Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Feeling Good.=)

I can safely say, this is the happiest I've felt since I've been in Amsterdam. It's due to a synthesis of factors, some of which are too personal to discuss publicly, others, will be explained below.

Feeling good, because of my beloved sister-in-law.=) You see, she has been so sweet to post me some foodstuffs, most of which are ingredients for me to cook my food, those of the instant kind. She said she was sad when she heard that I only bolied chicken in my first week, thus she went to this length. Now to you guys, this would be ordinary and wouldn't make you elated, but to someone who has been eating curry chicken of his own half-past-six cooking for the past 20 days (which doesn't even taste like curry!), this is like manna from heaven. Only difference is, it's from my heavenly sister-in-law. =)

All the stuff she sent.



Feeling good, is apparently, NOT how my family feel about my hair. They must be so concerned about the state that it is in (after webcamming with me), that they decided to send a remedy for it.



Feeling good, was also how I was not after receiving some letters from the university. Why? Because they are all in freaking Dutch! The uni, which knows I'm an exchange student, sends me letters in Dutch! How smart is that!!! Thankfully, this German girl I know who stays at the 3rd floor (i'm on the 5th), knows how to speak and read dutch. She is really a nice person, the nicest in my block I think. I hardly see her around, but I know I'll see her the next time I get a letter.

Feeling good, coz I saw my kids at the weekend on webcam. After a long time.

Feeling good, must be how my my room mate feels about himself. You see, he was telling me yesterday that so far every module he has taken, at least 50 percent of the students fail (there's no bell curve system here). Hmm. This is partly due to the possibility of the Europeans not being so smart, but mostly due to the fact that the Europeans, especially the exchange students here, are not really interested in studying: they wanna party all the way! Haha. Oh, my room mate has been scoring an average of 8 points (it's a 10-point grading system here), so that explains why he should be feeling good.

Feeling good, MUST be how the American students feel all the time! Every day, or every other day, they will have a party at night on the 3rd floor; drinking, taking weed (I've learnt how to tell its smell) and consequently, making a fool of themselves. Haha. They will be dancing around, or at the very least, laughing 10 times louder than me and irritating all their neighbours. Haha. The German gal, Kristina, was telling me how annoying it is that they party almost every night, coz it's right in front of her door! Haha. Surprisingly, they haven't had any for the past 3 nights. Hmm. Something is wrong somewhere. Oh well.

Feeling good. coz every sunday, my friends and I will have a lepak session online. That will be the time of the week when I laugh the loudest and hardest. When 7 years worth of inside jokes come out, you can bet your last dollar that it will surely feel good.

Feeling good. Period.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Newcastle is a side in transition. Give King Kevin some time, you can't judge him yet. He'll turn things around. That's my final word on this issue anywhere in this blog.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Wahabbism VS Sunnism

This might just be the most controversial entry of mine so far, so I urge everyone who reads this, to be as open-minded and as accepting as possible. Of course, as always, differences in opinion are highly encouraged.

Wahabbism (a term those following this school of thought actually do not use to describe themselves, rather has been imposed on them by others; they prefer to call themselves salafis, therefore out of respect, I shall refer to them as salafis/salafism from here on). A school of thought, mostly prevalent in Saudi Arabia, in Islam that has been mocked and opposed widely by great sections of the "mainstream" Sunni world; Salafism is seen as the ideology that breeds terrorism due to its "rigidity" and "harshness". But is this the reality, or is it fiction conjured up by ignorant/deceiving people?

Salafis, in actual fact, are people who adhere to the teachings of the Quran and Hadith. Contrary to popular belief, they do not reject madzhabs; they only reject fanaticism towards a particular madzhab. Let's understand this first: madzhabs in the first place are a construct of the scholars of Islam; it's no where to be found in the Quran or hadith. Now don't get me wrong: I'm NOT saying madzhabs are wrong, I'm just trying to relate the historical background of the madzhabs, as we know them.

The Sunnis (maybe some sufis) say the Salafis are rigid; from what I've observed, the Sunnis are more rigid actually. They do not allow switching between madzhabs, and they are strong proponents of stciking to 1 madhzab in its entirety. A simple example: During tarawih prayers in our country, people from madzhab Hanafi will not pray together with those from madzhab Syafii- we're creating divisions in our own mosques! And we do so in the name of Imam Hanafi, in the name of Imam Syafii, when in actual fact, if those 2 imams were still alive, I'm supremely, and i say supremely, confident they will not allow such divisions in the mosque.

