Year's End Post

It's the start of the last year of the first decade of the 21st century. There was a Lunar Eclipse as well. I'm not sure how many people knew that though. Even though it's only partial, it was still something else.

I have quite a few things to do next year. Not things I want to do, but things I HAVE to do. First off:
EXAMS! I'm going to have to do them, no matter what. IGCSEs too! How lucky am I? There's so much preparation to do before them as well; Mocks, studying, homework, revising, more revising, relaxing, more relaxing, eating... (yeah, I'm not too worried)

Next there is the important task of thinking of resolutions. Hmm... I want this year to be amazing. It's TWENTY TEN! THE LAST YEAR OF THE 1ST DECADE OF THE 21ST CENTURY! It'd be awesome-r if it was 2100 but most people aren't even convinced we'd see 2012 -.-'. To make this year amazing, I have no idea what needs to be done. So, I have decided to just go with whatever flow takes me.

3rd, I want to have my brain work logically while working with my gut feelings. That means trying out extreme sports! Or maybe just going on super awesome rides in some fair. The ones that make everyone's stomach do back and front flips. Both of these makes me think: somethings going to go wrong, I shouldn't be doing this! (Gut feeling) Then my brain has to calm me down somehow. It'll work when the time comes. Right now.. not so well.
I plan on making some people go on them with me. There's actually a list of people in my head but I don't wanna list them since they're going to plan against me if I do.

There's also the fact that each of these posts take me more than an hour to write... I need to be quicker. And more precise as well. Most of my posts are all over the place! Abstract thinking.. go figure.

I wonder how much is going to change in this year. Going to have to wait and see for myself.

Happy new year, everyone. Let's enjoy it together.

Routine

Anum said she wanted to get a 4 pack but it's too hard to do without any help. So, I surfed the net and I came across this:

• Start with performing 3 full body weight training workouts every 48-hours.


• Multiply your body weight (in pounds) by 15 and use this number as an indicator of how many calories you should consume per day.


• Drink carbohydrates and protein in a 2:1 ratio after your workouts.


• Write a workout journal to track your daily progress. This is a good motivator and also helps you better understand the way your body functions


• Drink at least 4 liters of water per day (and more is always better!).


• Change your repetition and set schemes frequently. This will force your body out of every plateau.


• Do not build more than 5 pounds of lean muscle mass per month (anything more will be not muscle but fat gain!).


• Focus on compound movements for 80% of your workouts.


• Only change an exercise if you are stuck on a plateau on two workouts in a row.


• Eat a lot of high quality protein (whole eggs, chicken, lean beef, fish) through the day


• Find a training partner for motivation and an extra push (it really helps).


• Never train hungry if you want to build muscle fast.

This is from http://www.squidoo.com/taylor-lautner-abs?utm_campaign=lensmaster-discovery&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_source=rmoore#module54516872

A website where they asked TAYLOR LAUTNER how he gained all that muscles in such a short amount of time! Hope this helps you Anum!

Congratulations.

Today, the PMR results came out for the Malaysian students.

I woke up and was lying in bed, trying to remember something I was supposed to do (aside from, of course, bathing and having breakfast). After a while, my grandma came into the room, sat down next to me and told me: Hai'i dapat 8 A (My cousin got straight As!). I was like: wow... His brother told me that he was smart and all, learning the guitar and solving the rubix cube, both of which he learned online, so I wasn't really surprised.
Then, I went to facebook and I saw that I had a new post on my page: Aida wrote (quote):

Faidhiii! I tried to call you but x dapat laaaaaaaaa! huh! >:P(this is her happily frustrated face)
anyways, i got my results!
and I got straight A's! haha, YAY (:(:

At this point, I was 50% sure that I was still asleep. Aida had gotten 8 As too! Not to say that she's not smart or anything, but she never came across as a super intelligent person in my views. She even forgot to pay for the books which almost led to her not getting her results! -.-' I'm sure she's over the moon happy right now. I wonder what her parents will get her as a present.

Congratulations to the both of them. I'm sure that they both worked really hard for it.
Ma sha' Allah.

To anyone that reads this post, please wish them a good future and give them a congratulations shout-out.

Rain Dance

There's a saying that old people used to say in Malaysia whenever it rained, which became a bit of a joke between the new generations: Ni mesti *put name here* tengah nyanyi ni! It practically means: *put name here* must be singing right now!

The reason they say this is because they are comparing that person's voice to a frog's croaking and since frogs croak before there's rain, they're saying that the reason it rained is because *person* sang!

