English Letters

Currently obsessed with this new song from Favela! He released it on Soundcloud a few weeks ago but just released it on iTunes last night. This month has been a month of great music releases. From Lorde, to London Grammar, and many other new music I discovered. Lets begin!

Great Music of June:

- Green Light by Lorde

- Perfect Places by Lorde

- All I Can Think About Is You by Coldplay

- Big Picture by London Grammar

- Oh Woman Oh Man by London Grammar

- English Letters by Favela

- You Deserve This by Men I Trust

Song of the month: English Letters by Favela

Lorde released her second album back in 16 June and it's an amazing album! Although to be honest I love Pure Heroine more haha. Okay not sure why but I love the whole feel of Pure Heroine. Maybe it's just because I can't relate a lot to the songs of her second album, as much as her first (I've never been in a relationship heh). But nevertheless I feel it is a well written album, and I can definitely hear and see how Lorde has grown from her first to the second!

London Grammar also released their second album a week before. I haven't received my copy, probably caused the delivery got cut off by the Hari Raya holiday. But I did listen to it from Spotify and I think it is an amazing follow up to their first album "If You Wait". Hannah is such a gifted singer and I really love her voice. I find the soundscape for this album is much wider. But their signature style is still there and it's amazing as usual. I really hope to see them live one day T_T

Coldplay finally released a date for the EP release. They also released a song called All I Think About Is You, which they actually played during their Tokyo show. I love this song because I feel that you can hear every element from their previous albums in this one song and it's pretty cool. I truly love the piano riffs in the middle and the overall flow of the song. Can't wait for Kaleidoscope!

Favela also released another new single from his upcming EP, titled English Letters. He released this song a few weeks ago on Soundcloud but finally on other platforms yesterday! Once again he did it. I love the whole feel of the song and is another of those drive songs. So so stoked for his EP. And Men I Trust also released a new song called You Deserve This. A pretty slow and mellow song, and definitely a song you'll love listening to in the middle of the night, or before sleep.

Alright that's all for the month of June! I still have the London Grammar and Phoenix CD on my way. I hope to receive them as soon as possible! And July is another exciting month for music too with Oh Wonder, Haim and Lucy Rose released their new albums! Particularly excited for Oh Wonder cause all of their leading singles have been fantastic. Alright see you next month for more music! <3

Questions

 Questions

One type of question that I often ask myself, is what ifs. Not in a forceful and regretful way, but I always wonder how different my life would be if I were to do something differently, or if I were to make a different decision. Be it minor or major, because I know ever single decision I made in life has lead me to where I am now. On this day, on this moment, at this table as I'm typing this.

I'm pretty sure all of us have regrets in our lives. And hmm I would say it's rather impossible for someone to live with zero regrets. Because life is too unpredictable, and it's changing too quickly everyday. I am 100% sure that there is nobody in life who has lived a "perfect" life where everything that he/she does goes according to plan all the time. That would be really boring.

I feel it's not about living a regret-free life, but more of how do we handle and react to regrets. You can dwell on them like as if it's gonna bring a change, or you can brush them off your shoulders and move on. Because really, nothing is worst than staying in one spot because of our regrets. 

So yes sometimes I would ask myself "What if I didn't go here... What if I didn't do this..." And so on. Not gonna lie, I often wonder what if I didn't go to Biomedical Science. Cause if I were to know that I'll be dealing with flowers, I'll probably go to Biotech and take plant biology!

But then again whenever I ask myself this "what if" question, I would answer myself with all the things that I would have missed. The wonderful people I met through this journey, the places I've been to, the trips I took and so on and forth. And at the end of the question I would tell myself, meh, nevermind. I don't want to trade any of these with a regret haha. So yeah that's how I learn to brush of my regrets!

