My 11 Year Old Baby Girl

This is Arissa, our youngest. To me she will forever be my baby girl. And when I'm in my mischievous mood, I'll call her "baby girl". Even in public. Which, of course annoyed her no end. And she would normally ignore me then. Arissa can be very funny in her own way. And can be quite eccentric. For one, she speaks a rather formal Bahasa Melayu. Orang sekarang kata skema. And she addresses herself as "saya" as opposed to her sisters who use their names as gantinama. Even now, she uses "saya".When she was around five and six years old, she even called me "Cik Mior", can you believe that? Luckily, that didn't last.
She likes the Internet. She spends hours playing stuff over at the girls-related website. And watches Hannah Montana at youtube regularly. Ooh! She's into copy pasting lyrics too. I guess that's rather normal for girls her age. But the songs.... I've never heard of lah.
And of all the daughters, she's the most unassuming. In my household, it means she's orang yang paling blur sotong.
One more thing, she's very protective of her Mak. Even from me! So Bapak still cannot sit rapat-rapat dengan Mak when Arissa is around. Isn't that just delightful?

Arissa around 4 months old. Adorable, eh?

Then her face became more "squarish". Muka petak. We always tease her about this.

Once, we were having lunch. Arissa was on the baby chair. Sedar2 dah terlentok tidur. Still our favourite photo of her.

Dah besar dah anak Bapak. Dak jadik diva ker?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY BABY GIRL!!

Er.. Excuse Me, What Life???

This blog is titled The Life of a Bapak. But, sad to say that presently this Bapak has no life. Wait, ada life but its very the monotonously boring one, at least for now lah! I don't even have anything worthwhile let alone clever to post and share.

And I'm so tired with the goings on at the office. I'm too old for office politics. And I really don't have a brain to entertain er... the not so bright people who whine and whine when things do not go their way. And mind you, I'm not that intelligent to begin with. So imagine, what kind of people that I have to deal with... ooh whatever!

"A common problem at the workplace is confusing activity with accomplishment or results. That's probably why we spend hours on end in meetings, engaging in verbal jousting and exchange of semantics, completely oblivious to one simple fact: all the running around doesn’t really get us anywhere.Activities are often just cosmetic. At the end of the day, it’s the results that matter, you know." - a wise word from The Kimster.

But then again, this is life! Deal with it, right?

Spicing up Khutbah Jumaat? Can ...?

The truth is, more often than not khutbah Jumaat, week in and week out, do send many people to sleep. Paling tidak pun most will day dream rather than paying attention to the content of the khutbah.. and don't me get started on how noisy the kids can be at the back of the congregation.
Too bad really and this is what we get if an Imam is required to read a prepared khutbah that simply does not interest many people (think RTM's talk show). Yeah, maybe they can't do much about it, but then again the Imams can certainly spice up his sermon a little.. here and there. Just to jolt the jemaah...like what this one Imam, apparently in mid-west USA, who got up after one Friday prayers and announced to the people:
"I have good news and bad news. The good news is, we have enough money to pay for our new building program. The bad news is, it's still out there in your pockets."
But then again, boleh ker our Imams say something like this? Silap haribulan kena buang kerja. Eh, tak payah lar ekk?

Pipa is Three

Yesterday, Ayah Chik and family came over - beraya and at the same time celebrated the birthday of his grandaughter Pipa. Adorable! But the thing is that she looks exactly like Asma at this age. Why, when she saw our family photo taken about 10 years ago (when Asma was about her age), she was rather taken aback and quipped" "Eh! Pipa". And like Asma, Pipa too asks a lot questions over and over and over again.

After the mandatory swimming session, we had a cake cutting thingy with the birthday girl with her Umi, aunts and cousins. From left: Aida, Aisyah, Pipa, Alia, Asma, Ain, Arissa and her umi Anis.

After that Pipa went guling-guling on our bed. Suka lak dia. But she said that's Kakak's bed (as in Arissa's). And overheard a conversation between Pipa and Arissa

Pipa: Kenapa mak awak sembahyang? (as she watched Yan performed her Maghrib)

Arissa: Nak dapat pahala!!!

Islam: Fun Facts

I, for some strange reasons, thrive on trivia. Here are some interesting facts about Islam. Enjoy!!

• The Majority of Muslims do not live in the middle East. The most populous muslim country is Indonesia, the 4th largest country in the world with 184 million muslims. There are more muslims in India than the combined population of Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine and the whole of the Arabian Peninsula.
• The following English words are borrowed from Arabic: Algebra, Zero, Cotton, Sofa, Rice, Candy, Safron, Balcony. And even 'alchohol' derives from Arabic : al-kuhl meaning powder. These are just a few mentioned here.
• The first treatise on smallpox and measles was written by Abu Bakr alrazi (c.864-925,known to Europe as Rhazes). (Due to this) Inoculation agianst smallpox became a common practise in muslim lands. Despite this , Scientific text book credit the invention of a smallpox vaccine to Edward Jenner.(1749-1823).
• Early Oxbridge students studied books written by muslims on mathematics, medicine, chemistry, optics and astronomy.
• Adelard of Bath (a city in the UK) was a leading scholar of the middle ages. what made him famous was translating the word of muslim scientists from Arabic to Latin!
• The 1860 city records of Cardiff (UK) show a masjid in operation in a converted building at 2 Glynrhondda St. Yemani sea men on their trips between Aden (in Yemen) and Cardiff founded this masjid.
• The first purpose built masjid is claimed to be in Woking (South of England) with money provided by the ruler of Bhopal, in India (the Shah Jehan masjid was built in 1889).
• The Islamic calender is based on the phases of the moon, with it being approximately 11 days shorter than the 365 days of the year in the Julien calender. Hence, the dates of our festivals move through the year.
• The grand doors of our prophets (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) masjid in Medina weigh 2 and half tonnes each! Enormous quantities of "sag wood" was gathered from all over the world and shipped to the united kingdom to be dryed in computerised furnaces (the traditional drying process would have taken many years!). Even then , it took 5 months to dry the wood! the wood was then shipped to Barcelona (Spain), Where the main body of the doors where made. And finally the French even paid their little part, as the brass ornamentation was carried out in the city of Roi (France). Next time you visit the holy masjid, keep this entirely in mind!
• It was only in 1932 the Kiswah (cloth of the Ka'bah) was wholly made by Saudis (citizens of Saudi Arabia).
• The roof top of our Prophet's (SalAllahu alayhi wasalam) masjid in Madina is designed to be strong enough to carry addtional floors in the future.
• Some verses in the Koran refer to man being equal to woman. Mathematically, the number of times the word "man" appears in the Koran is 24. The number of times the word "woman" appears in the Koran is also 24.