Yesterday, I went out with a 9 other Malaysians (putting their name down would take too long and it's unnecessary for this post) to Mamzar Park because one of them whined that she's going to miss us and wanted to do something special. After a 24 hours worth of planning, arguing and messing about, they landed on the idea to have a barbecue in Mamzar Park. To those who've actually lived in Dubai, you may think this sounds a bit lame compared to the other things we could have done but... you have no idea how wrong you are. You don't need to do anything extreme to live life - something to a friend of mine in school.

That morning, we all woke up to the sound of light rain drops on our windows. It was so.. random! The day we had a plan was the day it began to rain! Completely out of our calculations. Almost simulatneously, I got one phone call and 2 text messages asking if we're going to continue. Well, it wasn't my plan to start with, but what the heck, rain or no rain, we're going to have a barbecue!

Some people need to revise on how to give directions... The people who got there first told us that the beach was on their left hand side and that they were at the very end of the barbecue line. The rest of us spent so much time looking for them while carrying heavy luggage that our joints began to creak! -.-'

A lot of stuff happened between this and the next part of the story - We tried to start a fire, found out that one of us is a Pyromaniac, finally started a nice flame, played cards, cheated while playing cards, went to walk on the beach, girls screaming after guys shouting "CRAB!" and some other stuff.

After all of those stuff, we had something to eat. Our chef, a new friend of mine who's going to New Zealand soon, started cooking chicken for us and since we kind of misplaced our utensils, we had to use his pocket knife to do everything. The end result was A- material (so said by the chef himself) and greatly satisfying (said everyone else).

Now, this is when the beginning of this post comes in. After we ate, we played 'Truth Or Dare' but we only got dares and no truths. However, the dares were amazingly, awesomely stupid. One dare was to jump like a frog to our neighbor-barbecue-ers, one was to ask for a massage from them, and one was to scream out loud that they liked someone. However, the two dares that are connected to the beginning paragraph are:
1.to sing 'Love Story' by Taylor Swift. Performed by a guy.
2. to dance and go OO HAA OO HAA OO HAA HE! around a circle of rocks 5 times. He only managed twice before we told him to stop with tears in our eyes from laughing.
You can most probably guess where I'm going with this...

Soon after we played the game, around Maghrib time, it started to rain. Not light, no slight drizzle but a total downpour. We were camped underneath a good patch of trees that stopped nearly all the rain but still some got pass and our stuff got all... wet. (Couldn't think of a better synonym).

Then, still raining, one of us suggested we take a walk down the beach. This was most probably the best memory of the night. Imagine walking in the rain alongside the beach peacefully... and then some jerk(me) goes into the water and splashes everyone! Anyone heard of the chain effect? One person does something then two people follow, then four and so on...

Soon, everyone started splashing each other and they began to take some really questionable pictures like guys acting girly and girls acting guyish. Mind you, it was still raining even after nearly an hour on the beach. And to all those who don't know: this is the first day Dubai rained this year. I can safely say that all of us were drenched at this point. One person had sand all over their head.

Time to head home. The park closes at 11 and it was 8 something and we still needed to pack up all of our stuff. This... took quite a bit of time. Okay, I'm lying... this took a crap load of time! For some reason or another, most of us stopped in the middle of nowhere and made the others wait. This ate up so much time... But it was worth it in the end: we reached a grassy area and a genius threw a football there.

It was so much fun! There's just something about watching people falling about and chasing after a ball in the hazy view of a rainy condition. Especially since most of the ones that fell over were girls who, no offense meant, sucks at playing football. I have to say: they were so cute! It was tremendous exhilaration! Everyone was shouting, cheering, and laughing... An event worth remembering.
Exhausted, we packed up again and moved on. Only to stop after a few meters to watch one of us jump on a trampoline and then hurriedly escaping from the keeper of the trampoline. Then, I hitched a ride with another friend and safely got home.

Owh, throughout this whole event, there was only a few moments that someone didn't burst into song! From a military march to the UAE national anthem to the Numa Numa song, we sang it all!

Not-Being-Able-To-Sleep Post

Arrggghhh! It's the third night in a row that I haven't been able to sleep properly and NO, it has nothing to do with anything from the previous post.

It's just that whenever I do get to sleep, I feel like its only been a couple of seconds then I wake up again... to find that it really has been only a couple of seconds. Every couple of hours, this happens. I don't know the cause of at all. Psychological reasons may be there, but I have no clue what they are. Physical reasons aren't there. My body is in good shape, aside from the slight flu from the weather change. (Oh, that reminds me: people kept asking me if I cut my hair, I'm just like blank: I haven't cut it in so long... My hair changes with the seasons or something).

I've read Bismillah 20 times, read the Do'a, read a couple of Surahs from the top of my head(not in the literal sense), tried exhausting myself to sleep and so far, it's been the same result. I can't even doze off in class! Not because of the insomnia, but because students actually need to study when they're in the 11th grade.

