Zaty ♥

Nearly 9 months

2011-05-17T00:41:00.002+08:00

I have failed to materialise the initial purpose of revamping this blog. I absentmindedly walked back to what it used to be before revamping. I failed NOT to talk about the past.

But I promise, these talks about the past will eventually lead me to a brighter future. I shall learn from the mistakes I made from the past. The past is what makes the future what it is - better and more meaningful.

So while we're on the subject.....

I was feeling a little melodramatic today. And by today, I mean the 16th of May, Monday. This post is late by a half-hour plus.

I finally opened my diary - the one I feared the most to even have a look at. I knew I wasn't strong enough to face it. To tell it why I haven't been writing. And I expected that when I did have the courage to open and read it, I would cry.

But I didn't really cry. My action and reaction completely took me by surprise. I didn't read the mushy parts, which are only at the beginning of the diary. How sad right?

I read the rest of the diary - and it made me form a decision right there and then. I wouldn't make it official and final yet - not before performing Istikhorah, but this much I'm sure - three nights from now, I will make it official.

I will not go back to the past. Not even when I have the chance. I know there's no second chance, but that was made sure before by only his side. This time, I KNOW there won't be a second chance, because I want it that way too. He's finally got what he's always wanted. We are now on the same page. There will never be you and me - again. (unless if God wants it.)

That's that.

Dear diary, I'm sorry I didn't write in you at all last year. There was no record of 2010. I couldn't bear to tell you. I'm going to write in you again soon. And tell you the news I should have told you 9 months ago.

Untangling

2011-05-12T01:17:00.003+08:00

The truth is....the bottle's emptied out. Pretty much. I am ready. But I'm not going to tell you that. You would just have my word for it, which may as well be a lie as it is the truth. There's no telling.

I want you to see it yourself. I want you to be convinced, not by my words, but by your own heart.

I did what I did because I knew it didn't matter to me. But I didn't think how it would seem to you. My mistake. Now you're going to start from the beginning. But that's okay. I'll wait for you. I'll be here, waiting.

Time will have the answer you're looking for. =)

Paranoia

2011-05-08T21:38:00.002+08:00

Sometimes I ask my close friend, Y, if I have changed - attitude-wise, acting weird and cold - you know, ever since she's in a relationship. This is due to past experience. My idleness was misinterpreted. But let's leave it at that.

Dang, do you feel like I've changed? Like perhaps I'm cold or 'jealous' because you spend a lot of time with your fiance? Because I totally am not, it's just me being oblivious - as always.

No. On the contrary, I'm the one who's feeling guilty sometimes for ditching you to spend more time with him.

Yeah, that's how it should be (not helping). LOL. But that's understandable, really. If I were you, perhaps I'd do the same too.

That's paranoia talking there!

Fragile

2011-04-30T00:04:00.001+08:00

Be careful with my heart. It's as fragile as glass. 10 times more fragile. Don't toss it around even if you're a skillful player.

The dirt

2011-04-22T16:42:00.002+08:00

Maybe I haven't been blogging much because I'm just unsure what the theme of this blog is. Do I talk about school, personal life, love life or what? Or all of them? Well I guess the latter is going to apply here. I'm not gonna talk about school. My mind and heart have been occupied with that almost the entire week - and that's an understatement. There are some things and stuff on my to-do list that are never ticked as done up until now. Some of them have been on the list for months. I don't know, I just don't have the time. And it scares me sometimes. *pfft* I seriously need to drop some routines in order to squeeze in beneficial ones. You know, like reciting the Holy Book. It's been a while. =/

And yet, here I am talking about school again. *sigh* Okay, here's a totally unrelated topic. My grief. When I broke up almost 8 months ago, naturally I did some googling - as most girls would in my situation, I'm sure. One of them was of course 'How to make your boyfriend fall in love with you again." Eeecchh. And of course while googling, I came across 'the grief'. Now there are five stages of grief, and those suffering loss will have to go through all five stages, regardless the order. Here are the stages (from memory) :

1. Anger

2. Denial

3. Depression

4. Bargaining

5. Acceptance

I've gone through them all - but uh - it wasn't always easy. I only had denial for a while. Depression, not so much. Well, I did cry a lot but maybe that was just sadness. Bargaining, only a tad bit. I bargained once, or twice, and that was it because he seemed so firm and final and sure. So, I knew better than to push further. And then anger. Anger came and went. One day, I'd be all okay, the next, I'd be all pissed and annoyed. I'll elaborate about this more. Finally, there's acceptance. I declared I was on this stage months ago, but I never thought I'd have to be off this stage first to fully embrace the concept of accepting. I mean - so long as I was still on this stage, I'd still be on the process of accepting, not accepting yet. Get the difference? And I was on this stage the longest! Right now, I'm not sure if I'm done with it or not.

