can change himself and develop his character. I want to make this part of personal development. I will do something that scare me, maybe just once a week for now. Insyaallah.
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What's in a name?
Monday, August 13, 2007 at 11:24 PM | 3 comments  
A name is something that you live by for the rest of your life. It's something that one are labelled with. I grew up having a dislike to my name. Heck, I disliked practically everything about myself when growing. Firstly its a name that non-native tongues find difficult to articulate. So, I would have to correct whenever someone tries to pronounce my name. For the last time, it's pronounced as (feer-da-os). Feer as in can you feel the feer. Da as in da(h). Os as in, not 1 O but 2 O's. Most of the times, I would not really bother. As long as it sounds okay to me.

With this name, I learnt to facilitate my teachers whenever they are checking for attendence. I would memorize whose name was before me and raise my hand when the teacher tried to say out my name. I know they appreciate that.

Didnt help either that there are 83749256 other Firdauses around. There's always another Firdaus around somewhere wherever I go.

As a kid, I found that the name was not funky enough. I felt it was old fashioned. I grew out of that phase and learnt to appreciate the name that my parents gave me when I learnt the meaning of my name. I also had an assumption that my name was spelled wrongly as I had a classmate named Firdhaus. In arabic, its the the letter dha instead of dal. Well, for all the Firdhauses out there, tough luck. You got your name spelled wrongly. I checked, that's not how it is spelled in the Quran. Having said that, I just checked my jawi(sort of arabic) spelling on my IC and realised that my jawi spelling is so wrong.

For those not in the know, Firdaus is the name of one of the heavens. I let that be a motivation in my life for the after-life. My name is Firdaus and it's a beautiful name. I recently found out from a Nigerian friend that Firdaus is a common name for the fairer gender in Nigeria. Well, I am still Firdaus and happy with it.
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Recce
Sunday, August 12, 2007 at 11:19 AM | 0 comments  
Yesterday, we went to Sentosa to recce the place for NYPMSN's upcoming event.
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Why Blog?
Wednesday, August 8, 2007 at 2:58 PM | 3 comments  
Hmm... I suppose everyone has their own reasons for blogging.

As for me, well, I am done hiding a big part of me to myself. Carrying a secret around is a burden to the soul. Of course, some secrets are meant to be kept forever. For now, I am still more comfortable with typing out words than expressing them in spoken words. That is something I am continuously working on though. I let this blog be my words if they are left unspoken.

I don't want this blog to be seen as my cry for help to the world. It is here for people to understand me more. However if you feel you can help me in certain areas of my life, feel free to do so. I am still a student of life and I believe we should all help one another. Helping out others in areas we are strong at should be the way of life. We are made differently so that we may complement one another.

I am blogging because I see a positive potential in it. Reading some blogs has inspired me. I hope I can to the same to others. At this very moment, I still see myself at a training stage of my life preparing for something big that will come in my way. I do not know what it is yet and that is why I have be prepared.

I guess I am ready for the big reveal of this blog. I already have an alter-ego cartoon character of me drawn. No fancy blogskin for now. No time for that....gotta make up for lost time. For now I leave by saying,"Hello World!"
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