Ever The Idealist

Post Marriage

2008-05-18T01:03:00.003+01:00

Salam and peace to all. It's almost a year since I last wrote in here. I have no idea why the wait. I have been busy but no one in their right frame of mind is that busy. Basically without making excuses I have been forgetful. Am running around like a headless chicken most of the time. Do I concentrate on family (parents, siblings and such), do I concentrate on my NEW family (Moses and me), friends, work? What should take priority?? Anyways I find the time that I am closer to my Lord the better my connections with whose around me. Say that I have managed to pray Fajr really well (by this I mean with concentration and on time and in the right state of mind) the rest of my day and/or week goes right.

Alhamdullilah I am blessed in so many different ways be it my forgiving friends and family, my flexible work or my lovely husband (not mentioning the tiny details like fully functioning faculties and healthy body!!).

Marriage has been interesting to say the least. There is so much I would like to write here tonight but I must sleep. Just finished a 14hour shift and it's 1am. The cursed net is pulling me in. I spent the last 20minutes figuring my password out. The functioning faculties didn't work for me this time!!!

Peace till tomorrow (loosely translated to 2009) :D

Married Life

2007-07-26T23:12:00.000+01:00

Its been five days since the deed was done. My dad shook hios hand. It realy did look like they were getting married rather than my Dad giving me away (sob). Its wonderful and I would recoment people get on with it. All that I worry about is nothing now. Keep the duas coming please. I will write properly soon and post pics IA Ameen. In mean time make lots of dua for us please.

T minus 5...4...3...2...1

2007-07-17T00:31:00.000+01:00

Its happening now. Things are scay but exciting. Make dua for me and Moses people.

Life as it is continued...

2007-07-10T18:45:00.000+01:00

Salam people. My life has really been a scary, terrifying, unforgettable and all sorts of things lately. I am sorry for making people worry and stress on my behalf. `I am just been dramatic as is my nature and these are thee ways I deal with it i.e ranting on my blog. I am happy and plans are going wrong as they tend to do because lets be honest we plan and Allah (SWT) plans and His plans are always the best for us even if we don't see it there and then. I am grateful to have such loving and support family and friends. Allah protect and guide them right in this world and the next.

Work has continued to amuse and irritate me. Am really thinking if this line of work is for me. The paper work increases on daily basis and we are always short staffed and get no real support from those in a position of power. It sucks as am sure it does in so many jobs and industries but nursing seems to be at its lowest at the moment. I just feel sorry for the people we nurse as they never get 100% from us as we have to divide our 100% between our ten patients!! They are lucky if they get 10% of my energy and effort on an average day at work. I hate it!!!!!

Am such a drama queen. Only realise this when I read my past blog posts. Such a whiner!

Life as it is...

2007-07-05T23:24:00.000+01:00

Life sucks at the moment. Who knew it would take so much planning and effort. My family is helping so much right now and I still feeling like crap at the moment. Musa is trying to help in his way but with him living some place different is so hard. How do people do this? How do they get through all this hoops??? Why do people feel the need to go through this? There is blessing and mercy placed between the two people but getting to the point of appreciating that is hard and sooo far away!!!
What am I suppose to do to make this easier? Am making dua and praying Alhamdullillah. My Iman seems to be at a really weak point at the moment. HATE WORK!! Hate everything that’s got anything top do with it. Might become part of the unemployed posse…
How is it possible to be exited one minute, tearful the next and terrified the one after. Am just going through a ghastly roller coaster ride at the moment. Advice is been dispensed faster than paracetamol at the hospital.
Enough moaning now. ENOUGH.

Organisation...

2007-06-27T17:33:00.000+01:00

Organisation is not my strong point. I would rather let things just creep up on me and then pretend not to have know I was suppose to do something about it!!!! OK maybe am not that bad but I do procrastinate a lot. I need to stop and get my act together. Please make dua for me and Moses. Those of my friends that are helping me may Allah reward you because I don't think I could ever repay you for what you are doing for me. As for the ones that are not yet helping get to it people I still have lots of tasks that need completing.

InshaAllah Khair as Native says.

21st June

2007-06-22T10:56:00.000+01:00

I turned 26 yesterday. I swear it only felt like I had turned 25 the day before! I thought I would write about the day itself so that I will always remember what happened on Thursday 21st June 2007.

Well it actually started the day before, on the Wednesday. It was a wonderfully chilled day. Met a few friends around the lunchtime mark, went shopping for food and ended up buying lots of cakes instead! Got to my flat and they sat and entertained me while I made them tea and pancakes. Once the food was eaten we headed to town to meet up with another scout leader. That day we had so many leaders it was quite funny cause the kids were acting like we were torturing them. It was only an afternoon in the park with activities like skipping 50 meters and the 100 meter dash and so on. They are such grouches sometimes.
Anyways we ended up at the flat again after 9pm and we were joined by more girlies and we had more food (all bad for us like pizza, garlic bread and lots of different cakes)!

So, back to yesterday. Yesterday was the day that I stayed at my mums and did nil, zilch, nada!!! I had a nice and chilled out day. Spent most of it discussing wedding plans with my brothers, MD and Aisha. It was lovely to sit and go through things with them. They are so cool and grown up (sometimes my mind is just stuck on the time they were annoying kids).

I have to say the best bit about turning 26 has been that I feel all grown up on account of now been closer to 30 than 20.

Other highlights include the home made cake, the bouquet of flowers, the lunch that flower lady and I had, just the whole seeing everyone was a highlight of the last couple days.

So that is how my 26th went. Nothing particularly special, nothing amazing but none the less a pretty cool day altogether.

A nice Hadith

2007-06-20T09:19:00.000+01:00

Narrated by ‘Aisha (RA): The Prophet (SAW) said, “No calamity befalls a Muslim but that Allah expiates some of his sins because of it, even though it were a prick he received from a thorn”

[Al-Bukhari 70: 54]

This hadith has wonderful meaning for me. It is a nice reminder that even when awful things happen it can be cleansing for our soul. I love that we get forgiven for whatever we may have done when we pray, fast, ask for forgiveness and when ever pain or discomfort befalls us. Allah is most Merciful.

I hope am forgiven for my sins and I pray that Allah returns my serenity to me soon IA Ameen.

Life is Life

2007-06-18T22:44:00.000+01:00

Islamic (!) Chat-up Lines

2007-06-10T22:25:00.000+01:00

I came across these in facebook! I found them hilarious and more than anything just plain stupid. Cant imagine anyone using them but like I said they are funny. My favourites are 10, 13 and 15 LOL

Enjoy ...

1.I'm looking for the "Made In Jannah" tag
2. Are those legs halal?
3.OMG!! I just saw part of your hair, now your obligated to marry me..
4. Wanna pray in jamaat? shoulder to shoulder, feet to feet?"
5.Wanna date? i bought a whole box when i went to madinah"
6. Marry me so I don't have to lower my gaze every time you walk into the room..
7. Girl when i saw you i said mashallah, then i said inshallah
8. Would you like to help me wake up for Fajr?
9. Are you a Shiite? Because when I saw you, I said to myself, "She aiight"
10.You’re so fine, I wanna marry you, get 10 kids with you and pray domestic jamaah for the rest of our lives.
11. "U thief. u know, its wrong to steal in Islam""how am i a thief?""u stole my heart"
12. Are your feet tired? Because you've been performing Tawaaf in my mind all day long?
13. How would you like to help me fulfill half of my deen?
14. Girl...I know its haraam "paying" so much "interest" in you...but I can't help myself...
15.wanna ride shotgun on my camel?
16.Girl you fine, TAKBEER
17. You are the noor of my eyes.
18. Hey do you want to pray together? Should I call you or Nudge you?
19.Your face shines with so much noor that it could launch a thousand (Jihadi) ships
20. Have your ammi call my ammi
21. You are the reason hijab was mandated.
22. You are the coolness of my eyes.
23. I didn't trip over my robe, I fell for you.
24. You're so beautiful, You would make hur-al-ayn jealous.
25. I have some sort of sickness but Allah*swt* has created a cure, that's you.
26. Sister, I'm not drunk, just intoxicated by you.
27. Any cup of water that you pour for me will taste like Zam Zam.
28. The noor on your face is so strong, I think I'm going to go blind!
29. "Hey I'm a nice Muslim boy and you seem like a nice Muslim girl, so what do you say we make a halal match?"
30.Allah created everything in pairs, so what are you doing single?
31.Sister For a moment I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Now I see that I am very much alive, and heaven has been brought to me.
32.Our parents engaged us when we were little, they must have forgotten to tell you.
33.I'd like to be more than just your brother in Islam.
34.Will my platinum VISA cover your dowry?
35.You can't play basketball with a hijab on, marry me, and we will go one-on-one our entire life. 36. Muslims are supposed to have many children, and I am willing to do my part...
37. Will you help the cause of the Ummah by helping me fulfill my deen?
38.What school of thought do you follow because I thought about you all through school.
39.It must be Laylatul Qadr. Because that's the night that angels come down from Heaven.
40.I've had to fast every day since the day that I first saw you.
41.I know Halal meat does a body good, but damn, how much you been eatin.
42.Would you like to share my prayer-mat?
43.I'm not sure of the Nikah process. Can you help me through it?
44.I just made dua for YOU
45. I'm not staring, I'm just enjoying my first and only allowed look.
46.Sister, you are a hijabi fitnah.
47.I'm new here, can you take me to the closest masjid?
48.You make me realise why we're asked to lower our gaze so much
49.I dont need mahr...YOU are my mahr

The Little Things...

2007-06-10T12:51:00.000+01:00

Well we all know how life can be. It can sneak up on us and make us change how we think and how we react to certain things.

Me personally speaking, am a person who detests change. Change has been forced upon me from an early age due to war and unrest. I have moved about 20 times or more in my life. That makes a person either not care about where they live and be happy (like some of my siblings) or it makes them insecure and long for the security of stability and staying put. I have been in my current home for almost two years. It is mine and I love and adore it maybe too much. It is my haven and my secret hiding place. I can pray, eat, read, sleep with no real worries. My family are here or I am there most of the time. Its hard for me t express how much this place means to me.

Anyways I digress. I am meant to be talking about how people can make you change something that you have never really thought of as changeable.

I have made a decision lately that means a few big changes and to be honest the big changes seem like nothing at the moment. They are not important in the least. I am even settled about the idea of moving away from my place of peace and quite...

Why do the big things seem small at the moment? Because the decision I have made and the person I have made it with has made me realise that some things are only big and scary if you make them that way. I have come to appreciate there are really important stuff that I had only previously thought of as been minor.

I am willing to live life enjoying the little things and not worrying about the so called big and scary things that are really not within our control anyway.

Am still praying my Istikhara and am pleased at where it has taken me. Hope and pray that guidance always continues to flow from Allah. I pray that my parents are always as kind and considerate as they are now and they always continue in their capacity as the providers of advice. I pray that Allah keeps my friends close to me if not in miles then in our connection through Him.

My parents always tell us when they first met they didn't like each other. They met a few more times and finally married. They planned on having a business together and living their lives out in the nice city of Kismayo (Somalia). The planned on having a nice big family and planned to pass on the business to them when the time came. People plan and Allah plans. 27 yeas later my parents are teacher and benefit adviser respectively. They have 8 children together. They had lost their homes numerous times and the moved countless more so they can give their children a chance of a good life.

They tell us regularly they never imagined they would be here in the city of Manchester. Never imaged they would leave their beloved Somalia.

It is almost impossible to imagine what is ahead of you. I am planning on being better prepared to deal with change rather than spend my time and energy on trying to stop something that is inevitable.

Change is not as scary as I thought it might be.

Ever changing...

2007-06-05T23:32:00.000+01:00

Ever - Harmony amidst Madness. This apparently would be the name of the movie if ever there was a movie made about me and my very boring life :D

Today Ever did something that she has not done in years.

I know I just spoke of myself in the third person but it had to be done so that it could be understood that this is important stuff. Well today I deleted my text messages. I deleted my texts!!! All 900 or so cause it blocking up my phone... Stupid phone with its horridly small memory...

I was so saddened by my loss (I know it sounds melodramatic but its got to be done) that I had canceled the request about twice before finally getting to it and deleting them all...

Am truly gutted that my messages are all gone. I had some from last year Eid that I had saved cause I liked them.

Well what can you do eh? :'(

Pride in my People

2007-06-04T18:43:00.000+01:00

I have met nice people recently. I have really developed pride in my people (I know pride is a sin as such but this is good kinda pride).

I am sooo proud of my people! I can say that being African and all (I know you is one to WA so you are included in this shout out).

I love the fact that people are so cool and chilled.

A big thank you to all my people for being who they are and you lot just made my day that much better. Thank you and may Allah reward you accordingly :D

Hoyo's Advice

2007-06-02T14:04:00.000+01:00

1. Pray Istikhari for all things be it a big decision or a small one
2. Ask those that know you what they think
3. If you make things hard for yourself they will stresss you out and just make you go grey before your time...
4. Things are never as bad as you think...Look at it from another point of view (ask famiy and friends how they see it)
5. Stop mopping and get on with things...
6. Change is enivatable...Stop stressing about it
7. Whatever you decide I love you and you are always in my duas
8. Whatever you decide after taking our advice and consulting Allah that you can NEVER regret IA Ameen

This is a snippet of the things my mother said to me on the way to Asda today...

All the years...

2007-05-25T22:00:00.000+01:00

Got to think about where life is heading. Got to thinking today while talking to a student that while we always think ourselves young and with it, we are in reality growing older and getting so far removed from things than we ever think! Life is funny that way. I look at the students day in and day out and think to myself "why are you guys doing this to yourselves?" are they nuts or is it me getting jaded without knowing it?

I am well into my quarter of century of life and I have no idea what I have done so far. Nothing other than faith seems to last. Family is changing everyday as am I always. Work and friends evolve and although some stay constant in some ways they still change on you. I am just caught up with one change when something else creeps up.

