It's been a while!

Lots happening -- including the fact that I have been somewhat homeless for the past week, due to our home being turned upside down for renovation purposes. The family is scattered, and I'm currently bunking at my aunt's place and adhering to stricter house rules than I'm used to, like having to switch off the wifi when we're done. Our wifi at home runs 24/7 non-stop, seeing as how no one knows what a decent hour of sleep is supposed to be.



Anyways, been meaning to blog for days -- of the many things that's worth mentioning, there's this blog that I have taken to devouring, thanks to my brother's random link the other day: The Burning Blogger of Bedlam. It's basically an excellently-written blog that compiles tidbits of news from the world-over, and presents them in a clear and rational narrative, that makes perfect sense. It is both amazing and horrifying -- amazing in the sense of ohmygod, the amount of independent journalism that's out there that we don't know about because it is not publicised in mainstream media (and this blogger is only one of many, and I've yet to slowly discover them all), and horrifying because the picture that is clearly painted is not an encouraging picture of the state of the world. The amount of evil that exists, it's seriously scary. The writer always offers balanced statements and views, and is measured in his words and presentation; at the same time, it isn't dry, but engaging -- and I credit this to his obvious love of pop culture (i.e. films, music, and comics/literature), and apparently he does make a living as an author of some sort.

The thing is, all the news information is out there -- as evinced by the jagazillion links he makes reference to. But because most of us don't have the time to dig them up, much less piece them together so that they make sense, we don't see the big picture. We're utterly blur and so busy with being made to slog for the system (which, don't you see people? it's part of the plan!), we're happy to swallow the stories that are sold on mainstream media. But see, mainstream media is often lying. And I really don't think it's being extreme or controversial anymore to say that. Mainstream media is often lying.

I'm so glad it doesn't take a Muslim to see how much hypocrisy and blatant lying there is out there. It's far too obvious, even if you exert the littlest mental effort.

You know, for the millionth time in my life, I don't get it. It must be a sin or something to be an idealist.

Being idealistic is fundamentally for the young and to be proven wrong?

J and I are in Melaka!



Life has been chaotic in Singapore, but not in a bad way. The past few weeks felt like a marathon, both at work and at home. Finishing projects, clinic trainings, and the cleaning up at home in prep for some renovation. And the ongoing Hanen parent workshops that take up my weekends.

Finally getting some stillness and quiet away from normal life now, chilling in a poofy, comfy bed, waiting for J to get up so we can go for breakfast. I need these moments so that I don't feel like life is passing me by.

“Depict your sorrows and desires, your passing thoughts and beliefs in some kind of beauty—depict all that with heartfelt, quiet, humble sincerity; and use to express yourself the things that surround you, the images of your dreams and the objects of your memory. If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor or unimportant place.”

-- Rilke

Watched the latest movie adaptation of Romeo and Juliet with my sis, and really liked it! It's just so beautifully done. The setting! The clothes! Romeo! Haha. And sigh, the language.

I have missed beautiful language. Makes me want to pick up a random Shakespeare text (or worse, re-read some part of Lymond for the umpteenth time).

This has some of the most beautiful sap ever in literature.

And no matter that we knew the ending,

we still screamed when Romeo stupidly drank the poison.

I mean, seriously. Annoyed me to the bone, the pair of them.

for true education

Put here for keeps:

notes

- We should be creating happy, motivated, creative human beings. -- This should be one of the major goals of education. I feel like most local kids don't have a single one of these three attributes. At least not the ones I encounter.

- Constant monitoring in schools -- how is this a good thing?

- Grading is useful for large classrooms so the teacher knows where a child is on the spectrum of learning, but it has become a label instead, with detrimental effects on confidence and actual performance. One-on-one teaching does not require grading systems. Alternatives to grading system: Pass/Fail (i.e. whether you got the topic/subject or not and move on, or you keep doing it until you get it, or... decide it's not worth pursuing and move on?)

- Expect children to be the best, and they will surprise you. Think well of others (of children), and they will respond in kind.

- Each person has different awakenings: spiritual, intellectual, physical awakenings -- so if a person finds it hard to get something at one point in time, they haven't gotten their awakening yet?

- Education is meaningless if divorced from the sacred.

- The socioeconomic class issue in relation to education -- so many issues. It's making me think of that time I was in California, Palo Alto, and learning about the multicultural environment there, and how some African-American communities insist in having exclusive African-American schools. In a school where they are not labeled as poor students based on the colour of their skin (consciously or not, explicitly or not), children do a lot better at school. They learn better. Also, being immersed in their own culture, as opposed to the mainstream white culture, helps them learn better as well -- because the learning matter pertains to them! We always underestimate subtle factors like this.

