bye bye blogger

you've served me well throughout uni but i'm moving over to wordpress, coz im bored and i think pre-beta blogger was actually more user-friendly...

ws :)

Dawud Wharnsby - Rachel

in case you don't know the background - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie

actually i'm in the mood for quotes and things, so i may as well share a few others and archive them here, just a mixture of random stuff i've heard/read so it's paraphrased rather than proper quotes (ie. any mistakes are my own)

'When the world pushes you to your knees, you are in the perfect position to pray' - dunno

'If the first inward thought is not warded off, it will generate a desire, then the desire will generate a wish, and the wish will generate an intention, and the intention will generate an action, and the action will result in ruin and divine wrath. so evil must be cut off at its root, which is when it is simply a thought that crosses the mind, from which all other things follow on' - Imam Ghazali (Ihya Uloom al-Deen)

'Suffering is a gift. in it is hidden mercy' - Rumi

'If you are aware of your humility, then you are arrogant' - Ibn-A...something :s

'Knowledge is of 2 kinds. that which is absorbed, and that which is heard. and that which is heard does not profit unless it is absorbed' - Ali (ra)

'A friend is not a friend unless he is tested on 3 occasions - in a time of need, behind your back, and after your death' - think this is attributed to Ali (ra) also

actually paraphrasing is a dangerous thing, so i should stop now...

goodnight, wassalam.

dear beloved son

Dad had the cochlear implant surgery earlier today and is in recovery now. we won't know for another few days how successful it's been, but alhamdulillah he's ok, and the doctor said it went well. please please keep making du'a...

i've been looking for this for a while as i lost it, got sent it, then lost it again, so blogging it seems the best way to preserve it. it's a beautifully comprehensive du'a from Imam Ghazali's Dear Beloved Son...

"O my Allah! I desire from You the completion of Your blessings and from purity I desire its permanence and from Your mercy I desire its inclusion in all matters and from health I desire its attainment and from sustenance I desire its increase and from life I desire its happiness and from life I desire its real success and from good qualities I desire their completion and from your rewards I desire the reward which is the most common and from your plenitude I desire the plenitude which is the sweetest and from your favors I desire the favor which is the most plentiful and from deeds I desire the deed which is the best and from knowledge I desire the knowledge which is the most beneficial and from the sustenance I desire the sustenance which is the most plentiful.

O my Allah! You become ours (grant us benefits) and do not burden us (protect us from harms). O my Allah! Grant us salvation when we die and reform our deeds and grant us safety in your days and nights and grant us your mercy in our houses and in our possessions and cover our sins and fault with the cover of your forgiveness and do us favors by correcting all our faults (inner and outer) and give us confidence and reliance on You. O my Allah! Grant us perseverance and persistence in our Deen. Save us from such deeds in the world that will become a source of shame on the Day of Judgment and lessen the burdens of our sins on us and grant us a life of the pious ones and be sufficient to us in all our affairs and protect us from the evil of the evildoers. Liberate us and our ancestors, from the fire of Hell, from loans, and from oppression.

O You the Victorious One, O You the Forgiving One, O You the Generous One, O You the Coverer of faults, O You the Tolerant One, O You the Powerful One, O You the Magnificent One, O You the One Who Punishes, O Allah! O Allah! O Allah! O You the Compassionate One in this world, O You the Merciful One in the life hereafter, O You the Supreme Merciful One, You are the Grantor of the Excessive Mercy! And may the mercy and blessings of Allah always descend on Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) who is the best of all of God's creations and on his descendants and on his companions. All praises are solely due to Allah the Lord of all the Universes."

Ameen

reality check

salaam to anyone who still visits this place...

i'm home alone with the kids for about 10days, as my parents left for india today. dad is undergoing surgery to correct his hearing, a specialized procedure to fit something called a cochlear implant. it's not too invasive, an implant fitted underneath the muscle at the side of the head, but it's surgery nonetheless, and thus there's the high risks that come with being under general anaesthetic....

dad's had hearing problems for a while now, but it's especially deteriorated in the past year or so, making it very difficult for him at work and generally communicating with everyone around him. simple things we take for granted like chatting on the phone, or just spending time with family sitting and joking around, are obviously very difficult if you can't hear, and repeating things doesn't really have the same effect.

