Happiness According to Islam

Assalamu ‘Alaikum Wr. Wb.

Source: Syaikh Hamza Yusuf, USA-born Islamic scholar.

Everyone in the world is looking for happiness. Happiness is the fundamental human reality. Happiness according to Islam is ridho bil qadr. Your faith is something that you’re actually pleased with. People are rigid in the world because they reject their circumstances and they’re sad about the past. To lose your happiness over what happened in the past is not using the intellect correctly.

Pay attention to this proof that we often say to ourselves! What do you want? Person X: Money. Question: Why is it? Person X: So I can do anything. Question: Why so? Person X: So I can feel free. Question: Why? Person X: So I feel happy.

Happiness is the end of everything. That’s what we’re looking for. ‘Pleasure’, the original meaning is ‘to please another’. The happiest people in our belief is Prophet Muhammad Solollohu ‘alaihi Wasallam because his life from the beginning to the end is serving others.

According to Imam Ali, there are only 5 things that everybody tastes the earthly pleasure, yet temporary ones:

1. Drink
2. Food
3. Scent
4. Cloth
5. Sexuality

He says, the highest drink is water. It’s the least of thing in the world. The highest food is what bee produces, honey. The highest cloth is excrement of worm, which is silk. The highest smell is the mucus of the gazelle, the mask odor. And the greatest pleasure in the world is the meeting of two urinary tracks (of married couple), sex.

He says, that can’t be the ultimate happiness is. If it is, the real trick has been played on us. Simply, happiness is virtue. It’s living the virtous life. 🙂

Eventuallly, Imaam Al Ghazali said that happiness is the right knowledge and right action under Islamic rule.

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Wassalamu ‘alaikum Wr. Wb.

A Confession of High Fashion Buff

I’m wearing monochrome outfit and sunglasses in KL, Malaysia

I like high fashion. Most folks do not expect this, I guess. But, I do. I sort of follow current news about high fashion industry on daily basis. I read Vogue on-line or when I stand in front of book shelf inside the book store, right after skimming numerous high-profile magazines, e.g. Forbes. I must admit that I am interested in a lot of thing, which benefits me to keep my brain open and wider. High fashion is one of my main interests, after my faith (Islam), technology (computer, etc), and reading.

I love high fashion. This has been one of my guilty pleasures for these recent years, I must admit. 🙂 🙂 Is it appropriate to consider that as a guilty pleasure, no? I am kind of obsessed with high fashion, supermodel, fashion house, fashion designer, fashion magazines, and everything else concerns. The only exception is that I love supermodel in modest and appropriate clothing. I condemn each of them who wears nothing, of course. Come on, don’t be like animal! You look good in great clothing, that’s what fashion for, right?

Believe it or not, I watched high fashion TV show back in the USA. Some of my spare time was spent to watch America’s Next Top Model. That’s the first time I fell in love with high fashion. Pssst… secret revealed? I ever posted about the grand finale of Brittany Kline vs Molly on ANTM 19 (right?). Yes, I love high fashion. It’s a bit hard to believe because I rather wear casual clothing on my daily life. If you see me in person, my outfit is so simple, far from high fashion consideration. LOL. I solely have time to express my high fashion taste during holiday. How so? I confess that it’s too difficult to apply this taste on weekdays considering I am full time student who barely has time to pick outfit. I mostly depart to campus at 8 am and back at home after 2 pm. I even lucky to make it through weekdays, let alone applying high fashion on my daily life. LOL. 😀

However, I am a lot happier to be known as a smart person rather than a stylish person. Knowledge is the ultimate beauty, not temporary couture fashion. It’s something to be noted by everyone, I think. Yet, to combine clever brain + beauty would be perfection. 🙂

Again, just a note to be taken, I like the poses of supermodel with the complete outfit. No outfit? Eew, NO WAY! Fashion is outfit, right? So, I just observe supermodels who wear gorgeous outfit, and that outfit must covers all the important part of supermodel body. If not, Eew. Sorry not sorry, but I really have no time for s*xy outfit, Ma’am!