I am been put in a position at the moment where I have to make a decision about my life. I have prayed Istikhara almost after every salah. I am comfortable with the decision I am about to make but not certain without a shadow of a doubt. I have involved parents and friends and as much as they have advised they are leaving me to make this decision. I like the way they have advised and ultimately it is my decision and I understand that you can't know everything and you have to make some decisions on a little bit of knowledge and lots of faith but I am afraid. I am terrified of making a mistake. What happens if I jump in or even if I hesitate and things don't work out? Where does that leave me?

On a nice note I have finished the book I was reading (The Book of Lost Things) and I have to say I am so pleased with it. I have never read such a satisfying ending as this end. It was glorious. For once I did not have to embellish the ending to satisfy me. Its just brilliant. I am gonna start on another John Connolly book soon IA Ameen.

Best Novel I have read...Book of Lost Things

2007-05-19T08:33:00.000+01:00

If you're looking for a typical murder-mystery book, The Book of Lost Things definitely isn't it.

Author John Connolly manages to combine outrageous, yet believable fantasy with horrific murders while he entertains you with a story that holds you in thrall.

Mr. Connolly is probably best known for his Charlie Parker series, but The Book of Lost Things provides the weird adventures of a twelve-year-old boy.

John Connolly's imagination runs rampant, producing a hilarious twist on certain very familiar fairy stories as well as grim pseudo-reality.The twelve-year-old boy is David, who does everything he can think of to keep his mother alive while she's wasting away from a terminal illness. When she is finally gone, he and his father commiserate for a while, then his father becomes involved with another woman. David resents her, and resents both his father and his step-mother when they marry. He resents them both even more when the step-mother becomes pregnant, and his jealousy over the new brother and all the attention he gets drives him away from both parents, plunging him more and more into the world of books.

They move into the step-mother's house, which is larger – and David finds himself in a room with books left by its former occupant, who evidently ran off with a younger sister and was never seen again. The room's former occupant was Jonathan Tulvey, the step-mother's uncle, whom she had never met. The books he left behind also contained stories Jonathan had written; stories distorted by weird circumstances and uncomfortable endings. David becomes enamored of them. The setting is in England, during the Second World War, and although the 'new' house is fifty miles from London, a German plane, blazing from a direct hit by anti-aircraft guns, falls from the sky and lands in the sunken garden, where David happens to be. He crawls into an opening in the side of the garden to escape the flames, and immediately finds himself in a totally different land.

The country which David enters is full of unpleasant characters such as The Crooked Man and the Lupes, which are half-wolf, half-human. David meets two kindly characters, one a woodsman and another a knight on a white horse named Roland. Escaping from one near-disaster and immediately going toward another, David slowly realizes that he is changing from a boy to a man, with his viewpoint adjusted accordingly. He is faced with everything from homosexuality to cannibalism, and some very bizarre situations between. The actual Book of Lost Things is held before him as a promise for his safe return to his own country by the King in whose keeping it lies.When at last David's bravery is rewarded, along with his realization that the new wife his father has chosen and his new step-brother are people to cherish instead of to abhor, he's able to return. John Connolly has departed from the Charlie Parker tales only to create an amazing and accurate portrayal of a boy's natural jealousy moving into a more adult point of view. Yet that adult point of view retains, unlike a good many so-called mature people, a very positive knowledge that the supernatural actually exists.

Hooray for John Connolly!

I fell in love with this author when WA introduced me to him while we were in Turkey. I had read Black Angel - well I more than read I was glued to the book! I adore the way this man writes fiction. He has a way of blending things that just makes them so appealing even though they are horrific. Brilliant book - its keeping me going on these nights anyway...

Go get this book and probably every other book Mr Connolly has written, it is well Worth buying even at full price like I did!

Only two more nights now...

The Seven Knightly Virtues: by Scott Farrell

2007-05-18T17:38:00.000+01:00

There was no such thing as a “uniform” code of chivalry in the Middle Ages. Many people — from successful knights to contemplative philosophers — compiled lists of virtuous qualities, called the “knightly virtues,” which they felt defined chivalry. No two were exactly the same.
There were, however, several common themes found in these lists of knightly virtues. By combining these, we have created what we consider to be the seven knightly virtues of the modern code of chivalry:

Courage: More than bravado or bluster, today’s knight in shining armor must have the courage of the heart necessary to undertake tasks which are difficult, tedious or unglamorous, and to graciously accept the sacrifices involved.

Justice: A knight in shining armor holds him- or herself to the highest standard of behavior, and knows that “fudging” on the little rules weakens the fabric of society for everyone.

Mercy: Words and attitudes can be painful weapons in the modern world, which is why a knight in shining armor exercises mercy in his or her dealings with others, creating a sense of peace and community, rather than engendering hostility and antagonism.

Generosity: Sharing what’s valuable in life means not just giving away material goods, but also time, attention, wisdom and energy — the things that create a strong, rich and diverse community.

Faith: In the code of chivalry, “faith” means trust and integrity, and a knight in shining armor is always faithful to his or her promises, no matter how big or small they may be.

Nobility: Although this word is sometimes confused with “entitlement” or “snobbishness,” in the code of chivalry it conveys the importance of upholding one’s convictions at all times, especially when no one else is watching.

Hope: More than just a safety net in times of tragedy, hope is present every day in a modern knight’s positive outlook and cheerful demeanor — the shining armor that shields him or her, and inspires people all around.

Each of these concepts is important in itself, and every one of these virtues is an admirable quality, but when all of them blend together in one person, we discover the value, and power, of chivalry today. Modern-day knights should strive to keep these virtues alive in their own hearts, but, perhaps more importantly, they should work to bring these wonderful qualities out in the people they see every day — at home, in the office, at school or on the street corner. A person who lives by the code of chivalry in today’s world allows everyone to see their best qualities reflected in his or her shining armor.

I love this article. It sounds like something people are missing now days... Shame we don't live in the knights era...

The Somali Question

2007-05-14T09:57:00.000+01:00

I am here in my home enjoying a weetabix and milky coffee breakfast. As I sit here I am contemplating what it means to be a Somali.

This might sound strange but I have not a clue. Am I a Somali only because my parents are? Or my grandmother is? I mean I visited a friend of mine on Saturday and she has always been the same as me in that she hated the Somali community and with a passion.
I hate the community itself because it is not a good community in my eyes. They have the whole tribe thing going on, they are intrusive and want to know everything, every minute of the day. They are the people that just gossip and do nothing else. I spent a year working in the community and although I found some amazing individuals who want to make a change and better their community I found the rest to be scroungers!!!
That may sound harsh but that’s how I saw it and still do to an extent. I still only have a handful of friends from my birth place of Somalia.
I say all this because my friend recently got married to a nice Somali guy (apparently they exist in hidden places) and settle down and now she has a beautiful baby girl. I know all children are cute but this one, MashaAllah, is an exceptionally good looking Somali niece…
So back to my friend who has settle down now. She tells me that the community is “AMAZING” this from the girl who I used to tell off for rants against the community. The community is not only amazing in my friend’s perception but a wonderfully able community, which has dished out advice(good and sound apparently) by the bucket load.
She has had so many visitors and well wishers who would not normally take the time to even say Salam if they passed us on the street!!!

What I would like to know is why the sudden change of heart? Is it because my friend married a Somali guy or even that she has now added to the number of Somalis in the world??? I have asked her this and her only explanation is that the community (men and women) always think of us as been children till we get married. Does not matter that I am 25 and holding down a job, they will still call my mother to say ridiculous stuff like “Fatima I saw your eldest walking on such and such a road at 10pm” Thank God my mum always turns around to them and says “it’s because she is finishing work or a meeting or she was seeing such and such a friend”

I mean I am a Somali by birth and no way I can change that (not that I would even want to), I speak the language to an extent (I have a southerner accent apparently and I say words like abowe and macaantay!!), I like the food and can make a few dishes if I really need to. I love our way of doing things like weddings and the 7th day party the bride gets with all the halwa and hilib and timir. It’s all just lovely. We also obviously have the Islamic practices which we sometimes mix with culture and it’s all very good but there must be more to being Somali than what I have listed.

What does it mean to be a Somali?

Too Nice...

2007-05-05T23:04:00.000+01:00

I have just returned from the cinema with my family (two sisters and two brothers and myself). It has not been done for such a long time and I had missed it. Didn’t reealy realise how much I missed it till we went.

We watched Spiderman 3 and boy was it funny. The film was comical, it was meant to be a drama but it was a good comedy is all I can say. My sister and I were nearly splitting our sides from laughter. It got to the stage my brothers were embarrassed to be sat next to us.
I recommend that everyone see this film and go have fun at the acting, directing and even the music.
Oh boy … the simple joys in life. It’s got to be enjoyed while you can.

Prior to this today I was shopping for my sisters up coming 15th birthday. She is our youngest and I feel that is an achievement (poo to those who disagree) for her and we should celebrate (queue the music…). We are having a party for her (well she is having a party for herself but I do feel like I am more excited than she isJ).

I am looking forward to her “becoming an adult”

On another note I am having a hard time with men. MEN!!!
WHY?????????????????????????????????????????????????

Liar Liar...

2007-05-02T10:16:00.000+01:00

I am an avid reader. I can read most of anything and everything. I read science fiction, horror, crime, real life, fantasy, romance. Like I said I don’t discriminate. If a book has good blurb and the story appears to be interesting then it’s mine!

I do have my favourite genre obviously and at the moment its fantasy – you know things not of this world, unbelievable stuff. Stuff of FANTASY.

Well things only get complicated when people start to believe in that. What happens when people are either just crazy and really believe it or think you are stupid and therefore will believe what they are saying.

Bear with me here as I have finished a five day stretch at work where I did 63hours instead of my usual 37.5 hours.

What am I harping on about? Well I am talking about when patients lie to me. I have no idea if there are circumstances in life that will demonstrate this to others but just bear with me.
I have had a few patients in the last few days and they all in some way or another unashamedly lied to me. What I really would like to know is this. Are they lying because they are foolish people or are they lying because they think I will fall for it?

I have had a particular patient for the last 2 days and she appears not to the have the ability to speak without lying. No joke. It got to a point where when she was being reviewed by the medical team, I was doing my usual listening for changes in care and my instructions; she was spewing the same things a patient across the way had complained about. What was wrong with that was she had come in with totally different symptoms and complaints to what she was saying now.
It got to the stage where the consultant surgeon had to make some excuse and leave the patient to go and stand at the xray viewer and I observed him TREMBLING FROM LAUGHTER!!!!! I saw this – we had a senior member of staff laughing to the extent his body was shaking because what she was coming out with was utter and total c**p!
She really seemed to think she had people fooled. I had come to accept her and just grind my teeth while around her. I had better things to do than deal with false pain and vomiting. This woman would mix juice with her food in vomit bowl and give to me and say “nurse I have just been sick am I due anything?” I had to take action each and every time she did this. It’s unfair to have to spend so much time with idiots. I can bloody well tell the difference between vomit and juice with some food!!! I have to admit the thing that got to me the most was that I had to respond to her – I just couldn’t bring myself to challenge her or ignore her.

God I hope she is not there when I go back to work tomorrow.

1st Anniversary

2007-04-27T23:48:00.000+01:00

As I sit here eating 2 day old apple crumble I was made to make at 1 am by my little brother I am contemplating what has happened to the last year? Where has it gone and what have I done with it? Where are the accomplishments?

Before you all panic it’s not my birthday but rather the 1 year anniversary of my blog. Its happy anniversary to Ever! One year of putting my happenings, thoughts, feelings and any thing and everything into space.

I did it for the basic reason that I wanted some place to store all my useless stuff!!!!

Really I did it so that I could talk to my friends and keep up with their lives even when we are not living in each others pockets. I love been part of something so big. It’s cool to read peoples and have them read mine knowing they are across the world.

NM thank you for bugging me all those weeks and each time I lapsed (making me sound like an addict here) you and WA got me back with the thing you two are best at – NAGGING.
I miss you lots NM. Looking forward to your return to our fair city…

Here’s is to the next year of blogging…

The M word

2007-04-24T22:27:00.000+01:00

Life is pretty amazing. Not always in the way you hope it would be. It can be totally annoying and exacerbating.

All my friends are either married or on their way to getting married or trying to get married. I say this cause this seems to be all that’s on the topic at the moment.
Its what parents talk to me about, what friends talk to me about and even work colleges who are so into the whole “getting it where/when you can” are trying to set me up with eligible Muslim men. They question why am I not married? Why indeed. Why do people have to be paired up to be seen to be happy?

Basically it has got to the stage that I can’t talk to anyone male for fear of getting knowing looks from work colleges and more from friends.

Anyway both parents have now taken it on themselves to “present” people. Why does it have to happen to me? I know it has to happen at sometime but I think this is the worst and confusing time they could have chosen.

As with all of life when it rains it pours and I now have a nice man talking to me of what I am sure is the same subject.
Life is indeed interesting, confusing, exacerbating, exhilarating, tiring, confusing and damn good at the moment.

Green peach...

2007-04-18T22:33:00.000+01:00

Life is always weird. You know this because things change on you all the time. There is nothing you can take for granted and this more than anything else is what keeps it interesting and fresh. You wake and you are grateful you get to see another day (even if you hate work like me); somewhere within yourself you thank someone (God or Allah as you please). Don’t even think of saying you wake and just get on with getting up and ready. There is always that moment/s when you wake and you realise you are alive and you are you. This is always an inspiring thing for me.

I am a person who tends to wake early mainly for work. I get up just before 530am most days to get to work at 645am to be there and ready. I even get to have breakfast (which I take from home with me) at work as handover doesn’t actually start till 715am. I wake for Fajr most days. On my days off or when I am on an afternoon shift, I wake and think for awhile. I savour the idea that even though I have to get up and pray – meaning I have to leave my warm bed and splash cold water around to do my Wudu – I know I will go back to bed and sleep a few hours longer. That is heaven for me.

