Daily Cup #3_Recent Stuff

Would you look at that? I was only on my 2nd daily cup and I already missed few days of it. I missed 3 days to be exact. So now, I'm thinking of just making this post a vast update on what have been happening in my life. I'm not using then as excuses for my missing my own promise. I mean, it's not like I expect anyone to read this anyway, but I just want to write it. I'm rambling. Let's just get a move on, shall we?

About 3 months ago my sister and I went to dentist. I didn't have any problem, my sister did. She had been in pain so she needed to see a dentist. She was required to do blood test and did an x-ray. From the x-ray it turned out that the area which caused her pain was because of improper teeth position. I am sure I'm making mistakes here when I speak about medical things. I really don't know what I'm doing. Please bear it with me. Alright.

Do you know that when you go into certain age, you grow 2 sets of new teeth at the bottom part. Each pair is on your left bottom and your right bottom. That means your adult teeth is complete with the number of 32 teeth. The thing is, I didn't grow those 2 pairs of new adult teeth ever. I count number of my teeth quite often and it is still at 28 not 32. I remember some of my friends experienced that back when we were still in high school. Some people grow them in their early 20's. It was a painful process, that much I know as well. Even to most people, it tends to create issues. My sister is one of the unfortunate people. Basically her new teeth didn't grow properly in the right position and they had to be taken out through surgery. She had to wait for few months until the hospital informed her about the schedule one day before the procedure taking place. 

On July 27th she got a text from the hospital said that she had to be at the hospital on July 28th at 9 am local time. She has 2 children, so someone else needed to take care of them. That someone being yours truly. I was the person who most likely could ask for a day-off from work easily. There wasn't much to do at office in the first place. There was no special project or anything that made can't leave a day. My supervisor was kind enough to allow me to take a day-off. So I took care of 2 toddlers for 24 hours! What an experience! Thankfully, everything went well. The kids didn't throw any tantrum. They ate and slept well, only missing an afternoon nap but it was fine. I could even deal with "toilet business", if you know what I mean. I also cleaned the house as best as I could, did the dishes, tidied things up here and there. It was all very tiring, but I am so glad that I could help.

Thanks for reading this. Have a great day. ☺

Daily Cup #2_Fundamental Points of View

If you read some of my earliest post or what I called them "doing well for myself" series, then you'd knew most of my personal struggles. Before I go deeper I need to say few things. They're mostly for my own state of clarity. I just need to calm myself down. So here it goes. First and foremost, I have no means to complain about my situation. I don't blame anyone and I don't blame myself for the situation that I'm in right now. When I'm bringing up my past, it is for the sake of learning. Second of all, I don't mean to compare, in a bad way, or insult anyone; when I'm bringing up other people's situation. I'll say this repeatedly, they are all for my learning process. It's all I can manage for now; rambling at no one in particular, pouring my brains out on a page no one would probably read or find like ever. Well, I prefer to do something than nothing. It's hard to keep being optimistic all the time. There are many moments when we can't rely on another things to distract us from facing our problems head-on. Alright then, that was a long enough opening lines I believe. Let's get right into it, shall we?

I grew up in a religious environment in my family. My parents and all the adults practiced the Islamic religion including all the life values. It's imbued inside of me and my siblings. As time goes on and my understanding increases, I am grateful that I am easy to feel grateful. Makes sense enough? Here are few examples. I believe the basic life purpose as human is not to live or to survive until death comes. I believe life is for doing good deed; starting from doing good for ourselves, for family, for others closest to you, and the good expands. So it's "doing" good as in tangible actions, not "be" good as in just theoretical. To be able to do good, we must educate ourselves. We study holy Qur'an, learn from experts, seeking for guidance. We also must keep our faith strong and have solid strong foundation.

In reference to do tangible action, as in action that can be seen with our eyes; we must acknowledge things in front of us. Basic human needs. That's the whole thing. We live, we have needs. As our lives change so do our needs. Not to mention the impacts of media and technology development. Years ago we barely what internet is, and now we can't live without it. I know I speak a lot when I start to mention things from philosophical point of views. 

In my live right now, I see that I have so many privileges. I call them privileges as in privileges for me compared to those who aren't as fortunate as me. I live in a house. I sleep on a bed. I have food in the kitchen. I have endless supply of water. I have a vehicle to go places. I have a motorcycle. I have access to entertainment like music and movies. I can afford to shop once in a while or enjoy culinary. The people who I meet on daily basis are all nice people whether it's family, neighbors, colleagues, supervisors. I never have to go to bed hungry on an empty stomach. I have blanket to warm me on cold days, electrical fan to cool me on hot days. I can sleep all day during holiday if I want to. All is great!

However, human had been blessed with brain and common sense. We have willingness. We have a drive. I am not against feeling unsatisfied because that's okay, as long as we understand why we feel unsatisfied and then we do something about it. So, not just being shallow, unsatisfied, and blaming everything else around us; that is not okay. 

I said on the previous post on Daily Cup series that my brother had recently bought a house. So for now, that becomes one of my drive, my priority. I want to help financially because the house needs to be renovated before it's deemed "proper" to live in. As of now, there are visible water pipes from the front of the house and they go inside across the living room until kitchen area. A pipe outside a wall across the inside of the house. A visible pipe. Do I make myself clear? That's got to be big safety hazard. One example of issues that need to be fixed. There's this ugly wallpaper in some parts of the house plus weird color paint. There are a lot to be dealt. Those who ever bought or built a house I am sure will understand that it cost a lot. Not just stopping on house renovations, we are going to need to add more necessities; maybe buying some new furniture, do some lighting treatment, curtains, re-design the interior to suit us. The list goes on and on. 