I only like appropriate and polite fashion design. Not sexy fashion.

me in front of Singapore’s Chanel fashion house official retailer

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I love fashion to the core. I can safely say I know all the high fashion house, from Channel to Versace to Oscar de la Renta to Dior to Saint Laurent to Diane von Furstenberg to Louis Vuitton. I can name all famous fashion designers of the world from Karl Lagerfeld to John Galliano to Alexander McQuinn (deceased) to Donatella Versace to Vera Wang to Jason Wu to Vivienne Westwood to our own Tex Saverio .

I can mentioned top working supermodels currently, from Miranda Kerr to Jourdan ANTM to Cara Delevigne to Kate Moss to Brittany Kline to Gisele Bundchen to Freja Beha Erikson to Agyness Deynn. I know the fashion magazines although I don’t buy them oftenly, from Italian Vogue to Harper’s Bazaar to Elle to American Vogue to Nylon. Quite impressive for a technology student, right? I even recite those supermodel poses on the cover of fashion magazine. OK I made this last thing up. 😀 So, in summary of my semi-obsession with high fashion, here I include the list related to high fashion industry.

A. Rule to Work as Supermodel. You have to maintain skinny and super tall body. Some of the working woman supermodel has >180 centimeters of height. How tall are you? Me? I am 155 cm. Duh! Speaking of the menu, they eat less than 1400 calories per day. Which means no carbs. No rice, no plain bread, no fries. The mainly eat or drink vegetables juice, and very little oil. Quite extreme in terms of keeping skinny body shape, right? But admit it or not, we’ll be more confident when we look thin and healthy. 🙂

B. Top supermodel I Like

1. Brittani Kline

Brittani Kline. This young woman has been my Numero Uno favorite since her Top Model session. “Brittani’s face is romantic,” quoted fashion photographer Nigel Barker. I agree wholeheartedly. She sure is beautiful, isn’t she?

Brittani Kline is SMIZing (Smile with Eyes)

2. Coco Rocha

I like Coco Rocha courage to try all different and sometimes weird poses. Somehow it works! He’s a photo machine as sharp as gun machine.

Coco Rocha rocks outfit

Coco Rocha’s simple pose

Supermodels before photo shoot in Paris

3. Tyra Banks

As I wrote before, I only like Tyra when she wears polite outfit. Otherwise, not at all. She’s a good poser, as well.

4. Kate Moss

I dislike Kate because she often poses with no string attached. I hate that fact. She looks good with nice and appropriate fashion, isn’t she?

5. Cindy A.

She’s new model from Indonesia who lives remotely between New York to LA, to Bali to Bangkok, and others. She’s kid of Indonesian billionaire, yet she manages to have good body. Her face feature is distinct yet beautiful.

Cindy as Cartier’s fancy jewerly girl

C. Outfit As I mentiod frequently, I like polite fashion that covers all parts of the body. If they can, I challenge the fashion designers to create high fashion outfit for hijabers. It’s even better. Last but not least, take positive sides of high fashion industry. For instance, keep on healthy diet routine which is good for your health, as well. That’s quite tricky to keep on going . Secondly, work hard. Some of the working supermodels sometimes do their photo shoot early in the morning. And most importantly, unlike few supermodels, we must be SMART, HUMBLE, yet still look good to increase that confidence up. ^_^

Swimming Phelps-mania and The Death of A Walking Dictionary

Salaam. Is anybody still awake in the BLOG-osphere?

I’ve been observing all about Michael Phelps as the record breaker in swimming Olympic these days. Nope, I’m not that kind of groupie. I just happen to be interested in swimming. Honestly, I am addicted to swimming, which is a great deal. ^_^ I sadly could not swim before this month. I never learned and practiced swimming properly in my entire life. So, learning to swim is quite a BIG DEAL and a bit rocket science for me. Duh, it’s sad, I know. LOL 😀 Therefore, swimming did not come naturally easy for me. It took me 3 times of training to be able to swim breast-stroke properly. During the previous 3 times of training, I was phobia to water, did not know how to stand in 1,5 meters pool, and was too afraid of sinking. Pathetic much, right? LOL. I feel sorry to my trainer who trained me patiently and encouraged me frequently. It feels bad to let him down. However, alhamdulillah I eventually tackled the challenge to be able to swim in 1.5 meters pool.