Like I've always believed, and mentioned, everything happens for a reason. Everything - the things that we did and did not. The decisions we made and we avoided, and so on and forth. Every single step has lead us here on this day. And even if you are not enjoying what you do today, there's a reason for that too. Sometimes we know the reason quickly, like in a few months time and so on. Sometimes we know them years later. And perhaps, we won't know the reasons at all.

I usually regard this as the unopened gifts in life. And one day we will open these gifts and be surprised too. So as of now, let us all just wait to open the gifts.

I don't think we'll ever live a smooth life. A life so wonderful and so great where everything goes according to plan. So let us all just enjoy the ride in this road ahead of us. Making every decision and celebrating everything that we do and we wonder. Because life is nothing else but a great adventure!

What The Flower Gave Me

Just inspired by Florence + The Machine "What the water gave me", thus the tittle which I'm gonna talk about the flowers! Well after being in the flower industry for 4 years now, they really have given me a lot of valuable lessons that I can apply into my daily life. And one great lesson: The art of letting go.

In Buddhism, the flower offering in a puja is actually a reminder of impermanence. Just like how a flower would wilt at the end of its life, so will we decay at ours too. To me they are not only a symbol of impermanence, but also a symbol of triumph. Well not in the case of chrysanthemum (the flowers that we grow), since we plant them from saplings and not seeds. But like how a lotus flower has to go through mud and dirt to become a beautiful, to me is a great symbol of triumph.

But recently, I also learned the art of letting go from them. 

Well it's really interesting when your business involves living things. And that they have nature literally as their mother. Just like every other living things too, these flowers grow and we don't have much control over them. Sure we can feed them with fertilisers, "cure" them with vitamins and prevent "diseases" (and pests) from killing them with pesticides/fungicides. But to how they grow from a sapling till an adult, we have no control over of. How fast they grow, how fast they bloom, etc.

I mean sure we can tweak the variables to try and make them grow as how we want them to grow. But at the end of the day I'm always reminded that they are living beings, and we can't really ultimately control their lives. A good example is the case of the difference in the speed of blooming. How we expected them to bloom in 112 days, but they turned out to bloom in 120 days and so on.

Once we plant them onto the soil, they will grow. And we can help them to assist on their journey of growth but apart from this, we don't have any other controls left. Once they're on the soil, that's how the art of letting go kicks in. We just let go of whatever's gonna come and... See.

I used to feel annoyed whenever I learn that the flowers are not blooming as we planned them to. But then again I'll always remind myself that hey they are living beings! Stop treating them like dead objects that we manufacture. I just let them go and see what's ahead of us. If they bloom, they bloom. And if they don't then it's okay, we'll try better next time. Because there's really nothing we can do! :P

So yeah I learned a lot about letting go. Sometimes in life we always frustrate ourselves over things we have no control over with. We want things to go according to our plans (who don't!) but when they don't, we feel like the world is coming to an end. The best thing to do is to let go and just see what we can do right now, in this very moment. Instead of stressing over unnecessary things!

One of my favourite songs is "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge. Although it's more of a love song, where a couple embraces what's coming ahead of them, I think we can also apply it in our lives. Embracing what's coming ahead of us, whatever it may be. Life can be as beautiful as we want it to be. But at the end of the day, life has its own definition of beauty too, that we have to see and accept.

Alright that's all for now! Just a random thought about what the flower has given me.

Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri!

First of all wishing all Muslims around the world a happy hari raya Idul Fitri! Or Eid if you're not from Southeast Asia haha. Mohon maaf lahir dan batin! I hope you had a great day with your family and had lots of ketupat and rendang. Just make sure you don't eat too many of them hehe.

Today was a pretty quiet and chill first day of Eid. Didn't go anywhere and stayed at home, cause my aunt went to our house! So we just spent the evening chatting with my mum and dad, and me with my cousin. And also my nephew who insist that we need to sweep the fallen leaves haha.

