naziehah

Imagine this, you were having high fever, running nose, blurry eyes, your bones felt all weak like jelly and you do not know what’s wrong with you. You went to your trusted doctor to ask for expert’s opinion and you find him/her slumped in a chair looking like she just returned from a trip to hell. Depressed. Bored. Pretending.

Let’s not even start on the medical practice in Malaysia for it will going to be a long negative filled entry and I am minimising negativity in my life now but there’s one issue that I am really very particular about.

In my opinion, if you are a doctor, you have to be passionate about it. You need to want to be a doctor, not just stuck being a doctor because you have no choice. Or because it’s the thing your parents wants you to do. Or because you like watching Grey’s Anatomy. It is really wrong to wear a title of a doctor but your hearts are not in it.

You are handling people’s life. You are the person people seek when they are sick. You are the one that they turn to and belief whole-heartedly - whatever you said. Unquestioningly ( most of the time ). They trust in your 5-6 years of education that you will be able to bring the best for them. For their health. For their family. For their loved one.

So if your heart is not in it, please - do a favour and find your passion. Give yourself a break and most importantly your patient’s a break. It is really unfair, you know. Really unfair. Do not moan that life is not fair and you do not have a choice because I won’t have it. If the people without legs can run and people without hands can draw, please save your sob story for another time, another universe. If God gave your perfectly healthy body with an excellent mind that can take 5-6 years medical knowledge, I am sure you are more than capable to think and decide for yourself what is the best and right for you and your patient.

I might not be able to fully understand the life of a doctor. I might not be able to comprehend what it takes to be a ‘passionate’ doctor as I rambled about. But this I know, that you have to put your whole heart and soul into what you do. Because people are counting on you. They are counting on you - with their life. And because you have to answer it on Judgement day - did you do your best when you were a doctor?

I was chosen as one of the Top 16 in Apostrophe’s Short Short Stories contest. It was such a fun contest where we need to come up with a really short story - in 16 words. I had so much fun coming up with different stories and one of them was actually a winner!

We were invited to their event held at The Galleries, The Annexe, Central Market. I am so excited to see my piece translated into a visual art. I had a different expectation of how my short story is going to be translated, however, when I saw how it turned out to be, I think it was translated better than I had imagine.

Simple colourful name-tags were aligned on a black t-shirt. I didn’t got the chance to talk to the artist, but I guess that the name-tags symbolised the ‘title’ that people attach with certain facial feature and skin colour. The colurful name-tags also represents the issue of colours that I tried to highlighted in my short story. All in all, I really like how my piece turned out and I so hope that I will be able to frame it! ( as hinted my the Director )

It was a great night really. I am able to meet Dina Zaman, one of the mentors for the programme and also one of my favourite writer! She also happens to be my alumni Lancaster mate. She is such a warm and engaging lady you can’t help but be drawn in with by her passion for her works. I promised her that I am going to sent my entry for her IAM2 ( which is still very much under slow progress ).

I have to thank Digi for coming up with a contest and a concept like this. It really sparks up that creative plug inside of me and I am sure that there will be much more exciting contributions coming from me!

Anyway - Martina McBride

You can spend your whole life building
Something from nothin’
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway

You can chase a dream
That seems so out of reach
And you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

God is great
But sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray
It doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway
I do it anyway

This world’s gone crazy
It’s hard to believe
That tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway

You can love someone with all your heart
For all the right reasons
In a moment they can choose to walk away
Love ‘em anyway

God is great
But sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray
It doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway
Yea - I do it anyway

You can pour your soul out singing
A song you believe in
That tomorrow they’ll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway
Yea, sing it anyway
Yeah, yeah!

I sing
I dream
I love anyway

*****************************************************************

I really love this song that I heard on Light.fm. It struck all the right cords in my heart. I think this is the only way to live. To do it, all of it, anyway.

We tried to come up with one word summing up the song. For me, the lyric is all about living. For my husband, the lyric is all about faith.

To live each day in life as it were the last. To not get tied up with regrets and ‘what ifs’. To not be hampered by doubts and uncertainty of the future. To have faith, that Almighty will always serve us the Best.

I have mixed feelings over Post Secret. As much as I love reading them, I found myself feeling very scared of sometimes of what people carried around forever in their head, silently.

Their secrets sometimes too painful, too real, too gory. Especially the ones about killing. Although, you know because it’s their secret and we will never know whether they mean ‘killing’ literally or ‘killing’ as in Rihanna’s song, I sure do hope it’s the latter.

I hope I know how to ease these people’s pain. How to make them know that life is meant to be lived happily, by not sounding like some ultra-optimistic annoying self-help guru. I hope I can reach them somehow and make them know or believe of that there’s good in life despite their suffering and secret. I hope I will be able to let them know that they can grow their heart bigger, and bigger - until all their suffering and secret becomes just a tiny little black fleck that occasionally flew and stuck to their heart. But they can always flick it away. Or they can always grow their heart bigger. So their painful secrets becomes small and insignificance in comparison.

I hope, on some level, I am  doing that through my art, my enterprise, and my teaching. And I will keep finding ways to do it better, and bigger.

The swing is one of my life story

Sometimes I am swinging high

So high up that I fly

But sometimes I swing low

And hit the ground with my toe

But I love the swing anyway

Both the high and low

Because the high won’t be so fun

Without the low that pulls you so

The see saw is one of my life journey

Somewhat similar like the swing

Sometimes I’ll be at the top

And sometimes I’ll be at the bottom

I love the jolt that I felt

When I am lifted to the top

The wind in my face - it is a lot of fun!

