Happy First Birthday Fedric!

Happy Birthday Fedric!

Just a quick post wishing my youngest nephew a happy birthday! May you grow to be a healthy and wise young man :D Can't believe this little boy is one already. Time really flies! He's the youngest in the family now and I can't wait for him to walk and talk and... I can bully him more hahaha. Just kidding.

Anyway today's a pretty chill Saturday with a small celebration for him in the evening. I hope you had a great Saturday too! We're in the middle of June already so... Here's to a Joyous remainder of June :)

Greatest Celebration (II)

2020 might be remembered as the year where festivities and celebrations are cancelled. But perhaps it will also be remembered as the year we learn to participate in the greatest celebration on earth; one thing that is worth celebrating every single day. It's none other than gratitude. 

Right as promised, I will talk about the greatest celebration that we learn to participate in this year. None other than gratitude itself. So yes as we all know by now, 2020 has been a weird year where we cannot hold the usual festivities and celebrations that we usually commemorate every year. For example for me, we didn't go for Qing Ming, and Vesak wasn't celebrated at the temple. And the most recent ones, Lebaran feels relatively weird and empty. Usually we could feel the spirit.

However, even though we have to go through these cancellations, I think we also learn to participate in another kind of celebration that we do everyday. Gratitude. We learn to count our blessings, what we have, who we are with and who stay with us and so on. When the going gets tough we learn to toughen up and find ways to get through this. When we see people facing hardships we also see people rising up the help one another. From news, social media and so on. It reminds me how blessed we all are.

We see the doctors, nurses and medical professionals working in the frontline curing people. We see the essential workers working tirelessly to keep things going. We see people supporting each other. And we see people adhering to rules by practising social distancing. As we go through isolation, we begin to notice the people and things around us. What we actually have, the selfless people working together, angels and heroes not many notice, but are actually surrounding us. They are everywhere.

And I think when we truly realise and notice what we truly have, we being to live a life filled with more gratitude. We become more thankful that this life as we know it is actually abundant. Abundant of resources, abundant of wonderful people. We see through the power of humanity. We see what we can truly do as a human being, and collectively as a human race. We seem to open our eyes.

And anyway, I kinda think that the root of every celebration is none other than gratitude itself too.

When we celebrate birthdays, we don't just celebrate the day we are born. But the fact that we have lived through another year. And without realising we're inching closer to our death. The same goes when we celebrate the passing of the clock at 12:00 every near year's eve. Thanksgiving is pretty obvious, we give thanks to whatever we went through in the year. Chinese New Year signifies the arrival of spring, another new year, new cycle. Where farmers go to work again after a harsh winter.

Ramadhan taught us the spirit of giving, to share and experience what the less fortunate goes through. Deepavali celebrates the victory of good versus evil. Every celebration is rooted in gratitude if you think about it. So perhaps 2020 is bringing us back to the root of these celebrations, by reminding us to celebrate gratitude every day. Probably the only thing worth celebrating every day.

And of course, I surely hope we can continue with this even after this whole pandemic is over!

Stay safe and take care as usual :)

A Good Break

Right, I am supposed to elaborate more on my previous post about gratitude but err, it didn't happen. As usual haha. And now here I am writing on the last night of this long holiday. And we're coming back to work tomorrow. But anyway that's okay, I had a good break. And... Hope I'm ready for work haha.

As mentioned in my previous post, as the years go by (by that I mean the past 2 years haha) I learn to enjoy the long holiday by... Not doing anything. It's rather funny cause usually during this long holiday I would come with a list of things that I want to do. Like blog everyday, or at least I'll come up with a list of things I want to blog/talk about. Or I want to journal everyday. Create a drawing or something like that. And like my yearly resolution, they don't happen haha. Or at least not wholly.

So yep I think what better way is it to enjoy a holiday by just doing whatever you want to do. Instead of telling yourself that you have a list of things to do. But as always, I will definitely clean my room during the holiday. And get rid of things I don't need. So yeah, I did these two in this long holiday!

And now here we are on the last night of the holiday. Which I'm glad and thankful to go through. It was a good break and I enjoy it, even though as always I wish I could spend it overseas. But hey the world is forced not to travel now so we're good mwahaha. Been spending the long holiday at home for 3 years now so no complaints either! :P Next year, maybe, hopefully, I get to go somewhere.

Alright I will talk about my previous post in another post soon. Promise!

In the meantime here's to a great start at work, and oh gosh, it's June now! So yes here's me wishing you a Jubilant June ahead. The world has really went through a lot in the past 5 months so.... I hope things will turn for the better for all of us. For the world, for humanity and so on. 

