I, Steve

This book is a compilation of the late Steve Jobs’ words from various interviews, conferences, etc etc.

Even it’s featured in Playboy, it doesn’t sound less smart 😜

He saw himself as both technologist and artist.

I always believe that among the greatest men in history are those with both science and art talent. Take Ibnu Sina, he mastered both Medicine and Philosophy & Poetry; Al-Kindi, a mathematician, physician, chemist and also a great poet and musician. And Al-Farabi, who was a scientist, cosmologist, mathematician and musician.

And we have Steve Jobs from our era.

And this was Steve Jobs' resignation letter, about two months before he died, 😭

How About

How about
   running carefreely when time freezes?
And how about
    standing still in the middle of chaos?


How about
     beating the odds
   and coming through stronger, anyway?

How about that?

Puasa: The Challenge

This year’s puasa hasn’t been easy for me. My perut didn’t go easy on me so far. Aku try and error je what to take during sahur. So far, fresh milk+ ESP and dates. But didn’t really seem to work. Jadi rasanya kena cut back fresh milk kot ni. Kadang-kadang fresh milk is okay, but for these few days, it was not, entahlah..

But, thank God for Gaviscon.

Lepas ni kena makan oat baliklah nampak gaya for sahur. Hopefully okay. Nak kena variasikan cara makan oat tu jelah. 

1998 - 2018

I think I just have to document this. I don't exactly know why, but DSAI's release seems like an important thing to remember.

It all started in 1998 - when he was sacked - I was already pro-Anwar. I started adding alphabet H at the end of my name, bersempena nama anak beliau, Nurul Izzah. To be exact, aku eja nama aku macam ni - Izza(h). Haha, kengkonon, either way, Izza or Izzah. Pernah terlintas jugak dalam fikiran masa tu, mungkin bakal suami nanti orang yang nama start dengan huruf H kot. In hindsight, it actually made sense, haha.

Dan seingat aku lagi, mak pernah bagitau that Mak Abah named me after Anwar Ibrahim's daughter,  who is 2 years older than me, so it made sense. Mungkin Mak Abah memang dah follow Anwar Ibrahim dah zaman tu.

Teringat malam-malam lepas prep duk bersembang hal politik dengan dormmates. Masa tu internet was scarce, tak di hujung jari macam sekarang. Dan bukan semua orang ada line Internet dekat rumah.  Maka we based on hardcopy reading materials, newspaper from both government and opposition sides, lepas tu ada lah flyers and brcohures. And the fact that one of the girls in my batch is related to Anwar Ibrahim. 

Semangat reformasi masa tu memang lain macam, haha. Tapi aku tak pernahlah join mana-mana demonstrasi Reformasi masa tu. Ada satu malam, lepas habis prep malam, masa nak balik hostel, ada ramai FRU dalam school compund, tapi dah tak ingat kenapa. Mungkin ada demonstrasi kat PWTC kot. Cuaklah perasaan masa tu. But nothing bad happened.

Masa matriks pun jumpa ramai geng yang sama ideologi jadi semangat tu tetap menebal.

Tapi zaman uni macam dah slowed down. I don't remember why. Mungkin tak ada geng yang sama-sama haluan kiri. atau disebabkan Aukujanji masa tu. By right, masa tahun PRU 2004 I was already entitled to vote, but I'm pretty sure I didn't register. Tapi kalau register pun mungkin tak balik mengundi jugak, sebab zaman tu bukannya boleh suka-suka balik kampung sebab faktor harga tiket bas dan jarak perjalanan yang sungguh tak mesra pelajar. 

Bila dah kerja, ni zaman yang aku lost track of almost memories. Tapi aku pernah terserempak dengan Nurul Izzah kat Bangsar Village somewhere in 2008 or 2009, fangirl moment kejap, tapi cuma senyum dari jauh jelah. 

Dan masa PRU13, adalah timbul balik semangat tu sebab ada gang, mostly my Chinese friends. Tapi seingat aku masa tu bukan semangat reformasi dah, more to spread anti-racism sentiment lah kononnya. And also, it was my first time voting, although the ones I voted for both DUN and Parlimen lost.