I had the good fortune of doing that today – waking and sleeping for a few extra and well deserved hours. I had the luxury of waking and getting out of bed at the grand old time of 1120am. That’s 6 more hours than normal. That’s double the sleep I get on good day when I work. Obviously this puts in a typically good mood. I get to see my mum and little brother (cheers me up even more). I laze about and head out just after mid day as this is a scout day and I have a special program planned for the scouts and leaders that will be joining me this evening. I am so excited and happy that I help my mum run a few errands and even that does not damped my spirits.
Today things are cool, I go to our favourite eatery and I get a salad (before you picture rabbit food let me tell you that this salad consists of hummus, spicy potato’s and tabula) for me and WA who is also a scout leader. While walking to meet WA I use my phone and sort some finance problems that I have been avoiding and as per usual it’s not as bad as I was imagining when I had my head buried in the sand! I m almost at WA work place when a car beeps at me and I wave thinking its some of my sisters friends from her Islamic school as there are two people in the car who are wearing white scarves! I carry on walking when I see that the car has stopped and out gets Kitty and she shouts for me, turns out WA was in the car as well! I really do need glasses. I thought Kitty’s aunt (the driver for goodness sake) was a school kid. I really can be pretty dumb at times. But hey we can’t all be 100% all the time – even a person as perfect as me has her bad days!!!!
Kitty has left our green city again after her brief yet wonderful visit to return to boring old London. What’s so great about that city anyways Kitty?? You should really consider coming home to s again and soon. I do pray that you settle in wherever place would be better for you in this life and the hereafter. Hope you my love have a great time in Canada and may what’s best for you happen InshaAllah.
I, WA, Flower lady’s sister, Kitty and her sister and Native Female’s sister had a lovely time in Nero for an hour or so discussing what hijabis discuss now days. Lord only knows what we talked about as it feels so long ago. The only thing that stuck in my head was when NF’s sister started talking about parenthood and I was thinking while listening that she is one cool mother. Her baby is 7 months old and she is already out and having job interviews. May Allah make her successful InshaAllah.
We made sure that Londinians returned to their adopted city by personally putting them and their freakishly large volume of bags on the train. While at the station we had another coffee as we had time to kill as it is said. While trying to pay for the coffee I had quick glance in my hand bag and pulled out what I had thought to be my purse. My purse is purple and lilac mixed together it is MashaAllah beautiful and when looked down and tried to get money out of it I saw to my shock and horror that I had in fact pulled out a purple always pad instead of my purse. The look on the waiter’s face just made me so embarrassed. If I was white and capable of blushing I would have been beetroot at that time. I looked down and got my purse and refused to look at the man even when he was talking to me. Obviously this was very amusing for WA who had witnessed it all to my horror.
OH the shame of it.
We returned to our favourite eatery on Wilmslow road and had to order more salad as the one I had brought earlier never reached its destination i.e. someone who shall remain anonymous had eaten it before I could get to it!!
Time is an amazing commodity. You can never return it once it’s gone. You can ponder and evaluate it but it can never be returned once it has passed. By the time we had eaten and had our usual mint tea it was 530pm and the Banker had joined us. I informed the girls that the plan for the scouts today was to have fire crew along with the fire engine to come and speak to the Scouts. I had been in touch with the Fire officer for the last few weeks and everything was confirmed. Just to make sure I phoned at 610pm and he reassured me that everything was fine and the fire crew would meet us and the Scouts at 730pm as planned. I then think to myself that since the fire officer that I am in contact with is unlikely to be the person giving the talk I should maybe speak to that person directly. I phone them at 640pm and get the message I must have been dreading (deep down somewhere) that they can’t make it as they are not allowed to leave the station all night (they work 6pm till Lord only knows)!!! My good mood carries on its own as I start to panic. We have no plan for the scouts. This fire crew session was going to take up all the meeting time for our group. What do I do now? This is all that’s going through my mind. Its then that I realise I am not alone. WA and the Banker are with me and the Ketchup is on her way. We are geniuses cause we pull it off and it turns out to be one of the best Scouts meeting I attend and the kids seem to really benefit from it. The Fire crew session is shelved till next week. The kids are none the wiser as I never told them the plan as I must have been intuitive about the likelihood that it would be cancelled…

There is reason to be grateful each and every time you wake. You have no clue what you will go though that day. Be grateful even if it is not to your liking and it diverts from your original plan as it maybe better this way for you. And anyways you are who you are before of the crap and good things you experience.
It’s late now and tomorrow is work day but it’s a good kind of workday as I start at lunchtime. Another sleep in whooo whooo…it’s good to be alive now

Say... Say...

2007-04-16T22:17:00.000+01:00

Government Yard...Good friends we had… in this great future you can forget your past …

I have no clue what to write about. Should I mention the most recent of events or the most important or the most disturbing things that have happened??

I have been working as work is a permanent feature in my life. I am so tired of the work I do even if it is satisfying all the time. Does it even make sense to find something tiring and satisfying at the same time? I have no idea the direction my work should take. I have had two full years at the same place now. What should I do? Where shall I take it from here if I don't get into Uni to do Midwifery?? I am tired of people dying on me and before anyone says “that’s part of life” stop yourself and think when have you had to witness it on weekly basis and when did you last wash a dead person or looked at the patients family and said those God awful words that sound fake even when you really mean them “I am sorry for your loss”
I am just tired in my soul. I feel older than my 25 years. I need a relaxing job in an office (maybe managing a GP surgery, eh?).

Since I have been back home I have immersed myself in work not only at the hospital but with scouts and at home. I am trying to make my flat into a home and its just not really working. It always looks like an iskabule place (that means a shababs house btw!). It needs that special touch that only married people or mums seem capable of. I have really tried and it looks nice enough but not to my satisfaction.
I am getting a new kitchen and bathroom in a few weeks time InshaAllah though. That might just be what my place needs.
This is what I have done in the last two months (for those of you that want to be updated on my boring, work centred life)

· Attend Mary’s show at Royal Exchange Theatre
· Make dinner for friends at my place
· Attend study days (2 in last month)
· Spend a lovely weekend in London with friends
· Go to 2 leaving dinners (Banker’s and Twin’s)
· Become GSL in our scouts group
· I have a new roommate (my 16 year old bro is moving in!)
· I did a career talk at Xavarian
· I did a Health and Social care talk at Bolton School
· We had a picnic at Hullard Park
· I attended a few Tuesday circles

OK so now I am bored with writing about my life. It is boring and sad at the moment. Will write again when I can articulate what is happening really in my part of the world.

I have access to Internet again so I will once again be polluting and taking up unnecessary space on the net… long may it continue.

Back Home (Better late than NEVER)

2007-02-17T20:08:00.000Z

I have been back home for 5 days now. I have thus far spent 3 days at home with Mummy. I have been to work once. I have been to a birthday party. I have attended the wedding of the teacher Twin. I feel like CRAP!

Let me repeat that I feel absolutely CRAP! I feel this not because I am back home in the land of the rain and cold but because I was LATE to my friends wedding. I arrived 2hours late to a wedding. I arrived AFTER the bride (who looked dazzling in her pink princess gown btw). I feel terrible.

I am trying to think of ways to make it up to her. If this was me and a so called friend had done this to me I would be most upset. I really don't know how to sort it so make dua for me anyway.

I have no hope that my lateness was missed as both the brides mum and my friends commented on it. I am such a bad time keeper. Believe it or not I had gotten up at 830am and was still late for the midday start (I got there at 205pm!!).

Allah grant me the ability to keep time. Ameen.

Crazy Laws

2007-02-10T17:32:00.000Z

America:

A special law prohibits unmarried women from parachuting on Sunday or she shall risk arrest, fine, and/or jailing. (She can however risk her life on Saturdays!!).

Men may not be seen publicly in any kind of strapless gown. (What!??).

You may not fart in a public place after 6 P.M. on Thursdays. (make sure you consume your beans prior to Thursday morning!!).

No vehicle without a driver may exceed 60 miles per hour. (How do they punish the car?).

Animals are banned from mating publicly within 1,500 feet of a tavern, school, or place of worship. (How do they punish the animals? Hee Hee!).

The value of Pi is 4, and not 3.1415..... (What? Honest to God that was a law in the good old US of A!!).

The penalty for jumping off a building is death. (IF you survive that is!).

England:

It is legal for an Englishman to shoot a Welshman with a longbow, provided the Englishman is in England and the Welshman is on the Welsh side of the border. (I assume the this works both ways right?!!).

It is illegal for a lady to eat chocolates on a public conveyance. (Huh??!).

London Hackney Carriages (taxis/cabs) must carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats. (What?!!).

A bed may not be hung out of a window. (You can however hung you couch out to dry BUT only on Wednesdays. Nah! Made that last bit up).

It is illegal for a Member of Parliament to enter the House of Commons wearing a full suit of armour. (It is legal for any Tom, Mohammed and Hamza to do it though).

OK so I am now officially bored with this as only USA and England seem to have this laws.

believe it or not some of this laws are still in the books although no one enforces them!

I'll leave you to guess which are still in the books and which have been removed once the lawmakers gray cells woke up...

Only 24 hours more in this land of sunshine.

We went to a cafe today and painted our own mug (tea cup not my face) and shark!

Talons and Sunburn

2007-02-08T15:31:00.000Z

I got my first manicure and pedicure today. Although I have had these 'PROCEDURES' done before, I can honestly say never like this! I had the longest manicure to begin with. I sat there trying not to cringe when they filed my nails. It always seems like torture to me and I have never understood people who have this done or do it to themselves twice weekly or a weekly basis.

Anyways I had paid for it and therefore had to endure it.

I must admit I actually enjoyed the pedicure as it was part massage, part foot spa and full pampering.

Definitely will go back for that alone.

I had a brown colour painted on my nails that I soon regretted but I am very bad at complaining so I thanked the lady and went on my merry way!!!

I have to admit I have had pampering month here and it had better show or else. I have spend nearly two weeks at a ladies only club. I have enjoyed the sauna, steam rooms, occasionally I ventured into the gym but only so I could keep having their fattening ice creams and cocktails.

I have spent countless hours by the pool side (only literally two hours in the whole two weeks in the pool though) basking in the sun and trying to get a tan. I once fell asleep and woke to with awful pain on my back. I had burned myself in the afternoon sun!

How black people burn never made sense to me.

I did manage to burn myself in Egypt too. I always get cocky and don't apply sun cream properly.

Well my pampring sessions are coming to close. I only have to get a hair cut and then I am done and dusted IA Ameen.

Life away from Manchester...

2007-02-08T07:54:00.000Z

Life here has been a laugh (mainly I am laughing at myself at the stupidity of the things I do and say). No joke. Every time I step outside of the home something ridiculous happens to me.

Lets just look at yesterday...

I woke up and as per usual I had over slept but hey there is no work to be done so I just continued to get ready at a nice and easy pace. I got breakfast (it should really have been lunch but who's counting!), read the newspaper and got ready to leave the house.

My aunt noticed me leaving and I got given a little errand to run. No problems so far.

I leave the house walking in between two houses to get to the main road to flag down a taxi (taxis are my main form of transport here as it's really efficient and cheap to boot). As I am stepping on to the pavement to wave a taxi down one nearly runs me over. It's like these guys are psychic or something.

I get in and give a destination. He sits there looking blank. I tell him the destination again. He is still sat there and then he has the cheek to turn around and say in plain English "Why don't you speak to me in Arabic Ma'am"

I tell him like I told the countless others before him "I don't speak Arabic" and they always seem shocked at this. But you are Somali...But you are here...and such other none sense.

Anyway we get to the shopping centre safely but with my ears hurting (he has been giving me a lecture for the last 10 minutes on how disgraceful it it that I don't speak Arabic). I jump out of the taxi and don't even collect my change. Oh to be away from him. Although I have had other drivers do this I have yet to come across someone who manges to speak the language so well that I wasn't just sat in back seat laughing at him.

I nearly tripped in my haste to get away from the taxi and did something to my shoe. I forgot about it and composed myself and went into this POSH shopping centre. I am the only person not wearing an abaya (the black covering that the women wear here) and ridiculous high heeled shoes. I got a few stares and I gave a few as I saw all around me women in the most awful looking shoes. I even giggled to myself (they must have thought I was sightly khafif).

I went into one of the poshest shops in the centre was collecting something I was asked by my aunt when low and behold my shoe (sandals) fell apart. This is what I had done in trying to get away from the taxi driver.

Wallahi I was the most embarrassed that I have ever been in my life. I walked out of the shop in hysterical laughter at how I must have looked. Here is woman holding her shoes in her hands and walking in the shopping centre. The stares I had previously got were nothing compared to the ones I was getting now. I was laughing so hard that I had to sit down in a cafe and order a cooling drink. I had tears streaming down my face from the laughter. Every time I even thought about how I was going to get home without shoes I had a fresh dose of the giggles. The waitress kept coming back to me and asking me if I was OK. All I could do was nod.

After ten minutes of sitting and trying to compose myself I saw across from the cafe a SHOE SHOP!! All was not lost...
I bought a pair of granny sandals ( beggars can't be choosers right) and headed home before something else happen to me.

I am about to go out for the day. I am picking up an abaya for me and having lunch with friend so I might be safe from over zealous taxi drivers and disintegrating sandals...

IA Ameen

Pictures from Abu Dhabi continued...

2007-02-06T07:31:00.000Z

This is picture taken while my aunt was driving at 120 miles per hour! What you can see in the distance is Dubai. It was amazingly warm day without being stifling. We drove for about an hour to get the place called Ibn Batuta Mall. The mall is just amazing. It has 4 or 5 different country themes. The is the China section which you can recognise by the Chinese style entrance and hall. There is Persian, Egyptian and Moroccan sections and some sections that I can't remember.

This a picture taken outside the mall yet again showing Dubai in the far of distance. The place was just lovely.

