258: Back again

Tomorrow, all students will come back to school. I'm teaching my students in real classes again, at last!. I love the opportunity to use all sort of technology to teach during MCO but it can never replace teaching face to face, hands down!

Nevertheless, many things that happened during early PKPP was teachers' dream came true. Like, only 10 students per class! No need to do group works, and no hands-on activities for students. Haha of course hands-on activities for students are good but if you have hyper students that always do the opposite of your instructions, this sort of set up of just stay at your own place, listen to your teacher spoon-feeding you, are so much appreciated. Much needed break.

Anyway, starting tomorrow, most things are back like before. Full house of more than 30 students in a class again. But its okay. I had a wonderful 3 weeks of teaching small classes 😄. Good things don't last but at least I got to experience them.

257: New normal

Now life has reverted to normal. Well, not actually the normal we used to before the pandemics, though. New normal, that is the phrase.

I still go out in the morning to go to school at the same time, around 6:40 am. But the road are clearer since most students haven't gone back to school yet (only the form 5-ers). When we reach school, temperature is taken at the school gate and recorded daily. Any temperature above 37.5 won't be allowed to enter. But three weeks in, no such cases are heard yet in my school.

Just early this year I felt so relieved because I didn't have to teach form 5, I alternate with another teacher. So this year is my turn taking the new KSSM batch, the form 4. New syllabus, I was excited. The last batch I taught which was also the first batch I taught for form 4 and 5 Physics received their SPM result with all passes. Alhamdulillah. Then coronavirus happened. MCO started just as the half-semester break started.

Around early June we learned that only the form 5 would be allowed to go to school at the first phase of school opening. Ah, I was needed to teach form 5 again. But I wasn't complaining. In this phase in life, where everything is so uncertain and out of our initial plan and so far away from expectations, we need to learn to be positive, taking in everything as a long journey of building ourselves. After all, I've been missing teaching students in class. Online learning has its perk but it can never compete to teaching face to face. I'll take it!

256: 2020

It's 2020! But all our expectations of how the year would be are totally off. We thought we would have flying car at least, but in reality, even airplanes cannot fly. I, on the other hand, am very thankful with the situation I am in. I'm trying to be positive here, because things seem so bleak, we still cannot fathom the seriousness of this virus situation although we are 3 months in our restrictive movement order.

Anyway, like I said, I am grateful that I am home with my family. I am thankful for still having a paid job. I am thankful my parents and in-laws are still within reach. I am eternally grateful that my husband is always by my side. I am thankful that my children are all home, healthy, within my sights. The biggest of our worries is going out, so the solution is just to stay home. And home, with abundance of food, internet connection, vast living hall for the kids to play and run around, a yard compound so we can go outside once in a while ... 

... why won't I feel blessed to stay home? while others don't have any choices because they are frontliners, or because they've been sacked so they need to do odd jobs 24/7, or their house is so crammed with dozens people but only 2 bedrooms, one phone to be shared with the whole family for online learning? and many other unfortunate circumstances that I am so grateful to Allah I don't have to endure.

And with that of course we who are advantageous should do what we can to help. What we have in hand is never ours. What we give out to others, that is our real inheritance that can help us in the hereafter.

I guess that's it for now, after long years of hiatus! I never forget the good feel of blogging, I need to start again. I miss the innocence of it, the 'quietness' ,unlike the social media, if you know what I mean.

254: The talk

About 2 weeks ago I attended Yasmin Mogahed's talk. Here are the notes that I managed to jot down without editing. Need to put it here so that it won't dissapear.

--
Yasmin Mogahed
"Living the Reclaimed Heart"
17 August 2018
Berjaya Waterfront Hotel, JB

Yasmin Mogahed

Who's the owner of your heart.
Reclaim your heart, taking back your heart, back to its original owner which is Allah
How to practically do that?
How to live with the heart like that?
This life is a marathon not a sprint
Its all about endurance and perseverance.
When we say the shahada,
We always take other ilah.. in love, in obedience.
When we love something, that something become our master, and we become its slave. We make our children our ilah. We revolve our life and existence to our children. Whats the thing that cause u most fear, afraid, worry.
What causes you the most pain, the most anxiety.. your deepest attachment.

Why we cant do this? (Eg a married couple make their children ilah)
1. Its unjust
2. Its harming the child. Narcissism. You're raising a narcisist.

If u make children the foundation of ur family, its not healthy. The foundation for family is the marriage itself, the husb n wife relationship. The marriage is neglected and its a big mistake.

Our love for something is a test.

This age is social media age where something doesnt happen unless we post about it on fb. It become some sort of obsession.. it owns our life.

We are abused just because we r scared of what other people say.

Obsession on how we look.

You r what you eat. Imagine your Instagram feed is your refrigerator. What have u been eating?

This is not about halal and haram. This is about what become most important to you. What matters most become something different than Allah. We start become dissatisfied. Because we compare real life with fake life. People spend more time on social media has higher level of anxiety and depression.

Social media is a tool. We can use it for good, and for harm. There is an amazing tool called 'unfollow' 😂.

Change our focus. Use it for something more healthy..change the content of your fridge.

Stop advertising your blessings. Stop evil eye, hasad etc.

Every body has their own gift. No one can have everything in life.

Every blessing can be envied. So be discreet about it.