I made myself believe I have accepted the fact that it's over, but at the same time I don't wanna move on. The love was still there. I was still having hopes, high hopes. Hopelessly hoping. I got distractions, but eventually they faded away and I'd be back to square one, like I knew I would. Now, realise that I've used the past form. I think I'm over him, but I wanna give it some time, just to be sure.

Two months after breakup, I kinda had a crush on someone. The fog was not lifted then, so most people reckoned - and correctly I may add - that it wouldn't last. Eventually my feelings would run out. And a friend was kinda astonished too, said, "you were with this guy for almost 8 years, and two months later you've begun to like someone else? How is that possible?" Well, they were right. It's not. It was just impulse. It would go with the blow of the wind. And yes, I was back to being hopelessly in love with him. What is this guy made of?? pfftt

My friends said I should be mad at him. Sometimes I am. But most of the times, I just missed him. Okay, so here's why I should be furious at him. Bear in mind, he is a good and decent guy, but I guess when it comes to girls, he's just a jerk. This is coming from an ex-girlfriend, so naturally it's going to be biased and one-sided. Please don't draw conclusions. =)

After a week or two from our breakup, he announced publicly on his Facebook profile that he was looking for a life partner. That sucked. It hurt me more than the breakup itself. It ripped me open to see that he was eager to move on from me. Not only that, some of his status updates were kinda misleading, and in the eyes of those not in the know, it would look like as if I was the one being ungrateful and empty, thus ending the relationship.

Sometimes I wondered, why would someone be so heartless? Fine, to stop loving a person can sometimes be unavoidable, but to show your happiness and gratitude without considering the one you just dumped, isn't that just cold? FISH cold.

Man, just writing about it, remembering it again - makes me wanna cry.

How could I go through all that? Because at that time, I was trying so hard to be positive. I don't believe anyone could be THAT heartless. Even jerks like him. I thought he must have done it because he thought it would be easier for me to move on when he was being mean. So that I wouldn't think of him again as someone noble and good. So maybe that was why he was doing it. To get me to move on.

Having that theory didn't help. Because I believed in it, thus believing that despite all that, he was still a good guy. pfffttt.

Ah, this always happens. I've lost my mood. So I'm going to give you an abrupt end. Till next post

The process

2011-04-01T11:06:00.001+08:00

So here's how I see it. The process of standing up again. To have a full heart again.

You empty it out first. Along the process you cannot fill in any new feelings. They will have to wait.

Once it's emptied out, you can either choose to keep it empty for a while, or fill it in with new feelings.

At least that way, the old and new won't get mixed up and confuse you.

Otherwise if you're eager to fill it up when it's not empty, you may not be able to see things clearly, and in the process of 'unbreaking' your heart, you break someone else's heart.

You're the one who will be stamped as 'heartless'.

The correct term would be heart-wounded, or unhealed heart. But people won't know the difference.

So my point is, I'm just gonna take my time until I'm fully sure my feeling for him are completely binned.

Penjunjung Namaku

2011-02-20T08:40:00.002+08:00

Anyone who knows this is a KRU song will then know it's a song about parents. And how they are always there no matter how low a point in life you are at. They'll always support you no matter how far-fetched your decisions may be and how they are so against the tides. They're there. Your backbones. All their lives.

Yesterday I had a chat with the school warden. I was shocked to find out about my ex-student who recently transferred. Her father was being non-supportive about it because he really wanted her in the Arabic school, regardless of the girl's feelings about it. And when the girl was determined to leave, he made a condition that if she carried on with her decision, he would no longer be interested in anything she does at all. Unlike any normal parents, he was willing to drop his job as her backbone just because she didn't live this dream of his.

That is CONDITIONAL love. And this girl is only like, 10 years old! She's still too young for this drama to be inflicted on her. I know kids at this age don't really know what they want, but at least support her when she decides she can't take it anymore. Don't discourage her more. Don't de-motivate her when she's already quite unmotivated. And now I hear she also doesn't wanna go to school at her new/old school.

Now, while her father only loves her conditionally, her mother was also as disappointed. She cried and begged her daughter to give Arabic school another try. But the girl remained unmoved. Her mother eventually made peace with it, and came with her to school to deal with the process of changing schools. She was still there to hold her hands, to let her know that everything was still going to be okay.

The Prophet didn't say 'mother' three times for nothing.

I know one day the girl will probably regret letting her parents down, but at least realising that will make her more determined to make her parents happy and proud of her again. I believe she did not do what she did in vain. It's gonna pay off somehow. If she let her down now, she will make them proud somewhere else. Maybe even prouder.