My brother is an engineer with some other set of skills. He's good at graphic design. He can design anything from logos, flyers, posters, printed garments, and more. Last time I met him, 2 days ago from the time I was writing this, he said that recently he was trying out to dive into real estate construction. At the company where he works, oftentimes he deals with projects like building new industry plants or utility reparation. So he's the one who deals with off-site partners. He meets and works with people from outside of his company. Because of that, he had an idea to get more network and cooperation from those resources. My brother is very brave. He's not afraid to do whatever it takes. At the same time, he's also not one of those people who's arrogant. He's very generous and always there to help, especially to family. 

That's all I have for now. There were some scattered thoughts here and there about my views. There are still many of whose which I'm definitely will be sharing later on. I hope it's useful to whoever you are who had stumbled upon this page. 

Thanks for reading this. Have a great day. ☺

Daily Cup #1_New series_Intro

I'm thinking of challenging myself to make daily posts. I'm going to start slow by setting up for 7-days of everyday writing. That is the 1st phase.

As I mentioned repeatedly everywhere, as in my journals or maybe somewhere in my older posts which I don't remember, I love to write because it clears up my thoughts. However, my action hasn't reflected my saying, you know. To put it simply, I must and need to do more instead of just mentioning it or talking about it. This time hopefully my action will carry through my intention.

It's always easier to write about real things we've experienced. At least that's what suggested in most of "beginner writer's tips" we found everywhere. So, that's how I'm going to start. I'd like to share what happens recently in my family. It might be random, have no correlation whatsoever in-between paragraph or any parts of my writing; but oh well, I'll just roll with whatever pops out on top of my head.

Guess what? I'm turning 30 in less than a month! Crazy, right? My birthday is on August 23rd. Real story, I've had been dreading about turning 30 since the middle of last year on 2021. Ever since I started to work again on May 2018 until now, so now I'm still working on the longest job I've ever taken; my life has been only about working and helping out my family. I went back to the same ideal as when I worked outside of my hometown when I was a fresh graduate. The difference is on the "helping my family" part. See, because I live with my family, I can be more hands-on and not just helping in terms of financial. It is normal for me, I mean like sometimes family members live together in a house but there might be one or two of them who are like not really "living" together with family, if that made sense. For me, it's not a problem. I give credits to my parents who had engraved a custom thought in my brain and hopefully my siblings too about "do good for others especially for family without asking for anything in returns". I get that it can't be applied the same way as others and each person's situation is different. But, the main idea holds. When you live with your family, it's always better to find ways that you can help others out. It starts with taking care of your belongings and your space first, which I know that's what we were taught as kids mostly, it's basically about making good habit; then it'll expand to more general areas. 

As long as each and every single one member in a family has good understanding and communication with one another, any problems or issues would be less likely to become something major. 

Here's an example. I've had heard many stories of inharmonious lives on family, how the members don't respect and communicate well with one another, how there's always a grudge among family, how they don't get along, always bad-mouthing behind one another's backs, hurt one another in many forms not just physically. Some has worse story than the others. They were so hard for me to listen to but hearing them made me feel more grateful with the family I have. Although clearly I don't mean this to show-off or compare my family with anyone's family. When a friend of mine shares something personal or family-related, I keep my focus on what said friend's stories without referencing or saying something in returns related to my family. Plus I only give out my takes if I am asked to or if I really think they're worth to be said, in that case I always ask permission first to said friend. That's what I do. Still, no offense to those who do things differently than I do, to each their own.

Here's what it is like in my family regarding those kinds of situation. There many people in my family. By family I mean my direct family whom I interact with in day to day basis. There are my mom and my step-dad, my 5 younger siblings, finally my toddler nephew and niece. I think I might want to write more about each member separately like one post per member of family. For now, it's just going to be general stuff. As far as I know and based on my point of views, I can say that there's no bad "energy" within family. Sure we clash once in a while, we have differences; but it has never been up to become something hurtful. We banter with each other, we're blunt about one another's habits like things we like and we don't like. We express our views, our opinions. No one suppress or forces the others. I believe we have a good communication and proper tolerance. Those were our keys to maintain the harmony. We embrace the diversity and try to balance everything out. Every single thing we do is for the sake of being good and helping the others. However, please do underline here that it doesn't just happen out of nowhere. It took great effort as a team, always will be. 

I said I'm going to bring recent event happened in my family but I haven't mentioned anything about that yet. Alright, here we go.

Recently, my 25-year old brother bought a house. He was eligible for bank's house loan with his job as an engineer at one local industry. There was a house for sale at the same district as our current rented house. The location is very well-worth it, so my brother did everything he could to get the house. We're planning to do renovations before we move in. The new house is primarily bought for our mom and her kids. I am in questionable position because currently I live with my 28-year old sister and her 2 children because her husband works overseas in Malaysia. So I am not sure if I am considered one of the new comers in the new house. But, I'm helping out still any way I can financially and everything else. 

it's as clear as crystal that my monthly salary doesn't cover all the bills and it won't be if i don't get another source of income. I am struggling so bad. I admit I'm still lost and clueless at this point. So, back again, writing all of these for now is my way of clearing my mind, using my times better by creating something. I will share more about this struggle particular on my next daily cup. 

Thanks for reading this. Have a great day. ☺