We cant live without our oxygen.
The heart's oxygen is solat. We cant talk about running a marathon without breathing. So if we leave solat, nothing can be done to mend the heart.

Solat at the prescribed time. Like medicine has its prescription. We trust the doctor but we dont trust Allah?

Prescriptions
1. Solat the oxygen

2. Azhkar.. zikir. Our water, mineral, vitamin. The rememberance of Allah. We suffer because we forgot about it. Rasulullah has zikr for all acts in life, from the smallest act to the biggest but we neglected it. And the negligence made us weàk.

We have nafs amar bissu'. It can control us. When we r weak we come up with strange justification to disobey Allah.

Download app 'My Duaa'. The most important is the morning n evening azkar .. al-mathurat

Consistency is the key. Choose dua that you can be consistent. Make sure including protections and repentances. Istighfar.

3. Quran
---
QnA
1. Ldr relationship
Istikharah makes what is best, easy. Allah will facilitate what is best. Sincere in your dua.

2. Our part is whats our responsibility only. Let it go if the other person refuse.

3. Our first amanah is ourselves before others. Take care of our selves. We have our needs that we will be asked by Allah. Ask allah for guidance, ease and open what is best. Do not neglect ourselves. Not healthy. Not islamic. Imbalance will create problems. Suffocate the children. You cannot help others if u havent taken the oxygen mask yourself.

4. We dont have control of other people. Even rasulullah cant change his uncle. Make dua for our friend. Try advice n support, but cant control her except her.

5. We are not perfect. We cant never be 100% sincere. But we strive for ihsan, excellence not perfection. Always ask Allah to help us in being sincere. Signs of sincerity we can something even if peole dont know about it. Keep doing it eventho no one praise it. Keep doing it eventho not seeing result.

6. Innamal a'malu binniat. You do it but your heart is not attached to it. Its between you and Allah.

7. We r human. Thats y we have sujud sahwi. Allah knows we bound to make mistakes. But we can improve. How to improve. Learn the foundation of solat: the language.

8. If we take a look at our doa, we know what matters to you.

9. How to help teenagers. Set an example. You'll become the life of your closest friend. Bi'ah. We r affected by good company. And bad company. The same is true in marriage. You become like them. Put ur child in good company.

10. We do our best to put ourselves in a good environment. Self-preservation. Something that we dont have control to, be like radiation worker. Put protective armor. Your zikir.

11. How to continue having the endurance? The 3 prescriptions. Or else you become sick, weak, dead!

12. Masculinity is dying. Start with how we teach our boys. Teach our boys their responsibilities. Modern boys have no responsibility, its crippling. Boys r maturing so slowly. We have epidemics of people avoiding commitments. 

253: Need to freeze this moment

Yesterday was the day I laughed the hardest that my first born,  Kauthar got worried.

We were praying Isya together and were on the last sujud before finishing 4 raka'ah.

Yusuf (1 year 1 month) was playing around his abi. Usually he would imitate our sujud and ru'ku. Before sujud I saw him standing up and then getting closer to abi to a position that I initially thought for sujud. I couldn't see clearly since I proceeded with my own sujud movement.

But suddenly I hear "Ow!" Yusuf bit his abi's hand! And his abi was so surprised that he couldn't help but shouted but then he tried to cover it up with "Allahu akbar" to proceed with tahiyat akhir.

I on the other hand couldn't contain my laughter. Remember, we were on the final raka'ah already!! It took quite few minutes until I finally able to breathe properly again because of the laughter.  And then,  of course,  need to repeat the prayer. Yes,  abi as well because he also laughed after he heard my laugh burst.

Oh the random things your kids did 😂

252: Harsh Reality

Hati sangat sayu hari ini. How could I teach the students the same way again? I can never look at the group of students without feeling disgusted and angry..  And sad. Mostly sad,  kot.

Somehow we knew that one of them did the unthinkable! A form 2 boy with form 1 girl! And they were both willing. God,  they are just a little kid! Anggap macam kanak2 sbb sememangnya perangai and attitude macam kanak2. But the way they reacted to this issue pun mcm kanak2.  How fast the gossip reaches everyone due to social media. And how destructive the technology is.

The children need proper sexual education. Parents need to prepare for their children,  because if they didn't , the children will learn faster from their friends,  from social medias,  from explicit content online..like it or not,  its happening.  The topics shouldn't be a taboo to be discussed openly.

Sayunya..  😢

And how scary..  Ya Allah,  peliharalah maruah dan kehormatan keluargaku,  zuriat2ku.. Ni'mal maula wa ni'mannasir..

251: Going with the flow

I don't know why,  but this year, work suddenly gets so hectic. I barely have time to catch my breath after each class,  there are thousands of stuff that i need to do. My brain is also constantly thinking about so many things. I feel so tired but i cannot stop.

My only rest time is my night sleep when the kids are already asleep.  Like right now..  But the mind still refuses to shut down. Thinking about the observation on sunday,  need to prepare the toolkits for it, science competition for 2 classes that need to be finalised by wednesday, the prep,  the script, the shooting...  Thinking about lesson planning, what to do each day,  what to bring each day, thinking about the kids..  How they havent fully recover from their cough and flu yet but still being sent to school,  guilt feeling.. Thinking about why is it so hard for yusuf to doze off...

And i terdoze off for few seconds just now... I guess its time..