I let my parents down by not pursuing MA. I know they support my decisions, but I could still feel the disappointment. It was a test for me, to see if I could handle it well. Obviously I didn't. I let personal breakdowns get in the way. But I never blamed anyone, it all came from me.

This is a life lesson for me. Maybe my luck is somewhere else. I just can't see it now. But that's okay. Alhamdulillah

..And they remain as drafts

2011-01-28T10:55:00.002+08:00

There have been attempts to blog and I just never managed to finish any entries. I'd tell myself I'd get back to them, but I never did and if I did, I'd never know how to continue because the feeling and aura would not be the same. So they remain as drafts.

I've just been busy with school this couple weeks and yeah, being a class teacher is tough. First, there are the rules. Then, there's a bunch of unwritten rules. It looks as though there's nothing wrong with doing some stuff because there's no rule against it, but actually there is! I guess I just sort of forgot that no matter how innocent and sincere a child is, no matter how enthusiastic she is, her parents will never ever feel the same way. They'll think something is fishy, and that the teacher is just taking advantage of her students.

Don't practise sincerity on parents. They only want equality. If no one else is doing it, then why the heck should they?

I shouldn't be accusing because I have no kids and I don't know what it feels like. *sigh*

But apart from this little tiny - almost nonexistent - dilemma, everything else is just fine and tiring. That's normal, I guess. Teaching is fine. Still adjusting. Trying to change the methods so that both teacher and students can enjoy.

Grammar? I'm getting less obsessed with it. If students still can't understand, that's fine. There's plenty of room for that later. Hopefully. Remembering grammar is like remembering formulas. English shouldn't be all about formulas. Kids have got enough of that from maths. English should be all about being able to understand the language, communicate in it, and writing it.

I hope my methods are right....

Thou shalt not trick

2010-12-17T18:49:00.002+08:00

I posted an entry a long time ago about people tricking us into buying their products. We 'accidentally on purpose' won a grand prize. Kinda like a once-in-a-blue-moon winning. Like winning the lottery, I guess. It happened in Limbang. Pretty convincing. I won a home theatre. Too much talk, if you ask me. Maybe that's how these people confuse customers. So remember, I'll talk about that again later. That's clue number one. NYANYAH. So anyhow, the theatre's all mine - IF! Aha...there was a condition. IF I bought their other products that cost like, RM2k. If I didn't buy, I was not qualified to get my grand prize. Pui. Never wanted the home theatre that much. Can just buy one if I want to at a much cheaper price.

Days ago, de ja vu *swoooppp* It happened in my own country. Shocking. But I reckon they were not Bruneians. I would be surprised if any Bruneians would wanna do it. Not that I'm being racist, just realistic. My first mistake was agreeing to accept their 'free gift'. One of them said, come ka, take our free gift. It wouldn't be long. Cannot hear the words free gift! I really forgot! No such thing as free gift! At least not just like that.

It was me, Anis and Innah. They sat us down. They were friendly and all. Asked about our jobs, where we lived, etc. Who the hell does that here in Brunei?? I mean, seriously. We could have just sat there in silence while waiting for our 'free gift'. No need to make small chats. But of course, it was important. They were about to start their sales talk. They needed these small chats for warming up. Right at the beginning I could sense this would not lead to a good ending, but as long as I knew that, I thought, what the heck. Let us entertain these people. They of course thought they were the ones entertaining us. LOL.

They asked us where we lived and I said Bandar. One of them asked, where in Bandar? *silence* shoot! Why did I have to say Bandar. Should have just said Mulaut kah, Sengkurong kah.

So anyways, one by one they introduced their products. We'd nod along sarcastically, shoot exaggerated yet insincere remarks, smirk and sneer and sometimes laugh. Dalam hati, "Ladieeeees, you're not fooling us one bit." We weren't interested at all. In the end, I stood up, looking at the watching and telling them we had to go soon. They said our gifts weren't ready yet and I said never mind if it was going to take longer.

So they gave us each a voucher, stapled. They asked us to open them so they could write down the running numbers on the vouchers they said. It was, I don't know, I didn't really listen. But these 'certificates' were supposed to deduct $50 from the price of any of their products. Ironically, all the numbers on our certificates were the same. What the heck?? Then theatrically, Anis's certificate didn't say $50, instead $700 was written. And as expected, the sellers were shocked. They said this didn't normally happen. Uh oh, sure. They were about to call, I don't know, their boss perhaps? You know, to ask whether that $700 was valid or not.