I also love the bump that I felt

When I am shifted to the bottom

The thump of my feet - it is a lot o fun!

The slide is my life path

Where I climb on the steps to the top

And slide my way down to success

There is always a climb

A climb is a must

Before you can ‘Wheeee’ your way

To sweet success

I will keep on going

From one fun to the other

Keep on playing

Keep on enjoying

My world of playground.

 ©Naziehah Aug 2007

I was fortunate to meet one of the most interesting man a few days ago. His name is Chandran. He is an electrian. Chandran the Electrician.

What struck me the most about him is how he goes about with his work. How his hand moves with lightning efficiency and his eyes seems to be doing millions of calculating and evaluating. How he stride from one socket to another always checking, always vigilant. How he explained the wiring and how he laid down the plan of whathe wants to do and consequences of each actions.

He is very knowledgable and a very skilled electrician. He seems to enjoy what he is doing too. That must be why he is so good at it. It is also rumoured that he has so many projects that he is hardly able to keep up with it.

Isnt’ it great if everybody gets to do what they enjoy the most? Like Chandran the Electrician?

Once, I read somewhere that you have to read a classic at least twice. Once when you were a kid, and once when you were an adult.

I didn’t fully understand that concept before, until recently. I was talking to my husband about ‘meditation’ and how it was similar with Muslim’s praying but we were never taught on how to pray in a ‘meditation’s sense. When we were a kid, it was just a series of movements - raise your hand, next bend your body, next touch your forehead to the ground. Series after series of movements. And we just follow.

But as we grew up, we read more books, we met more people, we learnt and experienced many more things. Our awareness expanded, our consciousness grew. We came back to ‘praying’ with a new perspective.

We re-learned praying. We re-learned the process of praying. We re-learned the significance and the meaning of praying from now, our adult and more informed brain. We get a better and clearer understanding.

Similar with reading classic books. Classics were written with many important ideas and wisdom that were not  able to be grasped by a child’s mind. Hence the message was somewhat lost to a child. However, as the mind grew as the body grew. We developed a more sophisticated ways of interpreting and appreciating classics. We were able to look at things from different angle and evaluate information in a more effective way. We gained new insights and greater appreciation to classics.

I wonder how many adults actually look back and re-learn the things they were taught when they were small? The ‘Cinderella’ and the ‘Pinocchio’? Their ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and their ‘Incy Wincy Spiders’? Or are we much more interested on ‘information’ and ‘knowledge’ given by our retailers, and promoters and bosses, and Hollywood directors…

Mrs Wind enjoys listening to Mr. Earth’s stories on how he taught science and did science experiments to school children on weekends. Yes, science is Mr. Earth’s passion.

 Mrs. Wind didn’t know how passionate Mr. Earth was about science and the whole aspect of it, until she married him. Of course, she always knew that he was some kind of a geek, but she thought it was only computers. Apparently it runs through all aspects of science - something that Mrs. Wind is very challenged in. She doesn’t even know the proper jargon to use in describing science ( hence the over-usage of phrase ‘all aspects of science’ in this entry )

The artistic Mrs. Wind, in all her eagerness to ignite ‘passion’ in her husband’s head, desperately taught Mr. Earth a liitle thing or 2 about art. About painting and Monet. About dance movement and ‘So You Think You Can Dance’. Although Mr. Earth is always obliging and did shows some interest. He is, far from ‘passionate’ about it.

Mrs. Wind was frustrated. She didn’t understand why is her husband is so ‘lukewarm’. He didn’t has a passion, and in her dictionary - if you are a person without passion, you are like a walking mannequin.

Until Mrs. Wind found out that a person doesn’t has to be passionate about art to be passionate. Some people are just clueless about art. And that some people is her husband. And she understands now that although her husband is not passionate about art, he is passionate about science. And knowing that makes her happy.

 She loves the way his eyes lights up when he talks about how much he loves doing the experiments with those kids. How he wanted to make some of the experiements better so that the kids will be able to learn more. How he was very committed by it. She also loves the fact that her Mr . Earth is higly concerned about the environment. How he is very conscious of the issue of renewable energy. And many, many more ‘other aspects of science’.

Although Mrs. Wind can’t really understand them all, but she encourages her husband to keep pursuing and doing things that he loves and passionate about. Because that makes him happy. And when he is happy, Mrs. Wind is also happy.

I am super duper excited this morning when I received a phone call from somebody saying I am selected for something!

OMG!! I am jumping up and down and feeling all giddy while waiting for the elctrician to fix my lamp. ( another story for another entry )

All I need to do now is just wait for the e-mail… ( and then I will be able to tell a little bit more about this fabulous news! )

I am soooooo excited!

IKEA has been like my second home these past few weeks. Not so surprising - they are having their annual sales.

I really love IKEA. My feeling for IKEA is almost like my feeling for a human being. I found IKEA very..understanding, tolerant, sensitive and quirky! From it’s toilets, to it’s restaurant, to it’s prayer room. My most pleasant shopping experience in KL, has got to be in IKEA.

IKEA stuffs just fits my personality. Their furnitures are beautiful and simple with clean lines. They had all these mix-and-match thing that is really making me wild because I love being creative and exploring all possibilities. They basically thought of everything and and gave solution to all problems and simplify,simplify,simplify things. All I need to do is just look to one corner and I am always dazzled by the wittiness of their design.

I love IKEA and I am thankful that there’s IKEA for me to enjoy in Malaysia