If you want to know about Manchester United, don't just ask an Arsenal fan coz he'll downplay their quality. But don't just ask a Man U fan either, coz he'll exaggerate! The best thing, ask both of them, then make your own judgments.

Similarly, you wanna know about Salafism, ask from both someone who studied in Madinah and someone from Yemen; then you'll get both sides of the story.

I just wanna express my utmost disppointment in our scholars today; from both sides. They are fast to criticise the other's practises and opinions, wanting to assert themselves. When in actual fact, it's not always that someone must be right and the other, wrong. Both can be right at the same time, despite differing opinions!

Also, we the Muslim generation of today, have inherited lots of divisive terms: Wahabbism, Sunnism, Salafism, Sufism (when we should just refer to each other as Muslims), so let us not create more divisive terms such as "moderate", "extremist", "orthodox", "mainstream", "conservative" etc. I don't understand why we need to label others as such, really, I just can't fathom why.

Now, people, don't get me wrong. 3 weeks in Amsterdam hasn't led to me denouncing madzhabs; I still practise madzhab Syafii, I still consider myself a Sunni, I'm just trying to put things into perspective here.

Now, I urge everyone, scholar or student, Sunni or Salafi, to ask yourselves: what do you intend to achieve by pointing fingers as to who's right or wrong? Did Rasulullaah come to us for us to point fingers at our fellow brothers and sisters? Was Rasulullah sent down to us for us to create divisions? Since both sides claim they are following the hadith and Quran, is this what the hadith and Quran taught us? Let us start respecting each other's opinions, as long as it's backed with knowledge, even if we may differ regarding it.

Let me end with a gentle reminder, firstly for myself, then for all those concerned: if you're really passionate regarding our religion, dissing others is not the way to show that passion. As both Allah and His Messenger s.a.w have said:

Allah says in the Quran: "And hold fast to the ropes of Allah, all of you TOGETHER, and be not DIVIDED among yourselves..."

The Messenger s.a.w said (though the authenticity of this hadith has been questioned, I think its message is highly relevant): "The difference in opinions among scholars is a blessing," - so let us, ignorant people, not turn it into a curse.

Wassalaam.

Isyak-2322, Subuh-0400.

PEOPLE at the city centre (This is for someone!)

At the mosque after friday prayers

My favourite makan place in Amsterdam: I come here at least twice a week.

A sight you only get in Amsterdam

The bus-stop near my place

My best friend here: Fadhil.


At the mosque, I saw the prayer timings for August 2006 (summer time) and it read as in this entry's title. Hmm...It will definitely be around there or thereabouts this summer too, so I'm thinking of ways to get around this problem. Anybody with any input please, your suggestions are warmly welcomed!

Just a few updates. My bicycle is currently unavailable. You see, I have two locks, 1 for the tyres and the other is the normal one. Usually, I do not lock the one at the tyres, and i just leave the key there. Few days ago, I found that my key wasn't there, and the lock was secured. Haha. Case of sabotage. Now, to get a new key, I need to make a police report first and show the report as proof. Ridiculous bureaucracies.

One of my classes, Institutional Economics, I really love. You see, the lecturer is a controversial character. He challenges old economic thought, and says that he is not an armchair economist who formulates theories; he prefers to go on the ground and work on empirical evidence (he used to work in Eastern Europe, studying the transition of centrally-planned to capitalist economies after the fall of communism by the way). What I really love is, the students in the class always challenges his opinions, in particular this British guy and another French dude, to the point whereby they border on being confrontational. What I love even more, is that the lecturer encourages such challenges, as he says it makes him sharper in thought. Now, I'm not a big fan of the West and their values and ideals, but if there's 1 thing we(especially the Muslim world) can learn from them is this: the freedom of discussion, and the ability to respect differences in opinion.

Other than that, the weather has been unpredictable. Maybe global warming is really taking place. It was terrible in particular today; the winds were so strong that at times it's difficult to walk even- and I'm not exaggerating.

Here are some pictures. Hopefully you'll enjoy them. Cheers.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

MS 12-3 PBM

I know this entry is a little overdue, but I just felt a burning need to immortalize MS' victory into writing; so tht future generations will not forget what happened and so that people cannot give false accounts, in terms of scoreline, of the match anymore, which is what has been happening.

