Assalamualaikum
Yesterday was kinda a big day for me. Both my final examination and ToEFL results were released. Though I was waiting for both results, I did not expect that it will be this soon. Alhamdulillah. I can say that both are better than my expectation. However, being me, I still think of all the what-ifs and I-should- have.
What if I score better in my second test?
I should have done better in my ToEFL. I should have study for it much earlier.
I think it is an attitude that I cannot escape from. I would always look back and ask myself about all those different paths that I could take. I could not say for sure that it is not good. However, it is not a reason for me to not be thankful for what I have already achieved. I am who I am today because of all those seemingly bad choices that I had in my past.
So, yeah. Both of them are good and I should really not ask for more than that.
Fatwa kaum beruk is an old article by Hamka. It is about people who rationalize things that they should not do by giving irrational excuses. You should read this article first to understand my point here.
We, human, can always create a lot of reasons for our actions. Be it good or bad. We can just create an excuse out of nothing. You can  ask your friends about their bad habit and then they can tell you something that sounds plausible and convincing. And yet you know that it is an excuse.
The 27th hadith of the 40-hadith of Imam Nawawi  is as following

Dan daripada Waabisoh ibn Ma'bad r.a. beliau berkata: Aku telah menemui Rasulullah SAW lalu Baginda bersabda: Engkau datang mahu bertanya tentang kebajikan? Aku berkata: Ya. Baginda bersabda: Mintalah fatwa dari hatimu. Kebajikan itu ialah suatu perkara yang diri dan hati merasa tenang tenteram terhadapnya, dan dosa itu itu ialah suatu perkara yang tergetar dalam dirimu dan teragak-agak di hati, sekalipun ada orang yang memberikan fatwa kepadamu dan mereka memberikan fatwa kepadamu.

According to Wabisah bin Ma'bad, radiyallahu 'anhu, who said:

I came to the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu 'alayhi wasallam, and he said: "You have come to ask about righteousness ?" " Yes," I answered. He said: "Consult your heart. Righteousness is that about which the soul feels tranquil and the heart feels tranquil, and sin is what creates restlessness in the soul and moves to and fro in the breast, even though people give you their opinion (in your favour) and continue to do so."

We should know better about ourselves. If we know that our action creates restlessness inside us and we dont want others to know about it, we can be pretty sure that it is not a good one. We can create hundreds or even thousands of excuses. But deep down inside our heart, we know that our action is wrong. So, stop giving excuses that you know will never be a good justification for you in the afterlife.

Forgive the diversity, people. We are just different from each other.

I am done with my ToEFL. Pray for me friends. =)

Watching a debate between an atheist and a muslim for the past two hours makes me feel that we always try to rationalize all things that happen around us. I am not saying that it is not a good thing. Nor am I saying that we should rationalize. I dont know, there are a lot of things going around in my mind. I have read a few early chapters of Dr in the House by Dr. M. One of the chapter -the third chapter precisely- talk about his being a Malay. One of thing he wrote is about proverbs. Malay has too much proverbs, so much that people can always find one that contradicts another. The same thing goes to reasoning. I do not know for sure about things that I should or should not do. Say, for example, a friend confided to me about something that he should not do. What should I do? Should I scold him? Should I report about him to the higher authority? Should I listen to him and just let things that happened happened? We do not have the exact answer. But we do have faith. We should believe that if we are doing thing with a good intention and we do it the right way, we should not worry about the result of our action. If it turn out to work well, we should feel happy that we are doing the right thing. If the result seems not the be a good one, have faith and pray hard that it will turn into a good one. I still remember a saying from someone I dont remember. See, I want to give a credit but I just cant remember. So, that guy, or maybe girl, said that it is so much easier connecting the dot looking backward. Indeed, I agreed. It is so much easier to look back and say, Ouh, i am happy that I took that action or Now I can tell why I didnt do it or If I know that this is gonna happen, then I wont do it. We are not sure about anything that happen in  the future. Okay, we do have some clues but the future is so blur and there are so many uncertainties in it. It is always easier to connect the dots looking backward. Getting back to the debate, one of the question posed to both of them is about their tendency to use natural phenomenon as the evidence of their argument. Say that, one day, the scientists observed and concluded-and we are talking about a unanimous conclusion- in favor of the other person, what will be their stand in this matter? Will they change their mind? Both of them had taken their stands. But as for me, I would say that we should not have faith only when things are so much in favor of us. When all the things in this world are against us but we have confident that we are the right one and we stay with our stand, that is faith. Again, some people just can call it arrogance. That bring me to another argument in the debate. Ah, how random can I actually be? Why are there different interpretation of quranic verses? Because we are just human beings. We are interpreting things based on our reference frame. The westerns labelled the people who fight against the imperialists for their own soil as rebellious but the others who are at the other side of the world call these people as hero, warrior and saviors. People are seeing things differently. That is why we interpret the same thing differently.
Yes, for me, this whole science, physics, chemistry and mathematics are mere attempts by human to rationalize thing. We just cannot accept things without questioning. That is why Newton came up with his theory. And so did Einstein and all other scholars. It is good to question. But when things do not come the way it should have been, we should not jump into conclusion. Have faith.
At the end of the day,