- The Flynn effect

- How are we defining success? What are we chasing, what are we making our children chase?

- Let children explore what they're naturally inclined to do, they will excel. Happiness is when one is allowed to flourish in what one is good at doing.

- When the food comes, put away the books. Be with the food. Why are we multi-tasking so much! Be present. We should get back to doing things well, one at a time. Multi-tasking is detrimental.

- Two people live in wonder: children and philosophers. -- Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah

- Boredom is important for creativity. We need down-time.

- St Thomas Aquinas: Every culture needs the people who do nothing but contemplate. We need them. They are the Socrates-es of our time.

- Why are you so afraid of losing your job? Make one! Employment used to be only one part of life.

- Also, I'm currently running Hanen parent workshops, and it's making me think about the 4P teaching process we use to teach adults, i.e. Prepare, Present, Practice and Personalize

Prepare = an experience that relates to the reason why learning something is useful or important
I feel like this is integral to create motivation for learning anything! Shouldn't we do this more with kids as well? A "prepare" strategy may show how a problem exists in the world, and therefore the need to address the problem. E.g. The world is polluted, and it creates a lot of health problems -- shouldn't we therefore learn about pollution and how it comes about? Of course, the trick as teachers is to "Prepare" in an impactful way.

Present = the transfer of information from a knowledge source to students
This is generally what most of us understand as teaching, or education. But even in the Hanen workshop, it says that we should spend only 20% of our learning time on this! And it is the simplest part of the whole learning process -- I'm thinking that if you were to tutor anyone, what's important is that, you "prepare" them for the content. After which, for the "present" portion, you could virtually leave it to the individual to find the knowledge source i.e. read up, research -- goodness, isn't this PBL? It was exactly what we did in my SLP course, which explains why I loved it so much and I feel it worked so well. And why not try it out for children or young adults? Let them build their thirst for knowledge! I feel like my time in RG had some elements of this, actually, and I pride on the fact that most of us we were essentially independent learners. If anyone asks me of my time in RG, I often say, we had relatively mediocre teachers (maybe an exceptional few inspiring ones), but we were essentially studying by ourselves. We mugged ourselves and we mugged well. The Present portion is the one that needs the least skill to execute.

Practice = applying what was learnt in the Present portion
This is where the teacher really comes in. This is the time when an individual's skills and knowledge are polished and refined, with help from feedback from the teacher. And mistakes are allowed; no, mistakes are necessary. I feel that this portion, which should make up the bulk of learning, hardly happens at all! D: Because, ultimately, this requires a lot of customized attention and feedback. It requires a one-on-one format, or at least a small group one -- and what teacher in our school system gives that? Sometimes, our really poor students will get it, cause they are so poor, we start paying attention. But what about the average kids and the potential-for-greatness kids? They don't get to polish their skills, when they should be able to! They don't get specific feedback. And mistakes aren't encouraged, they are frowned upon -- when it is necessary for learning.

I feel like I have had such poor or minimal experience of a true "practice" portion in learning, and it explains why training for my clinics in my adulthood is such a horror. I've always been an A student, did relatively well at everything -- I have had zero experience of anyone truly giving me tips to do better at what I was already okay at doing. I have never had tuition ever, either. The fear of failure is something I'm always still learning to overcome, I think.

Personalize = independently applying into real-life
This portion sort of circles back to the "Prepare" portion, and links the learning matter back to meaning and real-life. The teacher's role is to facilitate and assist the student, who at this stage should be quite enthused, in putting their skills out there in the world for a greater purpose. This is probably the most exciting part of being a teacher -- you realise that you had a little part to play in making something dynamic and awesome happen in the world.

Found some practical tips on how to learn language 

(I've recently revived my drive to get through Harry Potter in Arabic!):

-- and realised that, basically, all he suggested were speech language therapy techniques! 

hello. my profession is cool, if I can say so myself.

you don't need language parents. 

the best option is a speech language therapist 

to carry out language stimulation in a foreign language.

man, is this planting ideas in my head or what.

The next day, we ran into Narnie in the driveway. "Hey Jake, how's the pi?" she asked.

"Good. I haven't memorized anymore, though. Mom says it's a waste of time."

I had, because it was. Jake could keep going and going until the end of time -- but why? The synesthetic autistic savant Daniel Tammet memorized pi out to fifty thousand digits and recited it to raise money for an autism charity, which was a wonderful thing. (Ultimately, the recitation took him more than 5 hours. He used chocolate to get through it. That, at least, I could relate to.) But even Daniel Tammet talked more in his book about the challenges of managing his social anxiety and the physical difficulties of the recitation than any particular intellectual challenge.