This is the hall of the China section. Here were suppose to be mostly Chinese shops selling Chinese wares. Obviously as people here seem to adore Italian furniture that seem to be a big section of China! Go figure. I had nice fresh mango and avocado juice here in cafe just off the entrance. We were waiting for the desert safari man to come and collect us. He did come to pick us up on time but we had two more people to pick up and it took him another hour and thirty minutes to locate the two people. I could have screamed (not sure if I didn't). We finally set of at 5pm instead of the planned 330pm. I was sat in the front seat so that I could get the best view while dune bashing. We went up and down dudes that were suppose to be tame but were terrifying for me a novice at all this action. I felt positively travel sick and once we had stopped to takes pictures I swapped seats with one of the other passengers only to find out that it's not that much better to sat in the back.

Here is picture I took of the desert. It was a quite green desert and had shrubs and what looked like lemon bushes growing around the place. Check out the camel farm in the background. The people here get an allowance for raining camels. My aunt compared it to the child allowance we get in England!LOL!

This is a picture of the sunset. We had bee driving round the dunes for about an hour. Some drivers got stuck in the sand (one inexperienced driver managed to get stuck twice and had to be rescued by our driver.

This picture of the camp where we were to have dinner and 'entertainment'!!

The meal was wonderful really. I had the vegetarian option as I got so much meat while I have been here. I got questioned by two workers about my being a vegetarian. They seem to think you had to be vegetarian to enjoy the nice food with out meat! People are certainly strange in the country.

This is our driver serving me traditional coffee. Khahwa I think it's called. Boy was it strong hence the tiny cups. I had dates to go with it as it was also quite bitter.

I am sat where the men are suppose to be. I was the twin bride when I noticed them get up and go some place. I obviously had to take advantage and sit in their place if only to take some photos. I did get carried away and forgot to leave so that when I saw them walking towards us the twin was desperately shouting for me to get up and give them their place back and me being me just remaining sitting thinking they might sit further down the tent.

Well it appears it was not to be as they stared at me and walked past to nowhere in particular!! I had scared them off and according to the twin they were too polite to request the seats back. I was doubled over in laughter. I looked around and realised I was the only female sat in this particular tent as the twin had abandoned me and was standing a little away and frowning at me! Oh the joys of pretending to be an ignorant never seize to amaze me.

This is picture that was taken at a place called Global Village just outside of Dubai. Its part of the Shopping Festival that Dubai holds every year. It's a massive place that has representation from all over the world and as its name suggests it is a global village. We travelled from Syria in Jordon and crossed over to China and then went to India via the back door!!! LOL!! Its was hilarious! This is obviously a picture of the entrance of Nepal which I didn't visit actually. Maybe next year IA.

This is a picture inside the India pavilion at Global Village. We just had fleeting glance at it.

Till next time blogger lets me upload pics.

I only have two more days here now so will probably not get a chance to put the rest of pictures up before home time. I can't wait to be back home in the clod and the snow (hope it has snowed in Manchester).

Crazy World

2007-02-05T14:43:00.000Z

Behead Muslims who join the army, says notorious preacher. The banned group leader calls them 'apostates'.
One of Britain's most notorious Islamist Preachers warned that any Muslim who joins the army should expect to be beheaded.

I have not read the news or watched for the last 3 blissful weeks. I had to of course pick today to read the news for a nice late breakfast at just before mid-day. I had enjoyed my lie in today. I woke up refreshed and full of energy.
I was having my peppermint tea when I got to the UK section of the Gulf News which my Uncle gets delivered every morning.

Actually before this article I had read of an article where 3 16 year old boys had raped and beat a 10 your old boy from their school. This did not happen in the US or the UK. It had happened right here the UAE - in Abu Dhabi to be specific.
I was already regretting reading the news as it wiped off my wonderful glow of being rested and happy. I liked living in that ignorance. My friend teases me that I have a weak soul as I tend to remove those things that I think harm me rather than deal with them as an adult who is control of herself. I, for instance, have no TV in my home as I had a horrid addiction to it and rather than curb myself and say 'I'll only watch certain things' I got rid and have stayed away. If that is weak I am cool with weak as it saves me anyway.

Getting sidelined there...

This article basically said that Omer Bakri who was the leader of a group called Al Muhajiroun had said ' Muslims who join any army that are terrorists killing their brothers and sisters'. He has endorsed the killing of the Muslim soldiers. He seems to think this a fair and just way to deal with something he sees as wrong. He is doing this in the name of Islam and people would believe it and think this is Islam.
I am tired of so called leaders of every group under the sun saying they are doing the will of Allah and following the Quran and following the ways of our beloved Prophet (SAW) when they are doing anything but.
Under neath this article was a two line thing about arrests made in Birmingham regarding a bunch of young Muslim boys who had followed this loons advice and had apparently tried to kidnap a Muslim soldier on leave there and planned to behead him.
Now tell me whats wrong with that picture???? One thousand and one things obviously. The ones that jump to my mind are - how could a group of Muslim young men follow this obviously deluded man and try to kidnap a Muslim soldier and plan on beheading him. How would they justify it? How could they say what they are doing is within the realm of Islam??

The answer to that is simple - they can't.

As a person who has planned on joining the army - this has me worried. Whats wrong with our young people? I still consider myself to be young and I can't even think of any way I would end up in the position these boys are. Where did things go wrong that these boys were left open to this incomprehensible idea. How did this man get inside these boys heads?
As Muslims we tend to be suspicious of news - I at least am so forgive me for generalising. If this crime was like all the other things that British young Muslims had been accused of ( and they have been false and no apology has been forthcoming) then I am even more worried. I have no real faith in my government and certainly on in the newspapers. I think I just believed this cause it touched too close to home. I am worried as it is about the army. Something I will be part of real soon.

This has kinda put a damper on my holidays. We are having sand storms here at the moment.

Today is my first day here that I have stayed indoors and I am feeling confined...

Pictures from Abu Dhabi

2007-02-04T06:34:00.000Z

This is Ikea in a place called Marina Mall. As soon as I saw this I felt right at home!! They have wonderful cafes and shops there and it is only a short walk to the corniche (the beaches). As soon as my Aunt collected me from the Airport, she took me here a bought me a cool and refreshing cocktail. We sat and people watched for a good hour.

This is the house that I have been staying for the last three weeks. I fell in love with the city as soon as we left the Airport. I think that I had imagined as a dry and sandy place that I was just struck mute by the actual place.

This the pet of the house I have been staying at. She is called Tomika and mostly responds to it. She is a cool cat in the day but at night she changes and creeps the hell out of me. She scratches at my door and bangs her head against it to try and open it. She also looks like she is dead when she sleeps at night. I have taken to locking my door at night and putting weights against it!!!

One of my Aunt's friends invited us for breakfast and this is the view from her sitting room. She lives on the 21st floor in a large apartment. She is literally 2 minutes from the beach and gets this lovely sea air breeze from her window. Some people are just blessed.

This is my favourite picture so far in my holidays. It's our local masjid and it proclaims the Adhan ever so loudly. I even hear it at fajr and it wakes me up. I love hearing the Adhan everywhere I go. People turn off music and radio when it comes on. Imagine Trafford Centre and you are shopping - suddenly you can hear the Adhan and shops turn off the music and even close sometimes. It's a wonderful thing.

Greetings from Abu Dhabi

2007-01-30T08:08:00.000Z

Well there is so much that I could say about what I have been doing but I really don't have the time. All I will say is that I have been having lots of fun and enjoying the sunshine (Alhamdullilah it's been warm without been too hot). I have enjoyed two things above all else that I have done in this beautiful city and that is Desert Safari with camel riding thrown in and obviously SHOPPING!

I miss Manchester with all my family and friends but I am still enjoying myself. My aunt that I am staying with has made it her duty to show me all that this place has to offer. I have job hunted on the phone but not been to see the hospitals yet. They all look good from the outside tho...

Keep in touch people.

How are the Hajji's doing?

Insonia - have the kittens arrived yet?

Cha..Cha...Changes

2007-01-09T14:32:00.000Z

I have not blogged recently as I have not realy felt the need to. Normaly I feel like I need to say something but over the last few days/weeks (I am very hazy on time passing at moment) I have been too worried and excited about things in my life to blog.

As per usual I have been working - I have done the longest strech of nights in the WORLD! I am just about to finish tonight a 12 night strech. It has been intersting to say the least. To be honest though I feel like I have improved as a nurse. I have gotten better with my time keeping if not with my sleeping. It has been even harder than usual to sleep on this strech of nights. I have managed perhaps an average day sleep of 4-5 hours. It is realy showing on me!!!

After tonight I am free as a bird for a whole month. I am having a birthday party for the Little Man who is turning 4 tomorrow (10/01/07).

Then it's pack like crazy for me as I head to the Capital for few days before departing to Abu Dhabi for 4 WEEKS! I am excited and scared at the same time.

I am excited that I am going to be seeing another way of living - from the not working perspective as well as from the change of enviroment. I am excited that I will have the opportunity to explore a new city/country and get to discover it in my own pace and way. I am terribly excited about having so much time on my hands. I have not had that since I finished University and started working 4 years ago now. I am looking forward to making use of that time to reaquaint myself with my Deen. Read the Quran the way I mean to read instead of the way I do now - fast and to get it done with. Pray those extra prayers that I normaly think "I don't have time for"

I am mostly excited about letting my body and mind recover from the crap that I put it through. I am especialy aiming on getting the recomended 8 hours of quality sleep AT NIGHT!!!!

On the other hand I am very nervous about going away and travelling by myself. It is a long way and invloves changing planes in Doha. I am terrible when it comes to changing trains and in my own city here. I dread to think what I could do wrong.For the time being the excitement wins over the fear. Lets hope it stays that way.

I am even looking forward to being in the capital for a few days. I booked my flight with the intention of seeing a certain friend of mine who I have not seen for well over a year. I had thought that if I booked the flight from London then I would definitely see her but alas she has not replied to text or phone calls. I suppose the intention was there so I hope to atleast to make her realise that I did mean to see her and not just leave without a Salam. I pray that you are well and recovering fast. Ameen.

I plan on blogging while away so hopefuly this might even become a holiday diary...

Please keep me in your prayers

Eid 2006

2006-12-31T20:02:00.000Z

2006-12-31T19:40:00.000Z

Eid Mubarak friends and family. I pray that Allah always protects us and guides to the right path. Here is to a new and blessed year. Sending lots of love to you all.

Allah bring the Haji's back safe and sound to us.

Ameen

2006-12-10T11:13:00.000Z

Real Men Knit Trailer

OH MY LORD!!! What is the world coming to?
I am just starting to deal with my sisters and friends knitting but now I also have to deal with MEN knitting? Why Lord why?
Am I the only one who disturbed by this knitting craze?

2006-12-07T14:10:00.000Z

Pursuit Of Happyness

This looks to be great film. Anyone up for seeing it?

What Is A Dad (Abe)?

2006-12-07T11:29:00.000Z

A dad is someone who
wants to catch you before you fall
but instead picks you up,
brushes you off,
and lets you try again.

A dad is someone who
wants to keep you from making mistakes
but instead lets you find your own way,
even though his heart breaks in silence
when you get hurt.

A dad is someone who
holds you when you cry,
scolds you when you break the rules,
shines with pride when you succeed,
and has faith in you even when you fail...

My Dad is not perfect...

He is wonderful in that he has always been there to offer advice and support.

My favourite memory of Abe is of him doing my hair while my mum was away - imagine this. A little black girl, with very long hair and so many curls and there is this poor father who has never had to do this and he is attemping it with such single minded determination. I was only 9 years old and I will never forget it. My head hurt for days after ...

I am the oldest of 10 children. Abe loves us in such different ways and yet I have never felt that he loves one more than the other and as I have become an adult I have come to appreciate how much work and thought goes into maintaining this.

Abe has been my best supporter and the one who always asks the outcome of everthing that I have ever attempted.

No matter what I give and do for Abe and Hoyo I would not be able to repay one once of my dept to them. I just make dua for them all the time and try to show them that I appreciate them.

May Allah reward Abe for all his hard work and patience. May Allah keep them happy and healthy and may they remain with us for many years to come.

Ameen

Life Changes

2006-12-07T10:26:00.000Z

Everyone knows that life has a way of passing you by unless you take charge and decide what you are going to do with it. You make Dua and seek guidance and then you take the required action to get what you want. Well after 6 years I have finaly taken the plunge and joined the army!

I can imagine the gasps and ladies fainting...Men trying to remain composed...

It's not that bad and I feel that the army will have so much to offer me that would help me in my life both in my career and my commitment to my Deen.

The army will hopefully build my confidence, my discipline, my fitness level would certanly improve, my leadership skills would be one to contend with and most importantly it will be a great dawa opportunity.

With most of our parents generation this was a normal occurrence as they all had to join the forces for atleast a year when their education was complete and before they joined the work force. This was certanly the case with my own parents and I would like to follow in their foot steps (atleast this is what I am telling them).

I had the interview today and I will need to have another one witht the Field 207 Hospital in few weeks time Inshaallah. The base is next to where I live it turns out. I went all the way to Liverpool to attend this interview and I find out that my base will be a walking distance from me. Alhamdullilah.

All I need to do now is get fit...

Last Half of November

2006-11-27T16:14:00.000Z

Well Manchester has continued to amaze and astound me. I have had an enlighten time of it in the month of November. The first thing that happened this month that will forever stay with me is the ceremony of Remembrance Day that was held in the city centre of Manchester. I had always either seen it on TV or watched from the side lines with all the other people who had come to pay their respects. This year was to be different, my sister was part of the ceremony and I got to attend as a guest. I was basically standing just behind the army, navy and police representatives who were to lay the reefs down in St Peter square. I got to observe the whole ritual from the inside. This ritual has such a history and meaning for so many people. It was really hard for me to stand with some of the people of Manchester and just observe without disintegrating into tears as the majority of those around me had.
If truth be told I was so proud of my little sister keeping it together and representing her family and community so well. In the end she and some of the other youths who had taken part were greeted by the Mayor of Manchester who gave them badges as a thank you. Their faces were a picture.

