1337 & teh jihad

[Continued from previous post] The 1st habit is being pro-active. For more explanation, read the book :) but just a snippet here and my own addition from another tazkirah: Part of being pro-active is being aware of what you can actually change and do and this almost ultimately means that the only thing you can change is yourself. There are 3 types of people: people who controls/fight/jihad against himself, people who are slaves to themselves and their whims, and people who interchanges between controlling and slaving to their ownselves/whims. The first lot, also known as mujahid linafsi (fighter against ownselves/whims), have the following characteristics:
1. Knows that controlling his whim is key to success,

2. Is charitable and not greedy,

3. Is thankful of his providence, 

4. Totally depends on his Lord on all aspects of life,

5. Mind that is open to the truth and willing to embrace it.

The slaves of their whim are those who:

1. Is greedy,

2. Is never thankful of his providence and often lament his luck,

3. Does not think that he need his Lord,

4. befriend syaitan - indulge in sins.

The last lot - the people who interchanges between the two states - make up the majority of the people in the world. The degree of interchangability varies between individuals and it is prudent for one to achieve success to have a greater degree of control of one whims rather than slaving over them. 

If you click on the photo above, it'll take you to some photo of terrorist training us playing paintball. 

This is how you do it

The diagram should be self-explanatory and if you click on it, it will lead to more raya @ Chch 2008 photos. It doesn't seem to stop huh? Even with exams looming around the corner. This open house was preceded with Solat hajat in conjunction with the oncoming exam held primarily for Canterbury Uni students. I crashed in because of the free food. Tazkirah given that night by the usual person in Chch (Napi) was centered around the 1st habit of '7 habits of higly effective people' authored by Stephen Covey. That Covey chap is an interesting guy. He was (or still is) a Christian preacher who wanted to convey his messages and values. He realised that in this secular age, anything with religious connotation will have its market restricted or be negatively perceived. Hence, he repackages the information into a "secular" form and wrote what became a best-seller book. I've read the book and it doesn't contain any subliminal or frank messages on Christianity - the book is just on common and good senses written in a coherent, easily understood and well structured manner. To be continued ----- 

Housekeeping

Just to post blog updates and more raya pics. I have added more blogs on my blogroll - JIM website, my mom's cousin, fellow Canterburian and a childhood friend when I was in Loughborough. The top photo is taken at our current shitty cold flat when we did our open house last Saturday. It was a joint venture with the Cambridge Terracce girls, Chow and Rae Na (5th year IMU students). Us boys at the flat spent almost $200 for the party and we cooked satay, rice vermicelli tom yam, and nasi lemak. This time around I didn't use ayam brand satay sauce to marinate the chicken but modified the recipe found at rasamalaysia.com. Here's the recipe:

Boneless chicken/beef cut into cubes.

Marinate meat overnight with: (for meat amounting to a tub of icecream -?size)

2 teaspoon of coriander

4 teaspoon of tumeric

2 teaspoon of salt

4 spoon of sweet soy sauce

2 spoon of oyster sauce

1/3 blended lemon grass

Skewer meat in soaked bamboo sticks and grill away. 

It was better than the first time around but still not there yet. I have to put on hold my dreams of starting Satay Haji Wan Hisham :D More raya at Christchurch 2008 photos:

Selor

Atoy

Now, I will labour on my final case report for the year.

Why so serious?

You thought this is gonna be an entry on The Dark Knight didn't you? Well no, I'm not going to write anything about that movie that is perhaps the best movie I have ever saw. In fact, what I intend to do is promote the Islamic Awareness Week that is coming near you all over NZ in the week of 4th - 10th August. Christchurch's activities are as follow:

Weekday daily information booth at University of Canterbury.
Daily lecture/video showing at C1 Lecture theatre 1930 - 2030 weekdays.
Mosque Open Day on the 9th August at Masjid An-Nur 101 Deans Avenue form 1100 - 1600.
BBQ at white pavillion, Ilam Field on the 10th August from 1100 - 1600.