Narnie came right back at Jake, with the world's most innocent look. "What?" she said. "No, silly. I was talking about cherry pie."

Jake cracked up, shaking his head as he got into the car. There's no chance of him getting a fat head as long as Narnie's around.

I laughed, too, but something was nagging at me. Halfway down to the university, I looked at Jake in the backseat in my rearview mirror. He was playing Angry Birds on his iPad.

"Hey, Jake," I said. "Why did you stop memorizing pi at forty digits?"

"I didn't stop at forty. I stopped at two hundred."

"But before. Why did you stop at forty?"

"It was forty including the three. Thirty-nine decimal digits, actually."

"Okay, but why did you stop there?"

"Because with thirty-nine decimal places, you can estimate the circumference of the observable universe down to a hydrogen atom. I figured that was all I'd ever really need."

-- The Spark, A Mother's Story of Nurturing, Genius and Autism 

O.O Reading about genius is mindblowing.

it's been a wonderfully busy break

How do we achieve sustainable development?

'Ilmu with akhlak.
'Amal with ikhlas.

---

this! is awesome.

passion is your greatest love.

great friend, great spouse,
great parent, great career.

Are they not one package?
How can you be one without the other?

This came along with my exploration of my current non-fiction read: The Spark, a story of a boy diagnosed with moderate-severe autism at 2 years, but whose Mother pulled him out of special ed so that he could continue learning in his own way. And now this boy is a 14-year-old Masters student and an apparent genius in physics and astronomy. This is phenomenal and makes me want to do probably-unacceptable things in my therapy sessions!

and here is Jacob Barnett -- he still has some brushing up to do with respect to his social skills (adorable boy), but if he's truly autistic, this is amazing. Amazing, amazing, amazing.

The basic message is this: that if we only allow ourselves to pursue our natural inclinations and passions, we will be capable of doing great things. 

Motivation is key.

And love really makes the world go round.

My mind has been sufficiently blown as I contemplate my thoughts in recent days.

I wonder if life is actually about discovering the truth of the platitudes we hear.

---

 on the k-drama front -- Healer is finished! I have so much love for it -- my drama love-list has been thoroughly scrambled, thank you. I need some time before I can decide what's at the top now. I'm actually spending the last night of this CNY break listening to a Healer-related podcast -- what the heck, I ask you. Didn't I use to do this with JE? What is happening! guh.

How do I summarise what I love about Healer -- god. I think dramabeans said it best: it's like a drama for drama-watchers. Like, you've watched a gazillion dramas and you think you know how this is going to go but, but, but! It surprises you! In such unexpectedly, wonderful ways! It made me wide-eyed with giddiness -- there were bits that made me go, For real?? Is this for real? Did that just happen in this drama -- they are not going to agonize over this plot point??? I felt like it brought k-drama to amazing, unchartered frontiers.

I think my favorite thing about Healer is that it never actually goes where I’m afraid it’s going to go. Jung-hoo has had plenty of opportunities to go full noble idiot on us, but he never takes the leap. Similarly, Young-shin has had numerous chances to believe the worst of Jung-hoo, but she never does. Past dramas have taught me to expect misunderstandings at every possible turn, but they never seem to come to fruition in Healer.

And yes, fantastic chemistry all round; not just between our leads! LOVE the whole team, seriously. 

Currently struggling through another new clinic at work, dealing with kids with sensory issues:

Also, I've been hit by another idea for a future venture -- and feeling super-excited, hehe. It trumps all the previous talks I've had with friends regarding opening of schools/bookstores/mobile speech therapy clinics with strict 3-day work-week/cafes/Muslim-casket-companies. I will probably regale S with it first when I see her this coming week.

I have too many ideas and not enough discipline.

If we consider men and women generally, and apart from the professions or occupations, there is only one situation I can think of in which they almost pull themselves up by their bootstraps, making an effort to read better than they usually do. When they are in love and are reading a love letter, they read between the lines and in the margins; they read the whole in terms of the parts, and each part in terms of the whole; they grow sensitive to context and ambiguity, to insinuation and implication; they perceive the colour of words, the odour of phrases, and the weight of sentences. They may even take the punctuation into account. Then, if never before or after, they read.

-- Mortimer Adler, How to Read a Book

Completely random this wee hour of the morning,

but this is such a beautiful cover of Taeyang's Eyes Nose Lips,

I couldn't not keep it.

