Read The Manual...

Assalamualaikum and Good Day...

Enjoy the video THE MAKER below! Came across it somehow and IT WAS REALLY GOOD!

ZealousCreative did an awesome job for this short stop motion video! I had enjoyed every minute of the story.

I especially love the background music, The Winter which was composed by Paul Halley. It is a lovely piece and really went very well with the story telling.

All I want to say here is the bunny creature should have read the manual until the end. At least, he can spend more time with his creation…

ENJOY!

The wedding is nigh... Part 2!

Assalamualaikum and Good Day...

My dear reader... It is also said that when there is something good such as marriage, syaitan (the devil) will work hard to make sure it fail.

Ah, if you had not read the first part, you can do so HERE.

True enough, there were lots of challenges faced by at that time wife to be and I. We faced stuff that made me rethink and ponder whether we were meant to be married. Alhamdulillah, we hold fast to our main goal of getting married. I have to mention my mother was also one of the main contributors to the success of my union with my wife.

This was also the time when I really sat down and think about the company where I used to work at. As you all probably know, my previous job required me to be offshore most of the time. All this while, I usually went offshore without much fuss, always cancelling my family events and my other social stuffs at the last minute. I did not like it but work is work. I sacrificed a lot for the sake of the company.

This time around since I was getting married, I insisted to be back a month before my big day. Boy, it was actually a no no for my boss. He was not happy with that. Once I was back in the office, he called me into his room for some friendly chat. One of the main thing he highlighted was the company was lenient enough to allow me to come back early and I should be thankful. I was like, WHAT THE HECK? It is not like I am getting married like every day! Probably he thought that I should be coming back a day before my wedding day. Probably he is one of the lucky guys who did not have to lift a finger in doing everyday stuff or basically anything. He always has somebody doing things for him. Well… I am very sorry that I am not as lucky as you are boss… This really clicked to me that I should not be in this company for too long. In the future, I will have to sacrifice my family time just so that the company can succeed…  WHAT IN IT FOR ME THEN?

My boss called me into his room...

Then I was worried about my wife to be wedding dress which was not even ready. I am lucky to get a simple lady as my life companion but there are times I want her to be in her best. Our wedding is one of the times… I really have to thank all of my aunties and sisters who jumped after hearing the wedding dress was not ready. This one particular aunty, my mother and my sister even put as much details as possible onto her wedding dress. I am grateful beyond word for all the love involved in getting her dress perfected.

Nope, the wedding dress is not as simple as the drawing...

There were few more surprises as the date got closer. Unexpected expenses few days before the wedding day… This was one of the times where I really curse the tradition. I mean, logically if a tradition pulls you down and do not really benefit you, it should not be practice. It creates misery and makes your life hard… And especially if the tradition conflict with the religion. Which one is correct then? Which one will you be afraid of more? Here is the test for us to see what really reside in our heart and whether we uphold our belief. In the end, we gave in just so we can at least get some good start for the new family.

I am not sure what they will do with all that...

Sigh… That all happened before my big day… I was really tired at that time and thought that getting married was TOO DIFFICULT!

Alhamdulillah with my family support, we got on to the final chapter of my single life...

The wedding is nigh… Part 1!

Assalamualaikum and Good Day to you my fine reader…

It had been a while since my last post on my wedding and the end of the year is looming closer as we speak. Insyaallah I will finish this wedding story of mine before this year come to end.

Once the wedding cards were all done, the guest name list was next. This was also a pain in the neck. Please remember that the number of guests is linear to the cost of food and the door gifts. Also you will not believe how many people were supposed to be in the guest list… Just to keep the story short, it was slightly less than the number of people residing in the city where I live…

All packed up and ready to go...

It was also unfortunate that I had to be offshore during all this commotion. There were people who received my wedding invitation card twice, some who did not it at all and some were invited via word of mouth…

Alhamdulillah my parents were very practical about the number of friends they invited. I too had to short list the number of friends to be invited. This was so that ermmmm… our most senior family member could invite more friends. With all due respect we did not mind as long as we do not have to cross out most of our friends too. I mean, IT IS OUR WEDDING and our friends (my parents, my wife and I) should be given priority. Again, it did not work that way here in my country tradition…

Thus I have to apologize to my friends who did not receive any invitation. I sincerely wished that all of you could be at my happiest day of my life…

But reality did not allow us to be together…

Moving On... Stronger...

Assalamualaikum and Good Day…

My sister shared something wonderful today over the FaceBook. This lady here, Yasmin Mogahed had said something that made me stand up and continue walking…

“I know you feel worn and tired. I know you're tired of failing. Rest, but don't stop. You can do this. You got this. 
Not because you're strong, but because He's your strength.”

