#4 Qur'an Memorization

Often when we heard a nice, old song it would immediately brought us to the memory of the past - that era when the song been constantly played in the air. Never mind if it is a song you totally hate. For an instance, I never like Daniel Bedingfield's If You're not the One. To me, It is a weak song with pathetic lyrics. But this song was popular during my matriculation days circa 2002-2004. My room mate at that time would sang the song at the top of her lung everyday, all my taunts and efforts to shut her up failed miserably. Now, sometimes when this song comes out, i will instantly reminded of her, of the room, of the happy matriculation's life.

Now, is it possible to do the same with the Qur'an? When we memorize certain surah, could we bind it to certain visual or memory? I have none (the visuals)  in my head. The one that I only have is not even a Qur'anic aayah - it is the Iftitah. According to my mother, I memorized it by accident after days of listening to my mother teaching it to my elder brother. I was 4 or 5 years old. One day, I told my mother I could recite it too. The visuals in my head is of my father asking me to recite it while I was in sitting in his lap. After I was done, he would praised me proudly. Now everytime I recited Du'a Iftitah, the effect is, i feel loved, because I was loved, during the time I learnt it. Going through the meaning, I feel loved by the God who gave me blessings I could not count. But then, it will stopped until the Iftitah only. I dont have any memory recollection on how i memorized Fatihah. And the following short surahs we usually recited aftermath. I guess i have to unlearned myself and started from the very basic. Learn the Faatihah again and the Qur'an again.

Problem with us born Muslims - since we were taught everything , and been told everything, we thought we have already know everything about Islam. We stopped learning...

#3 Strategi DIY memansuhkan PTPTN

1. Bayar PTPTN sedia ada. Strategi membayar hutang rujuk sini.

2. Bina simpanan kewangan yang kukuh. Ilmu pengurusan kewangan peribadi sangat penting disini.

3. Kempen adik kakak, kawan kawan, saudara mara JANGAN AMBIL PTPTN kalau boleh. Alang-alang berusaha sedaya upaya dapatkan biasiswa. Tak dapat bisiswa ada banyak pinjaman lain tanpa riba ( JPA, pinjaman negeri, zakat ). Buat part time kerja sambilan. InsyaAllah tak ganggu pelajaran pun kalau rajin. Yang penting elakkan PTPTN sebab riba.

4. Buat simpanan tabung pendidikan anak-anak. Jangan kedekut. Membiayai pendidikan anak-anak besar pahalanya. Malah patut didahulukan. Ada banyak kes mak bapak yang mampu tanggung tapi masih suruh anak-anak cari pinjaman pendidikan dengan alasan simpanan sedia ada mahu digunakan untuk hari tua.

5. Lama-kelamaan makin kurang orang bergantung kepada PTPTN dan seterusnya terpaksa di mansuhkan.

#2 Tok Ayah Kar

"Pesan dekat anak cucu, jangan tinggal sembahyang, jangan tinggal sembahyang..jangan tinggal sembahyang.."

Antara kata-kata terakhir moyang saya; Tok Ayoh Kar. Ayah kepada nenek sebelah ibu saya. Saya tidak pernah bertemu dengannya, namun dia tetap hidup dalam cerita-cerita nenek saya dan ibu saya. Menurut cerita, orangnya lemah lembut dan tidak pernah berkasar. Tapi cukup tegas dalam menjaga setiap solat anak buah. Dengar cerita, boleh runtuh rumah kalau mengejutkan orang sembahyang subuh. Ibu saya yang yatim sejak kecil amat sayang kepadanya kerana dia suka melebihkan ibu saya berbanding kanak-kanak lain. Kalau makan, ajak duduk makan sebelah. Besarlah nikmat orang yang rajin mengusap kepala anak-anak yatim kerana anak itu ingat dan mengulang-ulang cerita sampai tua. 

#1 Learning to Run

Congratulations to myself I decided to start learning on running again. The running shoes seems happy to see the light again after months of hibernating in the car's boot ( which woman dont have all kind of shoes in her car, you tell me ).

I started running, on and off since last year where i braved myself to enter a 10k running event. I started training for one month then stopped and ended ditching up the event. The reason is not due to lost motivation, or laziness, but the knees. I have a history of right knee injury. Probably I didnt do the training right causing a big stress to the knees, under my heavy weight. Because I care a lot about my knees, I stopped running altogether to focus on recovery.

During that months of idle period, I tried losing weight to reduce impact on the knees by moving lot. Like using the stairs. There is also this ongoing effort on developing good eating habits. Post Ramadan- I managed to control my eating habits and loss 4 kg since the first day I started running. Not much but at least it is still a relief to the knee. Imagine buying 4 kgs of sugar. And walking while carrying the sugar. That much of weight, now I dont have to run with it.

To start running again, I found another training plan which focus on "learning on running" "speed dont matter" "finish a 10K run injury-free". It is a walk/run program with the idea, at the end of the program, the run portions mesh with the walk portions so that my knee, my body and my mind hardly know the differences.

I did my first session this evening. It started easy with

Warm up : walk slow & easy 5 minutes.
Run 1 minute. Walk 2 minutes. 8 times.

This was done via route of circling the new housing environment nearby. The scenery is pretty and peaceful, less cars, less people and about only half of the new houses are occupied with tenants. As I jogged by the sidelines, there are few families with visitors celebrating their raya in their brand new 1.6 million ringgits house ( I googled ). Some of them looked at me from afar. As a naturally shy person, I tried to ignore them and maintaining what is in my opinion - a slow and easy jogging pace ( from their view its probably a slow and easy crawling snail ).

After I m done, i feel a slight kink of soreness in my right knee. I dont sweat much  and feel i could do more which is the point of the training, so we could always look forward to the next session. Nothing serious, but I think I have to find that cool thing sportsmen always wear on their knee ( knee-something the name ).

The next session is on Tuesday. The training plan is on every other day so to allow time for recovery to the body. Since I am blogging from my mobile device, I have plan on continuous writing my running journey.