Make Our Travels Safe

Yesterday, the whole nation was shocked by the news of a terrible accident of a chartered bus carrying university students back to their university campus, after they spending their Eid holidays. Knew about it, after reading the Prime Minister post in social media. At the time, I had just arrived at the basement car park of my workplace for a 9am class. The Gerik accident had 15 students killed (may Allah grant them forgiveness) and others injured. 

Kept thinking about the news while I was teaching. Just about a month earlier, there was another accident that killed 9 FRU personnel in Teluk Intan.

Both news reminded me of an accident which involves our close relatives on my mum side (see below paper clippings), way back in July 2015. We were very close during my younger days as we (me and mum) tend to stay in their house whenever we 'balik kampung'. May Allah grant them forgiveness and blessings.

While still perturbed by the news and I was driving back home from work, a car tailgated me when I was overtaking slower cars in the fast lane of the highway. My thoughts then, even with this terrible news today, people are still driving recklessly. Not sure what was on the mind of the driver from such tailgating (are we racing); does he/she felt invincible in the car and that he/she has complete control of the vehicle driven? There is a Malay saying 'malang tak berbau' (misfortunes or calamities have no scent).

On the same day, my son in JB is travelling home to be with us since he could not come back during Eid. Alhamdulillah, he arrived safely that evening. These days, I worry about my children travelling and I, myself tend to feel vulnerable whenever driving. Indeed, I would prefer that my family and me not to travel too much given the tendency of reckless driving, particularly from the heavier vehicles. I sincerely hope that actions will be taken so that our roads and highways are safe for all to travel.

Eid-ul-Adha

Our Eid-ul-Adha celebration is pretty simple. We went for Eid prayers at Masjid Hussain quite late and we had to pray outside on the walkways.

After the Eid prayers, we had our simple breakfast before we headed off to Kepong to visit my sisters-in-law (wives to my late eldest brothers). 

We took the route near FRIM to get to Taman Ehsan. We reached around 11 am and met Kak Long (wife of my eldest brother); her eldest son was at work, but Aisyam was there (about to go to work in the afternoon). We took photos near the spot where she had extended the living room around a year ago.

Her slouch around the neck area seems to be more noticeable. May Allah grant her good health and her sons take good care of her.

Next, we went to the house of Kak Faridah (wife of my second eldest brother), which is just around hundred meters away. As we were there, we met with her eldest son and family as well with her brother who used to work in Brunei. Unfortunately, we did not take pictures there. We had a long chat and we were told that her eldest son and his son had some heart problems in part due to a certain degree of curvature in the back. This, to a certain degree runs also in our family. I have my own scoliosis that had led to my back problems. May Allah help us overcome these conditions and grant us good health.

Reflections Before Eid-ul Adha

Have not posted anything for two weeks now. I have been busy with marking the mid-term exam scripts of one subject while carrying out teaching duties in normal working hours. Have just finished around 100 exam scripts and exchanged exam scripts with my colleague (Dr. Athirah) just yesterday. Note that for the shared course, each of us is marking specific questions to maintain consistency. Before the exchange, I had about ten scripts left for me to mark. I finished them off while resting in the car (note part-timers don't have an office and I had classes in the morning and later in the evening that day).

I jokingly told my younger colleague (who at the time was communicating with me) that incovenience is 'a way of life', reflecting that we have to go through many inconveniences in life (often not of our own making) and we are required to be patient while facing them. At the risk of belittling whatever problems and inconveniences that each of us face, mostof our inconveniences are nothing compared to what Ghazzans are facing (May Allah help them). Yet, we have this quick tendency to 'complain' for whatever small inconveniences that we face as if we forget that patience is virtue. Recently, I had this inconvenience of my students from both courses being booted out of Moodle (without notification) and my quick workaround is to manually reenroll them back. Not sure what is the cause of this, but the workaround of reenrol solves the problem at least (I thought). But now, I was told that this has led to a more serious problem of students not being able to submit their quiz answers in time. Without knowing what is the cause of the problem, I have to come up with an alternative way for students to submit their solutions (was thinking Google Form and Google Workspace), for a quick workaround.

Some other reflections: In this holy month, I have this constant fear that whatever 'good' that one think one does, the deeds could be thrown back to our faces due to impure intentions. Our self-worth and potential for good deeds are often conflated with ego. To not do this, it requires constant self-check. Working against this is social media platform that helps one do the opposite. On the other hand, there is this wish for us to educate or inculcate positive vibes with others (as social beings). So besides self-check, constant prayers for us to be guided is necessary. On questions of justice/fairness, we are not omniscient and as such our sense of justice is at best partial. Passing hasty judgments are thus prone to errors. On questions of leadership, since one can't read the heart of others, the best that one can do is to base it on past actions and consistency (habits). Words are often cheap and actions speak louder than words. On pursuit of knowledge, care must be given to one's intentions. There is a danger of breeding sense of superiority, which leads to arrogance.

Enough rambling, about a week ago, my third son bought me a Macbook. Perhaps this is due me 'complaining' about my old laptop in the family WhatsApp. I was thinking of only replacing the battery and possibly reformatting the hard disk to make C drive larger. I didn't expect him to buy a Macbook. I used to say to my younger colleague that Mac is a rich man's computer. In any case, I'm thankful for the gift.

At this stage, I have not quite used the Mac as yet since I need to get comfortable with it first (two fingers to scroll, three fingers for something else that I can't remember and the colour buttons). Also, I have to find adapters for me to connect the Mac with projector and the tablet to write things. So probably won't use this in the current semester. I was also advised by my son to get used to storing files in the cloud, something which I;m not comfortable with at the moment.