My advice for beginner in swimming is to listen carefully and follow attentively to your trainer. Then, face and tackle your fear.

He knows the perfect technique. Most of them are Physical Exercise alumnae for God’s sake. Stop inventing your own technique. Listen to trainer instead! That’s it. You must also watch video, read tutorial (if you want), and collect courage before training day.

Anyway, alhamdulillah that made it to 1.5 meters pool. Next is the semi-Olympic standard pool, where the height is 10-15 centimeters longer than my actual height. Wish me luck to be able to swim on that. Insha Allah I’ll be fine there. 🙂

About Michael Phelps. Wow, that guy is just awesomely talented and role model. He practiced swimming since the early age. He spent his childhood training and looked at the line of pool floor. According to his trainer, he even did not take rest to celebrate Christmas (I doubt that he’s Christian tho!) in order to practice swimming. No wonder that he won multiple gold medals at the Olypmpic in Beijing and previously in Athena.

The Death of A Walking Dictionary

Topic #2 is about the harsh reality check for walking dictionary guy. People need them less nowadays. It makes me notice how different the world is now. If you ever watch the movie Bucket List, George Freeman just astounds the Spanish mechanic by correctly answers all general knowledge. He is a genius walking dictionary. I remember during my middle school, teacher used to refer the guy who knew much about general knowledge as the walking dictionary. Often times, some pointed at me as one of them. That’s such an honor at the time. However, now it seems to be too easy finding out all general knowledge by googling it. 😦 People no longer need to memorize hard list of country’s capital, presidents, or their econ statistic. We can google each general question and come up with answers within less than a minute. Too bad for walking dictionary.

One of my lecturers posted about this case which he strongly mentioned that it was useless to beat google, or to be a walking dictionary. It’s hard for a semi fact checker like me to accept that fact. But, we must settle and adjust with change and current technology, right? Other way, change will sink us. That’s why, the best solution is to still keep reading and forge our skill besides general knowledge memorizing because it’s not cool to be dumb about general knowledge either, right? ^_^

This is one of the most hard-to-believe reality checks aka changes: World does not require a walking dictionary no more. So, does it mean the world still need Philosopher? Do we need them? What for? We have Google. Enlighten me, please!!

List of Absurdity Americans Do According to Indonesians

As an Indonesian who experienced living in US for few years, here I include the list of US folks that I still find awkward as native Indonesian. Anyway, the list still goes up and up. So, these are just a little part of it:

1. They (Americans) wash hand after going back from toilet. They tend to mock people who don’t do so. Hello!! Indonesians will mock them back because they don’t wash their urinary tracks with clean water after doing their business. Eeeww!

2. They can drink directly while showering. It is like having bath while pouring mineral water. Cool, right? 🙂

3. They eat pizza a lot. I just can’t get full after eating pizza. Asian, much?

4. Asking people for their religion is a big NO NO.

5. Some of them just don’t watch TV much. We’re crazy about Miley Cyrus (past), Ariana Grande (current), and others. They don’t really pay attention to that. Therefore, we’re media victim. Don’t watch TV much, folks!

6. They wear shoes to bedroom and whole room. In Indonesia, it’s a sign of messy folks.

7. They mostly smoke in bar or other place with sign “SMOKING IS ALLOWED”. Good one.

Bonus: Me standing at clean Siloso Beach in Singapore

Family Vacation (Malay + Singapore) 2014

Assalamu Alaikum Warohmatullohi Wabarokatuh. Howdy!

I just came back from summer holiday in Singapore and Malaysia. What an absolutely wonderful vacation! Alahmdulillah for your countless Mercy, Ya Allah. 🙂 This vacation must boost my energy to perform better in both social and academic life. After witnessing the comfy life in both countries in 12 days, I once again open my eyes about real professional life. Doubt, laziness, fear, and worries no longer count. I should strive more to enjoy living in better environment. Things I  do before a vacation like this is to write down all lists of to-do things, place to visit, day to execute it, and how to reach specific tourist destination. Planning is crucial to avoid chaos during the exact day.

