My wish may come true (finally!)

InsyaaALlah

Remember when I was contemplating what to do post relinquishing my employment?. One of the thing is what is closest to my heart. Teaching excel and what you can do with it.

I do not have many skills, but I do have one that I value very much.My excel skill. I am by no means an expert but I noticed that amongst the people in the financial fraternity that I have come in contact with over the years, I am better than most. The only people that are above me or at par are those that specialised in preparing Financial Models for a living.

Once many years ago the company sent me to a 4 day workshop for FM with excel and lotus in Singapore and paid a dear sum for it. That was when I realised that I have something of value. The workshop was attended by 15 people (the maximum they would take) mainly from banking industry, advisory firms and a couple from a renowned firm that specialised in preparing FM for new projects, financing etc. I ended up being the assistant to the presenter, who was specifically flown in from South Africa for the workshop. I have to assist him to check the work of others and he checked with me now and again when introducing a new thing. You see, his knowledge is more academic while mine is more hands on and practical. And during that time I have already mastered both excel and lotus equally and I can use the keyboard for shortcuts with eyes closed and he was so impressed!

Enough self praising!!!

Anyhow, my motto is always knowledge sharing. No matter how trivia it may be, share and you will end up learning more.

I want to impart this little knowledge that I have, but so far only one person has taken that offer and I have taught him and his son how to do cashflow projections using excel. Alhamdulillah, he found it to be a very useful skill to have. While he planned for me to do this for a few of his entrepreneur friends, they do not seem to be interested.

And then out of the blue my partime boss suggested that I should conduct a class for the Finance staffs, mainly those who joined after I left and I jumped at the opportunity. Elation!!!

The dates have been set, it will be 29 April to 2 May. I actually sat in front of this PC to start doing the power point presentation but why oh why am I here instead?? I have all the things I want to teach in my head, but putting pen to paper, so to speak, takes a lot of will power. To steer away from FB, from games and blogging, does take a lot of will power!  haih!

On 3 May, insyaaAllah 8 of us killerladies and 6 nonkillers will be  flying off to Bandung for a 4 days shopping extravaganza, I am so excited. Hopefully this is the first of many trips we will be taking together, Allah willing.

Syukur

This entry is a continuation of the last one.

While driving to Kayel yesterday, I was listening to radio Perakfm. On Thursday, they have a program called Santai bersama UKE. I very much like to listen to this, and I plan that in the future, if I were to drive through Perak, I would make sure that it will be on Thursday evening, so I will get to listen to this, 3pm to 5pm.

Yesterday the topic was menghargai jasa baik orang lain. Kalau jasa orang lain pon kita kena hargai, apatah lagi nikmat dan pemberian Yang Maha Esa, lagi Maha Pemurah.

Ustaz Kasim memetik sepotong ayat "Lainn syakartum la aziidannakum, walainn kafartum inna 'adzaabii lasyadiid" ("Sesungguhnya jika kamu bersyukur, pasti Kami akan menambah (nikmat) kepadamu, dan jika kamu mengingkari (nikmat-Ku), maka sesungguhnya azab-Ku sangat pedih".) Alquran: Ibrahim:7

لَٮِٕن شَڪَرۡتُمۡ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمۡ‌ۖ وَلَٮِٕن ڪَفَرۡتُمۡ إِنَّ عَذَابِى لَشَدِيدٌ۬

If ye give thanks, I will give you more; but if ye are thankless, lo! My punishment is dire.

Maka, it is very important to be a hamba yang sentiasa bersyukur. There are two rewards when kita bersyukur, Allah swt akan menambahkan nikmatNYA kepada kita, dan kita tidak dikenakan azab, sesungguhnya azab Allah itu sangat pedih.

Nikmat Allah swt tu amat luas. Alhamdulillah.

Ya Allah, ampunilah hambaMU ini yang selalu lalai dan alpa dan sering lupa untuk bersyukur diatas nikmatMU apabila senang dan bahagia. Ampunilah hambaMU ini yang sering meminta-minta apabila dirundung malang dan kesedihan. Ya Allah`jadikanlah aku hambaMU yang sentiasa mensyukuri nikmatMU dan bersabar dengan segala ujianMU.

