OILFIELD LIFE

Assalamualaikum and good day.

Here is something that was shared with me during my life as an engineer who work offshore… I had added and changed a few things but the message that we the offshore men want people to know remain the same.

For all the guys wanting to work offshore and abroad take stock before you sign on the dotted line :

YES you get a good wage
YES you can up your lifestyle with a nice home car and holidays
YES the financial rewards are tempting
YES you do get a considerable time at home when you are home
YES you are in a cabin or prison cell for twelve hours a day and working the other twelve 
YES you have to share with people who snore and smell
YES you have to put up with substandard cramped conditions and food 
YES You do miss your loved ones 

SO ??? BEFORE YOU EMBARK ON A TRIP AND SIGN YOUR LIFE AWAY THINK ON ????

NO you will not be there for all your kids’ birthdays 
NO you will not make it to every party, BBQ or whoever 40th, 60th, 80th birthday anniversary 
NO you will not always see your kids swim or ride a bike for the first time
NO you will not be there at holy trinity or school plays and see them being presented with a medal for sports day or a high achievement
NO you will not always be there and will feel helpless and far away in times of family crisis
NO you will not be there to bury a family member or close friend

SO BEFORE ANYONE JUDGES SOMEONE WHO HAS THE GUTS TO WORK AWAY AND TRY TO MAKE A BETTER LIFE FOR HIS FAMILY DON'T say he is lucky or he is minted !!!!! He has sacrificed more than half his life to make his family's life a GOOD one filled with happiness and hope.

I will elaborate more with my own experience working offshore in the next post…

Independence Day? Really?

Assalamualaikum and good day to you reader…

Yesterday marked the 56th National Day for my country. As always, this date, 31st August always bring some sort of controversy to the people in my country.

Photo courtesy of www.theborneopost.com

Also one of the latest update for this year is that my state had also somehow unearthed that it gained its freedom from the Brooke Dynasty on the 22nd July 1963. Ok… One of my questions will be, why on earth do we get to know this only today? I did ask around and most of the people (those who are close to me only) did not even know about this! Forget about asking the younger generation, I went straight to people of my parents and grandparents age regarding this issue and they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS!

Here are some links to the 22nd July:
LINK1 LINK2 LINK3

Some people argue that someone had somehow added a new page into the history. As usual followed by the statement that the anti government people work is behind all this. Some people claimed that since history is written by those in power, they had purposely left this bit out. If this is true, I am not sure what the main reason for doing such thing is at the moment.

However, for sure the date 31st August is not the correct date to be celebrated by the whole country IF we are harping about promoting unity. Uniting people need to be with something that everybody in the country can relate to. Something that is similar with majority of the people in the country. Why not 16th September? The day when my present country came to be as it is now? The day when the Tanah Melayu, Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore were united into one country, Malaysia? It is the day of UNITY!

I am not sure what is wrong with the people nowadays… Not to disrespect anybody, but 31st August IS ONLY FOR SEMENANJUNG MALAYSIA! What does it got to do with Sabah and Sarawak? Some people did argue that without that, Malaysia would not even exist… Hmmmm… Well, do look into the possibility that Sabah and Sarawak would not even join Malaysia since we can stand on our own. Brunei declined the offer to do so. If Sarawak and Sabah did that, could we possibly be another country on our own? Countries maybe?

 If we talk about IF the possibilities are endless! But since event had passed, should not we focus on NOW? Why the 16th September was never highlighted in the first place? Why it is treated as if it is of no significant? No importance? To achieve unity, we should give and take. We cannot hold each other hands if our hands are full of other things that we think are much more important than the unity that we proudly claim to be our most important value.

Our history need to be studied and researched again just so that the REAL history can be properly shared with our future generation.

Business from home! Shaklee Miri!

Dear whoever read this,

I have now joined this MLM under SHAKLEE. It is a starting for me in the world of business as well as a jump start for me to work on my own.