For those not in the know, recently in December, NUS' Muslim Society (MS) and Persatuan Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language Society-PBM), had their inaugural annual soccer match. PBM, being a larger society with arguably more mass appeal, were many an observer's favourite to have secured a victory, draw first blood as they say in footballing terms, in this yearly thing, and perhaps, rightly so.

But apparently, no one told the MS boys that was how the script was supposed to turn out. Football, as they say, isn't played on paper. MS dominated the game from start to finish, and for all of their endeavours and unwavering team spirit, were rewarded with 12 goals. Final score; 12-3. 9-1 in the first half, 3-2 in the second. MS won both halves, so no one could possibly say it was a tale of 2 halves.

The date of the game was chosen by the PBM people, so MS cannot be blamed for some of their players not being able to turn up. Both teams didn't have proper goalkeepers, so again, that cannot be an excuse. The joke is, PBM actually asked for a rematch after that; since I still want to be friends with the PBM people, I'll just leave it at that and will decline to comment further!

To my PBM friends, I hope you take this entry as light-heartedly (despite its serious message) as I feel writing it. No offence, fellows. =)

To those who partcipated in the MS victory, be grateful and proud; you have set a benchmark for successive MS generations. A tough act to follow indeed.

Till December then; for the 2nd edition of the MS-PBM challenge.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Kings of Europe: Arsenal?

I would just like to shed some light on what I think will happen in this year's Champions' League (for the girls I'm sorry if it's not be of interest to you).

Before the start of the group stages, I had predicted Arsenal to eventually win this year's competition, but Mohsin had mocked my prediction. Erm, I'm still sticking to it though, despite Man U's 4-0 thrashing of them in the Cup that nobody wants. Arsenal play great football, pleases the eye, and,erm, it pains me to say this, in Adebayor, they have a clinical goalscorer. In AC Milan though, they have as formidable an opponent as anyone could have on the European stage. No doubt, domestically, AC is struggling to make ends meet now, but in Europe, they are a different proposition altogether. So if Arsenal get through this, they will have as good a chance as anyone. I'm predicting they will, with a victory at home tonight and a draw in the reverse fixture at San Siro. We''l find out tonight.

For the others, Man U, Chelsea and Real Madrid look good to reach the semis. Erm, Barcelona, I don't think they will. Surprisingly, Liverpool beat Inter yesterday, reminding me just how good a Euopean side they are. And, they might just creep into the final, again. Erm, so my bet for the sems would be 4 of those 5. But, it all depends on the quarter finals draw, so we'll see what happens.

Arsenal; Kings of England, Kings of Europe. Hmm...Sounds good enough to me.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

You can please some people...






People have been asking for photos of different poses lah, different angles of buildings, photos of people...I'll upload whatever what I can lah, but, if I know my audience well enough, it's still not enough. As the saying goes...

You can please some people all the time, you can please all people some of the time, but you can't please all people all the time.

Racial Stereotypes.

Been wanting to blog about the different types of nationalities that I've seen and been around here, so here goes.

For obvious reasons, let's start off with the Dutch. Firstly, the Ducth are extremely tall, doesn't really work in my favour. The Dutch are also very very straightforward people; they don't like it, they'll tell you right in the face. They think you dress like crap, they'll tell you, you dress like crap. And the Dutch have a, erm, subtle (actually i prefer to use weird) sense of humour. You have to see the irony in their jokes, then it has a semblance of 'funni-ness'. Only a bit.


Not that they crack jokes too often though. In fact, the same can be said of the Europeans in general. From my observation (thus might contain some inaccuracies), the Europeans don't really have a sense of humour. not a good one at least. And they also do not laugh too much (again, doesn't work in my favour). In class whenver the lecturers crack a joke, I will have to control myself such that I don't go into my normal outburst of laughter, because no one else will be laughing. I just don't get them!

I've heard some people telling me before I came that Some Europeans (Dutch, Italians in particular) a bit racist. Erm, personally, thankfully, I haven't encountered too much of that. There has been cases though, whereby some of my block mates, the way they talk to me, indicates clearly they believe in White Man's superiority. I don't layan these people too much. In particular, there's this Belgian gal and another Italian gal(not the one that I told some of you about)are a bit stuck-up, there's this (negative) air about them when they talk to non-caucasians. But that's only the minority. Generally, it's fine.