Alhamdulillah 'ala kulli hal. (Praise be to Allah under any and all circumstances).

Wallahu a'lam.

Syukurku hanyalah untukMU

I am drafting this in word rather than in the blog itself as I am not sure whether or not I will be posting it. (I am posting it, so here it is!)

A few days ago my Njang asked me, “duit adik ni tak luak-luak ka?” I was puzzled by the question. She explained that she did not notice any changes in my lifestyle before and after not working fulltime. I wanted to laugh because we were in my Cik Remia when we talked. What did she mean by no change, hello Njang, kita duk dalam kereta apa ni? Isn’t this a very obvious change in the lifestyle? Very very obvious!

I think she made that remark because I had just returned from umrah and was flashing my brand new silver ring and a brand new iphone 5. Last month she was envious of the iPad I bought for Abah.

So here’s the thing. It is true that it seems like my money macam tak luak. But mana boleh tak luak, unless I am spending less than what I am earning. But that’s not the case; there are months when I spend a lot more. For instance, this month alone, I spent more than double of what I earned in  a month. But how did I survive thus far? And can still pleasure myself with a few luxuries here and there. This is what I wanted to write about. Allah’s blessing. That must be it. I cannot think of any other reasons other than its all from Allah swt. Alhamdulillah. I am so thankful. So very thankful, Ya Allah. Never underestimate the power of duas

. وَقَالَ رَبُّڪُمُٱدۡعُونِىٓأَسۡتَجِبۡلَكُمۡۚ 

And your Lord hath said: Pray unto Me and I will hear your prayer. (AlQuran 40:60)

I am the type of person who calculates. I am not calculative but I prepare a budget for everything, I do cashflow forecast for my income and expenditure. Believe it or not, I have forecasted until I am 84 years old!!!! Just to see who or what will last longer, my money or I. Alhamdulillah based on the projection, bearing no unforeseen circumstances (accountant’s standard disclaimer phrase!) it looks like I will be the loser, money will survive. But that’s only my plan. Allah swt knows best.

Anyway, I budget. I plan for so much to spend every month but so far I have managed to always spend more than I budgeted!! There was always something, some unplanned expenditure. It will always be a necessity. But I noticed when this happened, somewhere in the near future, some unplanned income will surface. This happened over and over again. Alhamdulillah. SubhanAllah.

   فَبِأَيِّآلاءِرَبِّكُمَاتُكَذِّبَانِ

Then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny? Al-Qur'an, 055 (Ar-Rahman [The Beneficent, The Mercy Giving])

iPhone 5 was not a planned thing, my BB was giving me problems for quite sometimes. One day I met a friend and upon looking at my battered BB, she chuckled and said, “MJ, go get yourself a Samsung or an iPhone 5 now, right now, please”. So I did, immediately after we finished our tea and charged it to my credit card. (Buying the phone was another story for another day, perhaps). When I get home, I will open my budget and figure out how to pay for that. I did that but did not reach a solution. Although I have a little money saved elsewhere, I will not touch that unless it is needed for umrah trips. A few days later, an opportunity to earn extra income came a knocking!!! You see what I mean?

   فَبِأَيِّآلاءِرَبِّكُمَاتُكَذِّبَانِ

Then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny? Al-Qur'an, 055 (Ar-Rahman [The Beneficent, The Mercy Giving])

I went for umrah last month. In the original budget, we assumed 15 people will go with us and based on that, 2 persons can go for free. I am one of them, the other is our advisor. Since I have never handled this trip totally on my own, I felt a little insecure and therefore I thought since I am going FOC and I have budgeted for this trip, I might as well use that money to bring another person with me; someone who can assist me, when help is needed. Initially I thought of bringing Big D, but then my sister has not been there so I might as well bring her instead. When I asked her, she said yes and a few days later decided that her husband will also go. Again a blessing, otherwise she will not be able to go due to mahram issue (aduhai la Arab Saudi and your rules!). Things started to go wrong from the very beginning; firstly, one jemaah cannot go because of mahram issue. Then we cannot get the hotel that we planned, the one closer to Haram. After that another jemaah cancelled due to health reason. We still continued with our plans and continued to pray. The visa fees were more than what we were originally told, hotels were more expensive. And we continued to make duas. 