It was dark and cloudy in the evening so we thought it's gonna rain and it did! So we didn't go to the farm, which we usually did in the years back. But we did so at night, and the sky was amazing with stars. It's funny how the sky is clear but it was slightly drizzling. Must be a wind-carried drizzle I guess.

I'm pretty much enjoying the holiday so far. I did some errands just now while waiting for dinner, but the greatest thing is really to not be bothered by work. I mean usually I would wake up with a long list of Whatsapps, sometimes from people who's constantly asking me to do things. And I would wake up knowing that I have things to do across the day. But none of that in this period teehee.

Okay I think I'm going to come up with a list of things to blog for the next 4 days. I hope I can stick with them and salvage my resolution and blogging goal. I do have some ideas in mind... So keeping my fingers crossed. I'm hating myself cause every night I would tell myself to not blog and chill, while another part of me tell myself to keep up with the blogging meehhh haha. Alright see you soon!

Eid Mubarak to you once again :)

Unwind

Today is officially our first day of holiday mwahaha. It's Hari Raya tomorrow and yesterday was the last day of work! As usual it's super quiet since no one is working at the factory. Kinda strange to be surrounded by silence, since we're always surrounded by noise on the other 355 days of the year haha. But anyway, it's a good change I suppose. Silence is a good thing sometimes.

It's a pretty chill day for us. Spent the afternoon sweeping fallen leaves in front of my house with my siblings and nephew. He's so excited about sweeping them haha, good husband material. And then in the evening we went to the farm, and to the temple before making our way home. Today is the first of the 6th Lunar Month, and probably the only time of the year when my dad would go to the temple :P

As usual we have the yearly satay session at night and thanks to my aunt for buying me vegetarian satay! Finally I can join my family to have satay hahaha. Usually I would just sit in one corner and eat other stuff. I can't believe another Hari Raya is here again tomorrow! Time flies, feels like last year's Hari Raya was like err 3 months ago? Well the dates do move forward by 11 days every year.

This year felt relatively empty somehow. I went out with my dad at night again and realised that the roads are emptier as compared to last year. Yes there were motorcycles and the usual bedug procession here and there. But the streets felt "empty". Not sure why, but well the economy wasn't doing too well this year so yeah. It does play a huge role you know. But at least the takbiran spirit is still present! The sounds of the mosques, and seeing the hustle and bustle of the people on the street.

Well I always look forward to this night. The last night of Ramadhan, because I know there's a holiday ahead of me, and I get to rest haha. It's also a time that brings so much reminiscence and sentimentalism of my younger days. And who doesn't like bits of reminiscence.

Oh well, to all Muslims I hope you had a blissful month of Ramadhan! Wishing you a wonderful day ahead tomorrow with your loved ones :) See you soon again!

Anything Can Happen

So as I mentioned in the previous post, it felt like a miracle that we managed to have a successful harvest for Hari Raya on Wednesday. When seriously just a week ago, the flowers looked really small to be harvested, and that we won't have enough time for them to fully bloom to be harvested. But alas there is a miracle. We were given sunny and hot weather for the past 4 days and the flowers bloom!

Okay to begin the post, let me talk about the plan we did 4 months ago. So for the flowers to be harvested in a particular time/date, we need to plan when to plant them first. So this year Hari Raya lands in 25th June and we should harvest the flowers on 21st June, to be delivered on the 22nd. Usually we take the duration of 112 days as the standard time. However learning from last year's experience, and also the CNY planting, I decided to add an extra 8 days as a precaution.

According to my calculations, *if* the flowers bloom as per normal in 112 days, we should be able to start harvesting them on 14th of June. But nope, none of the flowers actually bloomed enough to be harvested. We were really worried, and we didn't have the faith that the flowers will be able to bloom in a span of seven days! I remember how last week my workers and I were just talking about giving the harvest a miss, and harvest the flowers for Syawal (the month after Ramadhan in the Islamic calendar).