So now, 2018, after 20 years, Anwar Ibrahim is finally a free man. Sebagai salah seorang yang pro-his side all the way, it is an inspiring moment for me. Of what patience and perseverance pays.

A Cup of Comfort

I read this book in between of everything. So it took quite some time to finally finish this, hence, the wrinkly cover.  It consists of  short stories, ada yang betul-betul heart-warming, tapi ada jugak yang biasa-biasa, yang tak sampai ke hati sangat. 

Of all stories, I like "The Color of Prejudice" best. So, let me quote a few words from the story:

"Being hateful to someone who's been hateful to you just builds more hate. Hate leads to violence"

"I believe prejudice is fear and envy camouflaged as anger. And I believe fear and envy come from ignorance, from not really knowing or understanding the other person"

~M.A.Kosak

Overall, this book is a light read. 

Ramadhan 1439

Salam Ramadhan.

Well, it’s already day 2 of Ramadhan.

Rasanya topik yang hangat sebelum puasa adalah perihal kemaafan. Satu, pengampunan DSAI. Kedua, di kalangan kita semua, bila nak masuk Ramadhan, masing-masing bertukar ucapan maaf. 

Yang paling menyentuh hati, bila aku mintak maaf, orang cakap “Kau tak ada buat salah apa pun". 

Well, of course I had. Tapi mungkin kesalahan lama tu orang betul-betul dah maafkan sampai anggap kita macam tak pernah buat salah, sobsob, terharu..

Jadi, itulah dia. Kita kena berlapang dada untuk maafkan orang, terutama untuk orang yang betul-betul perlukan kemaafan kita.  Bukan saja kita bebaskan diri sendiri dari perasaan dendam dan marah, tetapi juga beri harapan pada orang yang kita maafkan tu.

Displaced & Forgotten

This is actually my latest purchase, but I cut the books queue and read it first.  There are true stories told by the refugees who seek asylum in Malaysia. Some are from conflicted countries like Palestine, Syria, Cambodia, Myanmar; and some are from the conflicted territory like Kashmir.

Honestly, I couldn't even imagine being in their shoes. Nauzubillah.

The fact that this modern holocaust is happening all around us, I think at some point, it's not news anymore. Isn't that scary? Bad and mean things happen so publicly and openly, yet the world just turns a blind eye.

This explains it exactly:

I keep on wondering how would this world get any better. But I don't know. Maybe it just won't.

Hantu Jeruk

Sejak muda-muda memang hantu jeruk, especially jeruk mempelam. Cuma bila dah kena gastrik, terpaksalah tone down sikit kesukaan tu.

Balik kampung baru-baru ni dapat bekalan mempelam dalam 10 biji dari mak mertua. Maka menjeruklah kita. 

Husband suruh buat jeruk sira (betulke nama ni), aku pulak sekarang lebih berminat pada jeruk asam boi. Jadi buat dua-dualah. 

Dua jenis jeruk mempelam

Aku rasa jeruk sira tu lebih gastrik-friendly (haha, sukati reka perkataan sendiri) sebab ingredient dia cuma gula melaka dan cili boh.  Yang jeruk asam boi ni - asam boi tu memang gastrik-trigger punya ingredient. Dengan cili padi lagi. Tak pelah, makan sikit-sikit sambil beringat. Atau buat ulam makan dengan nasi. *sedapkan hati.

Pray For Me

If you ever pray for me,

I hope 

you don’t just pray for me

             strength

Please pray for me

       wisdom, too

Because;

I don’t want to be 

strong and stupid;

or,

strong and arrogant

I want to be

strong and wise.

New Malaysia

Woke up this morning with such indescridable feeling. And then things became somehow quite difficult to comprehensive.

I want know what it feels like to have a new government that majority had voted after an election that I, too, casted my vote. Gitu. But up until now, it is all still butterlies in the stomach.

Hope everything goes smoothly and turns out okay.

PRU14

It’s THE day!

To be honest, for me this time it requires some studies and researches before I made up my mind. And I don’t even share the same ideology and sentiment with my husband this time 😂 

Okay, tak mengundi pun lagi ni. Tahun ni all my family members will be voting at the same centre so they are all now waiting for me nak pergi mengundi sekali. Election in a way, is also a family gathering and family activity.