so while i've been wallowing in self-pity, dad's been researching the procedure and looking into the pros and cons of the surgery, which is only done in very few places - there's only one doctor here who does the procedure, and even then he's only ever performed it 4 times, so the clinic in india seemed a far better option, the cost of it is pretty extortionate, but insha'Allah, insha'Allah, if it's successful, it will really be worth it.

please make du'a for the safety and success of the procedure, the actual surgery takes place on monday insha'Allah, and is a whole day thing. please pray that it goes smoothly, and they have a safe return. now's probably a good time to count our blessings alhamdulillah... :)

shameless.

every time You protected me
still i fell, paid no heed
and now i reach out my hands a beggar

they piled up and reached the sky
so many mistakes mountain high
yet shamelessly i come for one more chance

the drops bled
the fears untold
the dreams shed
i am old

i've had choices and i've had time
and every time i have been blind
back to the drawing board i find myself again

dirty and empty my heart i give
stumbling and struggling in hope to live
but i am ashamed to ask for anything else

the pictures faded
the fabric torn
the trust jaded
i am worn

so many decisions made in haste
and now no time left to waste
the burden of reality weighs me down

i am cold and i am raw
from every angle there is a flaw
the blackness seeped and spread throughout

the tainted mirror
the hardened stone
the diamonds lost
i am alone.

little wonders

our lives are made
in these small hours
these little wonders,
these twists and turns of fate
time falls away
but these small hours,
these little wonders
still remain.

Strong Mercy

My desires are many and my cry is pitiful,
but ever didst thou save me by hard refusals;
and this strong mercy has been wrought into my life through and through.

Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple,
great gifts that thou gavest to me unasked---this sky and the light, this body and the life and the mind---saving me from perils of overmuch desire.

There are times when I languidly linger
and times when I awaken and hurry in search of my goal;
but cruelly thou hidest thyself from before me.

Day by day thou art making me worthy of thy full acceptance by
refusing me ever and anon, saving me from perils of weak, uncertain desire.

- Rabindranath Tagore


but it still hurts. so much.

in the end

salaam all,

long time no blog. but no fear - in the absence of my blogging, aspiring journalists have a tendency to blog on my behalf and carry out human relations research, so public attention is always guaranteed.

i was due to fly to abu dhabi thursday afternoon, but due to a crash at heathrow airport, one of the runways was closed off causing severe delays, and so i changed the flight to the same time friday. providence seems to have intervened, as my luggage was Well overweight anyway - my single large suitcase alone was 42kg, with the second smaller two weighing in at 15kg each! as you can tell, we had no weighing scales in the flat, and my estimation of such things is almost non-existent.

anyway, i'm in abu dhabi now. yes, for those of you who still read this blog that i forgot to tell, i officially moved here in the early hours of saturday morning. the weather is very cold, apparently it's been raining all week. maybe that's my fault too and i brought the grey clouds of gloom with me.

as my sister & bro in-law are here for the week, i'm sharing the kids' bedroom, and the mattress which is meant to be all special and orthopedic actually feels like i'm sleeping on a slab of granite. i've been keeping busy with facebook, that was until bikey sent a horrible scary Guardian link about the evils of facebook and the whole silicone valley-ness of it and i severely downsized the amount of info i have on it. but then, with the existence of google/gmail, there's nothing really private anymore, so does it really matter?

spent my last 2 weeks in uk meeting up with people and saying my goodbyes, but still didn't get to see everyone i wanted to (sorry bse, zoo and sorry dazey for not being able to go back to urs to say bye properly!). and there were loads more people i intended to phone but jst didn't have time to. anyway maybe it was for the best, it was getting pretty morbid by the end. but for some reason the worst was going to zb's on wed eve, when hana banana hugged me and cried so hard, and she was sucking her thumb for comfort like a toddler. i guess it kind of hit me more that i don't know when i'll be seeing everyone again. packing up was depressing as hell as well. obviously had the usual periods of finding something really nostalgic and sitting down to get lost in memories. also i had to leave loads of stuff behind, which was annoying. packing my life into a suitcase, leaving everyone i know behind and moving on with no idea what i'm doing next is the loneliest feeling ever.

i'm fed up of this place after spending only 3weeks here in december. there's only so many salons and malls you can go to, and since i'm not that fussy about food as long as it stops my stomach grumbling, eating out doesn't hold much pleasure either. i've never lived here, as my primary school years were spent in oman, so i don't actually know anyone in this deserted dump that is meant to be one of the richest cities in the world. everything about this place is frustrating. the house. the people around me. the mind-numbing detachedness of it all. i know i should keep in touch with people and get busy making positive use of the opportunities here, but i wish there was a hole in the floor to just swallow me up and end this.

i keep thinking of that linkin park song...