I am totally sucked into k-fandom these days, I know.

Still so totally in love with this drama and this pairing!

And here paired with the super-addictive Maroon 5 song, Sugar:

If I was younger, this would have totally gone into my top 10 OTP list. But now that I'm far too grown (I do not want to say old), life does not allow me to dwell. Daylight hours steal my brain.

As a whole -- this show is doing superbly. At the start, I did feel lukewarm about it -- like, eh, it's compelling enough but the main plot was too convoluted to hook me in properly. This turned out well in the end though, because its slow unraveling is what's keeping audiences riveted now. It's so frakking exciting, I almost squealed on the bus home while watching today.

And the pairing! GOSH. I have harped on enough, but this is like the most functional hero-OTP pairing I've come across. They are so functional and workable and amazing, despite how screwed up their individual situations are -- you know how typical hero characters rarely ever get together, not until the very end? Because either the hero or both the girl and the hero have terrible issues to work out? Well, this pairing works them out. Waaay early. And it's so satisfying. So instead of getting the whole, extended pain-melodrama, how each is bad for the other, we get to see these two confront each other instead, and cry and say amazing, tear-jerking things -- and then they decide to be together. AND IT IS AWESOME. Because on top of everything, girl is helping hero with the missions, and their working together is super duper fun to watch. (KBS drama does not allow embedding of the episode clips, eesh. I wish I could keep them here.)

Healer: Okay, run!

Young Shin.: Okay -- wait, where?

Healer: *almost does a headdesk* Where you were heading!

Young Shin: Oh, right. *dashes off*

Ohmygod, seriously, so cute.

I may blog about real life the next time round -- hahh. 

Currently watching the k-drama, Healer -- and it's my typical hero archetye plot!

It stars Park Min Young, who's had a wonderful track record with her male co-stars for having great chemistry. (I mean, she made it work even with Lee Min Ho, who for all his super K-stardom, I feel lacks chemistry with most actresses). But this -- with Ji Chang-wook -- takes the cake. 

They're great together! They can be both funny and intense -- and makes this hero show a joy to watch after long workdays like the one I just had.

Much to talk about... but the night is short.

First post of 2015 --

I should have lots to say! I do. Back from my travels and all, and starting the third year of work. But where to start.

• After wondering for years in school which is more important: what you do or who you do it with -- 2 years of work has me deciding that it totally is who you do it with. For me at least. The worst type of work can be bearable with awesome company, and the best kind of work can be torture with horrid people around. Maybe it's because we're social creatures -- that for you to feel good after a day's work, all it needs sometimes is knowing you have amazing persons supporting you; knowing that you're not alone in your work. Perhaps it extends to life in general -- the road we're on will always be more bearable when there are others around, or when there's that one special companion, regardless of how crazy the road can get.
• Mawlid in Egypt -- meeting so many amazing persons who love Nabi s.a.w., from all over, and also, a total test of my Arabic skills!!! ohmygod. At one point, I was thrown alone into a group of ladies with not a shred of English, much less Malay, and it was, haha, hilarious, to recall. But I am sorta proud of myself because it was not completely hopeless. :P I could understand the ones from Saudi best because they used Modern Standard Arabic and weren't speaking dialect versions which completely befuddled me. There was one point however when I kept wanting to ask, "Where are you guys staying here?", so I literally asked, "في اين تسكن؟", and they kept saying, "Saudi, but we're from Yemen." And I was like, Yes, I know that, but where are you guys staying while you're here? And they kept repeating, We stay in Saudi, thinking I didn't understand them earlier. And after a while I kinda just gave up and wanted to headdesk, only to realise later that "تسكن" really means where you're like permanently staying. I should have used "تقيم" instead. I mean, seriously, the subtleties in meaning -- who knew. Not us while we're in class.
• We had a Syrian lady with her three kids living across from our Asian quarter -- GORGEOUS. Hello, Syrian people are just seriously gorgeous. She had two adorable boys that ohmygod, I think I seriously miss. They were 2 and 4 years old (just the typical ages of the kids I see everyday) and so cute. I wish they were still around for me to hug. And again, of course, I had to speak in Arabic with them! >.< And I would go, "هذا؟، هذا؟" as I pointed to things so I could figure out what the older brother, Taj, was saying. And still, we played this Monster app together on my iPhone, and he named the different foods he fed the Monster -- "!جبن", Cheese! "!بصل", Onion! Haha it was so adorable, man. I was totally learning Arabic from him. He still refused to let me sleep when it was like 1 am, and we were going to leave at 3 am (in the freezing cold, may I add) . He went under the covers with me (I was bunking on the sofa in the living area) and stayed stuck to my phone while I started building a headache from lack of sleep. Barely kissed him goodbye when we left.         