Semoga kemenangan di pihak yang nak diundi ni.

*might be uploading photos later (kalau rajin)

Inflight Science

A tough read, this one!

Some of the chapters kind of brings me back to the struggle of physics classes in high school and Engineering Mechanics subject on those undergraduate days. Pheww.

Btw, here's some fun facts:

1. The risk of plane crash is 1 in 125 million passsenger journey, which is 3x safer than travelling by train. By car, it's 1 in 10 million = 12x as dangerous. Fakta ni mungkin boleh reduce sikit rasa gundah-gulana bila nak fly (hopefully)

2. Usually there's no gate 13 or flight 13 due to some superstitious belief in some culture, that number 13 is associated with bad luck. So some airports do this, not to create panic among the passengers. Kat KLIA ada ke tak gate 13? Kalau kat Senai ni gate memang tak sampai 13 hehe. 

Owh, amazingly, there's no house number 13 on my street! And this fact was actually pointed out to me by the pizza boy months ago, even before I read the book.

3. Trak yang tolak flight ke belakang tu is called tug or pushback tractor

4. Dulu-dulu masa kecik, kalau nampak garisan macam a line of awan halus dekat langit, ingatkan kesan asap roket. (Haha, kaya gila manusia kat bumi ni hari-hari nak launch roket kan). So actually, the name of it is - contrails and they are trails of water droplet left behind by a plane.

5. Relativity

I remember a few years ago, my niece used to ask me "Kenapa bila hari raya, masa tu rasa cepat je?". I wish I had read this book then so I could quote "relativity' from Albert Einstein to her, haha.

"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. but let him sit on a hot stove for a minute - and it's longer than any hour"


6. Water boils at 90०C, instead of 100०C in a pressurized cabin.

What We Read

Someone once mocked the choice of books that I read. At that time, I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know what was she thinking, to ridicule someone who’s already with low self-esteem like that. Maybe someone ‘strong’ like her doesn’t need those kind of books, because maybe she feels so content with herself. Although I think, a normal happy person doesn’t go around making other people miserable, right?

But today, after years of reading SELF-HELP books, it actually teaches and trains me on how to talk to myself. And most importantly, how to filter the thoughts that goes on my mind. Like when someone makes such hurtful and rude remark, in a way, there is a filtering system that won’t allow that to reside in me. The trick is, you need to let go of that as soon as you can, because once you indulge the bad feelings, sometimes it stays for years.

But of course, it’s an ongoing process because the filter is not automatically always there.

Apothecary

apothecary

əˈpɒθɪk(ə)ri/

1. a person who prepared and sold medicines and drugs.

Or in another word, it means pharmacist. Pheww, what a difficult word.

Entah kenapa perkataan ni susah sangat nak masuk dalam kepala. Walaupun dah exposed dengan perkataan ni a few years ago - I remember signing up for membership for a pharmacy - D'Apotic. Although at that time I thought it was just a meaningless name.

Dan awal tahun ni, masa aku google info regarding 'food to avoid during rashes break-out' dalam Bahasa Melayu, sebab aku rasa pemakanan kita tak sama dengan the westeners so maybe the info would be more precise if I looked it up in Malay-language-based websites. So macam biasalah, kebanyakannya adalah websites in Bahasa Indonesia, so yeah, they use a lot of 'apotik' word.

But what triggered me the most was when I watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S, the Pottery Barn episode, it revolves around Rachel's and Ross' apothecary table. And I failed every time I wanted to recall the table's name.

So, I hope by writing this, it will somehow stuck in my head. I just want to remember it even though I am pretty sure I'm not going to ever use the word, haha.

Not So Political

Watched Wardina's IG Live last night.

The thing that caught my attention when she listed out the qualities that leaders should have: 

"Leaders who are not "kaki gaduh", yang boleh melembutkan hati-hati yang keras, those with conflict-resolution and managing diversity skills..."

The truth is, we need more people like that in this world. Not only leaders. But everybody. Imagine a world full of this type of people. Aman damailah kita semua.