I kept everything inside and even though I tried it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when
I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter

i can't do this.

guten tag!

Austria is simply beautiful! As im blogging from my phone and walking around a lake it's probs best not to write at length, but i must point out that it's so lovely because it's unspoiled by mass tourism. Oh, and we jst got welcomed in arabic and had a tri-lingual conversation wt a lovely austrian couple who said they had 'gifts' for us. Much impressed by their arabic we happily accepted the booklets, only to discover that they're missionary bible books in arabic! Tam seems singularly offended :)

it's raining it's pouring, the ceiling is falling...

what an absolutely crazy day!

as indicated above, the heavy rainfall throughout london leaked through the warehouse ceilings and the collected over mine and zb's offices, causing them collapse! it was absolute chaos, not helped by the fact that we had some really important customers who came to see the showroom (which, thankfully, survived the flooding), and the poor man left his jacket on zb's chair, which was soaked through 5mins later.

the customers arrived earlier and after showing them round i came into zb's office to collect some samples, just then it started raining really heavily and i could hear all the warehouse guys going mad running around outside checking if there were leaks, and planting buckets in strategic spots. i heard some dripping above and glanced up at the ceiling just above zb's desk, and just as i was thinking to myself 'i wonder if that will hold', a Huge section of the ceiling fell through, inches away from my head!!! water that had been held overhead came cascading down, flooding the entire office, and all of zb's paperwork, fax machine, and samples.

needless to say i started screaming for help and they came running in to see what was wrong. i rushed around the office pulling out all the cables while the guys tried to cover everything with plastic sheets, then ran for dear life to save my macbook - which, alhamdulillah (x1000) remained blissfully dry through this entire fiasco. there was a leak in the ceiling in my office too, so i pulled out all the cables and just started gathering all the electrical equipment together when a great chunk of my ceiling fell through and i jumped back and screamed again! as i tried to grab as much as i could as quickly as possible the guys told me to leave as it was unsafe, and then another huge chunk fell through!

i texted zb to say the office was being flooded and ceilings falling down, but in the meantime one of the other nutters in the office had texted him about 10 different pics of all the damage - so when he called to find out the details, it to was a very hysterical me, all thoughts of our customers forgotten, and wondering how the hell to manage this mess. i was told calmly and firmly to go and deal with the customers and try and shrug it off as 'one of those things', so i tried to do that, but i think my panic must have been quite visible. i offered tea and coffee, and gave them as many samples as possible, price lists and whatnot, but they were very sympathetic and grateful, and thankfully left asap.

at which point i spent the next hour running between both offices, getting everyone to make boxes and clear out everything, lay cardboard on the floor to soak up the water AND because the main phone line's in zb's office, we still had to keep the handsets there and i had to keep running in there everytime it rang! it's been absolute madness, and my God people are So annoying, i'm on the phone telling them the office has been flooded and i'll email them information as soon as i can, and they're calmly telling me what products they're interested in and if i can take down their account details - Hell, No.

this is the wreckage of my once beautiful office:
the power's cut so i'm just running on laptop battery and the light through the windows. network's down so i can't access work server or work email. there's no power for the kettle so can't make tea to calm down. and i have no idea what public transport must be like right now.

i just want to go home and hide.

:(

farewell.

Sponsor me for the Boat Race this Sunday!!

Hello/Salaam,

I'm taking part in the Charity Dragon Boat Race, Riverside Festival, Manchester on 03/06/2007 to raise money for John Grooms and would really welcome your support.

Please take a moment to sponsor me. It's really easy - you can donate online by credit or debit card at the following address:

http://www.justgiving.com/YMSboatrace

All donations are secure and sent electronically to John Grooms. If you are a UK taxpayer, Justgiving will automatically reclaim 28% Gift Aid on your behalf, so your donation is worth even more. Please join me in supporting John Grooms and a fabulous cause.

Thanks all!!!

:)

Grant Me

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers
But to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain
But for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield
But to my own strength.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved
But hope for the patience to win my freedom.