We ended up going home really happy and fulfilled, my father attended the ceremony and we had brunch at the town hall with the other guests. We went as a family to see what my sister’s tent was like. If you remember the tent was where the Experience Islam was taking place. My Father was rather impressed with the end result of the tend and the place was filled with people walking round, talking to each other, having health checks, reading the Quran, having mint tea on the floor(!) and generally enjoying the exhibition. . The tent had an exhibition of different national dress as worn by Muslim women. Most people seemed fascinated with this.

I have been working hard as usual. I mean it’s hard to give less than 100% to ill people. You can’t really pretend with them. They tend to see right through you if you put on an act of caring. Most of my patients and colleges are easy to get along with and easy to look after. But as with everything there are exceptions to the rule. I normally have ten patients to look after and NORMALLY all of them are lovely and easy to nurse and get on with. Last Friday things changed, something that had not happened for at least a year happened. I cried. Let me start at the beginning of this episode. This particular person had been my patient for a few weeks and I swear I used to dread visiting times. Although the patient was lovely, his family was the stuff of nightmares. Especially the daughter. She just has this thing where she just has to pick holes in everything. She was just a natural born complainer but also a female dog!!! Anyways the day dawned when this patient could go home. Only problem was that no-one thought to tell his nurse (ME!!). First I knew about it was when the family turned up at 1230pm. I guessed by the fact that they had come early (normal visiting times starts 2pm). I ran around like crazy, I literally bent over backwards trying to help my patient go home as early as possible. This is the conversation that followed:-

Female dog: Some one rang me to say come collect my father. WHY is he not ready?
Meek Nurse (me): I only found out at 1230. It’s gonna take me a while to sort out his discharge. I need to sort his meds, dressings, district nurse letter and appointment at clinic. Just bear with me.
Female Dog: I AM SICK of this HOSPITAL and it’s incompetent STAFF.
Meek Nurse: It wasn’t me who spoke to you and I am trying to get things done as fast as possible to make it easier for your father.
Female Dog: I AM SICK of your PATHETIC excuses.
Meek Nurse: I AM TRYING MY BEST (the ward went quite). I would appreciate it if you did not shout at me. I understand that you are angry but direct it at the right person.
Female Dog: I AM NOT SHOUTING AT YOU!
Meek Nurse: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING THEN?!!!?

At that point when I had made suitably shame faced and I had basically won. I felt something on my cheeks. Hot, wet tears were falling on my face and I wasn’t even aware of it till I felt the wetness. I turned on my heels and walked off. Straight pass the other nurses, docs and people around the ward and into the bathroom. I stayed there for a full 10 minutes till the stupid tears stopped.
I managed to sort all the problems out and was able to discharge my patient. Did she apologise? No she did not! Some people are like that and no matter what they will not admit they are wrong.

There are some other episodes that I would love to write about like the little Asian lady who insulted me just because I offered her help. I’ll save that and the bus Scarabs continuing story for another day InshaAllah.

Love of Manchester

2006-11-11T22:52:00.000Z

I haven’t been on the net recently (a few weeks I guess). I have been working hard to keep the NHS afloat all by my lonesome! The truth is I have been working (hard and tirelessly) but main reason for not blogging or going on the net has been lack of a computer. My sister has been stressing about an exhibition which she had to design a poster and leaflets for and therefore she has been hogging it day and night. She did well with the designs MashaAllah.
Life, as per usual, has been an up and down affair. I must say that I love the people of Manchester. I can never have two same days either at work or with family and friends. Mainly fantastic days were the days I have been at work and I come home and collapse into bed and on my days off I see my family and friends. I am really enjoying the work area of my life at the moment. On a few shifts at work I have been the most senior person on duty and it didn’t scare me as much as I thought it might. My manager is finally taking a bit of notice of my career development and has put me forward for two training programs. Looking forward to been a part-time student again (although God knows what this will do to my midwifery plans as I can hardly up sticks and leave mid training). My hospital has finaly got me long sleeved tops after 3 years in employment with them. I mean it only took nearly hundreds of phone calls and letters from me and other Muslim nurses for anyone to take notice of our simple request. They do say good things come to those who wait...
I am enjoying not having to take up extra shifts, even though I am broke and in desperate need of money, so that I can see my friends and family much more. In the last month or so I have had two dinner parties at my flat and I have enjoyed them so much that I really do get upset when the guests have to head home!! Some of my friends have just in fact left me now and I felt so sad. They had been here from 530pm till 1030pm and I still couldn’t let them go merrily (I felt better marginally when they themselves showed reluctance to go!). I managed to make some food which they ate and seemed to like. We talked of world politics, niqabs, mosques, women and men’s relations, my water bill, electric bill and finally we had some semi-cooking lessons were we gave each other advice on how to improve our cooking (the advice seemed to come from all the guests to my direction?!). Although I could put the weather down as a down side to life at the moment, I won’t as I am truly enjoying the wet and windy weather as it means I get to wear layers and coats and heavy duty socks and scarves and so much more. I know I am a freak in this sense but I in actuality do enjoy this kind of weather especially when I see idiots who appear to have lived in this country wearing next to nothing in this weather and then I feel smug and that the Lord who gave me common sense.
I leafleted for my sister to day in the centre of Manchester. I got given a few (maybe a couple of hundred or so) leaflets and sent into the world on my own as my partner had not turned up. I was cold and miserable to begin with but cheered up and if truth be told enjoyed it by the end. A few people stopped to talk to me regarding the leaflets once they took it and read it but the majority appeared to do what I normally do when given leaflets in town – put it in my bag or the nearest bin depending on how I feel. I did get a couple weird people. One of them took the leaflet and less than a minute latter came back, threw the leaflet at me and said “absolutely not”, but she failed to elaborate more and stalked off. My reaction?? I laughed and laughed! The second incident was with another woman who snatched the leaflet off me and then read it and said “Islam? Don’t think so”. I should elaborate more and tell you that these leaflets said “Experience Islam” on them and were offering henna, food, tea and exhibitions. I did wonder why the people who seemed to have a problem with the leaflets or the idea of experiencing Islam so horrid were women?!

The down side to the last few weeks has been public transport. I have truly given up on the idea of resurrecting my car. I mean I could buy a new one but they are so expensive and take a lot of maintenance and just sheer EFFORT which I don’t have. So I came to the conclusion that since public transport is good enough for ¾ of population than its fine with me. Obviously this was before I actually started relying on the bus to get me to places other than the once a week leisurely ride into town. What a nightmare the transport system is. The buses have their own time-table not the one that’s printed at the stops. They can turn up 10-50minutes early or late depending on how they (buses and their drivers) feel. Forget the poor sods that have to get to work!!! This is not even the beginning of what’s wrong with the transport system. OH NO! The problem comes once you are on the actual bus. You get on and sit yourself down (if there is a seat available) and nearly 9 out of ten times some weirdo will park himself right next to you and try to start a conversation with you. My last encounter with the species that is known as the Bus Scarab happened Thursday morning. I was heading from work and boarded the bus and sat down and zoned out as per usual. Next stop people got on and off and a man came and sat next to me. He sat and turned to me and said “hello” I replied hi and went back to staring into space as is the decorum when sat next to a stranger (am I alone in thinking this?) on public transport. We sat quietly and next minute he says “how you doing?” I again looked at him and replied in my most monotone voice “fine”. Any normal person would have picked up on my facial expression and my voice that I don’t really want to speak to them and maybe I don’t actually want be sat next to them. But as I said previously said this man is what I like to call Bus Scarab. He them stayed silent for few minutes and then turned to me fully this time and said “so… how’s life going?”
At this I lost control and laughed in his face. It was a compulsion and could not be stopped but Alhamdullilah my stop was next and I made good my escape without any problems.
Really public transport is just irritating and entertaining at the same time. I look forward to meeting some more different species of people on the buses.

Family, Ramadan and Eid

2006-10-28T15:38:00.000+01:00

Be grateful to him who points out your defect, a great sahabi once advised the people.

It is a sign of love and respect when someone comes to you to sincerely advice you about what they perceive to be you weakness or defect. This last two weeks some of my family have come to me on different occations and talked to me to give me sincere advice about something that was either bothering them about my behaviour or just that I had upset them without knowing and they came to tell me about it. On all the occasions this happened in this short space of time I am so grateful to them I don’t know how to express it. I believe in openness when it comes to family and friends. I need people to tell me if am doing something wrong or if I have upset them or they think I have upset someone else. Please people let me know. In the spirit of Ramadan just gone and in the spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood tell me weaknesses so I might improve and change as a person. I love my sisters and brothers for their courage and consideration for my well being. I didn’t realise how some things can seem to
others. I will be better and more transparent in the future InshaAllah.

Eid Mubarak to one and all…

I pray that it was wonderful and full of great things
for you your family and friends.
This Eid was just amazing to me and I can’t believe it all done. People just come together on Eid. It’s like we are drawn to others.
The family, friends and even strangers greetings always have me chocking my tears back. Partly to do with the fact that it’s Eid and everyone is together but also because another Ramadan has gone never to be experienced in this way again.

We will all be different next time (InshaAllah we will be all together again next Ramadan).
I am always thinking that if only that it could be Ramadan every day but then I might not think it so special and breathtaking and weep for it when its not here anymore . I pray that Allah has accepted our duas, prayers, qiyams and most of all our sawm. Ameen. Only the best past the test so here's to us all been the best in our Deen and may we always reamain friends who guide each other to the right road and protect each other from haram. Ameen.

Eid...Eid...Eid...Eid...Eid has come and was enjoyed by all Alhamdulillah.
On Eid morning the family woke between 6 am and 8 am and after a lot of shouting and noise (mainly from my Dad) we managed to go to Didsbury mosque and it was weird case we had to pray in two separate prayers. I drove and since there was one car I had to make two trips. It was wonderful but it meant my parents and little brother made it for one prayer and me and MD, AD, the Little Man made it for the a different time to them and they even left the mosque before we finished.
It always amazes me, the beauty of the people in their Eid clothes. You see so many different traditional dress in just one mosque.

The kids are absolutely wonderful; they are so excitable about everything. They get high about Eid clothes, parties and visiting people. When did I grow out of this you ask? Well…didn’t quite grow out of it. I adore the buying and wearing of Eid clothes, attending or throwing Eid parties and visiting people. Didn’t actually manage to see that many people this year but the ones I saw were great.

On our return home from the mosque my family separated for Eid breakfast. The boys go to go and eat at my grans house and the girls and Dad stayed and ate at home. My mum normally makes pancakes for breakfast but this year we had sukhaar and bread. She did make the pancake but only a small amount to be had after the sukhaar. It was truly great. Normally I would be working in the afternoon or the night but not this year.

We sat about and headed to town after awhile to see the eagerly await movie Open Season! Yep, another cartoon for Eid!!! I can’t lie and say it wasn’t fun though because it was enjoyable. We managed to visit the MYF. Some poor guy was working on Eid day. Poor dude.
We caught our movie and split again. This time MD took my two cousins and AD to Nemo’s place for a little more celebrations. I and The Revert went to do some shopping for our Eid party for the kiddies the next day. We managed to buy presents for past the parcel and lots of wonderful balloons to decorate my flat.

We stayed at Nemo’s place till late and managed to play lots of games that ended up giving me a headache – Nemo’s Dad even told us off for the noise levels.
As has been my habit for the ;last two weeks almost I slept at mums and had plans to get up early and decorate flat for the party…well best laid plans and all that.
The cousins came over as stated two pm and the flat wasn’t ready and me and MD put them all in my room and stuck on DVD while MD made the food and I did the decorating. It turned out great and the kids and the rest of us all had fun.

It was a brilliant two days of festivities with friends and family and I can’t wait for next Eid…

Ramadan Nasheed (Song really)

2006-10-17T17:11:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BtNv2eRwRc

Ramadan is nearly done and I adored this song (even if it has musical instruments). I love all the different languages they sing in. I loved the family theme that runs through the video.

Bring on Eid...

Mountains of Mecca

2006-10-17T16:10:00.000+01:00

This a nasheed by Zain Bhikha.

A dedication from me to my sisters going to Hajj this year InshaAllah. I pray that Allah guides and makes it beneficial to you and to us all on your return InshaAllah... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmZHlO2DuC0

May Allah keep you all safe and may you all return to us in the best of Iman and health.

Ameen

2006-10-16T22:35:00.000+01:00

From the errors of others, a wise woman corrects her own (1st Century B.C)

I have so much that I need to write but I can't. I might hurt some peoples feelings so I am going for the quite and demure look and keeping things to myself again. As a friend said to me 'don't judge others by your standard' so I am leaving judgement to Allah (SWA) alone.

I love this video - it always cheers me up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqAIBlGm26o

'oh the power to be strong and the wisdom to be wise...on this journey that you are making...its you who will climb the mountain , it's you who will reach the peak...let your spirit set you free'

Till next time InshaAllah

Always keep me in your Duas my friends

2006-10-10T09:48:00.000+01:00

I can't take it anymore.

I am literally having to stop myself pulling my hair out at the antics of certain people in my life.

Why is it so hard to be considerate towards me? I am I so bad a person that I don’t deserve it?

Have I upset you so much so that you can’t take the time to tell me or forgive (it is Ramadan after all) and just be helpful to me? Why is it that I am chasing people all the time?

Why can’t someone just notice I am here and I am busy and I am human and I forget and I am DOING NIGHTS!!!!!!

I AM YOUR FRIEND!!!

I am considerate of your feelings, I try so hard to maintain our friendship and keep us close but it’s hard when you do crap like this and in Ramadan. I am going to bed now and will hopefully wake to a better day than I went to sleep in.

InshaAllah.

Allah grant me patience and a gentle tongue…

2006-10-07T23:52:00.000+01:00

Well it has been awhile again...

Lots have happened including the pre Ramadan party, the Stop the War in Manchester and lots of other little things but just not had time to sit and blog about. Doesn’t really matter though because people have blogged about it i.e. check out Nemo and White African’s blogs.