Lets put a smile on that face by learning more about Islam. Pencil in your calendar the dates and time to ensure you'll be there. Invite as many non-Muslims as you can. Remember ,the main idea is for them to get to know Islam, not making them convert as hidayah is only the realm of God.

Queenstown Revisited

Whazzup peeps? I'm here chillin in front of the comp here after that sweet as Teppanyaki dinner. First time tried it and though the food is a tad oily, the cook showmanship and the whole experience was quite good. I've been kept busy this week with exam as I might have alluded before but don't worry, I'm back writing this blog to quench those appetite for another of my entertaining yet meaningless blog entry. :D If you have not scrolled down yet, you should, as I have made some nifty addition to the blog - a FeedJit javascript to keep track of the traffic of this blog. I'm just curious. Anyway, back to my holiday stories and me and my flatmates went to Queenstown after having enough of Wanaka. We took the Crown Range route, a scenic route passing the mountains in between Wanaka and Queenstown:


This road provide access to Cardrona, a ski resort, which I have never been actually. At Queenstown, we stayed two nights to enjoy 'luging', bungiing and jet-boating. There's heaps of things to do here but you sure have to have a bank balance to match. This is not an exhaustive list but other stuffs to do here are paragliding, ski/snowboarding, lake cruise, and skydiving. Here are some panoramic view of Queenstown taken from Queenstown Gondola and Luge Ride:

The lake shown in the photo above is Lake Wakatipu and this is where Lingam went on holiday.

Wanaka Revisited

In a couple of hours, I'm going to try to go to bed and hope I could actually sleep and then wake up for an 8-o'clock start tomorrow. It's a daunting task given I've spent the later part of my holidays being a nocturnal, only sleepin after fajr and waking up just before Asr. This is in contrast to how I spent the early part of the holiday, where I would dose off before 11pm out of sheer tiredness and would then wake up refreshed next morning and not dose off after Fajr. Just digressing here, I've read somewhere that the hadith saying it's makhruh to sleep after Fajr is dhaif. Can anybody verify that fact? However, that early part of holiday was spent traveling, and after conquering the glacier, I went down for a quick visit of Wanaka. Just 4 hours drive from Franz Josef and passing the scenic Lake Hawea, Wanaka is one of the top tourist destination in NZ, mainly for it's winter activity attraction. We went there for sight seeing and only went walking on Mt Iron, a 2-hour walk just on the outskirt of Wanaka. It's more of a pit-stop for us before heading to Queenstown. Winter hasn't really kicked in yet when we enter and so no snow-capped mountains yet. There were lots of fog though. Here are some panoramic photo I've come up with from that walk on Mt Iron:

I haven't really develop my panoramic photo skill yet, hence the narrow slit appearance of these photos. Anyway, on a totally unrelated note, I've spent the last few hours of my holiday reading this hilarious website: . As far as I can remember (not that far) I did promote this website a few years ago in my blog. It now certainly has upgraded and contain some new hilarious articles. Should be good comic relief for those who was or is involved in MSA (Muslim Student Association) or anybody for that matter.