Stay safe and take care as always!

Greatest Celebration

2020 might be remembered as the year where festivities and celebrations are cancelled. But perhaps it will also be remembered as the year we learn to participate in the greatest celebration on earth; one thing that is worth celebrating every single day. It's none other than gratitude. 

Selamat Hari Raya!

First of all wishing all Muslims around the world Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri 1441H! Eid Mubarak to those celebrating! :D Well I think without a doubt this has been the weirdest Ramadhan that all of us went through. And definitely something's off for this year Hari Raya too, with the whole COVID-19 situation. But I'm glad to see many of my friends still uplifting the Raya spirit, be it through online communication, wearing Raya clothes at home or even delivering goodies to others!

Anyway so yes I'm also having the Hari Raya long holiday here. It's always something that I look forward to every year. A chance to not do anything (without feeling guilty, cause there's nothing you can do, work wise) and to simply rest. The factory's closed, my shop's closed (just for 1-2 days aha) and yeah, a great chance to rest up I suppose. This, you can say, is my only proper break of the year.

This sounds weird but whenever I'm having the holiday, I usually come up with a list of things I want to do. Like... Blog everyday *cough cough* and journal everyday *sneeze* and some other random stuff. But it's been 2 years since I don't come up with any plans heh. I just live and let live the holiday. Okay I do try to blog and journal as often but I don't make it a compulsory thing to do. At the end of the day, the thing I enjoy the most about the holiday is actually doing nothing heh. Resting.

Today's the first day of the Muslim month of Syawal or Hari Raya itself. And it is actually, in my opinion, the quietest day of the year. I swear it's super quiet on this day. Perhaps it's because yesterday the Takbiran was echoing through my hometown through the night and now there's none. There's also no call for sahur, for breaking fast and the nightly teraweh or tadarus sessions.

The silence is rather eerie but something I enjoy too.

Alright that's all for this first post of the holiday. I'll see you again soon. Stay safe and take care!

Vegan Scallops

Okay this is a really really random post but I took a nap just now and had a very very vivid weird dream! It's been so long since I did a dream diary entry so here goes I suppose!

So my dream started with me walking in the middle of my hometown. There was a huge event/celebration going on in town (weirdly, in the middle of a pandemic heh) and I was checking it out. I couldn't figure out what the event was, it wasn't clear. All I know is that it happens at night and the roads are closed for it. It was getting late so I decided to walk back home. It was 9 PM ish in my dream.

On my way home I passed by this newly opened vegan restaurant near my house. It has a very nice and standing-out decoration and design. Definitely not something that is usually designed in my hometown. I went inside and the interior design was even quirkier! The floor tile is checkered like a chess board. There were lots of mirrors and even chandeliers. The dining ware is super classy too.

As I made my way to the counter to order I was told that it was opened by a Norwegian couple who moved here. They are vegans and their mission is to bring their vegan scallops here. Even though it's expensive. And also I don't know why the customers are all Caucasian even though we're in the middle of my hometown haha. Before me was this boy who took so long to order. 

They ended up shooing him away. And when asked what I wanted to order, I asked for their recommendation and they recommended me their vegan scallop. Which takes the shape and form of a scallop but vegan. Only in my dreams I suppose haha. I tasted it and it was okay but still puzzled about why there's a Norwegian restaurant in the middle of my hometown hahaha.

Then I woke up from this bizarre nap.

Okay possible reasons for the dream outline. The night before this I watched a BBC video about a debate whether oysters are vegan or not haha. As for the event in the hometown it was probably because the streets of my hometown were packed today and I was caught in a jam.

Okay that's all for this dream diary entry. See you soon!

Hello again

May has been another month that never seemed to exist hahaha. This whole COVID situation with the Lebaran/Puasa happening is really making me lose track of time. Some people are losing track of what day it is and so on and... Yes it's happening to me too! But anyway, I'm done with the yearly bonus, the parcels and stuff. I can breathe easier now. Although things are still doing pretty tight!

As always I'm looking forward to the good long yearly break coming soon. I think we all need a good break. 2020 has been a weird year for all of us, but hey lets take the break at our own homes okay haha. I'm seriously itching to go and travel but we all know that is impossible for quite some time now.

Which is kind of a worrying fact if you ask me! But as I always believe, travel not because you have to, but because you can. Better to make peace with where you are now I suppose.

Whew alright I don't have much to talk about either but here's me just giving you a short update of my life. I will definitely try to blog more during the holiday. But as always, we'll see how it goes :P