I have to say, I hate to say this, and I never thougt I actually would, among all the Westerners, the Americans seem the nicest. They are really friendly, bubbly and thank-God, they do have a sense of humour! They are really sociable people; the guy next door to mine is American, he makes it a point to mention my name in every sentence of his because he probably feels bad for initially forgetting my name! Haha. But he's a really nice guy, and so are most of the other Americans.

I actually know a Slovakian guy! Haha. He was talking to me the other day and the impression he has of SIngapore is that it is a police-state: No chewing gum, nobody's allowed to have long hair etc! Well, he's not too far-off. Haha. But the long hair part was funny. Wonder where all these funny ideas originate from. We were having an intense debate too about the idea of 'freedom' and 'democracy'; since he was questioning the freedom that Singaporeans have. I won't bore you with the details of our discussion, basically my flow of argument was along the lines of one of my earlier entries,"By whose definition."

As for the Muslims here (the locals i mean), they are mostly of Turkish and Moroccan descent. Again, from what I've observed, they are quite practising Muslims. The Muslim community here isn't too integrated with the native Dutch though. The good thing about that; they can maintain their customs and traditions, and their Islam isn't diluted by westernisation forces. The bad thing; it makes them prone to discrimination. As the "bro" in my earlier entry told me,"Amsterdam isn't a good place to be a Muslim." It's a very delicte balance to achieve: integrating into a society without losing your values etc; usually there's a trade-off. In this sense, I believe we in Singapore have, erm, achieved successfully this balance??? Or at least we are almost there lah! Haha.

Yup. That's all thus far. I need not mention about the Chinamen here coz you see them more often than i do. Haha. So that's it for now.

Friday, February 15, 2008

KaWan nye pasal.






Erm, I was waiting to type my next entry this Saturday right after Newcastle beat Man U, but since I was requested to post one I'll just do so; I don't have a habit of disappointing my audience. I don't really have much to blog about right now, so I'll just put some random stuff, and answer to the comments directed at myself on my tagboard. I wanted to post an entry, 'Top 10 worse quotes from blogs anywhere', but this is friendship's day, so I don't want any hostilities. Soon there'll be such an entry though. Haha.


Have been busy with school this week, and the mods seem damn tough. I'm considering not to register for one of the mod's exams; this is possible here as you can register for as many mods as possible, yet choose not to register for its exams. Erm, classes here are a bit free-for-all; students will just interrupt lecturers with their comments or questions, without raising their hands first or what, regardless whether it is lecture or tutorial. Too bad Econs is rather technical and there isn't too much room for debate; I'm sure the humanities modules' tutorials are really really fun.


And regarding my tagboard; to my sis, I might not be meeting the 'bro' soon, so you just hafta wait first! If your future is in Amsterdam, then hmm, I guess it's your good luck. =) To Badrul, kau jgn mcm2 eh. To Sulaiman Akhlaken and Razif and trueblu2hu, I have a strong hunch that you're actually the same person. Haha. And to Gad, these pics are due to your request.


I've been to a blog whereby the blogger was expressing sadness that she didn't celebrate Valentine's Day. I'm sure there are many people out there who feel the same. Well, all I can say is, for those without anyone at the moment, don't fret; the right person will come along, good things come to those who wait. But there must be effort of course! Haha. And for those whose partners don't celebrate Valentine's day, please respect their choice, because their reasons are valid. And anyway it's only 1 day, there's nothing really special in a day. It's the person that makes a day special. =) And for these partners, remember that V-day is also Friendship's day, I don't think there's anything wrong in celebrating friendship's day right? Haha. My way to get around this situation. Oh well. And for those couples who are fighting even on this very day, don't bother yourself with the relationship anymore; don't waste your time.


Anyway, I had forgotten it was V-day today while I was at school; there was nothing whatsoever that suggested it was V-day. Quite amazing; in NUS it's a great deal, in Singapore in general actually. Funny how we are more westernised than the Westerners themselves. Well, I'll leave that to the sociology people to further discuss.


Some of you would already know of 'matchmaking agency' that I've set up; too bad it will be slightly inactive for the next 5 months. But you could still use this blog as a channel to hook up; I'll more than welcome such actions.


And oh, for those who are hell-bent on pursuing a political or religious cause, you can use this blog as well, as a channel to express your views. People at this blog are people who 'hormati perbezaan pendapat.'