West Coast Revisited

A month plus a week on and I am back writing a nonsense entry for this totally random blog of mine. A quick update of what has happen: school --> assignment --> test --> more test --> holiday (yeay) --> NOW: holiday almost ending. Despite the glamour of Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy, I'm not going to delve much into my medical student experience but I just wanted to recount the holiday I've spent. First up, was 'West Coast Revisited'. Perhaps, some of my loyal reader out there remembered my brief mention of my trip to the West Coast last year, so this year I returned. Why? To conquer the glaciers, the Franz Josef Glaciers to be exact. Franz Josef glacier are just one of the several glaciers situated at NZ West Coast (other notable glaciers - Fox Glacier, and Haast Glacier). A glacier is a large, slow-moving river of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity.[1] What unique about this glacier is that it is situated between rain-forest! It just happen that the Southern Alps, a mountainous range running longitudinally in the middle of NZ South Island, hold up rain cloud from the Tasman Sea and cause the area to experience heavy rainfall and subsequent fall in temperature (esp at the valleys) help maintained the glaciers from melting away. Conquering is a bit hyperbolic I must say, as I only took a half day guided tour. Though rated as medium fitness intensity, it certainly was a light workout as during the tour, we stop a lot to allow our guides pike away ice to make steps. The tour took us through the rain-forest surrounding the glacier before proceeding to hike up the glacier itself. Special footwear (Spikes) was provided. Once there, the glacier is certainly magnificent. The ice are bluish in colour as ice absorbs all light except blue colour. The ice cubes you see in your fridges are white because it contain lots of air while these glaciers are compacted ice. Other activities on the glacier that could be done are heli ride and ice climbing. Wiki article on Franz Josef glacier is here. Anyway, here are some of my personal pics for sharing. Up top is me at the glacier it self, in between some icy valley there. Bottom photo: Top - the guide. The temperature is pretty warm, but the ice are cold. The guide was piking all day, thats why he's just in his short-sleeve shirt compared to us who are all in blue jackets. Bottom - More photo of the glacier and the group we were in.

Hauora Maori

Taking a break from my ramblings on my North Island Trip to write something about the 3 day course on Maori Health I just participated a few days ago. It’s like killing two birds with one stone as one might put it, as I could do revision as well as sharing this knowledge with the few readers of my blog here. The photo above is the marae (local hall for Maori) where I stayed for the course.

The course on Maori Health is part of my medical training. It aimed to train physicians that could practise in a culturally safe and competent manner. Such course was developed mainly due to (1) the health disparity that exist between Maori and non-Maori (ie NZ European) and (2) the NZ government obligation to honour the Treaty of Waitangi. The health disparity is such that Maori life expectancy is 10 year less of that of non-Maori. Some have associated this to lower socioeconomic status but statistics showed that when adjusting for socioeconomic status, the disparity remains. Others have associated it with the “warrior” gene or “diabetic/heart attack/etc” genes to explain the disparity. For them, Maori are just inherently vulnerable to diseases that plagued modern society. However, such thinking is non-constructive and only serves to push the disparity further. Another explanation is that the health system itself is constructed in a way that “institutional racism” was practised. This is not to say that the practitioners are bunch of racists, far from that, but the system itself is formed to cater for one particular ethnic group and thus leaving another deprived. Even if the practitioners were compassionate indiscriminately but the system they are working in does not favour the patient, it will remain a stumbling block for the patient to accept such practise and thus refuse to use it. Hence, Maori has the tendency to use less of health services compared to non-Maori. This often leads to late presentation and higher mortality. With this fault in mind, the whole health system needed a revamp and thus a few steps were taken. For instance, Maori health workers were introduced and their role was to advise practitioners on how to effectively deal with Maori patients. Maoris were also appointed to as members of District Health Board, the regional governing body of the health services in NZ, in order to ensure practices do not leave out Maoris. Furthermore, practitioners were also trained to be culturally safe and culturally competent in order to effectively engage with patients. Thus a course on Maori Health or “Hauora Maori” (Hauora = health in Te Reo, the Maori language) was developed. One aspect of the teaching is the introduction of the Maori Health model known as Te Whare Tapa Wha = the four cornerstone (Whare = building, wha = four). It basically means that Maori health is not only focused on the tinana (physical) aspect but also on hinengaro (mental), spiritual (wairua) and whanau (family) aspects. In order to engage Maori patient effectively, these four aspects must be taken into consideration in diagnosis process as well as the management. In addition, the approach to a Maori patient is different to non-Maori. One can develop better rapport if one engages in whakawhanaungatanga (building connection). This involves sharing your origin to the patient before proceeding to kaupapa (reason/cause of consultation, literally = reason). A practitioner should also be aware of Maori beliefs, values and experiences (MBVE) and how to handle these. One example of MBVE is the use of Te Reo and research has shown that acknowledging Maori patients use of Te Reo result in a more satisfactory consultation. One of the classes in that course that I just did thought us some Te Reo. Here are what I learnt:

Vowels:

E pronounced as better
I pronounced as feet
A pronounced as apple
O pronounced as whore (my tutor used this example)
U pronounced as food
AU pronounced as no

Consonants: H, K, M, N, P, R, T, W, NG, WH (pronounced as fart)

The syllables end when a vowel meets a consonant. Here is some Te Reo:
Tena Koe = hello to one person
Tena korua = hello to two people
Tena kotou = hello to more than two people
Kia ora = hello, be well.