Shaklee my dear reader had been around for quite some time now and the reason why we hardly hear its name is because this company is one of the company that believe in using the money used for marketing to be given to other people. Actually, Shaklee is one of the earliest companies to use the MLM concept to expand and reach out to others!

Its founder, Dr. Forrest C Shaklee wanted to make the world a better place by giving health to us through his product Vitalized Mineral (which later shortened to VITAMIN). He also believes that the proper use of his product is through word of mouth. One person teaching another person to properly optimize the usage of his Vitamins! Thus the Multi Level Marketing (MLM)was born!

Do drop by at my new blog below (which is in Malay language and I am now doing the English part so that I can share the Shaklee goodies with more people) to know more about SHAKLEE:

Within the Happiness

Selamat Hari Raya! Eid Mubarak!

Assalamualaikum,

Sorry for the very late entry but it is still not too late to wish you all:

I took the poster my brother designed for my mother's association event. It is so lovely that I have to put it in my blog!

Something to share with my fellow Muslims in my country especially…

Here is an interesting video to watch and ponder. It had been around for quite a while but I decided to put it in my blog as a reminder mostly to myself. A wakeup call to most of the Muslims in my country.

The message raised in the video is very deep and meaningful. 

Insyaallah, I will be able to do just that… I still have a long way to go…

Thank you Terajuofficial!

Ramadhan... IS HERE!

Salam to you and happy doing ibadah in Ramadhan!

Take this opportunity to grab as many goodies (mostly spiritual) as possible! Write down some targets to be achieved in this short 29 or 30 days of Ramadhan. Fasting and tarawikh are just the icing of the whole thing. Beneath them, there are heaps of other benefits and rewards awaiting those who know. Do seek more knowledge on how to get the best out of Ramadhan.

One of the good sites to start on is here! They upload tips to guide you for the whole month.

Owh, and enjoy these videos as well. Grab them from the same site.

Alhamdulillah, I do hope my first videos on my blog will benefit those who watch them. Thank you very much to sikosong and officialQR for the great videos!

The Wedding Card... Nightmare!

This happened while I was busy creating my wedding card…

I wanted a simple and catchy invitation card. I had taken an interest on invitation cards produced by the western countries. They keep the cards simple and attractive. Not to forget, creative.

The country where I live on the other hand clings so hard to our tradition that creativity had not been given the chance to bloom. There are a few breaths taking cards no doubt about it but not as much as the western people.  Due to our rigidness, the invitation cards are more or less the same from one to another. Here are some examples of the typical wedding invitation cards:

Also because of our tradition, there is lots of stuff need to be included in a piece of card. We need to write heaps of ramblings just so the card looks impressively religious and traditional. Here in my place, we go to another extreme where lists of wakil or people who more or less will be involved in my wedding. By right, if you want to list down people who will be involved in my weddings (and when I said involved, those who really go all out to ensure the success of the event), it will be just too many. We went through few wedding invitation cards that my Grandfather had collected and they all look roughly the same...

But the fact is, the names we need to include are not really the people who will be tremendously helpful. And the best thing is, if their name is not mention, they will sulk and hate me for the rest of their life… To certain extreme, they will not even come to our wedding. By right, these people should not be invited even or if they are invited and choose not come for the mentioned reasons… Then, thank you for showing to me that you are not worthy enough to be related to. I despise people who easily break a relationship, especially family ties for such petty excuses. Should not we work harder to foster better relationship with each other no matter how different is your ways and thinking? Should not we show respect for any differences we have as long as we do not go against Islam?

 Yet I have to remind myself, to give and take, and focus on the fact that I am bringing everyone together in the family to strengthen the family ties through my wedding… after all, as I had mentioned, it is just a small things and I should be able to look over it and get it over with… Insyaallah. Just give me strength to face human idiocy and the stubbornness to accept others differences…

Anyway, I got what I wanted mostly. Like what the emperor of China had said in Mulan:

No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it.

So we went on with the pop up wedding invitation cards…

Alhamdulillah. Thank you very much...

Owh... Mulan: Emperor of China of China from here.
The typical Wedding Invitation from my country were taken after Google image kad kawin.