Till Saturday then, when Newcastle kicks Man U's ass.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

School Starts, and some other stuff. =)

I've been bugged to put up an entry, haha, so here it is. By the way people, my room's Internet connection has been really bad, so if you see me online then I suddenly disappear, or if you hardly see me at all, understand understood lah ah.

First week of school was ok, though the subjects are a bit heavy. You see, in UvA (Universiteit Van Amsterdam), for my faculty at least, each semester comprises of 2 blocks, each block of 7 school weeks. You take different modules for each block. So basically, what we learn in NUS for 13 weeks they try to do it in 7. Haha. Oh well. I guess I have to study much harder than I did in NUS.

I met a Malaysian guy (thank God!) at school, who's doing 1 module with me. He's a masters student here. I never imagined I would actually speak Malay to anyone in Amsterdam, but hey, I sure am not complaining.=) Been hanging out with him, a couple of times noow, and will continue to do so. Safe to say, he'll be my best friend for the next 5 months.

And oh, just wanted to mention about the friday prayers here. The guys would relate better to this. Here, the sermon/khutbah is very different. Haha. The imam is very fiery, spirited; I assure you, nobody, I mean nobody, sleeps during the khutbah. I think imams in Singapore should be more lke this; but you can't really blame them too when the khutbahs are about "masyarakat majmuk" every other week. Haha.

And here, there is no problem of getting people to 'rapatkan saf'. It's shoulder to shoulder, feet to feet, something that sadly, I hardly encounter in Singapore. Another good practice here is that for the sloat jenazah after the friday prayers, no one leaves the mosque, everybody participates in the solat jenazah. The safs for the solat jenazah are also in order, people do not move in front to cover the spaces that are used for rukuk and sujud in our normal prayers. Acttually, I'm not sure why we do that in Singapore, it only leads to distorted safs. Perhaps Rizhan would like to enlighten us whether that's just a cultural practice or it really has Islamic roots.

But what I am most impressed by in the mosques here, is that everytime The Prophet's name is mentioned, during or outside of the khutbah, the whole mosque will go 'sallallahu alaihi wasalam'. It really is a good practice, which we all should try to incorporate in our conversations.

Anyway I've gotten a bicycle, which makes life much easier. Now I'm on the way to feeling like I'm an Amsterdammer. Haha.

Just a note, thanks to Mas'uud and Shaza; you know for what. It is impossible that Allah will not repay kindness with kindness, so just await for some (more) good things in your lives.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

50 euros only.

I've not written an entry about Amsterdam, because a person doesn't really know Amsterdam until he or she has been to the red light district, so now I can say I know Amsterdam.=)

Amsterdam is a very peaceful, serene place (well if you come from Singapore everywhere else is serene), and is also a very beautiful place. The BUILDINGS are very nice, and there are canals everywhere, it really pleases the eye. The people here seem nice enough, but since I've hardly had any real interaction with the Amsterdammers, I'll reserve my judgment for future entries.

Everybody cycles here, there are specific lanes allocated on the roads for cyclists. It seems to me as though there are more bicycles than vehicles. When I asked the Arab guy whether he had a bicycle, he said, "Dude, this is Amsterdam."

Liberal. A word highly correlated with Holland as a whole, and Amsterdam in particular. Drugs here, are not legal as widely believed, but marijuana and hash use is 'tolerated'9terms people come up with too justify their actions), which means you can buy up till 5 grams of these drugs at the coffeeshops. Coffeshops are the places selling drugs, while cafes just sell coffee (and other stuff except drugs!).

Prostitution is also legal. Yesterday night, I asked my room-mate to take me to the red light are. Wait, before you people get worried (especially Kak Siti and Shaza), it was just to see, get acquainted with the city, nothing more. Haha. My room-mate took his bicycle, while I took the tram. On the tram, an American guy sat in front of me and started talking to me, asking me where I was from. He told me he just arrived there earlier that day, and he straightaway asked me," Have you been to the red light area? You should go man, it's only 50 Euros." Bear in mind, he just arrived in Amsterdam a few hours before.

Anyway, the red light area itself was quite an eye-opener. Each of of the prostitutes were in their respective "compartments", fish tank-like, most of them dancing in their bikinis. The catch is, most of them were women who definitely survive on social welfare because there is no chance even the most desperate of guys would pay 5, never mind 50, Euros for them. Maybe it was on a Sunday night, thus the hot chicks had been taken, which explains why curtains covered a lot of the "compartments", which is what is done when they have customers.