Rotorua part 2

I'm back from Akaroa and am tired. However, I still managed to complete more panoramic photo of my North Island trip and the top one is from Waimangu Volcanic Valley and the bottom one is Lake Tarawera, both of which is several kilometers away from Rotorua. I'm pretty novice at producing panoramic photo and there were several failed ones. I'm not sure if this is true, but it seemed that large body of water, ie lake, is not suitable for such photography technique. Another problem I came across is that item up close can interfere with item up far if the item up close is too close. Then there is the problem of one of the photo component going off at an angle. I think I could overcome this last problem by using a tripod. Before anyone takes advice from this entry, I would like to reiterate that I'm a complete idiot when coming to taking panoramic photo.

Rotorua Part 1

In an hour time, I'm off to Akaroa for a 3 day course on Maori Health. So in the meantime, I present to you a panoramic photo of Lake Rotorua. I misjudged one of the photos and the angle went off horribly and my attempt to get 360 degree panoramic photo of Lake Rotorua failed. The quality of photo was considerably reduced to reduce the size to less than 200kb.

Taupo part 3

The final edition of this entry and I just want to summarise what I did at Taupo in chronological order as not to confuse anyone:

Night 1: Visited the Tokaanu Thermal Park and walked the hot pool trail that was behind it. Tokaanu is a few kilometers off Turangi, which is a few kilometers south of Taupo on State Highway 1. Later, we drove around Taupo, stopping at several lookout points there (photo of Lake Taupo during dusk at bottom of entry). We stayed both night at Rainbow Lodge Backpackers. I highly recommend that place, it deserved the highest BPP (an organization that organize discounts for backpacking accomodation) ratings they had.

Day 2: Went to Tongariro National Park (photo top-left), Whakapapa, Mt Ruapehu Ski field (photo right-bottom and top), a Maori redoubt (photo bottom-left), and Lake Rotaia. Finished the day with a hot pool bath at Tokaanu Thermal Park

Day 3: Went to Huka falls (photo in previous post), Huka Prawn Park (not worth visiting unless you only plan to dine), Huka falls jet boat ride (good fun), and Craters of the Moon thermal park (photo in previous post). The rest of the day spent traveling to Rotorua.

Taupo part 2

The chronicle blabla title is a bit too long so in keeping with my lazy attitude, I'm sticking with the simpler version from now on. We spent 2 nights here at Taupo though originally planned for one, but there was much to see and do here. For starters, Taupo lake is stunningly beautiful. This blue lake was once a huge volcanic crater belonging to a volcano that is thought erupted 25,000 years ago and gave birth to North Island itself. I think, I might be talking crap here (about giving birth part, the rest I'm sure is true) and couldn't be bothered checking my facts about it. Unfortunately I don't have any personal photo of the lake (there's plenty of that on the net) but here are some photo (top 2) I have taken on the Taupo bungy, which is located at the river flowing from the lake:

So, no, I didn't do the bungy. Reason: I already did it 2 years ago on a more spectacular paltform. My take on bungy: do it. If anyone come and live in NZ and never does it, they are missing out. Taupo Bungy is one of the cheapest in NZ but bungy is not that cheap. At Taupo it'll cost you NZD 140 for the first jump. Subsequent jump for that day is NZD 40. The one I did, the Nevis at Queenstown - a mere 143m drop and 8 second freefall, compared to this one, just less than 50m - cost me nzd 200. The night prior to the jump, I thought "wtf was I thinking? If it goes wrong, its suicide." and "200 dollars for an 8 second jump that may kill you, are you serious?". I don't know, or bother to go looking for, about the casualty rate of bungy jumping but it should be pretty low because it remains a commercial activity and so what the heck, I did it but not without fear. I looked back at my jump, which was caught and immortalised on DVD, and the look on my face had fear in every inches of it. I rationalise by thinking how safe it would be, but my, when you fall, the speed of your fall is tremendous as the grounds seemed closer and closer in mere seconds, and you don't feel any pull of the rubber that prevents you from going splat. Lucky I didn't wet my pants - the other thing I was afraid of but just to get the facts straight, I never ever did in my life -and the jump went well - hey, I'm still here. Before the jump, the operator told us that the rubber was from Malaysia, he even said "this better be good". It was good, as one would say Malaysia Boleh. Anyway, I was there at Taupo Bungy because my traveling companion did the jump. When asked what he felt, his answer was "confused" due to "mismatching between perception of movement and sense of movement". Weird.

Back to the photo, the bottom-left is from The Craters Of The Moon, a thermal park where there is a self-tour walk through a park filled with numerous fumaroles, craters and some mud pools. The bottom-right is from Huka Falls. Thats taken from one of the lookout point there. One can also go on a speedboat ride in which the boat does 360 spins or just go on a slow cruise. I opted the speedboat ride and it was plenty of fun. That was nzd 99. Now I'm off to Asr.

Chronicle of Thermal Adventurer: Taupo Part I

Finally, we arrived to Taupo, the start of the "thermal adventure". Don't quote me on this (who does???) but I reckon this is where the volcanic strip that runs across the North Island starts. This volcanic strip features various hot pools, mud pools, geysers, fumaroles, terraces and volcanoes. As with many stunning natural formations in NZ, they become tourist attractions. Fortunately most are cheap/free as most consisted of self-tour. Our first stop was the Tokaanu Thermal Park photographed here in the first three photos from top left going clockwise:

The top left is a boiling mud pool. I heard the mud is good for the skin but I didn't test that theory out. There is a place in between Taupo and Rotorua where one could bath in mud (among others such as hot water pool bath...) for a cool NZD 99 but I didn't bother going because of the price and time. Anyway, Tokaanu Thermal Park charge NZD 8 for a 20 minute hot water bath and then as-long-as-you-like bath in a public swimming pool. That was the cheapest that we ever stumbled on, but also has the most modest facilities. The water is a warm 40 degrees which one need some time to adjust to. And I must admit, 20 minute in a hot water pool is long enough as after 15 minutes I got light headed and needed some time out. Oh, and I did dip my head into the pool and you're not supposed to because one can catch amoebic meningitis that way. Anyway, I only read the warning signs, which was posted on the back of the door to the pool!, after several dips of the head. I'm totally fine by the way, no Kernig sign, no neck stiffness whatsoever after. Continuing with the photo, top-right is the river that flows infront of Tokaanu Thermal Park and bottom-right is one of hot water pool found outside the park. Finally, bottom-left is a photo of the Tongariro River. A river full of rainbow trout thus a popular angling spot. There is even a National Trout Center there where the rainbow trout is farmed.

Cronicle of Thermal Adventurer: Manawatu

So, at the end of the 4th day at Wellington, we headed off to Palmerston North, which is located at the region known as Manawatu. This place was a mere stopping place on our way to Taupo, famed for its beautiful Lake Tuapo and cheap outdoor activity. Taupo (and Rotorua) is the North Island equivalent of Queenstown and Wanaka but more on that later. Anyway, Manawatu has its attraction as well. One of them is the Te Amati Wind Farm, photographed here on top right of the photo:





There are various places to view the wind farm, but the best is the one underneath where the car park is literally beneath one the wind turbine. Wind as a renewable energy source sounds very ideal with its almost non-existent pollution and relatively cheap cost, but practically it is hard to be viable. A place need to have winds that blows frequently enough and strong enough and must also be not too far from its beneficiaries. Anyway, we didn't stay long because we can't. It's too cold, the wind chill is just too much even in spring (1st December is "officially" recognized as start of summer in NZ). The other three photo from bottom right going clockwise: some random valley in the Manawatu region; typical NZ highway - 1 lane with not many cars punctuated by 2 laned "passing lanes" at certain intervals; Mt Ruapehu - one of the 3 active volcanoes in NZ, I heard it just recently erupted some time last year but I am certain that it did erupt in 1997.

