Shaafazka ... 5 months and counting

Melbourne, 24.Sept.2008.

Assalamu'alaikum,

It's been a while I havent update progress report on Shaafazka.

As of today, she is 5 months, and 21 days.
Minggu lalu, 19 September, Ranie dan Shaafazka ke bidan lagi, untuk diukur berat badan + panjang. On that day, Shaafa beratnya 7.956 kg, dan panjang badan 65.6cm.

Motorik report:
-. Udah (terlalu) lancar balik badan, jadi seneng banget guling2.
-. Kalo udah tengkurep, dia bisa muter2 juga, 360 derajat (masih pelan2, jangan dibayangin kayak orang breakdance yah :D)
-. Kalo kita deketin muka dia, udah mulai majuin tangan, nyoba megang pip (atau nampar yah tepatnya?), narik idung, bibir, megang jenggot (ini saya, engga mungkin Ranie), narik kuping (yang ini bisa dua2nya), narik rambut bunda (yang ini, engga mungkin saya), etc.
-. Kalo lagi tengkurep juga, badannya udah mulai naik2, kayak mau siap2 duduk, atau merangkak. Udah ditahan make lutut juga. Masih belum jelas mau ke arah mana. Jadi, masih menunggu, dan ngeliat progress nya.



Hmm, 2 mingguan lagi, insha Allah Shaafazka mau mulai solid food. Pas 6 bln, insha Allah.
Masih belum "rela" untuk masuk ke stage ini (kalo minjem kata2 Ranie, bukan kata2 saya, karena engga rela lepasin shaafazka dari ASI Primary feeding, saya khan engga mungkin, bukan? Kalo saya mah ... masih engga rela, kok tiba2 udah 6 bulan aja siy??? Cepet amat!! perasaan baru kayak kemaren masih nunggu kelahirannya Shaafazka di RS Royal Women)

Udah beli peralatan dan makanan solid food nya.

-. Shaafazka udah ditahnik (i.e. dikasih kurma yang dilembutkan dengan dikunyah, dikit banget tapi, untuk dia merasakan aja), atau disuruh jilat/gigitin kurma, dan merasakan mangga. Hauehha ... ekspresi nya lucu juga :D Duh, coba dipotret ... huhu.

Important Note:
-. Kemaren pas nyari makanannya, bingung antara beberapa jenis, dari Heinz dll. Ada satu brand yang untuk first feed, dengan "Iron Plus". Kadar Iron nya tinggi banget, dibanding 3 brand yang lain. Kita akhirnya milih yang heinz, dengan kadar iron average. Ternyata, alhamdulillah kita ambil yang ini, karena kalo kita baca, first feed dengan iron tinggi, bisa menimbulkan constipation pada perut kecil si baby.


Udah ah, udah masuk shubuh.


Wassalaam
Sidqie

Kamera dan (Ni'mat) Mata

How camera works, is probably a snapshot of how our eyes works.

There are 3 main elements in the camera, to set up exposure.
Aperture. Is like "Iris" on our eyes. The big or smaller opening, depending on the light conditions.
Shutter Speed. How fast or slow, that the shutter opens up. The
ISO. Sensitivity of the sensor to lights.

Imagine this context:
Night time photography.
To get decent exposure you have couple of options:
1. Long shutter speed. And thus, you have trail behind your subject (if your subject is moving that is).
2. Open up Aperture. Like what our Iris does when the light subdued.
3. Increase ISO. With the risk of having "noisy" or "grainy" image.
All with using steady tripod to minimize camera shake, otherwise the image will be blurry.

The current tag price, for the most expensive digital SLR is Canon 1Ds Mark III, with a retail price in Aus: AUD$10,000, body only. or in Indonesia, retail price of Rp 66,000,000.
With this, you have a decent ISO Performance (very low noise image). This development of great ISO performance is just recent.
Usually, you'll have blotches of noise / grain, soooo bad, you loose details of the image. You dont even want to see it.


Consider the context of our sight.

Imagine, if we are to walk around at night time, and suddenly, all images that are captured by are eyes, are full of noise. Perhaps it'll be great if we can switch it to Black and White, to get that Artsy feeling along the way. But no. That wouldn't feel like it.
Or, suddenly some strange individual walk past you by (during night time again), and you can see the trail of light following that person; like this one here, if you dont see what I mean:


Or, imagine if we have to consistently, and manually switching "White Balance" everytime we going into different light conditions, to get a "desirable" view of the situation? Can you imagine, walking into a person in daylight, and you have a "tungsten" mode in your eyes? You'll be like talking to a blue alien infront of you. I'll definitely run away as fast as I can man!


Our eyes dont need tripod to keep it free from shaky images. Our eyes dont get noisy/grainy when the lights are subdued.

There are things in life that we keep taking for granted.
Eyes ... is just a small part of it.

Imagine, if the food we eat, we have to convert them ourselves, manually, to become energy, flesh, blood, and all there is to eat, just from food.
Man, we'll be too busy doing just that, we can't continue our life as we have now.


There is a hadith regarding a pious man, asked by Allah, how do you want to enter Paradise: by his actions, or by Allah's Mercy?. The pious man answered: by my actions ya Allah.
Then, Allah's put the blessing of the eyes on one scale, and all the good actions on another scale; the blessing of the eyes, outweigh the goods actions of the pious.

We dont enter Jannah because of simple of our actions.
It is because of Allah's Mercy and Blessing.

Our Ibadah to Allah, is not because Allah is in need of our worship. If all human being and the jins are all too worship Allah, this will not increase His Kingdom in anyway. if all human being and the jins are to become as evil as they can, this also will not decrease His Kingdom in any way whatsoever.

We are trying to be a thankful Servant of Allah. Thanking Him, for all His Blessings, that are countless in many ways.