Well we were still holding on to a hope that there will be a bit of harvest that we can do. But we are not too optimistic either. I was feeling a bit annoyed because we actually added an extra 8 days to let them bloom and we still "missed" the dateline. But there really is nothing we can do. They are flowers, living things that we have no control over with. It's not like we can scold them to make them bloom faster haha. Well we did use a bit of a growth accelerator to make them bloom.

Okay so on Friday night I went to the farm to check the flowers again and I was feeling really hopeless. To me there is no way that these flowers can bloom fully till Wednesday. I didn't return to the farm anymore until Tuesday to make parcels with my workers. Until my worker gleefully told me that the flowers actually bloomed and that we have enough flowers for a harvest the next day!

I was a bit apprehensive still. Not sure what does he mean by "enough" but the next day, we did actually have more than enough flowers! That's crazy. In a span of 4 days, the flowers managed to bloom and we did have a successful and bountiful flower harvest! I suppose the universe has conspired with us and I suppose mother nature has other plans for us.

In a state of hopelessness, everything turned 180 degrees back for the better. Pretty mental right.

Well I've learned a lot about not losing hope, and about letting go, in this incident. Do not lose hope.

Because anything can happen. 

Hello

Oh my goodness it's been two weeks since I last blogged! I've never done this before since probably 2013 haha. But like I said, it's been such a super busy two weeks for me. June felt like a crazy month for me. There were just so many things to do every night. In fact this is the first time in two weeks that I have the time to blog and surf the net etc after dinner. All these while, I always have things to do. I'm pretty glad that it's over now and a long holiday is on my way! Weee.

Well I've been busy with lots of things. First there was the parcels to be sorted for my customers and neighbours around the farm. And now that I have the farming shop, means I have double the work haha. And also the yearly bonuses which is given out during Hari Raya period. So yeah I've been finalising all these in the past two weeks. Aside from the usual work as well!

I would say this year I did much better than last year. Last year was pretty chaotic to be honest. I didn't even have the money for the bonuses. That's how bad it was. But well last year was kind of a special case, cause I actually lent my money to someone (and that someone didn't return it to me).

I did a much better job in this year's financial planning teehee. A better job, but not a great one. I think there's still rooms for improvement and I have ways to improve them too.

And we're also done with the grand harvest 2k17! Another successful one this year. And a miraculous one too. I'm going to blog about this on a special post tomorrow cause it's kinda long haha.

Okay we have 8 more days to the end of June. I'm gonna plan to blog everyday to hit my quota as usual hahaha. I feel kinda guilty that I neglected the blog in the month of June. But seriously time got the better off me. But anyway I have lots of things to talk about so yup! Let's have a good conversation over the next 8 days. Also it's the holiday so I have time to chill and just blog.

Alright this is just a quick update of what's happening. See you again tomorrow! :)

Lost Track

It's been so long since I last blogged here. Whatever plans I had for blogging on those nights are erased cause of work haha. Well I've been really busy these days. Probably since June started heh. Like I said in my last post it's gonna be a busy month for me and indeed it is. I'm gonna find some nights to blog for sure. There are a couple of things in my mind to blog about. Just couldn't find the time.

I know it sounds ironic but Ramadhan is always a stressful month for me every year haha. Gotta settle lots of things before Hari Raya itself, and also settling parcels for customers. But well I'm kinda more prepared this year unlike last year. Last year everything was really ill-prepared. Both financially and time-wise. This year there's still a tiny mistake I made. But I think it's rectifiable hah.

But all of these busy time will lead to a good reward I guess. A good long break we look forward to every year haha. Since there's no such things as holiday for me, except for Hari Raya holiday. Where literally, everything is closed haha. So yeah let us all struggle and bear this for a while.

I've been losing track of time these days. It's quite scary when I think about it. Thankfully I have a calendar right in front of me to keep track of time. It's quite easy to forget what day is it and so on. Time is really of the essence now. Wish me luck. I hope I pull through everything well.