I always love to travel abroad, especially to more developed countries. It humbles me to see beautiful architecture, rich folks, and wealthy environment. It also helps me to renew my spirit and positive energy. Traveling abroad teaches me to open my eyes wider about life reality. There really is beautiful comfy life exists on this planet during this century. LOL. This vacation also allows me to practice my English with natives. Oh yeah! It’s hard to find ones in Medan. And most importantly, I love doing it alongside with my family. I don’t even mind being a tour guide for them since I’m the only one with better English proficiency. 🙂 Sharing wonderful journey abroad with my family is absolutely indomitable. Looking them happy is even better. I am grateful towards my cousin who provided us with his comfy automobile + ‘lori’ and nearby Kuala Lumpur. I wish I could be more sincere like him, and repay his kindness one day. 🙂

Again, Indonesia always occupies the most special space in my heart, yet nobody can refuses the fact that we want better life, with better monthly income, and better place. We certainly hope that Indonesia can be better place, especially in economics. We are away behind Singapore and Malaysia. What slaps me on the wrist is the low currency we have compared to Singapore Dollar and Malaysian Ringgit. 1 S$ = 8.000 Rupiahs. Hello!! Dear economists and smart deputies in Treasury Department of Indonesia, please mind our econ better! You guys are smart, undoubtedly. Just work harder, please!

KLCC of Malaysia

I’ll come up later (Insha Allah) with our activities during 12 days in Singapore and Malaysia:

Play Sport Like A Pro

Howdy! It’s been a long time since I posted my last thought here. First thing first, I am having an incredibly hectic time, however it’s been less intriguing to divide my time. 🙂

In all honesty, I did not really appreciate sport much during my childhood until high school. It took me years to realize that Olympic gold medalists were also as tough as Stephen Hawking in terms of perseverance.  There is always something in sport that fascinates me nowadays. It can be hours and hours of perfect practicing, day-to-day self-motivation, and endless of hours of consistency. After watching Michael Phelps interview, I begin to salute athletes for waking up so early each morning only to perform warming-up. Professional athletes must run for more than 1 hour before 6 am. It is still warming-up process, people! We can picture how tough the core training is already. Therefore, I believe that it certainly takes a certain kind of people to master sport. For a sport newbie like me- seriously I got lowest score during my whole lifetime education in sport 😦 (Coach Ja’far, I still can’t figure out what to do with that heavy iron javelin even till today! 😀 ), it’s great to respect sport nowadays.

Healthy people must practice sport for both health and appearance :D. As for me, starting is beyond difficult, yet after executing it, my body feels lighter. That hormone thing really works, fella! I’ve played badminton like a primary school student (I know, it’s embarrassing!) with my friends these days. I am really hoping to improve my smash, pace, and everything anytime soon. Luckily, although I’m not related to neither Mario Teguh nor Jack Canfield, I’m a firm believer of positive thinking, so I’m really positive about that. Therefore, in honor of sport, let’s take a look at some interesting sport moments below: 🙂

Nadal on Wimbledon

Michael Phelps

Our very own Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia

Ms. Sharapova

As I mentioned before, I’ve been hooked with badminton in these couple days. Due to the fact that I plan to reduce weight (again), sport has been a core thing for me to frequently practice. I don’t know if my metabolism has started to mess up again, my mood swing, or my tendency to taste delicious foods lately. Gosh, whatever the reason is, it has brought me to swing racket and to throw shuttlecock. However, my partners to play badminton is so vary, starting with my housemate, my college buddy, and the PLN managing executives (lol. I made the last one up :D). Matching time and convince these guys to play with me has been a tricky part. That’s the less cool thing about playing sport like this, you need partners. Some people advise me to just go running a marathon or jogging, but that’s my weakness. Running a marathon is still on my wish list, fella!

Speaking of marathon, I accidentally watched a New York marathon winner who happened to be an African-American. I’m not quite sure about his nativity, though. His accent sounds a bit Caribbean mixed with Brooklyn natives. Well, my up-to-this-moment conclusion is that most of marathon winner comes from rough background. I’ve witnessed the 2 km marathon winner during my childhood was mostly dominated by children who used to walk 1 hour or more from their house to school. Therefore, running the 2 km one is just like flipping hand for them, I guess.