. وَقَالَ رَبُّڪُمُٱدۡعُونِىٓأَسۡتَجِبۡلَكُمۡۚ

And your Lord hath said: Pray unto Me and I will hear your prayer. (AlQuran 40:60)

Robbi yassir wa la tu ‘assir, rabbi thammim bil khayr

Meanwhile I have to refund the jemaah that cannot go because she has no mahram. With all the increase in the expenses and sponsoring my sister, I ended up spending more than what I originally planned to spend for this trip. Considerably more, about RM5,000 more, that is A LOT to me! But somehow I did not have to touch my savings at all except to pay for the airfare for my sister and I!, this is still a mystery to me. You see, I ended up having to pay for my sister; a full package price, paying airfare for myself, refunded the jemaah, pay the extra visa fees and extra hotel bills. Its mind boggling, really, but I am not complaining. SubhanALlah!

   فَبِأَيِّآلاءِرَبِّكُمَاتُكَذِّبَانِ

Then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny? Al-Qur'an, 055 (Ar-Rahman [The Beneficent, The Mercy Giving])

Alhamdulillah our umrah trip went smoothly despite staying quite far from Haram, none in the group fell ill, a minor cough and cold were spotted but nothing serious, a few hiccups here and there but otherwise okay. This time around, we were all blessed with good appetite! Alhamdulillah.

Thank you Allah. HambaMu ini memohon keampunanMU kerana tidak mampu memujiMu sepertimana Engkau memuji diriMU. Tidak ada kata-kata yang dapat menggambarkan kesyukuranku kepada MU Ya Allah!

SubhanALlah. Alhamdulillah. ALlahu Akbar!

So, how are you really?

A couple of days ago, I had an extra long lunch with a friend from way back when. The last time I met her was in Feb 2009 when she visited me in the hospital. Back when I had fibroids removed.

We seldom contacted each other, in fact I think from Feb 2009 to Jan 2013, we only made contact via sms at most 4 times!!

She had also left full time employment about a year ago. We shared a few things in common that way.

Then she asked me, so how are you really? To that, my answer was quite spontaneous. I said, I am very happy right now, Alhamdulillah. I could do better in the health department but otherwise, I am happy. I realised I no longer had to think of what to say when people ask me how am I, these days. The truth is at the moment I am the happiest as I have ever been. I cannot recollect being happier and more contented.

I realised I do not need much to feel this way. Long time ago, I thought you could only be happy and contented when you have all the things you wanted, dream job, huge income, big cars, big house, a husband and a couple or more children. You definitely have to have bank, that's what I thought. I cannot be more wrong. Look at me today, I live with my parents with meager income which I do not know whether it will stop coming the next month or the month after. I am driving the smallest and cheapest car ever! And yet I feel so free and so blessed... owh what a feeling! Thank you Allah!

The best part of it is that I now no longer yearn for things I cannot afford. I have very little needs and my wants are very few and very far in between and I am okay if I do not have them. Thank you Allah!.

May we all be in Allah's care forever and ever.


p/s, happy birthday to my bffs, Mazmin and Rohana. May our friendship never come apart.

Ahlan wa sahlan 2013

Sudah tidak pernah berazam apa-apa lagi sejak kebelakangan ini apabila menutup tirai lama dan membuka tirai tahun yang baru.

Tapi entah kenapa, bila membuka mata pada pagi ini, tertanya pada diri, bagaimana 2013 bakal disusuri.

Maka berazam jugalah agar ditahun ini, mulai hari ini, walau apa pun yang ku lakukan.... biarlah ianya menjadi bekalan. Bekalan untuk kubawa kehadapan, ke kehidupan yang kekal. Semoga Allah swt permudahkan.

Selamat Tahun Baru saudara mara sekalian, kawan-kawan, rakan taulan, para kenalan dan jiran-jiran.

Jom kita kejar taqwa.