"The stars mean different things to different people. For some they are nothing more than twinkling lights in the sky. For travellers they are guides. For scholars they are food for thought. For my businessman they are wealth. But for everyone the stars are silent. Except from now on just for you..."

"What do you mean?"

"When you look up at the sky at night, since I shall be living on one of them and laughing on one of them, for you it will be as if all the stars were laughing. You and only you will have the stars that can laugh!"

And as he said it he laughed.

"And when you are comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be happy to have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And from time to time you will open your window, just for the pleasure of it... And your friends will be astonished to see you laughing whilst gazing at the sky. And so you will say to them, 'Yes, stars always make me laugh.' And they will think you are crazy. I shall have played a very naughty trick on you..."

And once again he laughed. 

"It will be as if I had given you, instead of stars, a lot of little bells that can laugh..."

-- The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery

I had a quick re-read of this. It's so lovely -- and here I am thinking, wait a minute, is A Little Prince partly a love story? He travels around to so many other planets, meeting strange grown-ups, only to finally learn that his rose is his rose because he made it his rose. We put meaning where we wish it. We see God if we want to see God. We see nothing if we are adamant that there is nothing.

Like the fox said,

"Now here is my secret. 
It is very simple. 

It is only with one's heart that one can see clearly. 
What is essential is invisible to the eye."

I should go see this animated movie too.

pork, dogs, and plates

There's a reason for this title.

* I'd met up with Datin S and F recently for dinner -- yay mini reunion! (I love my class so much) -- and we were having an insane, long, and funny chat about speechie life and everything else under the sun/moon. Then F completely surprised me by saying how she remembers interesting things about Islam from me, that she never hears from other people. And that she remembered to the detail what I'd said about how haram pork was different from haram dog, and all of that in relation to plates, and when one needed to clean them -- HAHA which I don't recall at all. F was so earnest and cute about it, and all of that made me think about a Lymond quote of all things (oh my weird brain) -- about how our words can have an unforeseen impact on the passing stranger. That's why words are important, aren't they?

We laughed so hard about how F knew all this things I don't remember telling her (and I told her more awesome stuff about the Prophet s.a.w. that she said, yar, she never knew or heard about!).




* I am going to miss my social skills kids so much. Seriously.

I was having a blah day yesterday, then the day turned for the better when we had social skills group sessions that had my fellow therapists and I alternately burst into bouts of laughter.

ohmygooood they are so funny and cute and clueless and I love them for all their weirdness.

We had newly-Primary 1 boy A ramble on in fragmented phrases about what he did for recess, when I asked, "So do you eat at the canteen?" He went, "Yes! No. NO! Lunch box. I eat lunch box. Noodles. Noodles and panir. It's... it's indian. Indian cottage cheese!" 

And then his cute Primary 2 partner asked, having thoroughly misheard but from his tone obviously thinking this was actually legit food, "A, do you eat noodles and pony?"

At which J and I both cracked up so hard.

Ohhhh, I still want to laugh thinking about it -- and all said in their cute, earnest voices that I am sorry I cannot reenact.


* I am loving these Bangtan boys too much, and Buzzfeed is not helping at all.


*2017 you're starting out with scary but hopefully good changes, insya Allah. ☀

I've been feeling inspired in recent times.

Alhamdulillah! It feels like a while since I've felt this surge.
Ya Allah, please give me opportunities to always be an instrument of good for Your Pleasure.


Rasulullah s.a.w. said, "The Quran is Allah's banquet."

The Quran is the 'banquet' from which we feast until our inner beings overflow with its meanings and blessings, and then become apparent through our character.

-- Educating Children: Classical Advice for Modern Times

Riyadatul Sibyan, Imam Muhammad bin Ahmed al-Ramli

Translation and Commentary by Abdul Aziz Ahmed

this post is going to be a patchwork of random things that have been gracing my mind and my screens recently.


* The more I listen to this, the more convinced I am that Big Bang could't have ended 2016 with a more perfect song. The word is that this might be Big Bang's last song ever because TOP is going into military service this year and then each one of them will soon follow him, and the next time we would possibly have all of Big Bang together again is in 5-6 years at the very least. They (and I!) would all be in their mid-30s then and who knows if they'd still want to come back!

Last Dance is so apt,
and is supposedly a song about their farewell.
Gosh, TOP, don't cry.

Like I said, I don't need sadder things on my plate, thank you.



* I am loving this (meme-thing I stole from tumblr):

Yoongi: How does one turn off their emotions? 

Namjoon: Okay, first go to settings. 

Namjoon: Wait! I'm an idiot! I thought you said emojis...

Yoongi: No, I'm still willing to try this, go ahead, I'm at settings, what do I do next?

haaaahaha. goodness, yes, Yoongi, tell me if you figure it out.


* I finished Daniel J. Siegel's Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (the first book completed in 2017!).

I was introduced to this book when I was attending Maude Le Roux's workshop in November, about how she runs her Floortime/Autism clinic in the US, and she had used Daniel Siegel's hand-brain model to show us how autistic kids probably lacked the middle prefrontal cortex. She was referencing the book, and I followed my impulses very badly: I looked it up immediately, and bought it on the spot. In this case, good impulse. (I love it when my impulse proves true.)