Anyway, I've started cooking myself. Haha. Pretty tasteless food, but at least I'm no longer hungry. School starts tomorrow, so I might not be online as often anymore, though I'll definitely try. And the following people, please come online more often coz I havent seen you guys on MSN at all since I got here.

Kak Nana, Akmal, Ashraf, Mohsin, Nor, Jend, Bella, Yati, Hakeem, Haida, Yasmine, Suli, Abu and whoever else that I've left out. Don't play punk ah you all.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Some pics






Anything for a Brother

Hmm, one of my concerns before coming here was whether I would find a mosque. Oh well. This entry answers that.

I was looking for a mosque, and the only way I could do so is to ask around. Problem is, I wouldn't know whether a person is Muslim or not, unless she wears a tudung of course. So I approached the tudung ladies at Amsterdam Central (the equivalent of Orcahrd Road), but somehow, none of them paid any attention to me. 1 of them even turned and gave me a cold hard stare, indicating to me to back off.

Wow. So I had no choice but to take a gamble, and approached some guy whom I believed was Muslim. And the gamble couldn't have turned out better. The guy offered to take me to the mosque himself, even though it was way before zuhur. And when I said thanks, he said, "No problem, anything for a brother."

Now, if one of my 3 brothers said that I would understand, but a total stranger? Now that was cool.

And not only did he bring me to the mosque, he also showed the area where Muslims live, where I can find Halal food rather easily.

So 1 problem solved. Its getting better.=)

Friday, February 1, 2008

Walid.... in Amsterdam

So here it is. After a 14 hour flight I'm here in Amsterdam. So let's narrate the happenings a little.

I arrived and received a message from Steph, a fellow student from NUS doing her exchange here, that she and the other students will not be fetching me from the airport, instead they would wait for me at Amterdam Central. I took a train there, and waited for about 1 and a half hours before they finally reached. We were to go collect our hostel keys tgether, but we got really lost and walked non-stop for quite some time, with me carrying about 40kilos of stuff. Getting lost, as I found out, was to be a feature of the day. And oh, one of the first things Steph said to me was, "I hope you are not a staunch Muslim, coz It'll be hard to find food here." Haha.

My hostel is pretty far from the other 3 Singaporeans, so it's safe to say I won't see them much this semester. Anyway I got to my room, not before getting lost, and settled down and stuff before leaving for orientation. Looking for the place, again losing my way, was a bitch. I don't understand why they can't have the bloody uni in 1 place. The concept is pretty much like SMU, only difference is it's much worse and the buildings are much more scattered. Oh, the other difference is at SMU, I have my bike! And even still I get lost!

I arrived pretty late for the orientation, and after a series of boring talks, they brought us to a club. Yup, a club. Everybody was drinking and was getting ready to party. After 10 minutes insideI kindly excused myself and went off. I'm really not into these things (anymore) so I wouldn't have enjoyed it anyway. And looking at the orientation schedule of events, looks like I'm not joining it anymore, I'd rather learn my way around Amsterdam.

Which reminds me, on the way back from the club, I spent about 3 hours taking buses and trams all around Asmterdam, before I finally got back. Even the locals didn't seem to know where Funenpark, the place where I stay, is. I desperately wanted to avoid taking a cab because from what I've heard, it's too damn expensive.

Anyway it's going to be a difficult few months for me. Loneliness, food, finding my way (literally), away from my loved ones, it's really gonna be difficult. But that was what I came here, to go out of my comfort zone, and challenge myself. Of course at the same time, I need some encouragement from you guys, dropping the occasional (or regular!) email or so, which I'm sure I'll get. =) When I arrived itself my sis and Mas'uud had emailed me to give me some motivational words, knowing fully that I need them.

The good thing about a bad start is, it can only get better from here. =)

Final Goodbye....for now.

It was pretty amazing at the airport, to see so many people coming. I'm sorry I couldn't talk to all of you, but I will email everyone that was there soon, bt you have to wait a bit, since I'm settling in and stuff.

As expected, the scenes were pretty ugly, not for the faint-hearted. And, as expected also though to a lesser extent, Amirah was the first person to cry, which sort of created a chain reaction. Haha.

Thanks to everyone that was there.And to those that called or messaged me before I went. And to those who keep me in their prayers. I know that when I return, the people I love will be there. These people. You people.