And I have not created the jinn and the men except that they should serve Me                                              (Az-Zariyat 51:56)

 If you happened to not understand about the debate that I was talking about, you can see it here, here and here

Alhamdulillah, I am at my home, celebrating eidul adha with my family. Just arrived at my house at approximately 4.30 am. Though the journey was much more faster than what I expect(seriously, I thought I will arrived after eidul adha prayer), it turned out to be a very meaningful one. I missed my bus, which was scheduled to depart at 8.30 p.m. Truly, it was my fault since I didnt remind them that my bus was supposed to depart early, though I actually told them already. I thought that their bus would depart at the same time as my bus, but turned out that their bus departed at 9. And I left Cemara at 8.36. Yeah, 6 minutes after my bus departed. I knew that it was my fault. I should have clarified about the schedule first.
While we were settling down in the taxi, the driver asked me about my bus and he was truly shocked when I said that I was late. He drove really fast and took shortcut to cut the travelling time. No taxi that I ever ride used shortcut previously. He was really nice. In two consecutive days, I have met two nice taxi drivers. My whole perception about taxi drivers have changed. Hahaha.
Still, I missed my bus. The woman at the counter smiled when I asked about my bus. She said that she had been calling me a few times before the bus departed. I tried asking a few other bus companies whether they still had any vacant seat in their buses but obviously, there was none. All seats were sold out since three weeks ago. My mum was really mad when I told her that I missed my bus. Truth be told, I had missed my trips a few times already. That is why she was really mad when I told her about it. Though I thought that my dad will be mad too, he didnt. He was really understanding, not to say that my mum didnt, and I told him that I will go back to my college and sleep there.
When I arrived at the counter to buy a new ticket, the woman told me that there was another person that didnt show up on time too. And she asked me whether I want to ride the bus or not. Of course I wanted. And surprisingly, it was not one empty seats but seven. LOL. I took two empty seats. What a joke. I missed my bus and I actually rode another bus FOC and I got one extra seat. Hahaha.
When we arrived at Merapoh later that night, the bus driver told me that my bus was there too and if I were to stop at Pasir Puteh, I have to change my bus. At last, I had the opportunity to ride my own bus. Hahaha.

p/s >> my nine-year old brother asked me just now,

When will I get marry?

Now, what should I answer?

Any suggestion?

Last night, Hot Wheels collectors had some sort of gathering at Subang. So, being a roommate of a Hot-Wheels enthusiast(maniac would suit him better =) ) and also a classmate of another enthusiast, I followed them to the gathering. I joined them once before. It was fun seeing people chatting around about their hobby and collections. But then, it is not my kind of thing. I dont have that much knowledge about cars. But, this time, Paan joined us too. So, I was not alone and I had someone to talk about something other than cars. No offence, people. You guys are great but I am not so much into Hot Wheels. =)
After finishing their race at Subang, we cramped into Syamils myvi (forgive my punctuation. Too much C++.Cant blame me) and went to another gathering at Putrajaya. So, this was the main reason I joined them last night. It has been quite a long time I did not watch movies at the cinema. One reason being is that my mum asked me to stop watching movies at the cinema. But then, I had just finished my exam, so I should reward myself, or I thought so. The plan was Paan and I watch Real Steel while Syamil and Ajim go for the gathering. Then, they pick us up and we go back to Shah Alam and stay somewhere else till 6 in the morning. Nice. But, the thing that happen was Syamil and Ajim went back to Shah Alam first due to an urgency while Paan and I finished the awesome movie. So, we finished at 3 am and the first bus leaving Putrajaya to Pasar Seni  should be departing at around 6 am. Okay, three hours in Putrajaya, during the wee hours of the morning, are not the same as three hours in KL. No people walking on the streets. One or two cars every five minutes. No 24-hour McD. It is totally different.
At first, we thought that we may walk to Putrajaya Sentral and sleep there. But, practically, that would cover more than 10 kilometers, or maybe 20. So, we decided to stop any random car passing by and asked the driver to send us to the sentral. After a few fail attempts, a car stopped. Of course it should stop. It was a taxi. We were quite disappointed since we expect to get a free ride. So, we told the driver that we would just walk. We already started to walk away from the driver when he called me and, Alhamdulillah, praise be to Allah, he said that he would like to send us to our destination, without asking first where would it be. FOC. Awesome. See, I am a pessimist, or maybe a realist. I expected that no one would stop since it was 3 in the morning. What kind of people would be wandering around, on foot, during that that time of the day? But, as always, I was wrong. And I am happy that I was wrong.

Dah abes exam....Alhamdulillah.