Guess what I found? For those that have missed the White African’s speech i.e. all of us who were stewarding at the march. Enjoy people. The girl made me proud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeK9pOsz8D4

The most noticeable thing is that, of course, it’s Ramadan and has been for the last 15 days. I have been working nights through Ramadan and feel like I am cheating. I feel like I am not gaining anything and it’s scaring me. What if I don’t improve and better myself this Ramadan then I am a loser. I pray that Allah helps me to get pass this stage because I am really feeling low at the moment.

I have just come from the Radio station and it’s been great to spend the evening with White African, the Banker, MD, the Revert and Nemo. It’s been great to go back to the Radio and I didn’t realize how much I missed it till I went back. Hope Allah helps me get more out of my time and through this I might be able to the kiddies show maybe once/twice a week for the remaining time of Ramadan.

I do have something to be happy about though. I am seeing some really good friends tomorrow who I have not seen for a while. This is what Ramadan is about for me – making the ties of family and friendship stronger. With this in mind my plan is to contact everyone who I have neglected for the last few days/weeks/months/? years and catch up with them and hopefully re-establish the thing that made us close in the first place.

Can’t wait for these nights to be over so I can get back to a sort of ‘normal’ life.

There is Hope after all...

Can’t believe we are half way through Ramadan – make dua for me that this Ramadan does help our Iman and we live to see the next blessed Ramadan InshaAllah.

2006-09-20T17:55:00.000+01:00

Salam (peace) people.

I continue to be bored at work, the only form of entertainment happens to be my co-workers and the ever faithfull internet. It's the internet that has so entertained me last night. I found this wicked video on you tube. The dude is speaking Somali. Not the interviewer but the white guy in the video.

You have got to see this - even if you do not speak Somali it's funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtI3mXcRQHU

This is what they are saying translated to English (you might notice they somtimes speak bits of English):

Interviewer: This is Bashiil in Minoapolus(!) I am asking 5 questions. Tell us what you know about Somali traditions. What's the best thing about the Somali traditions?

White dude: (pause) They are peacfull people. They don't like war (dude obviously doesn't seem to know the history). Mumbles something about the Somalis working and living in America well (!).

Interviewer: Tell us a bit about what you think of Somalis as you have lived among them?

White dude: Somalis are good people but every tradition (does he mean people, don't know) has good people and bad people. So...But the Somali majority are good.

Interviewer: The men? The war lords? How do you feel about the tribal war lords?

White dude: (tuts throughout the question) I don't like any tribes. Because all Somalis are Muslims so if you are Muslim your tribe should be the deen (religion) of Islam (well done brother. This is how I feel all the time when a weirdo Somali comes up to me and says "so, who is your tribe then?").

Phone rings and the White dude answers it in a typical Somali dude way by saying "helllloooo". He then proceeds to tell the person at the other end he is fine "walahi" meaning I swear to/by God"

The interviewer tells him to get off the phone and they return to the interview.

Interviewer: Last question. The last question. What is your favourite Somali food?

White dude: Somali food I like? Um...ootkac and canjeelo (plain pancake and meat that is dried then fried!)

This has got to be the funnies video I have yet come accross. This has very importance usages. You might be sat there scratching your head but think of it this way. What do Somali parents always say to their kids? "Its ok to marry other people who are muslim but how will your gran/grandad understand them?" Well Mum and Dad here is the answer!!

This will enetrtain me for the rest of the week. Hope you enjoy it as uch as I have done.

Peace till next time.

2006-09-19T09:16:00.000+01:00

I had a wonderful night shift. If there exists such a thing.

I got to work nice and refreshed cause certain people kept me entertained and talking for most of the afternoon. I was on such a high cause we had finaly achieved one of our goals for our Scouts group - which was to open an account. Alhamdullilah that's done and dusted now.

I spent most of my time at work last night surfing the net and not just foir entertainment purposes but I managed to google a few medical conditions that were new to me.

I also found White African's latest blog piece and I nearly screamed with laughter. WA is absolutly wickedly funny woman. I look forward to this party now even more cause I would like to see how we manage in the end. We are Muslims tho and able tol adapt easily and manage whatever comes our way so I am sure my friends and two sisters will inshaAllah have nothing but a great time at the party.

Again my patients were wonderfull and mostly able to look after themselves apart from 1. If anyone was to search the duties of a nurse you would get a 100 things but I bet what I had to do lastnight would not even make the list if they stretched the list to 1000 duties a nurse may have. I wonder what possesses me when I carry out these jobs - only because it makes my patient feel better or such rubbish!

I was heading home this morning with all this stuff going through my mind when I boarded the bus and realised that there were about 10-15 lads sat scatered around. I mean none of them sat together although they were chatting to eachother throughout the bus journey. Am I missing something? Are lads allergic to one another now? I have brothers and I have never seen this practice before. Enlighten me people! Anyways it gets to nearly my stop when a little lad (probabily would not appriatiate been called this but he looked like my brother - tall, lanky and with lots of attitude!) boards and hands the driver a £10 note and says "50p" No "please" no nothing. Driver turns around and says "no change". The guy then shouts in the direction of the full bus "got any change, I'll pay you back at college". No-one seems to have change and they tell him so. The kid is about to get off when I get and say "it's only 50p". He looks at me and says "I'll pay you back MISS". Cute or what? Iam finaly getting addressed in the manner I want but then the driver feels for me or something and lets the kid off.

I sit back down and the kid comes back to front and says "safe". This guy who so resembles my brother Lahi and even speaks like him then goes to the back of the bus and gets asked questions about how he know me. He doesn't but he pretends to. Why? I wish I knew. Is it easier for him to accept kindness from some-one he knows rather than a stranger? Why did I bother to help even though it was only 50p? To be honest it's cause of the way the driver looked at him as if to say "disorganised black kid. Tenner is a fake anyways" I hate it when the youth are pinalised for looking a certain way or dresssing a certain way. We all do it, including myself. My brothers look like they are up t no good but they are GOOD lads and people just need to stop been obssessed with looks and see what right there infront of them.

A little kindeness can open such doors, it amazes me what people consider to be a big thing. Our prophet (SAW) was right that an act of charity, even a smile, has it's own great rewards.

Realy looking forward to this party now...

2006-09-17T19:22:00.000+01:00

Well I always knew the Somali people are good looking but his just proves my point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIEjG3BMCUo

I love how diverse my people are in looks, dress but that they are all the same in faith (I am not saying they are all devout muslims but rather they are all believers in something higher than themselves). I find the Somali people to be extraordinary.

I'll let you be the judge.

2006-09-16T23:53:00.000+01:00

This the only picture I have been able to upload (my technical vocab is getting better eh GYW?). You have in the picture The Banker, The Bosnian, The Ketchup and myself in the blue top and scarf. We look quite fetching don't we?

More pictures from Italy coming soon InshaAllah.

2006-09-16T23:32:00.000+01:00

What a Difference a Day Makes...

Last night was my first shift back after my holiday in Italy with the girls. It was in a word TORTURE! I felt like a newly qualified member of staff. I had 3 majorly ill men and 1 who needed to have been in surgery yesterday. He was my main problem, as well as the fact that I was very nevous.

I got to finally go home after more than 12hours on the ward and what's the thing that playing on my mind so much so that I have to ring the ward and enquire like a concerned relative? My patient off course!! I needed to know if he was ok, only then did I sleep for a few hours. The first thing that came to mind was him too when I woke but I managed to restrain myself and didn't ring the ward. How do people manage to detach themselves from work and other things when they get home?

I need tips on how to do this otherwise I will end up an exhausted 25 year old who could pass for 50!

Anyways the point is (there is a point after all) that I walked on to the ward realy worried and thinking of ways that I could maybe get out of work when I realise the staff were SAT DOWN. They were SAT DOWN. I needed to repeat that just incase the wonderfull meaning of this got lost. This meant that the place was not hectic and no one was dying (that they knew of anyway).
The calmness of the ward was confirmed to me during handover. My patient had finally had his op and was doing well - he was even eating and chatting way.

SubhanaAllah. How can things change in such a short span of time? I love that in this job you never know what your going to walk into. It's basically life isn't it? Yes it is so I should chill and stop complaining.

Sorry to GYW for chewing your ear off this evening.

2006-09-15T01:51:00.000+01:00

Ok two pieces in one day. It’s even worse than buses but it’s got to be done while I feel like writing.

So I seem to have come across this thing where you have to write ten amazing facts about yourself. Well as you might be aware I could be here all day and night writing about my good qualities but we must stick to JUST 10!

Ok, here we go…

1, I would give anything for my family and friends. I am a soft touch, people would say as a bad thing. What’s wrong with been soft – if your heart is hard something is truly wrong and you should try to correct it before it’s too late and no good can enter it. Sometimes I am taken advantage off but it’s not my sin if I am conned.

2, I panic easily. This always provides entertainment for my friends. I like things to be the way I planned. I don’t deal with change well. I especially hate to be late and I always seem to be – even if I leave my home hours earlier!

3, I like hording things. I missed in collecting things while I was younger so I am basically making it up now. I clean my room and home every once in while and just relocate the crap that I collect instead of getting rid.

4, I identify with people so much. I am compassionate. I find that I can cry for both sides! I once did a placement on a ward in gynaecology. I had a patient who was having a miscarriage and a patient who was having a termination. All of the staff were either for or against the termination. I found that I felt for both patients. I was really drained by the end of the shift.

5, I operate the 3 strikes and you are out rule. I will forgive and forget till you do the same thing the third time and you are truly out of my heart. I don’t get hurt easily but what hurts me is if I tell someone what bothers/hurts me and they ignore me and continue with the same habit.

6, I try so much to do the right thing ALWAYS but sometimes the result is not equal to the effort I put in but Alhamdulillah our belief system supports the fact that it’s not results that count rather it’s the effort and intention that matter.

7, I am a good listener – I absorb information like a sponge (it leaks just as easily as it is absorbed) but I am able to give sound advice. I am the supporter of the oppressed at work.

8, I can take criticism well – as long as it is constructive! I hate it when people say “you are a poor cook”. I would rather they said “you can’t cook, but good on you for trying. I know a good cook book if you want”

9, I am indecisive. But once the decision is reached it’s hard for me to go back from it even if in my own heart I know it would be better for me to.

10, I am useless with money. I can’t add up and always am so, so, so, so surprised when my bank statement arrives at the end of the month.

Well that’s 10 facts (not really facts are they till someone verifies them?!) to chew over! Are there any surprises there or was this all known previously?

2006-09-14T18:52:00.000+01:00

Well it has been a while so let’s do this in retrospect: Always the best way to do things anyway.

So when I last wrote it was in Ireland. Boy that was such a while ago – so much has happened and its not that I didn’t want to write it, rather I felt I might not be able to stop or that I might hurt someone’s feelings. Someone recently said that just because we write about a situation doesn’t mean that it has to be so obvious what you are referring to so here goes…

Sunday 16th July – we went to explore Killarney town as the girls had seen a carnival in town. They got bikes for the day and I declined as I thought walking might be better for me.
Big mistake! I walked for miles all alone as they tended to ride ahead. It was a fantastic day as the girls spent their £10 in couple hours. We had agreed before we got to Ireland that I would give them each £10 every 3 days so that they need not bother me for sweets and such! God we had so much fun. We headed back to hostel at 7pmish. We had literally spent all day at the carnival. It was wonderful to spend the time just observing the girls.

Monday 17th – Wednesday 19th July – these three days kind of blend for me cause all we did was seeing more of Killarney. We did a tour of Ring of Kerry – would not recommend this the way we did it. We were cooped up in a couch for the better part off the whole day. We had scheduled stops but only for 10-15mins each time. At the end of the tour one lady came up to me and said “you’re a wonderful mother”. I looked her right in the eyes and said “thank you. I do try”!!!! Was she blind do you think or do I just look old enough to be the mother of a 15 and 11 year old girls?! I normally get asked for ID at cinemas for 15 certificate films!

Thursday 20th – Friday 21st July – AD and HD seemed to spend most of the time arguing and I seemed to be NATO to their US and Iraq!!! For all the good it did me anyways. Sometimes they seemed to really get on and at other times they seemed ready to kill each. They are both really mature for their age when they are apart but put them together and you get two 5 year olds! They are also so sarcastic and both have such quick wit. I think they are far too much alike. There are so many problems with extended family especially second marriages and children always seem to be the victims of this. Why is it adults never consider the consequence of what they are doing. What happened to not having favourites and especially not showing it?
I would rather die a thousand deaths than let any of my children see this (I don’t yet have any by the way – talking bout the future ones God willing).

Saturday 22nd July – we woke early and basically packed and got our train back to Dublin and home to HD’s mummy. While we had been in Killarney I had had the responsibility for the girls but once I stepped into Dublin I was myself a kid. I hated feeling like that – I don’t even feel like that at home in Manchester. It was just the effect my Aunt had on me. In Killarney I woke the girls for Dawn prayer 5 out of 8 days. Not bad as I am normally really bad for waking for the Dawn prayer.

While at the hostel the girls really immersed themselves with the locals and talked to anyone. The people seemed to love talking to them and there I sat just watching most of the time. The only time I had a discussion/chat was with a French couple and a Danish guy. Picture the scene – we are sat watching a sunset and watching some kids playing football. We start talking and we obviously get around to the subject of religion. It turns out the Danish dude is an “atheist searching for a true believe system”! It also came round the need for the scarf. The French couple (they looked really young maybe 20’s but I am a bad judge of age) said it personal choice and I said no “it’s like prayer it’s been prescribed by Allah”. That really seemed to end the conversation. Why is it that everyone seems to be happy when you say that you CHOSE to do something but say that it’s part of your RELIGION and they all seem to be sorry for you? Why???? I made the choice to follow my religion!

We got back to Dublin and we were visited by my Aunts family. Everyone seemed to want to see the kids from the “other wife”!! I am not being fair here but who gives a toss. This is how I felt at the time. Like I was on display and my name plate read “Eldest Child from First Wife”. The best time I had was the Tuesday we headed back to Manchester not meaning because we were heading home but because my Aunt took us to the beach and I got to sit and just relax without having to make an effort to have a normal conversation. It’s so hard to concentrate on a mundane conversation when so much is flying through your mind?