I'm already holding back on my praise, but this is in the running for my favourite-ever non-fiction secular book. I'm still so in thrall with it. I cannot emphasise enough how amazing it is. I actually think it should be compulsory reading for all human beings who wish to better themselves as human beings. I mean, books like this are usually religious books, and Shaykh Hamza's translation of the Purification of the Heart comes to mind now. This book inspires me in almost the same way, guh.

Dr Daniel Siegel explains what interpersonal neuroscience is, and tries to link the mind to our actual biological brain, and it is breathtakingly insightful. The stuff that we all know about and grapple with all our lives, like anger, hurt, confusion, pain, memory, dreams, and where they all come from or how we deal with them -- explained so simply with respect to our brain anatomy and physiology, and what we can do to get better and better at it i.e. developing our middle prefrontal cortex, which appears to be the seat of the essence of man. I feel so inadequate in trying to explain it; I've actually exported 20 pages worth of quotes from my Kindle just on this book alone.

As I look through them, here are some good stuff:

Response flexibility harnesses the power of the middle prefrontal region to put a temporal space between input and action. This ability to pause before responding is an important part of emotional and social intelligence. It enables us to become fully aware of what is happening—and to restrain our impulses long enough to consider various options for response.

I don't know if I have too much or too little -- or basically I'm inconsistent -- with this response flexibility. It's called hilm in Arabic, I think; it's like a mixture of forbearance and patience, that enables you to act with intelligence, instead of being purely and primitively reactive to stimuli.

And here's one of the best descriptions of intuition I've come across:

...intuition can be seen as how the middle prefrontal cortex gives us access to the wisdom of the body.

I need more of this, obviously:

With discernment we can see that a thought or feeling is just mental activity, not absolute reality.

I might end up pasting a gazillion lines from this book. Here's one more...

.... the essence of reflection, which is central to mindsight, is that we remain open, observant, and objective about what’s going on both inside us and inside others.

I'm glad that I've always been a pretty reflective individual; though it has its downsides definitely, because apparently, reflection is somewhat the opposite of flow -- and this explains very well why I know I will not perform well at something the more 'aware' I am of it. Like sports and performance and a lot of skill-type activity -- the more you think on it, the worse you'll be at it. It really explains a lot about how my work training goes as well actually: because I'm an extremely reflective person, even in the learning moment, sometimes I'm reflecting -- cause that's how I learn -- so then I know I appear really slow and blur because my brain is God-knows-where. And people wonder why I take forever to get a skill. Gosh, I'm reminded of my colleague WZ always telling me, "Don't think, just do." Don't think?!

Eventually, I like to think though that when I get it, I get it. Like now, I love getting into the flow of assessing my new speech language cases: it comes naturally, without effort, because somehow I've integrated it into my system, and I basically wait for myself to get a feel for what's wrong with a child. That's how I think. Not by systematic lists, but like feeling something's missing or off or not quite right. Or actually, kiddo, you're fine; your parents are the ones who need to cut you some slack.


last one, a quote too awesome not to share:

“The brain is so complicated it staggers its own imagination.”

* In relation to the above, a wonderful line from Sherlock in recent times:

“Intuitions are not to be ignored, John. They represent data processed too fast for the conscious mind to comprehend.” - Sherlock Holmes (BBC Sherlock) 


*

It's not a pleasant thought, John, 
but I have this terrible feeling from time to time 
that we might all just be human.

Even you?

No. Even you.

-- Sherlock, Season 4




The plot isn't doing very well still, but when I love my characters,
there never is a going back.

Yes, it's okay that we mess up in life. It's okay!
Because we're all human (yes, even you, Sherlock, and funnily Mycroft too),
and we're all always learning till the day we die.

THIS!

I was trying to recall this quote about friendship. A repost from 2012.


Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party. Let me alone to the end of the world, rather than that my friend should overstep, by a word or a look, his real sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being mine, is that the not mine is mine. I hate, where I looked for a manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There must be very two, before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which, beneath these disparities, unites them.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

All things considered, today was a great first work day of 2017.


*First pleasant surprise: an unexpected job promotion! although it should very well be expected, considering the number of years and the fact that my bond is up in a few days and they likely don't want me to run away. But you know, I've been so busy just surviving hospital life, and then planning this major change in March, that it never crossed my mind. And more money does always feel good no matter how immune you think you are.

*And then, I had so few patients! After the crazy deluge the last week of 2016 (back-to-back patients for almost 3-days-straight that virtually killed me), it was a nice breather.

*And then, because I was being in a no-mood-to-socialise-depressed-self, I told one of my friends that I was going to hole myself up in my room at lunchtime (it's nice how we all understand each others' space and needs and how people know S is a super-introvert and she needs downtime by herself, leave her alone); but after a moment, F returned and said, "Can I just sit here and lunch with you?" And we were going to happily lunch in relative quietness when another of our friends popped in her head and was like, "Heeeeeyyyyy, why are you two lunching here..... I want to join!" And the three of us had a nice cosy lunch instead of my planned depressed lonesome lunch, and I realised, and it was verbalised, that ohmygoodness, I am going to miss these people. Very very much. I think I might cry if they go through with the farewell thing which isn't supposed to be a farewell actualllyyyy...

