The Reader

Water,water every where...

What a beautiful and cool water fountain!
However, when I stopped at one of them last Saturday after my jogging,none of the four taps around it was working-not a drop to drink.I hope someone will have them repaired by this coming Saturday or Sunday.

Inspired!

Tonight,I was inspired by one of our elders at our surau.He is an old pensioner(65 years old) who khatam Qur'an every month and yet never miss our weekly tajweed class.He is still learning to improve his Qur'an reading.I bet all of us are younger than him. We are NEVER too old to learn.

The Zahir

Today I started reading the novel entitled The Zahir by Paulo Coelho.Below is my first experiment in podcasting.I used my iPod to record my reading of the backcover of the book.Then I hotsync with my iBook and uploaded the file here.It took 1min.and 30 sec and used 1.4MB.After listening to my voice, I think I should stick to writing.

Anyway,here is the audio file:Download 20050718_211405.wav

Unplug and Slow down

Almost ten years ago,I subscribed to JARING in order to be connected to the Internet.To be exact,it was on 24th of July,1995.By Internet time,ten years is a long time...

So much water has flowed under the bridge (or gigabites along the wires) over the years...I have been  a heavy user of Internet and have seen the good,the bad and the ugly part of the Internet.Initially, I wanted to get connected and wired to the teeth. More than a year ago,my house is wi-fied.Now,using my palm pda and  the wireless broadband(GPRS and EDGE) I can still be connected where my telco service is available.

Lately,I just wanted to be unplugged and slow down.Luckily,I am not alone.Some time, we need to switch off and slow down.

It is a good time to catch up with my reading/study.May I join you,Kura-Kura?

HP & Half-Blood Prince

Today, I joined other parents at our local bookshop to buy the latest book by JK Rowling.By the time I arrived at 8:01am ,there were only a few customers left.Most likely,all of them came at 7:01am.As a member of Times Bookshop, I got 10% discount plus book vouchers worth RM25.

By the way, I have yet to become a fan of Harry Potter,but on the pretext of accompanying my son,I watched all the HP movies;-)

Personally, I must admit that I do enjoy reading HP series.It must be the child in me:-)

PS: More news here.

Guard the prayers..

All of us muslims/muslimahs pray at least five times a day.However,how many of us are concerned about the level of khushoo' while doing our prayers? Have we ever ponder the performance of our heart after each prayer?

Let me qoute Firman Allah swt:-

Guard the prayers,especially the middle prayer...(Surah Baqara,ayat238)

The middle prayer is the prayer of the heart-the inner worship.

Let me quote a few sentences from the book mentioned below:

"True worship is the worship of the heart.If one's heart is heedless of true worship,the ritual prayer of the material self is in disorder."

"Prayer is the supplication of the created to The Creator.It is a meeting of the servant and The Lord.The place of this meeting is in the heart.If the heart is closed,heedless and dead,so is the meaning of worship".

"When the ritual worship of the material being and the inner worship of the heart unite,the prayer is complete".

I am writing this posting is just to remind myself and to create awareness so that we donot neglect the 'middle prayer'.Otherwise,I am scared that much of my acts of praying will go to waste.Let's all be aware and make an effort to learn more about this subject and guard our prayers.

Note: For those who wish to know more about this subject,please read pages 73-75 of the book entitled The Secret of Secrets by The Great Hadrat Abd al-Qadir al-Jailani.

Morning sun

It was 7am at Kota Baru this morning.The beautiful morning sun never fails to fascinate me;the only thing I have never got the chance to capture it on my camera.Today,I was lucky.However,the real one is more beautiful than the image I snapped up there.

MWA

MWA stands for Malaysia Water Association.I used to be the Vice-President of MWA more than a decade ago.The members comprised of  the individuals and professionals in the water industry. I am glad that now MWA has its own website. May I invite you to browse through it and participate in the forum.I believe the association will be grateful to hear from us the consumers.

IMHO,water is a strategic national asset that must be  regulated and managed the best we can.I look forward to the formation of SPAN as the national regulator of our water services.There are a lot of issues facing the industry at the moment. My best wishes to all my friends  out there and I look foraward to a better  water service to the people in the coming years.

Hummus

Hummus is one of my favourite foods.Below is a recipe I received from Kyrul:

Makes 3 cups of hummus

Ingredients

1 cup dried chickpeas
2 tablespoons tahini (sesame paste, can buy at great eastern mall)
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoon cumin powder
5 tablespoons olive oil (more if u wish)
1 lemon
some chili powder (secukup rasa)
some olives (pitted)

Soak the chickpeas overnight. Next day, boil for a hour or until
tender. Once done, drain the water but dont throw away the cooking
liquid, set it aside. Peel off the skin (this is the time consuming
part).

Using a food processor (not blender) mix together chickpeas, tahini,
garlic, cumin, olive oil, lemon juice, chili powder and some cooking
liquid.

Add the cooking liquid gradually as required until you get the desired
consistency. Season with salt to taste. Go easy on the lemon juice,
adding bit by bit until u get the desired taste. You might not even use
the whole lemon, or maybe more than one, so it's really up to your
preference. I prefer it not to be so sour while my dad like it with
more lemon.

Serve on flat bowl, drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle some chili powder
on top and sliced olives on top. Scatter some parsley for extra colour
(optional).

Let me know how it turns out :-)

Thanks to KNO.

Recipe for Happiness?

Below is an extract from Amazon's interview with J.K Rowling,the famous author of Harry Potter's books:

Amazon.co.uk:        Why did you choose to be an author?
Rowling:        If someone asked for my recipe for happiness, step one would be finding out what you love doing most in the world and step two would be finding someone to pay you to do it. I consider myself very lucky indeed to be able to support myself by writing.

The first part is easy-anyone can find out what he or she loves doing, but to get someone to pay for that is not that easy.

While attending a wedding dinner last night, I have discussion with my peer profesionals who have retired from civil service. They have the knowledge and experience.Instead of keeping that valuable assets to ourselves and got buried with us when we die, we should impart the knowledge to younger people. Most of us can talk but cannot write that well.Now, I must plan a way to get someone to pay us to talk....anyway we will be talking to ourselves.It is better to get paid and enjoy the talking:-)

Personally, I love to read,but then who is going to pay me for that? May be I should consider reading story books to children at National Library;-) So,Dr Wan Ali(the DG of National Library) here I come.In the event I do not get the job, I shall remain just The Reader writing blogs;-)