Wallahu alaam.



Wassalaam
Sidqie

Busy Bee

Assalamu'alaikum,

Phew.

Udah beberapa hari ini udah lewat terus ikutan tarawih di Jeffcott Mosque. Udah 3-4 hari engga kesana, jadi otomatis, udah kelewat 3-4 juz.
Padahal niat awal kemaren, engga mau ketinggalan sama sekali, pengen terus2an disana.

Eh, akhirnya, lewat juga.

Hari minggu kemaren, di rumah lagi spring cleaning. Dari pagi, ampe malem.
Besok2nya, selalu banyak kerjaan dari kantor. Ya udah, bawa kerjaan ke rumah.
Dua hari yang lalu juga, gw benerin access ke intranet dan all the system at work, remotely from home. Jadi skarang gw bisa ngakses segala macem databases yang gw perluin dari rumah. SAP System, email kantor, atau apapun itu.
Semalem gw bangun jam 12-2AM (and just had 30 minutes break in between), karena ada report yang due hari ini.

Temen2 kantor biasanya ada 1 hari dalam sebulan yang mereka kerja dari rumah.
Tapi mereka yang permanen. Karena gw masih kontrak, dan employ nya ama agent, bukan lgsg ama IBM, jadi engga dibolehin kerja dari rumah. Mudah2an bisa dapet permanent one day. Karena kata temen gw, agak2 sulit juga siy.
Dia sendiri ditarik permanen, setelah 1.5 thn kerja disana. Tapi, ada yang lain disana udah 2thn lebih, or bahkan 5 thn masih kontrak, nyantai2 aja. Halah2 ...

Gw pengen permanen ... karena ... biar bisa kerja dari rumah. Kalo sakit dibayar. Kalo cuti dibayar. Dll. haeuheahea ... males banget kalo cuti ke indo sebulanan gituh, terus mesti nyisain duit dulu buat segala macem (nyewa rumah dll) bulan2 sebelumna. Halah.
Owh, terus, kalo permanent juga, dapet the following: Amex Credit Card (karena bakalan sering ketemu Client2 dan Vendors), mobile phone, business cards, access to more training and development, access to more career opportunities in IBM Worldwide. *slurrpps*


Anyway, it is busy time. But ... the main thing is, I'm really enjoying it :D

Alhamdulillah. Semoga rezeki yang gw dapat ini berkah dari Allah. Insha Allah. Amin.


Owh iyah. Hari ini gw juga dapet project motret klien, corporate photography. Hmm, tabungin uangnya deh, buat beliin tix Ran dan Shaafa balik November ini. Uh uh ... gw engga bisa balik ... emakkkkkk x( ... Yap. Kalo sesuai budgeting, gw baru bisa balik indo 2010/2011 atau 2012. Lama beettzzzz. Udah lah, gw skarang lagi considering untuk ambil passport Australia atau engga. Siapa tau bisa kerja di indo, tapi gaji dolar. Khan lumayan ... :D ... Tapi, kerja di Indo? Hmmm, emang gw bakalan balik kesana yah? hmmm ... masih belum kepikiran.

Owh well.


Wassalaam
Sidqie

It's Been While

Tuesday, 09.Sept.2008.

It's been a while since my last post.
I've been extremely busy these last couple of weeks.

Been really enjoying my time working in my new role at IBM.
I spent my 1st two weeks solely one training. Which is great, really.
Then, on my 2nd week, start jumping into the real thing.
Really steep learning curve. I'm still learning right now. It is an on-going process.
Insha Allah, all will be well.

With Ramadhan too, it's been hectic.
Everynight, my mate will pick me up at 7pm, then we drive down to Jeffcott St Mosque in the City, and perform Taraweh prayer there.
Alhamdulillah, the imam is a hafeedz. So, we pray taraweh 1 juz a night.
I'm still amazed by any hafeedz/hafeedzah, i.e. those who are given the ability by Allah to memorize Al-Quran.
Can you imagine some very blessed people able to memorize 114 Surah, 30 Juz/Chapters, 700 odds pages (back-and-front// thus, that'll be around 1400 single side page).
Man, I even struggle to memorize shorter surahs ...
I envy them. In a good way of course ... :)


I've also been enjoying my time with Ranie and Shaafazka. We both really enjoy our time, seeing Shaafazka's development till now.
Last Sunday we went to visit Aiq and Ajeng; she gave birth to a healthy lil boy. 3.3kg by the time we went to her place. We couldn't believe that Shaafazka's 5 months ago was about that size too ... very tiny ... :)

You can't win racing against (or with) time.
Time will always roll on. Whether you like it or not. You can't fast forward it. You can't rewind it. You can't pause it.

Even if you really want too.

Both myself and Ranie at times wish we can go back to 5 months ago, and re-live the moments, trying to fix some lil mishaps here and there. But we can't.
Or, really wish to see, who Shaafazka will resemble the most when she's 18. But we can't.
Or, I personally wish, that I can turn back the time, and re-live the moments 15-20 years ago, when I still live with my parents. Trying to correct the error that I've made along the way. Try not to shout back at them. Try to have a good quality time with them. Hold and hug them more. Or simply dont run away from them when they try to hold my hand when I was a kid.
Or, going long way back when I was still a newborn. Wanting to find out how I lived, and how I was loved, and raised .. see it from their eyes ... as I see myself now, seeing Shaafazka grows infront of my eyes.

I can't win against time. I can't un-wind the past time.
I can't fast forward the time, to see where I'll be tomorrow, the next year, or the next 10 years.
To see where my parents will be.

I can't win.
Even if I want to fight it hard to win it.


But there's always good hopes for the future.

Hopefully, I can live today ... to make the future dream come true.



Insha Allah.


Wassalaam
Sidqie