This always seems to happen to me -- I say the place is crap, or there are so many greener pastures elsewhere -- but when it comes down to it, I realise I've grown so attached to a place, and I get nervous about leaving, and I think, Do I really want to leave? 

Goodness. In my past Roman life, I must have been a plebeian. So easily swayed.

*Then dinner was with E. And though we shockingly discovered, Hei Sushi in Bedok is no more (oh no, whatever shall we do for sushi fixes nowwwww; Pasir Ris is so not convenient...), dinner was still good. And we had our usual super long chat.

And I realise that, while E and I are different on the Feeling vs Thinking front (she's all logical, I'm all feely), I often underestimate her ability to comprehend my feelings or falsely think that she would call out on the ridiculousness of my feelings. Because at the end of the day, we perceive the world so similarly. She actually gets why I do the supposed crazy things I do; and it's so satisfying to have someone truly understand why you did something, although she will still headdesk at you HAHA. It's like how I maybe understand her need to conceptualise or understand everything on this earth, but I will want to headdesk at her.

And on nights like this, we bitch about SJs, albeit with an awareness of our inherent bias. SJs, and S people in general -- eeeesh: Some days, we wish we were more like you because you seem to live with less abstract pain.

Then this song accompanied my walk home... (:

Happy 2017!

I said I'd put a photo-montage to wrap up 2016 so I shall, although it's late,

cause my family was playing board games all night.

And this shall not be completely depressing.

Unfortunately, the photos I've compiled are more of the second half of this year, 

because the first half seems like eons ago now.

I can barely remember what happened except that I got to see Scotland again.

L and I at Roys et Vouz, Telok Ayer Street, 

to celebrate completion of SPOT training (:

A trip to Batam with old friends (and yes, it is with horror that I am realising 

my uni friends are considered old friends now), masquerading as a hen night thing for K.

It was a funny, cosy night that involved doing silly worksheets (I kid you not) about weddings/marriages -- just so we fulfilled the hen night portion of it haha. 

We played The Game of Life, and had heartfelt sharings about what marriage was.

 

Then the next day we met Royqah 

who is such a pleasant little girl!

This is even older friends,

finally meeting up again.

We meet so rarely, it's almost a given that presents are necessary.

TOTORO.

And behaving like we're kids still.

(I still insist that it is a sheep.)

More meet-ups with old friends -- and my gosh,

this was a hilarious night. We were literally a stone's throw from the mosque

and we ended up in a bar (somewhat; my dad would kill me if he knew) because the cafe was closed;

we would have adjourned except that my also-Muslimah friend was like, "It's okay one! This place is small and cafe-like and chill and we can order non-alcoholic stuff in the same way. Just tell them what you feel like having." So apparently one is supposed to order in the form of adjectives like, "I want something happy." or "Surprise me." and then you'd get your drink. So we were being so suaku and noisy and when we finally decided on our adjectives and called the waitress over to order pseudo-alcoholic drinks, the azan (i.e. the Islamic call to prayer) blared, and I was like, NO NOT NOW! 

Because ohmygod, although we technically were ordering halal drinks -- just, it felt sinful enough;

we laughed so hard because ohmygoodness what were we doing!

So we waited for the azan to finish and then ordered.

And honestly, all this was, was an extra limey yuzu soda thingum.

and very pretty.

A brand new fandom. I adore BTS now, 

and look at how fun and crazy this fandom is!

I can't believe I actually get these memes.

they're so nutso and fun and talented and entertaining.

this is my favourite -- so funny:

this is here because it reminds me of the most memorable Book Club read this year

i.e. The Element by Sir Ken Robinson

We talked a lot about passions, truths, and education;

which led to some drama but ohwells, 

I have been thinking that maybe drama is life, life is drama;

and that if you don't shake up your life enough,

it means you're not living passionately, maybe.

Visiting Datin S in Seremban! So memorable.

And when I was there, I really felt... 

not so much old, but mature, adult. Independent.

Maybe it's the taking a plane by myself, 

or staying with a friend's family by myself,

or being the only Muslim in a world of non-Muslims 

(which is a standard story of my life but--)

and being able to hold my own.

Knowing who I am, what I like, what I'm capable of.

And finding it easier and easier to meet new people

and get along fantastically with them anyway.

Maybe being fully-adult is having a solid core in your self

to rely on

 both my parents are now happily (I hope!) retired

and our hilarious family conversations continue...

(so there was a sudden increase in roaches when the new Tampines Hub 

near our place was finishing its construction work, 

and of course some started creeping into our flats too! the horror...)

Book club meetings with babies now

making discussions not-so-easy. 

M has taken to always leaving her baby with daddy

so we can discuss better.

I adore my friends' babies as I adore them.

and...

Every year, learning this.