I've tried pinpointing the possible causes... maybe I'm starting to miss Saif and now that he's coming back, I'm excited? Or is it since all the Bodoness are back? It could possibly be the fact that a lot of my family members are coming here.

Then, I tried to logically reason why these aren't the causes: I do miss Saif, but even if he was here, we don't actually interact much with one another. Usually, when we do, it's to bully Muhaimin, or a family fun gathering. The only thing we do all the time together is watch T.V. together. I like watching T.V. with him... He's one of the only family members I have that doesn't have the urge to comment on every single bit of every single second of each and every single show! Yeah, I have T.V. complexes.

The Bodoness might be all here in Dubai... but it's just not the same. And plus, I'm wrong when I say all of them are here... Najwa isn't. Everyone's so busy. Well, maybe not but it just feels like we're not as close as we used to be. Maybe that's a side-effect of growing up or meeting new people, but I really hate whatever it is. I like all of them - Anum, Najwa, Aida, and Haziq - but things got simply complicated. And no - this is not the cause as it was complicated even before I had insomnia.

The last point could be the main reason. In Dubai, we've never really had that big of a family gathering before. Some anticipation of what's going to happen may be disturbing my mind; what are we going to do together, where should we go, how would they feel after their visit... Well, if these weren't in my head before, they are now.

But yet again, I found a solution to my problem as I'm typing this post. I like blogging... it clears my head. Giving advice to other people is so easy, it's just like giving out candy but it's so hard when you need to take your own advice. My brain just told me to roll with the punches and enjoy every last minute of it. We're a family, everything works out somehow. Where can we go? WE'RE IN DUBAI! One of the biggest tourist vacation spots in the world! Pfft.. waste of time worrying.

Hmm.. I just tried to sleep since I've already reasoned out the possibilities, but nope.. still not happening. (Real-time posting) I'll be possibly awake if anyone can come up with a suggestion.

Wow.. The posts are a lot more messed up when I don't get sleep.

Do you Believe In Balance?

Ying and Yang. Karma. Nature's Balance. Whatever it is, it's there.
I know of 5 things that will come before it's equal. These can be considered rules of living:
1. Life Before Death.
2. Young Before Old.
3. Rich Before Poor.
4. Healthy Before Sick.
5. Leisure Before Busy.
These things apply to life on Earth as we know it and has been the rules since time began. Of course, none of these rules apply in the Life After Death.

Each and every one of these rules are certain truth. Number 1 is of course really obvious. So, you know what you have to do: make sure to do the right things as long as you are alive because none of us are going to live forever.

As a Muslim, the main reason I do good things is because I love Allah and I fear punishment from Allah: a punishment that's unimaginably horrifying. Jahanam (Hell): the worst case scenario possible. Nabi Muhammad (salalah hu a'lahi wasalam) paved the way to pleasing Allah, all we have to do is walk it. And it's really easy to do so too. The only hard part is becoming completely oblivious to the distractions and temptations of the Devil. You'll fail sometimes, but what you have to do is to make it up simply by apologizing sincerely for failing or giving out charity to pay for your sins. Allah is the most Forgiving. But you have to be completely sincere, with all your heart.

Even if I was looking at it from a non-religious point of view, you have a lot of reasons to do good things in Life. One of the biggest reasons I can think of is: Legacy. Everybody wants to be remembered. Even if it's just a person who you gave your seat to in a bus he will remember you as a good person, someone they'll tell about nicely. Isn't that a good enough reward for doing something good?

An even faster reward is the knowledge that you made someone's life easier for them even if it's
just for a few minutes. Don't you think you'll sleep better knowing that no one had to suffer because of you own selfishness? Hmm... this one applies really closely to my own life. I guess I need to work on being selfless.

The second rule is a bit more complicated. Old people will look at their younger days and say: man, I wish we could go back to that time. Young people, however, may not be respected and as such, they feel that they need to grow up quicker, and they think once they are older, they'd be able to do anything they like. Truth is, young people have a lot more advantages. Young people are just that: Young. They have a bigger capacity to learn, more time to spend doing things - even if it doesn't look like it - and certainly they have more Health. The first man in the world, Adam, was prostrated to by the Angels not because they were worshiping him but because it was a sign of respect: he was newly created and he already knew of the names of everything. That was the first gift: the ability to Learn. Use it well, young people. Don't say you can't learn something like Physics or Geography. Say something more honest like: I don't want to learn Physics or Geography. (this is just an example. No offense meant to Geography and Physics) Because you CAN learn it! That is if you have the Health to do so.