We didn't stick around for the call to be made. We stood up, acting like we were in a rush (suddenly right haha). They stopped us at first, and I said, "that's okay, we'll just take the $50 ones. No big deal. Forget the $700." Anis agreed and said, "sorry we're really late! OMG kana marah ni karang!" Handal belakon kami atu. I accidentally took someone else's certificate. Their victim before us. They reused certificates? So cheap!

Turns out Anis had the same experience before. Seriously, does anybody ever get through with this? Have they ever succeeded to convince someone to buy their products? Induction cooker lah, apalah. Well, good luck lah with their business.

Empty

2010-12-05T07:27:00.002+08:00

Another KL trip in 2010. Usually I go KL during the summer for most of the world so it'll be pretty crowded with foreigners especially Arabs. This time it's in December. It's mostly raining. But all is good. Today is my last day in KL. Gonna go to Timesquare for a shopping spree. I would have uploaded pictures, but my sister's apple is a little too complicated for me. I'll just upload when I get back home.

My students in 2010

2010-12-01T14:03:00.006+08:00

Taught three classes. Banafsaji (purple), Bunni (brown) and Wardi (pink). Eh, I got good colours ah. Then in the second semester, I was given another class to teach Amali Ugama because the teacher transferred. So five classes. Actually four, because one of the classes I taught both English and Amali. So I was a teacher to them, as well as an ustazah. Next year, kalau nada perubahan I'll only teach English. Okay lah tu.

Ada this one student she asked me, "Ustazah, apa lagi doa-doa atau zikir-zikir yang baik diamalkan?" Errr, made me go errrr. Jawapan standard, "baca saja Quran atu." Or, "ratibul 'attas tau? Yaasin pun okay jua."

Pictures! Sadly, not all were present. Biasalah, akhir tahun.

5 Banafsaji

5 Bunni

5 Wardi

Au revoir~~

School holiday!

2010-11-30T19:29:00.007+08:00

As of tomorrow, the school will be very quiet hehe. I should drive the truck just to bring in a little noise. Diesel bah. And as opposed to the daily routine on school days, I'll be one of the ones to arrive early to school because the 6.30-ers will leave home for work late.

Movies I'm looking forward to this December! Please watch with me?

Faster ani I don't know when, but got poster at Qlap mall. I wanna watch it because it's The Rock!

Aahhh that's all for now. And of course the Malay movies too.

December to-do list :

1. Come up with teaching aids
2. Scheme of work? (doubtful)
3. Sports!! i.e : aerobics, hiking, swimming, netball, etc.
4. Diet. *cough*

Oh I forgot about DDR!! Kan main tah semula ni.

And oh!! New hobby sal ada new camera! But I'm a newbie so don't judge! Hehehe.

Model : Saleha Rania
Unedited (sal inda tau cemana =P)

Toodles!

Ideas!!

2010-11-28T21:56:00.002+08:00

So I met some of my students at Qlap mall today. They were catching a movie too, "Ngangkung". And Anis suggested the idea of field trips. Not a bad idea. Some time this year, another English teacher took her students for a visit at the Royal Regalia. Perhaps, next year I should bring mine to the movies. Watch a Disney movie or something. Then ask them to write about it.

To summarise, my way of teaching this year was kinda difficult to follow and frankly boring. I can't tell how many of my students I caught with eyes half close, nodding off feeling sleepy, and YAWNING. My problem is, I worried too much about grammar because I believe the key to good English is grammar. But I see now grammar is not important, at least not yet at this level. What's more important is they can understand and communicate in English - doesn't matter whether it's grammatically correct or not.

So...I should focus on EXPOSURE. Be exposed to the language as much as possible.

*BEAMING*

Mudahan inda hangat-hangat tahi ayam.

And jangantah tukar madahku dulu. LOL.

Toodles!

After three months

2010-11-28T21:40:00.003+08:00

Hello! So today I did a little sweeping, and by little I meant - threw all blog entries away from this blog. But aaahhh - fret not - I just transferred them. I didn't delete them. Because I know one day I'm going to read through them back for reference.

Digressing, I remember the other day I was searching for an entry I distinctly remember writing. It was right after I had done my thesis proposal about Al-Quran studies. I found out this phrase, it was very uplifting. I tried to remember back the phrase, but to no avail. Even tried googling about it. In vain. So I went through my blog entries, and yet again - to no avail. Then I cross-examined everything. Tried to remember when I wrote that proposal. Long story short, I had no evidence against believing that I wrote that entry on SR.com. That's short for Saleharania.com. It's not there anymore because after one year I didn't renew my account. I regret now not backing up all the files and entries I posted on Karin@SR.com.

So all my old entries go to this archive -> Zaty's Past. It's locked of course, but you can always ask for a key, ya?

Toodles!

PS : And oh - this blog is now open to public.