Chronicle of Thermal Adventurer: Wellington

And so the journey continues with our 4 days & 4 nights stop at the capital which was named after Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, the victor of Battle of Waterloo. Here we were graciously hosted by our friends from the medical schools who chose/forced to go here after their third year. Here, our typical day goes like this: morning breakfast with free hot chocolate at med school - sightseeing - lunch - sightseeing - dinner hosted by one of our friend/PSD officer/MSD attache. This part of the trip was more on meeting friends/recruiting people than seeing the city but the city itself is certainly beautiful, much like the rest of NZ, with plenty of attraction to go to. Some photos:

From top left clockwise: NZ parliament with the executive wing affectionately known as "the beehive" on the left; Maori moko (face tattoo) display in NZ art gallery; NZ parliament balloon; Wellington Mosque; Wellington from Mt Victoria Lookout.

From top left clockwise: NZ parliament library; 2 guys "jiwang"at Wellington beach; Wellington Zoo; Massey University.

Chronicle of Thermal Adventurer: Chch-Picton

I'm gonna totally ignore my previous post and start this 4-part series chronicling my 12 day adventure at North Island.

The journey began with a 5 hour bus ride to Picton . We took off from Christchurch at 0700, on an Intercity coach. On the way to Picton, we stopped by at Kaikora, a town famous for its whale-watching cruise and Bleinhem, a town I don't know anything about. The bus ride wasn't particularly spectacular in itself, mostly because I slept the way through - a product of a purposely sleepless night. It's something I would not replicate nor would recommend anyone to do. Catching up on sleeping in a long-haul bus ride in New Zealand is definitely not enjoyable as you will never get enough deep sleep or the REM phase of sleep to refresh your body. I attribute this to one main reason: The seats isn't comfy enough. When compared to Malaysian coaches (those that goes to Malaysian East Coast from KL), the seats are tiny (NZ: 4 seats per row compared to 3 per row for M'sia), and doesn't recline as much (according to my memory) which leaves your head exposed to those embarassing 'bobbing' and 'hanging' positions. Anyway, it was the cheapest (??) way to get to Wellington at that time. The total cost from Christchurch per person was:

Intercity Bus ride Christchurch - Picton: NZD 23.00 (on web saver option - only available when purchasing tickets online using credit card, and on certain days, student price = NZD 41)

Interislander Ferry ride Picton - Wellington: NZD 52.00 (standard price. Web saver option = nzd 45.00 but departs at 1300)

Total = NZD 68.00

Alternative:

Drive yourself: Interislander Ferry ride vehicel x1 = NZD 60.00 + (1 person = NZD 52.00) = NZD 112.00 + estimated feul (NZD 60.00) = 172.00. A cheaper option if you can get at least 4 people going on the same car.

Flights: ~NZD 90.00 (Blenheim/Picton - Wellington). As of 12 November 2007, Fly Pacific Blue will start operating from Chch-Welly and fares could be as low as NZD60 (inc tax).

Kaikora:

Picton:

Easter 2007 roadtrip (West Coast - Wanaka)

Photos taken from easter 2007 roadtrip. From top:

(1) Lake Pukaki with Mount Cook (highest point of NZ) at the background.

(2) Me, Abu and Zack posing on observer area of Arthur's pass viaduct (at the background).















(3) NZ have some of the strange bridges around. This has only one lane even though it bridges a 2 lane road, and share a railway track. Almost all bridges encountered in this trip were of this kind. Must be something to do with saving money...




















(4) Ice climbing. Unfortunately indoor as we are amatuers and did not have time to do it on the real galciers.