 

Even if I ever see the two of you again, you'll be big and won't be in the ladies' quarter anymore! Meh. Gosh, this would be a great opportunity for some Makcik to cut in 

and tell me to go get married and make my own boys. 

But... will the boys I have ever be this cute! And speak Arabic so adorably some more.

More awesome moments to share -- but another night!

I am so tired tonight, ahakz. I stayed at the office late just so I could finish all my work for 2014, then I got home and started binging on Supernatural and KFC like a brain-dead zombie.

I watched this episode of Supernatural:

SPOILERS FOR SEASON 10







Haha! And just when E was telling me how X-files (or was it Buffy?) had a musical episode, and I happily commented, well, yes, I can't ever imagine Sam and Dean singing a musical number, that's why it hasn't happened. Apparently, I should bite my tongue -- they managed to make a musical episode, embedded within some meta-fiction!

I half-hate it. Meta often feels fan-nish and tacky. But at the same time, it offers such hilarious stuff -- and that's why I really can't hate it all that much. (I mean, seriously, if you think about it -- we totally transplanted ourselves into our fandom when we were in our teen years; it was hilarious and incredibly fun, but ridiculously embarrassing.)

I've decided I like this, ahahah.


---


Anyway, finally -- I've had my last day of work for 2014. And I'm looking forward to my trip! (((:

I don't know what I'm expecting, but I really -- wish, hope, pray -- that when I'm back, somehow, I'll... feel different. Figure out things more, see more. Be better, be inspired. Insya Allah, Amin.

The last time I was in Egypt was literally 10 years ago!

You can't just have sincerity; you need sincerity and guidance. You've got to be mukhlis with guidance, and that's called mukhlas.

-- Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

This explains a lot of people. And we should always check every now and again, if we happen to be one of them. Sincerely problematic.

insya Allah, all is well

Had lunch with the Linear Algebra peeps this afternoon, and we concluded it with a round table on the highs and lows of 2014 -- and it has compelled me to blog, because I've been meaning to, and because it's December and my reflection for the year is due!

So here come the bullet points because my capacity for writing continuous prose has severely deteriorated.

• First off, it fills me with a deep sadness that I am writing in bullet points again. What has become of this space! I have no inspiration or mood to write anymore, and I am wont to blame it on the busy working life. :( Inspiration comes from good, lengthy down-time, when you let thoughts simmer and slowly come to life.
• Which brings me to point 2 -- I have been complaining a lot about this year; and I am not happy that I am complaining so much like an ungrateful brat. :((( It's just that this year has been the year when WORK WENT NUTS. Like work suddenly decided to dump a crazy amount on my plate and my plate is still overflowing, and has no signs of clearing. Ever.
• Inpatient training! Wraps up a lot about 2014 for me. Bad experience. Good lessons.
• 3-day work week (or something equivalent) -- a future that I hope to realise. Because I want my life to grow in many ways, not just one, and not when it burns me out like this.
• I feel the hard times made me closer to some of my friends this year! 
• A crazy number of books bought and hoarded.
• Nice work trips! KL, and Medan.
• Egypt and Istanbul trip coming up! The former for a Mawlid gathering that has been a loooong time coming, and the latter for a quick holiday. I'm hoping both of those will conclude the year on a high note for me. And fill me with zest for what's to come, 2015 and beyond.

---

oh, heart! how I adore you.

yes. in good moments like tonight, I contemplate everything and feel happy.

Insya Allah, all is well, though much is unclear in this messy world.

Lack of discipline is the source of all evil: whoever does not obey, will be disemboweled by the admiral.

-- apparently a French wisdom, quoted by Lymond, in Pawn in Frankincense

And I quote here because I know discipline is what I sorely lack. (and yes, against my better judgement, I am re-reading Pawn in Frankincense because I got excited about going to Istanbul -- a revisit after ~16 years, whoo!)

Ideas get nowhere if one has zero discipline. :(

How to get over lack of discipline, if one is not disciplined to begin with??? I need an outside intervention.

Sadness.

God, give me inspiration and motivation.

I will work hard! Tomorrow... ZZZzzz.

No, seriously. Tomorrow.

because this country is run like a corporation

Oh, Singapore. Please let's move toward a better life.

Let's think less of money and profits and being first in everything, 

and more about building a sustainable and enriching life.