Thank you o my sister and thank you Yasmin Mogahed for the wonderful reminder…

The Working World For Most People...

Assalamualaikum and Good Day...

I am going to share this guy, Angel Boligan, drawing. His drawing is weird at first glance but when you look at it properly and ponder, has deep meaning within. Well, they do said that a picture said a thousand words...

You can dig more of his stuff HERE.

This Year Eid Fitr...

Assalamualaikum and Wishes of Peace to you.

A lot of changes were brought to this year Eid Fitr in our family. We have new family members. I got married in March and my sister in July. This will also be another year where most of the family members were not around during Ramadhan. My sister and brothers are studying in the universities far from where we live.

Family portrait incomplete... Another ripple in our life...

Thus we look forward to see everybody during Ramadhan and of course during Eid Fitr. It will be one of the few occasions where you will get to see all of us together.

What we had forgotten is all of us aged, we got older. With each passing years, we pick up new ideals, change our way of thinking, our priority etc.

It is very sad to see the only one who looks forward to see the family whole is only my mother. I knew she had been counting days to see one by one of her children home. One of her greatest wish for this Eid was to see all of her children plus my wife and my sister husband in the family photo.

We always take the whole family photo every Eid. We were supposed to do so this year. Alas, mother was left with just the wish.

I guess it is during time like this that we get to see who or what are the priorities in our life. Maybe Allah gave us tests and made us chose. Unfortunately, we did not get to make mother’s simplest wish to come true. Probably we forgot who we should please the most in the first place. In our excitement, we forgot to make one person that loves us the most, the happiest. We easily gave in to our own selfish desires and wants. So much so that we could not grant the simplest wish of a mother.

Just a reminder to whoever read this, truly we do not know how soon death will greet us. Truly we will all be tested in even the simplest way and without us knowing. When we said we love a person, we will be tested to exactly show just how much we love a person.  When we realized that, let us hope it is not too late to shower our love.

Do treasure the time you have with your family. You will be the luckiest person if you get the chance to do so again in the near future. But what if that pleasure is not given to you anymore? Truly we do not want to lengthen the list of things we regret in our life…

OILFIELD LIFE! My Story!

Assalamualaikum and good day.

You had probably read about the offshore life pros and cons in my previous entry. If not, you read it up HERE.

Anyway, I do have few things I want to add…

So, for those who want to work offshore do take these things into account…

1. YES you get a good wage depending which company you are working with. Smaller company tends to squeeze every penny out of you. Meaning you will be slaved with measly amount of pay…

2. YES you can up your lifestyle with a nice home car and holidays but if you are in the position mentioned in item 1, sorry, no nice home and car just yet. And when you are slaved by the company, you will hardly go for holiday. Some company will not even give you days for you to recover once you return from offshore. You are supposed to be as fit as a fiddle or they prefer you to be a robot… even then, a robot or machine will breakdown if used continuously…

3. YES the financial rewards are tempting meaning if you go offshore often, you will get more. Which is true since you do not have the time to spend the money anyway…

4. YES you do get a considerable time at home when you are home. Refer to item 2. Some big companies do offer off days for their employee where they will be left to rest until their next trip. Some, will have you work for them as long as you can still stand up…

5. YES you are in a cabin or prison cell for twelve hours a day and working the other twelve. I do not get this part actually. I had referred to the labour law and they mentioned that we are supposed to only work 8 HOURS PER DAY no matter where you are working! Yet nobody said anything about this and it seems that working offshore for 12 hours a day is a norm. By right, according to labour law, you should be working 8 hours PLUS 4 hours overtime everyday…

6. YES you have to share with people who snore and smell unless you are some high and mighty guy in your company. You will probably given a room on your own or at least, share it with just another person. If not, everybody is treated like rubbish most of the time.

7. YES you have to put up with substandard cramped conditions and food. The offshore officers loved all this health and safety stuffs. They make it such a big deal that we thought IT IS THE MOST important thing there. After all, all this safety and health stuffs suppose to protect you and keep you safe. I will say, in most cases, they DO NOT CARE about your safety, your place is not always clean and the food served could be better. There are people who said that prison is even better than offshore living quarters…

8. YES You do miss your loved ones and to make it worst, if you are not the high ranking important guys offshore, it will be very difficult for you to keep in touch with your loved ones. Somehow, with all the technology available, most of the offshore facilities in my country have like 1 phone for every 100 people on board. Internet connection is not existent in some places and at places that have it, the speed is really really slow. It took me one hour just to read emails from my yahoo mail and sent a document less than 1MB. I heard, offshore outside of my country have more phones and good internet access. At least you can still keep in touch with people onshore…

These are the points that really make me sit and think about working offshore in the long run…