Grant me that I may not be coward,
Feeling your mercy in my success alone;
But let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.

- Rabindranath Tagore

being kalamity jane

this is actually yesterday's news but the wounds are still fresh, i can't sleep, and i feel i should blog something before i go on a hiatus and feel peer pressured into it by *certain* members of the blogosphere (you know who you are).

i must have fallen out of the wrong side of bed - slightly impossible actually, what with my bed being against a wall - or maybe all the late nights are catching up with me, but it was just the most awful day, and i came home feeling thoroughly sorry for myself.

in the morning, i slammed the door on my fingers as i left our flat. then at work, i was reaching for something on top of the cupboard and all these big boxes that we store kits in fell on my head, temporarily knocking me out. then i bent down to pick the things i'd dropped off the carpet, and as i was about to lean on my right knee, an upturned board pin on the floor went clean through my jeans and into my knee - very ouch. as if that wasn't enough, as i started sorting through all the kits on the table, i was about to flip open the lid of a manilla file and the edge scraped across my fingers, giving me 3 paper cuts in a line across my fingers on my left hand! and Then i started to use my right hand to flip through the pages and ended up getting another 2 paper cuts on my fingers!

As you can imagine, by this time i had decided that this was definitely Not my day, so with red fingers, bleeding knee and an aching head, i went to look for plasters. being the typical Asian workplace that we are, the first aid kit has not been replenished in over a year, and we were all out of plasters. but there were latex gloves. resigned to the fact that i would end up swimming in blood at this rate if i didn't do something about it, i wore the gloves for the rest of the day for fear of more cuts.

this morning, i discovered a box of plasters at home. with my fingers being red and really stingy, and getting overly excited at the fresh shiny strips, i decided to tend to each cut. i went to work looking like a self-harming sufferer. touching in and out with my oyster card, i was painfully aware of my plastered fingers and everyone's wary looks. although, at least the stone cold londoners finally cared about something other than themselves - many nice old people at the bus stop asked me if everything was alright.

in other news - the ym dvd is coming along well, despite some minor setbacks (stupid elitist sony making life difficult, maybe i'll start a facebook grp about it) - o, and the fact that i've had no time to do any actual editing, and i fear i've forgotten how to use final cut as it's been so long, so am going to be starting from scratch on the weekend :s zb's back, he's made his office into a solitary confinement unit which we all know unofficially as the Dragon's Den - we are all expecting to be called in there to be told off one by one once he recovers from jetlag. giddy's moved into the girl's office, and we've been doing paper-play therapy exercises and listening to cheezy pop. anyone remember run dmc 'it's like that'?? ahhh, great high school memories.

i need to do learn to drive. my theory expired and i can't find my provisional Anywhere so i can't even book a test! eurgh. wish i could fly. like nathan in Heroes. ooh, speaking of Heroes, has anyone else been watching it??

ok, i must force myself to sleep now... take care ppl, ws!

to sleep or not to sleep, that is the question...

hmm... i've been doing interviews for putting together a DVD for the YM membership pack, and now i'm converting it all to avi format for editing... it's going to take about an hr for this first cd. i also have to rework the publicity for Guys&Dolls event in Ilford, and the flier for our weekly circle, and need to read through the manual for the camcorder so i can tweak the settings better, and i need to design an advert for our slot in Craft Business magazine, and have a shower. everyone's just gone to sleep around half 12, so if i get in the shower now it'll wake them up, whereas if i wait a few hrs they'll all be knocked out and sleep through the noise. so i can finish importing the other video footage till then, and it'll be fajr by the time i get out. then it'll take me abt 30mins to get ready and eat, so it'll be about 5, and i can do the YM publicity till 6, and leave for the office so i can get the rest of the stuff done, and use the pc monitor to do it on so i don't go blind. however, i might get that light-headed feeling of wanting to drop dead as it hits lunchtime, and there's so much to do.... or i can wait for this dvd to finish and put the second one to import overnight, go to sleep now and set the alarm for 4 so i have plenty of time to shower and get ready before nabz bhaia wakes up, do publicity stuff till 6 and set off then. but chances are i'll sleep right through my alarm and do that annoying thing where i keep putting it on snooze and waking up everyone else but myself.

so... to sleep or not to sleep?

hmm... i need food. and the only thing to eat in the flat is ryvita. not even margarine to put on the ryvita!