Anyway, we got to Manchester and missed the Tuesday circle. Forgot to call my Aunt to let her know we had got home okay. Got a telling off from my dad for it. I felt really angry and disappointed. My Aunt had rang us at least once a day while we were in Killarney and I never once rang her. Why couldn’t she just ring me? She rang all the time I was planning this trip. Why not since my return? I have decided to not ring either. I sent a letter to HD telling her what’s been happening since my return but no communication between me and my Aunt. Every few days/weeks my dad will ask why I have not rang and I say I will InshaAllah. I always mean it so it’s not a lie. I will ring. When I am ready!

Enough about Ireland!
Next Italy...Hopefully I will also be able to upload some pictures from both trips InshaAllah.

2006-07-17T12:37:00.000+01:00

Exploring Ireland...

We got the 1310 train out of Dublin and arrived at Killarney station at 1715! That was saturday. That was six or so times the flight time from Manchester to Dublin. I hate trains - especially the ones that carry stinking people who have had far too much to drink and stink of smoke as well!

We had to prise my Aunty from HD as she was crying like she would never see her child again. I kept reasuring my Auty that I would return HD in less than a week. Also informed her that my mum had trusted me with AD and she should be no different. I got a list of instructions an arms lengh about what she could eat/do and after making a lot of promises she finaly relented and we were of!
We got to Killareny and as per usual got lost getting from thr train station to the bus station - they are next to each other by the way!!?

The shuttle bus picked us up and we got ourselves settled in our room. This is a wonderful place. It sits in a lot of acres of green - it is also next to a national park. It is such a relaxing place. A real place to contenplate life and all it's meanings. We realised soon after arriving that we had not brought anyfood with us. We soon got directions to the nearest shop and headed out. It was meant to be a 20 minutes walk for thee average person but for me it tookm closer to 50 minures. When we finaly made it, we shopped and I got us a TAXI back to save my sisters calling a an ambulance!

The girls didn't like the idea of waliking to places so they decided they wanted bikes. Thats a stiory for tommorow. Got to go and explore Killarney now.
Till then Wasalam people

2006-07-15T10:45:00.000+01:00

Exploring Dublin

Turns out Dublin is not ALL about the khamra (alcohol!). It has been so cool to explore this wonderful city with the assisstance of HD and AD (the two little ones) they see everything with fresh eyes and they make me excited to be here.

So far we have taken a tour of the city in boat/car thing - it basicaly took us around the city and then around the river. It just dived into the water and its wheels vanished! We have visited their central mosque - it was a beauty. It looked like one of the mosques of Egypt or even Turkey. It is purpose built and looks amazing. People came for Juma prayers and stayed and chatted in the cafeteria. It's a proper Islamic Centre.

Our Aunty was envited to a dinner prior to our comming so she took us too. Its like our circles. They ate and chatted and had a couple reminders. They are how I see us in the next 10years. There is hope for us after all - once we have babies we might not vanish off the face of the earth. These women each had like two/three kids and the were loud but the circle continued regardless! I can't wait till I am home and I can upload the pictures.

Since that we have been asleep and reading the Quran. HD is wicked at the reading the Quran. The girl puts me to shame. Its never too late to restart the memorisation of the Holy Book.

We are now on our way to the wonderful (we hope) south of Ireland. We are leaving the city of Dublin behind and heading to better and bigger things!

Till next time people. SalamuAllah

2006-07-13T10:34:00.000+01:00

Well that was not very long was it?

I flew out yesterday at 1330 and got to Ireland at 1430. Wicked! The shortest and best flight ever. I don't have much to report so far as all we did yesterday was get to my aunty's place and just chatch up. Boy was there lots to chatch up on! We are on our way out now and ready to explore Dublin.

Wasalam people - till tonight inshaAllah.

2006-07-11T23:35:00.000+01:00

Islam Expo and The Case of 1001 Salams cont...

This is me looking very pleased at seeing the Prophets name in the British flag! I loved this and I know its pathetic but I just ADORED it.

This was a sight to behold for me. The picture looks exotic but its in the heart of London. It's basically an art expo and the people (including myself - I was very much supprised) were eager to look and just be amazed by the talent around.

Amazing how some people are talented and otherts are not. I mean I believe that everyone has a special thing about them but its easier to spot it in some than others. I have no talent WHAT SO EVER. IN ANYTHING. I am well aware of this and have delt with it a long time ago (by ignoring it!)

This shouls be the begining of the piece but I just couldnt work the computer. This is me and my friend (not seen for a very long time). There was lots of screaming and hugging (much to my shame - I only thought of this later) and it was lovely. This was the begining of the 1001 Salams bit.

It is now past midnight and I am in need of sleep (as is the one sitting behind me givving me the evil eye). Flying out tommorow and will be gone for a mere two weeks inshaAllah.

Salam and take care

2006-07-11T00:46:00.000+01:00

The IslamExpo and The Case of 1001 Salams...

It all started well enough. We would set out to see the expo and enjoy ourselves and return home the same day. I did say Insha Allah despite popular believes held by others (I mean you WA)! I will let the pictures tell the story...

This is the Banker, White African and myself at the first service station. At this time we had been travelling for maybe 2-3hours. We had set of from home at about 5.30am and made it to the mosque (our meeting point) at just before 6am. But this trip been muslim oganised and attended by muslims we ofcourse didn't actualy leave it after 7am! Turns out one of the families had over slept and didn't actualy get up till 6am - when the rest of us were twiddling our thumbs!

This little one was the entertainment on the coach for me! I had not slept well at all the last week or so due to the heat and working. When we actualy starting moving and were heading out of Manchester I decided to lay my weary head down and see if I could maybe get some sleep. I set myself up real nice in the back seat of the coach and was just listeing to the conversations going on around me and was JUST starting to nod of when ... SHE appeared and started to entertain me! She was lovely actualy and even sang one song for me. This girl was wicked and even left when I told her I realy needed sleep.

This was our first look at the Alexandra Palace. It looked amazing but to be honest what had my attention at this moment was the fact that I couldn't BREATH!! It was realy hard for me to climb this hill. It may look small and other people might not have had any great difficulty buit it was torture for me. I was panting and trying to catch my breath before we were even half way up this thing!! The White African pointed out to us the the place looked like Turkey...look closer and you might see the colums at the back do look similar to those found in Turkiya.

This was very funny moment. It took me a while to realise what was wrong with this situation. Basicaly we had to go through security before entering the actual building. Man this place had lots of security but guess what? They had no female security people therefore they COULDN'T search the women at all. At best they looked inside the woems bags!! I later found out some interting facts about the security lot but thats another picture.

Just prior to this picture we had a bit of a problem with getting our tickets...we were basicaly lost anbd kept following each other like children. It was great fun and Alhamdullilah we got the tickets in the end and for free. We had previously been told the expo would cost £20. I put the money i saved to good use but that for later.

This is the first instalment of what promises to be a day (and night and day) never to be forgotten...

Till next time Wasalam people

2006-07-07T01:52:00.000+01:00

I'll let the bear say it all for me...
Don't hate me for been busy (and mostly lazy!). I promise to up date real soon Insha Allah.

Good to know I am missed

2006-06-11T14:18:00.000+01:00

Miserable in the Summer

I have pretty much been sat at home wondering how I came to be in this sad state.

What is this state I hear you ask – well I have been ill what with hay fever (I have scratched my eye to the point of taking skin of it and my nose is producing more water than the Niagara falls!) and stomach bugs and I don’t feel well… I want my mummy…

I am really tired – not because of lack of sleep, I have been sleeping 12-16 hours a day for the last few days – because I have not been active. The last active thing I did was last Wednesday and it’s now Sunday. By active I mean leaving the house to venture into the outside world even for such small things as milk and bread. Me been me I have been getting my little MINIONS, sorry ehm… I mean siblings to get these things done.

I was suppose to be in London seeing one of my friends and attending a scouts meeting with Nemo but as per usual things did not work out the way it was planned. I am here stuck and Nemo is in Sheffield doing God only knows what. Lady T I hope forgives me.

I have a headache now and will probably write again soon but I just wanted to share my misery so there…

Ps I had 1 visitor last night who really did cheer me up even if I was absorbed in the film that was on – sorry honey but I do tend to get like that.

2006-06-03T10:26:00.000+01:00

The sun will come out...

The sun has finaly peaked at the horizon! Litttle AD is coming home tomorrow insha Allah. She will hopefuly have lots of presents for me and hugs. I have so missed the little annoying one...

The fantastic thing that is happening today tho is the Lady from the Shire gets hitched in a few hours. I can't believe that I am sat here writting this and waiting. This will insha Allah be a great and blessed day for them. May Allah bless them in their union and may He guide them on the right path always. Ameen

2006-06-03T00:19:00.000+01:00

For those of you who have been wondering what has happened to me lately let me summarise in pictures -

I have been cleaning and WORKING!

And getting lots of hugs as my reward!

I have also been babysitting A LOT!

This is my my two cousins. One of them has been accused (falsely my I add) by WA, Nemo and MD of being a little shaytan…. Not true – she can be a proper little angel (when you have her all to yourself!)

Right its taking far FAR too long to load these images so will sleep and restart tomorrow Insha Allah. Make dua people - The Lady from the Shire gets wed today...

2006-05-23T05:48:00.000+01:00

Well AD has grown up during these sets of nights!

I have actually catherterised male and female patients WITHOUT supervision on the same night and now I have a student! Yay for me!
She is quite cool though and actually KNOWS what she is doing. This aught to be interesting.

Its 5 am and I got to get back to work. Just to let you know I feel like I am been abandoned as MD and Bangles are both going to Egypt in July. And little AD is going to Umrah TOMORROW!

Help…

2006-05-19T18:45:00.000+01:00

Well its Episode 2 of the drama that from now on shall be called ‘Don’t Leave Me’!
This is a continuation of the episode that took place on the tranquil Sunday that has passed!

I am again sat peacefully at home. I am doing nights at moment so I had just woken up at 5pm. Made myself breakfast (it’s my time for breakfast and I tend to have my lunch at about 3am when on nights!) and had just eaten it when this almighty noise (it sounded like an explosion I kid you not) came from outside. It was followed but a lot of swearing (sometimes I think this woman suffers from turrets syndrome). It basically goes like this:

Woman: Don’t leave me Kieran!
Man (I assumed he was the said Kieran): I can’t take you f******* obsessive ways anymore.
Woman: Don’t leave me again Kieran! I will f****** slit my throat! I f****** hate you. I will f*** you up you b******!
Man: Why do you do this to me you f****** w****!

It basically goes on like this for the next 15minutes or so till he decides to take things into his own hands and physically removes her from the flat and then locks her outside! She is stood outside shrieking like a banshee and I swear to God her favourite phrase is ‘Don’t leave me Kieran’! That’s all you could hear for most of the evening.
Really though if she thought about it she would come to the conclusion, as I did, that he can’t really leave as he is the one inside the flat and she is the one outside of it!

It’s nearly time for me to go to work and I am sat here praying that she will not be outside when I leave – I am afraid I might either burst out laughing or offer unsolicited advice!
Wish me luck people. I will keep you up dated on my eloquent neighbour and her attempt to both get rid of her husband and at the same time keep him!
Some people just can’t decide what they want!

2006-05-17T03:41:00.000+01:00

I am staring my nights now people.

For those of you that know me know what this means i.e. no socializing. Work and sleep (if I am lucky). For those that don’t know me this means I will disappear for the next two weeks so don’t take it personally.

I had a fantastic day with the Eye Doc and the Mum to be in heavenly Lancaster. We got up at 8 ish following our sleep over at my flat and barely made it for the train (we missed the one we were meant to be on but managed to get to the 9.58) me and the Eye Doc sat quietly in carriage trying to get our breath back (well ok it was just me trying to not pass out cause we had WALKED slightly fast!). We had barely got our breath back when a couple in the carriage started having a domestic - this was my queue to start reading and be rude to the Eye Doc (I did this without realizing and am sure the Doc would forgive me) and so it was for the duration of the journey.
We walked to the Mum to be flat and we got there and she looked radiant (no word of a lie) and so energetic. She was keen to go walking and that’s what we did (with a bit of shopping chucked in). We ended up in a little tranquil café and had the most filling jacket potato’s you could ever imagine (mine came with Moroccan cous cous).

The highlight of the day - we went to the midwife appointment with the Mummy to be. We got to hear the baby’s heart beat. It was fantastic - a bit like a horse galloping slowly. It was a memory I would like to share with this baby - I will definitely be a wicked aunt you know! I would spoil this kid rotten (not too badly though, Mum to be so don’t be alarmed ok?).

Anyways we left the Mummy in her home town of Lancaster and the Doc and I started on our journey back home. We got delayed and yet again had to listen to another domestic this time involving a man on a mobile! I finally got home at 6:30pm. Managed to iron my uniform and have a shower and before you know it my two weeks of nights had started! I had left the Doc in town – she was heading to the Tuesday circle (the lucky so and so).

So here I am at 4am writing this and thinking ‘I am not going to have a life for the next two weeks’!
Make duas for me people. I need them and please remember to keep me entertained with emails and text messages.

Peace till next time people.

2006-05-15T11:17:00.000+01:00

I went to a Baby Shower last night.

I know it’s not exactly the most common thing with the Muslim community. But it was such a fantastic idea and the shower was enjoyed immeasurably by all the guests as well as the lovely hostess the Canadian Queen.

It all started with us (the guests) receiving a nappy! This was last week and we were informed to open this nappy – now been the suspicious person that I am I was very reluctant to do so! I only opened mine when I saw someone else open their own one and exclaim in delight ‘oh, what a great idea!’

For the rest of the week I spent been excited and just been like a kid. At this time I had two long days and two short days at work to look forward to. I was also excited on behalf of the mother to be as it was a surprise baby shower and she would just be turning up with no clue that her sisters and friends had done this for her.
I love the idea of surprise parties. They are incredible.