Speaking of sport, I’ve had a rocky road with it in my whole life. I scored quite badly in this section during my primary school until high school. Thank god for university! I don’t need to worry about my Physical Education (PE) score anymore. LOL. Mainly the reason why I would love to ban Physical Education on Indonesian education curriculum was because I was overweight. *Sigh* 😦 It was too hard to run for 10 minutes in a row during junior high school. Unfortunately, I met a killer PE teacher in JHS, Sir Ja’far. He’s using all power he owned to push us running for as long as he wanted. He always drove me mad until I cried.

Nowadays, I regret the fact that I did not play any sport during my childhood. I used to prefer cuddling with good books and magazine than playing sport with my peers. On the other hand, my sole big brother was a sport pro. He won volleyball competition, he rode bicycle like a pro, he played soccer amazingly, you name it! He was a good athlete, although in Indonesia, there is almost 0% chance to be recruited by professional sport school, but I’m really proud of him. As a reward, he got muscle, had great body, and ate pretty much any kind of fries without getting fat. As for me, whenever I ate some fries, I should walk rapidly to burn it. What the heck! 😦

Time out! Gotta pay a sit-up! LOL! 😀

An Army & A Surgeon

Proud Indonesian Army

One of my memorable students is an army leader. He plans to actually work for UN in order to represent Indonesia in Suriah. He told me all old story about GAM (Aceh Movement for Independent). Gosh! What a horrifying story. He told me the way he shot 3 enemies during open war in front of his eyes. He described the way those people died. The big take of breath was the last air gotten by the almost-dead-guy. I can’t even imagine. I guess we just need A PEACE! A PEACE! Anyway, we must be proud of our Indonesian army members. They’re just so cool and macho, aren’t they? 🙂

Another great student of mine is an accomplished doctor and a surgeon at Adam Malik public hospital in Medan. He explained to me about how long it really took to finish one surgery. The way to take out the organ, eg. kidney, is by cleaning it with the antibacterial medicine, and putting it back to it’s original place. This doctor’s genuinely calm. He mentioned that he tried to walk 8 times before executing the surgery. The most paramount routine: telling the family of sick ones that his/her life ain’t guaranteed. 😦

See, there are loads of amazing and prestigious jobs out there. So many. Therefore, let’s pick one and be THE BEST, and prepare to be the BEST one of them!

Life at USU

My university is starting to give us loads of assignments and lab as well. However, I must enjoy this stage of my life. I really need another good time management advice, though. 🙂 UAS or mid-semester exam is coming soon (due: next week). Must study harder and pray harder to Allah. 🙂

Time Management Trick

I was frequently stuck with my own time management. Due to the fact that I am a full-time University of North Sumatera / USU student and a part-time employee at Wisma BII Bld, Medan, I often found myself too exhausted by executing the same routine. I’ve done a bunch of non-scientific research regarding how to utilize 24 hours.

1. Michael Dell

Lucky me! My teaching material popped questions about Mr. Dell’s smart time management.
He wakes up at 5 am and starts his routine by exercising: biking, walking or running. He then he starts working at Dell Corporation at 7.30 am until 5 pm. He always spares his time to have dinner with his children and wife at 8 pm. He continues replying email from his company’s partner at 9pm until midnight. He repeats these activities all over again every single day (no holiday). No wonder this man has put himself as the top 100 richest men on earth consicutively.

2. Mr. Video Guy (lol)
This guy sets himself up to sit nicely for 1 hour right after waking up. He does all the important project before doing anything else. 1 hour / 1 day rule, folks!

3. Donald Trump
This guy does not have holiday (even on Sunday, he works) in his life. “Why do you need a rest? If you don’t enjoy your job, guess what? You’re in a wrong business. Better switch up your job!” Mr. Trump said.

4. THE BEST WAY: ISLAM
Your responsibility for life is to shorten your sleeping duration. Rasulullah only slept for less than 4 hours. This may reduce your age, but who needs 100 year-old folk with millions of sins? Guess what? Even Islam teaches us about the littlest thing: TIME MANAGEMENT.

#SUNday: My brother and I just got back from gadget store for fixing our ###er. My brother is the best. I hope that he’ll get A for his presentation and final thesis later. And.. he’ll have a great job, so that he and I can bring our parents to travel the world: started with Mecca and Madinah. Amiin Ya Rabb.