Which brings us to the 4th rule (Yes, 4th, not 3rd and yes I can count). Healthy Before Sick. Everyone gets sick. No exceptions. Some people may get sick less often than others, but they still get sick. It's horrible being sick. You can't do everything you want to do. Your body is in disarray, your mind isn't at 100% working speed, and worst off: you have to sit there and make other people worry. I really hate that part. Plus, you are restricted to only a number of things you can eat! That's a major downer. Do everything you can to not become sick, but do not become paranoid either: that's just a waste of time. You will get sick somehow or rather, even if you spray everything with sanitizer. Honestly, I think people who use sanitizers are more prone to becoming sick. Their immune system will not be able to adapt to diseases, which makes it really weak and unable to fight a common flu as effectively as someone who's more open to the environments.

And we'll go back to the 3rd rule now: Rich Before Poor. Yes, Bill Gates is counted in this. Scientifically speaking, products like Microsoft has a life cycle and it will end eventually. It is possible to prolong it's life but it wont last forever. Money is fluctuating really, really quickly. Some people get bankrupt all of a sudden, most probably because they used up their money on something completely useless in one swoop. Other people lose money slowly. Maybe their expenses just crept up with time, I don't know, but I do know it happens.

This is not to say that you can't get rich when you are poor. The rule simply states that wealth is not forever. So be careful.

And lastly, Leisure before Busy. Holidays always end. But the important thing is what did you do whilst you had the leisure? Maybe you wasted time going on the computer, playing games while you could have gone out and played with your friends. Even better, go out there and do something good for the community! Everyone has either had the time to do it, or they still do. If you waste your precious free time, you won't ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever get it back.

And that's final. The clock ain't ticking backwards (unless you count Mr. Gutteridge's old one). For people who are in school, don't call it a waste of time. The only way your time can be wasted is if you are ignorant enough to waste it yourself. Use every bit of education they throw at you. I know this sounds absurdly crazy but why don't you try listening to the teacher? If you already do, then well done! None of your time in class has been useless. If you wait patiently, then you'll eventually see how those petty little bits of information you learned in class will be so helpful for you.

For those who are working, I know I am not in any position to give you advice but well, I just want to say: I really believe that if you diligently work really hard at whatever you do, you will be rewarded. I mean, if you do something really well even if you hate doing it, you are bound to be noticed.

And as usual, I'll end with a useless note: I don't really know why I posted this... I just had those five rules stuck in my head for such a long time. Hope they get stuck in yours too!
Longest post in a long time huh? Getting the mood back.

Home/House Work

To be straight up honest, I like doing homework. I like all the writing, editing, pasting, cutting, cropping etcetera, etcetera... I have this obsessive side of me that comes out every time a challenge surfaces. It's like a self-defense mechanism that my mind created so that I'm not asleep all the time. Too bad it doesn't apply for exams though... The defense switches off during exams...
The bad thing is, once I stop doing the thing I was obsessed with halfway, it just feels weird to continue. It's hard to get into the same mood you were when you started the project. A good example of this is blogging.
Loads of my friends started blogging around the same time I did, some even before I did, but now, they just gave up on it. All because they stopped blogging for a while but couldn't find the same attitude they had towards it when they started. I was like that - stopped blogging and didn't want to continue - but some inspirations came up - mainly movies - and I slowly regained the flow of blogging.
Anyways, that was a huge-off-topic topic. Homework! The best type is the ones where they let you use computers to do it in. Google PhD has yet to fail me. Each and every one of my questions can be answered just by typing the question down on a little white box. How awesome is that? Praise goes to Sergey M. Brin and Lawrence E. Page. To whoever that do not know them, go Google them!
Even though I prefer teachers to not give homework at all in the first place, homework DOES help. I know! It surprised me too! Who knew that what teachers have been saying to us were not a bunch of turd after all! The thing about homework is, when you do it, you're using your own style of learning, making it more comprehensible to yourself. This means that your brain absorbs this and imprints it in your mind as a memory. Thus, you have revised! Simple, right?
Once you get into the exam and you see the questions laid down in front of you, your brain will automatically search for anything inside itself that is related to the question, and since you've got the memory of the homework in your head, it'll be as easy as eating marshmallows. (Maan... haven't eaten those in a looooonnngg time!)
Housework is nearly the same. Chores are challenges. If you do them, you win, if you don't, well, you don't win.
In learning Martial Arts, the student is asked to do some apparently-mundane chores like washing dishes or throwing out the trash repeatedly. In truth, these are muscle-memory exercises. It's the easiest and simplest way to have a healthy life. See? Even Bruce Lee had to do chores!
So, do your chores people! It'll help out a lot.
*sweating* (Just finished stuffing a mattress into a really tiny covering.)