Let’s skip to the actual party day (yesterday - a rainy Sunday when most people were tucked up in bed wondering what happened to the glorious summer promised to them by the weather channel!). I was working an early shift at the hospital and was due to finish work at 3pm. I talked of the party so much so that my nurse in charge let me go at 2pm, wickedly nice or what? I had brought my clothes with me in the morning and was out of there like a flash man. No flies on me that time!
I got to change at my friend Nemo’s place (after a slight altercation about the place we should get changed at). And we got picked up by our friend the Mount. We got there and the place was looking extraordinary. The Canadian Queen had outdone herself. We stood around complementing her for a few minutes (might have been hours) and then just got chatting.
To cut a long, ever so long story short the mother to be arrived and was sufficiently surprised as her sisters had done a fantastic job of hiding the plans from her.
The best bit of the party was when the mother to be danced and the baby actually moved. I think I sat with her for most of the party talking with her and feeling her belly (not been dodgy but actually just feeling this new human being perform somersaults in my friend’s tummy!
I think we should all celebrate our friendships with parties. We all had fun and we even had a reminder (which was done beautifully by the Soon to be Married one) which nearly had us in tears.
I pray that the mother to be has an easy time with the birth and that she cherishes her baby as it should be cherished.
This baby is going to be so spoilt with so many aunts (who are available for babysitting duties as well as nappy changing duties – I nominate the White African!).
I can’t wait till the baby is with us.

2006-05-14T21:57:00.000+01:00

When last I wrote I spoke of doing some training in male catheterisation.

Now for the lucky ones who have no idea what this is (you are lucky believe me – I wish I had never heard of this myself!) let me explain. This is where you put a tube into a guy’s bladder via the urethra to drain the urine – it’s done for many reasons including retention, post surgery and the like! It’s only done through one way however!

So what do people do once they have trained? That’s right - go to the top of the class! They practice. Yay for me!

So this happens basically when I least expected it. I had to perform my ‘new skill’. This came as a bit of a shock because the ward was in the middle of a full cardiac and respiratory arrest at the time and to be honest there were about 10 docs and about twice as many nurses so really there was no need for me. At about 11 am the guy in-charge comes up to me and informs me that there is a male patient (who is not even my patient) who needs catheterising and I was the only one available. This is how the conversation went:

Me: I don’t know how to catheterise. I am needed for this arrest.
Senior Nurse: We have enough people AD. The man is in pain. Get on with it.
Me: I really think I can help in this arrest!
Senior Nurse: We have enough people AD. Get on with it– why did you do the training if you didn’t want to do the procedure.
Me: I am sorry but I don’t think I would be comfortable doing the procedure!
Senior Nurse: Who cares! It’s for the patient comfort not YOURS! Get to it NOW!!!
Me: Ok! Yes Sir!!

Me – looking miserable – walk off and start to collect my equipment ever sooooooo ssssssssssllllllllooooooooooowwwwwwlllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyy! I finally get to the man and all the way there I am saying to myself ‘it’s ok. It’s ok. It’s ok’ over and over basically.

Anyways I get to the guy and he is in agony - I mean he is sat there trying to make it look like it doesn’t hurt at all but you can just tell! He can hardly move and he looks so sad! Here I am making all this fuss and been a selfish so and so when he looks so pitiful.
I have just spent the last half hour writing this and all to just let you know what I learned.

Hold on while I collect myself!

It’s this: We are always so concerned with ourselves that we don’t look hard enough to see the need of others. We are so blinded that it takes an explosion (or in my case the very well concealed tears of an 80 year old man) to wake us up and make us take action.

My plan is simple: stop been so easily embarrassed and think of the greater good. After all the first hadith is ‘everything is but by intention’ so I am going to try and live by that and stop worrying so much

Peace people till next time.

2006-05-09T00:22:00.000+01:00

You know when you lose control of a situation and you have no idea how it happened?

My day kinder felt like that. I started out with the intention of just going to a study day (morning actually since it only lasts 3 hours. I really did not want to go but it was one of those things you have to do to improve yourself you know) and then heading home and spending my time with my mum who certainly deserves some help from her eldest.

Plan: study day and see mum.

So that was the plan and the intension was there too … but something/one happened along the way.

It all started last night when my little sister calls me at my flat and says ‘you are picking up from school tomorrow, right?’ I am baffled as to why my 14 year old sister needs picking up from school by me! She enlightens me and explains that I said I would take her out on Monday and Tuesday of this week! Now I don’t remember making this promise but since she is such an honest kid I believe her and change my plans.

Plan: study day, pick up sister from school, go out AND THEN SEE MUM!

During the study day (by the way it was on male catheterisation and I couldn’t stop giggling – it was like I was at school again!) I get a call from my Dad. He wants me to meet him and sort some finances out for a charity I am involved in. I tell Dad I am free from 1pm and could meet him then. This I fine with Dad and I get to carry on with my course.
At 11am I get a text from my friend Bangles and it goes like this: ‘meet me at falfal 4 1ish please’. Now how was I supposed to take that? I panic like I always do and think what could possibly have happened between yesterday (which is when I last saw Bangles) and today? I think to myself it must be urgent. I call my Dad and I tell him to put our meeting back and he agrees.

Plan: study day, meet Bangles, meet Dad, pick up little sister, go out AND THEN SEE MUM!

I finish my study day (with awful looks from the lecturer and I am still giggling) and decide to walk to Bangles place off work and once I get there I see that Nemo is already there. She is meant to be at work - turns out that she had the day off and she also got the same text from Bangles.

We had lunch and it was great. Its 2:15pm and I am not meeting Dad till half past anyway so we head back to Bangles work place and get Dhur done (dropping four for Allah as some might say). This is when it gets interesting – Nemo decides to get some work done seeing as the internet was available! I start to panic and to hide that I read my novel. I wait for Dad to ring. I panic some more when he does call and tells me he is waiting for me at the bank! Nemo decides to come with me as she wants to go out with us later on.
Turns out that the bank business gets delayed and we are stuck in the bank till 4pm!
When we finally do finish, Nemo turns around and says ‘we are so close to the hospital, why don’t we see my friend who just had a baby’! What could be said to that? I call home and get my sister to meet us in town at 5pm instead of us picking her up at school!

Plan: study day, meet Bangles, meet Dad, see Nemo’s friend, meet sister, go out NAD THEN SEE MUM!

Baby was beautiful and we met MD and my other little sister in town. Had a blast and caught a really cool film (not really my normal film but it surprised me and I enjoyed it) and headed home to finally see Mum! Yay I am thinking till I actually get home and find out that Mum is not home. Let me state that again MUM WAS NOT HOME! Not only that but was Nemo counting on me taking her home using mum’s car ad she was basically stuck. I suggested a taxi home. Nemo had no money and we had to get to a cash point (this happened after a lot of guilt tripping from Nemo’s side. Why do I fall for that?). We got the cash and called a taxi to take Nemo home from my flat.
Why does this always happen to me? Why is it that I can never say no to people’s request?
You see my plan was set from the night from before yet I changed it so many times when others asked me to! Why? I love my friends but I think that no one really realises the demands that are made on my time. It sounds like I am feeling sorry for myself but not really because I am just finding out that I tend to hate changing my plans. I always knew this but I thought I was getting over it and could accommodate changes without too much trouble. Turns out that I can’t. I think that I need to realise and keep reminding myself that whatever our plans are – Allah is the best of planners and whatever happens to us was meant to happen. Makes me realise that maybe I should make the best plan I can and let God as they say.

I will see how this goes. I need to apply this to my university application and make my best effort and let everything else happen how it was meant to happen.
It scares me how no matter what I do time just flies by with no care for the fact that I have not made the best of it. I pray to Allah that I make the best of the time He has given me and I earn my Jannah that way.

Ps Plan is to see Mum tomorrow Insha Allah…

2006-05-07T17:02:00.000+01:00

So here I am on a nice Sunday afternoon.
In my sitting room. Doing nothing in particular – you know how it goes – you do a bit of cleaning, maybe watch a DVD or even go back to bed!

Ok keep that picture of tranquillity in mind while I tell you what happened to destroy this for me.

So I am relaxing and doing nothing - contemplating my application form for university and my inability to complete it – when out of nowhere I hear an ear piercing scream ‘get the f*** away from me’.
Well I nearly fell out of the sofa with fright I tell you. I jump up and look outside my window. No-one there so I look out of the rest of the windows and I find a woman wearing what appears to be her underwear standing outside my flat screaming at (I presume) her husband! Oh! I think to my self ‘ a domestic’ so I observe and I go back to the sitting room and retrieve the phone just in case I need to call for help if they get out of hand.

I am still standing there 40 minutes later watching them scream at each others. Every few minutes one of them walks away and then they get sucked back into the never ending argument of who is worse and who is selfish, etc. basically it goes something like this:

Woman: get the f*** away from me
Man: I am nowhere near you stupid c***
Woman: why do you ALWAYS do this to me!
Man: I am doing nothing, you b*****
Woman: I hate you! You are a useless piece of c***. People who love each other don’t do the s*** we do. I hate YOU!

Get the idea? Yeah. Basically went on like that for about 40 minutes with the foulest language I have ever heard and I am no sheltered rose!

About 10 minutes into the argument I put my phone back into its charger knowing these two geniuses will not really be needing the police as they would probably wear themselves out eventually. It was at this point that I started to feel sorry for myself and my ruined quite day at home.
You see I get very few precious days to relax – all by myself. I work like the devil is on my tail and I normally am too tired to enjoy my day off from work or I am doing something for the family or my friends. This was the first day in about 6 weeks that I had to myself with no plans to do anything other than relax and tidy my little flat!

These idiots have no consideration for others at all! I pray to God I don’t have to wait for another 6 weeks for my next quite day. Ameen

2006-05-07T01:02:00.000+01:00

Well peace be on to you people!

Not blogged for a little while. This does not mean that there was nothing to blogg about. On the contrary my friends! So much has happened to me in the last few days that I just feel the need to share and therefore unburden myself. I fear that my blogg page is going to be full of I HATE THE WORLD publications. Then I realised that’s is why I started to do this anyway – to get things of my chest that I couldn’t necessarily tell people or that I didn’t WANT to tell people.

So onto the actual events that have happened to me. The episode that is really fresh in my mind is the Bank holiday Monday when I telephoned my family (I always call home when I am working as you never know what could have happened since leaving that morning) at 10 am and speak to my little AD who tells me ‘everything is fine and I am looking after the Little Man as Hoyo is not feeling well’. I tell her basically to give my salaam to my mum and give her a kiss for me and I leave it at that.

I ring again at 3pm and instead of ‘wasalam’ to my ‘salam’ my brother says to me ‘sorry but the ambulance is taking mum to the hospital, can I ring you back?’ I had to replace the telephone and ring back to double check that I had heard my brother rightly.
Course it was true and my mum is delivered to A+E. I was already working a long day on the second floor in the same hospital and suffice to say I hardly spent two minutes in my ward for the rest of my shift. The staff in A+E hated me at the end of the night.

My mum was diagnosed with a clot of the lungs – but not really! Cause the medical profession are very inept in diagnosing people and will always treat such things as clots even if they are not really there! Basically to cut a long story short – three days later and a few (very expensive) tests my mum was informed that the clot never existed or that the treatment worked! Wow! Amazingly clear is it not?

So basically I had a very hectic three days without any rest and restitution! I still look like a zombie and it’s nearly a week later.

My mum is fine now and back to looking after the whole troops at home.

Peace people till I get my next episode up.

2006-04-30T14:14:00.000+01:00

Bullied At Work!

Well I thought that this would never happen to me. But it has. All in jest of course!

I was sat down and just getting on with my work when the ward Nurse called Ms E said ‘how long is your hair?’ All innocent like!!!! So me been nice and all I said ‘I’ll show you’ and I went under the desk to get my camera which has a picture of me with my hair out. Unbeknown to me the satanic Mrs. S took my chair and poor me fell on the floor!
Guess what happened next? Instead of the nurse in charge telling the devilish one off she bursts out laughing! Talk about supporting the poor junior nurses! Shameful!

I was upset (sob sob) and received an apology in the end off Mrs. S, but just as I was getting to the point of forgiving her in my heart guess what happened?

I was just doing my drug round (giving my patients much needed pain relief) when one of my patients says to me ‘you have a piece of paper stuck to your scarf love’. Here was me thinking he meant the tag on the scarf and am just about to explain to him when low and behold I see a hand written note stuck to me and it reads ‘HELP ME!’

HA BLOODY HA! So basically I am considering suing the NHS for inflicting emotional pain that will probably never leave me (sob sob). I am pretty sure the NHS can afford to give me a settlement worth at least 10 million pounds!!!!

Anyway better actually do what I am meant to be doing – WORKING!

Peace people

2006-04-29T19:58:00.000+01:00

Salam people, I am finaly on the blogger net (again!). This time I might actualy sustain it. The thing that made me start blogging again is basically I want to be able to leave messages for my friends who all have excellent blogs (I think of you as a friend MD so don't stress!).
Anyways just came back from a fantastic holiday in Turkey with nearly all my mates and I felt great throught the whole experience. The problem is the fact that Iam back home and so low cause the sisters are not here all the time like they were during the hols. Anyway that was before we all started living in eachothers pockets again (I love it when we do this by the way guys so DO NOT EVER CHANGE!).

The holiday blues Iam refering to are not realy happening to me but to my friend NM who has been with me for the best part of the day getting ever more stressed and low in mood about the NEXT holiday we are planning! Amazing I know. She has just come back from a working holiday in Bosnia aswell.

Problem might be solved now tho. We might be going to Dublin instead of Egypt. I know it looks like a down grade but realy it will be fantastic as it looks like MD might come once me and NM are done with her. We might also have with us the ever resourceful Bangles as well as AD AND HD (my other two younger sisters).
Iam expecting dua's people. Looks like Iam late for Asr so better go and pray.
Peace people.