End of Project

Hello Everyone ! Yes Don’t be surprised  I am still alive :D, I know I have been off this blog for almost a week but finally my stressful project is over Alhamdolillah.   Like every difficult situation, this project too taught me new things of which  I was scared to do in beginning  but at the end I was enjoying doing them.  There is no doubt that success lies outside our comfort zone, sometimes we need to push ourselves much  which causes us some pain and distress , and we start to think we are pushing  ourselves beyond our limits but it is not true, we actually don’t know our limits , only Allah knows what He has put in us,what we are capable of .He throws us  in a situation just to make us realize of our unrealized capability !

Few things I would like to share with you that helped me during my project :

Planning is very important:  A Good Planning is half done, Break your project into doable tasks and assign a timeline for each .

Putting extra hours in executing : You might have to put extra hours to reach your planned timeline for completing the tasks, since you will stumble upon  unknown problems as you keep moving forward.(Better to add some time in your planning for such unwelcomed guest problems)

Donot be shy and ask Help : If you think you are stuck in a problem too long , ask help from your colleagues or friends, donot waste much time looking for it. May be someone can help you solve it in 5 mins.

Too tired and problem doesn’t get solved : Take a break, go home , if at home go out ,take some fresh air and then analyze problem with fresh mind.

Ideally I should be celebrating it, jumping crazy on my bed and running  round and round in my home since I almost worked day and night to complete this assignment but I am not doing any of it as my husband is away for some work and alone is no fun 😦

I was making plans of how can I keep myself busy with out him , but boredom is so annoying , It doesn’t let you do anything interesting.

While I am going to refill my water bottle, you can enjoy here my first bitstrips that’s  all I did for today,

 

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Brussels

While the world is recovering from news of  Paris Attacks , We in Brussels are on  terror alert of highest level from past 3 days and it is extended to Monday as well. The city looks deserted , military deployed on all major locations, empty streets and  police patrolling everywhere ,even while writing this post I can hear sirens from my room within double glazed glass windows.

I can sense the fear even in the wind when I went outside for a quick walk this evening. People are going out  only for urgent things, the school and colleges are closed and offices have allowed home working for tomorrow. I am not a stay home person on weekends especially if I am told not to go out ,makes it even more difficult.

Blogging does helps and gets me away from the constant thoughts but then I go back to news update  every 10 minutes, it is a constant switching between this strange feeling of sadness ,boredom,  fear and a vacuum created by absence of happiness, I don’t know  how to put it exactly into words, a weird mix of  feelings and then moving my  windows  tab to  wordpress,  I start to read posts from my lovely blogger friends which actually made me feel better and normal again for some time. I have started  taking refuge in my writings when things get too much on my head,  I hope and pray that things get normal soon here and everywhere in the world.  The thought keeps coming to my head that  how long can we actually live in this fear, and how much can we be inside ?

Writer’s Quote Wednesday: Mother Teresa

For the Wednesday Ritual of Quotation I am sharing with you all , a beautiful quotation from Mother Teresa.

( Yes, I know it is not wednesday today but  better late than never ,  and  I am also whining too much about my  work load from a month  but  I am almost there to finish my project 🙂  )

This quote held me with itself for quite sometime, When  I read it for first time  I couldn’t read  or search for other quotes for many days, it hooked me completely  in its truth and beauty and how in simple words,  Mother Teresa said it all. I do miss her though I never met her in my life .Her presence in this world was like a lamp  keeping away  darkness by teaching  us  humanity  , love and kindness. We need more such humanitarian leaders today. The world needs more of them than ever.

We are often complaining about poverty  in  some nations, those who have enough complain for  not being rich, some are content with what they have but more is always better. Our scales of measuring  success are also material and monetary but this is how everyone counts affluence , lavishness and prosperity ! But nobody talks about prevailing unseen poverty in our lives, poverty of loneliness , poverty of heart ,  poverty in relationships , poverty in our thoughts , poverty of morality , poverty of humanity. The world is getting poor day by day but can we see it?

We meet people everyday for work or outside, greet them , talk to them to a bare minimum . Do they know us as real us ?,  even after spending 8 hours together in  a day. We are connected to people online by being physically present with others ,why ? may be to diminish our sense of loneliness and the fact is we are all lonely  even when surrounded by people because they are not the ones who love us or our loved ones .We all need to be loved and that is what our hearts are yearning for .

My life experiences taught me that  poor is not the one who is not  able to eat good but the one  who  is not able to sleep good.We need to love others for the seed of love will only grow  love and to be  kind to people around us . The feeling of love could only remove this poverty of  loneliness .

The key to happiness is also being grateful for the blessings of Allah and the Rizq(sustenance) that  He gave us which could be anything not only food or money ,  these hidden riches make us  actual rich in life. 

May Allah give us all richness in our hearts , thoughts and actions.Aameen.

In response to weekly activity held at  SilverThreading.com

http://silverthreading.com/2015/11/18/writers-quote-wednesday-bewow-paulo-coelho-magical-places/

I Stand with Humanity ! I Stand against Terrorism #PrayforParis

Like everyone else today,  I also woke up  to the horrifying and  shocking news of Paris Terrorist Attack and since then I couldn’t stop my mind and heart thinking about it. Paris  is not far from where I live and I have special memories attached to the city as it was my first European destination. I have lived in Paris for small time for my work and have visited this beautiful city many times.Imagining the places I have walked everyday, to be  filled with horror and terror is heart breaking. Thinking about the pain of  people who live there or who lost someone yesterday is numbing my brain . My heart is sad and nothing seems to comfort me right now and I   am hoping to find an escape through my blog.

What is happening in Syria, Lebanon  and what happened in Tunis few months back and now Paris, Human against Human  ? or I am making a mistake in calling them Humans, beast against humans ? no, would be insult to animals too, even they have rules but these terrorist have none,  how can someone with human heart pounding inside  kill someone he doesn’t know or has nothing to do with him ?

I as muslim feel more sad as to what happened,  because these demons claim to be Believing in same God and Prophet  whom I believe and who was sent  to this earth with message of Peace and a religion called Peace, I want to ask them :

” Do you even know the basic of your religion  or concept of Islam or  even its name !  forget about reading the book (would be a lot for you ) ,

Could anyone sane  who  belong to a peaceful community or  group do it ? so how can someone who claims to belong to a religion of peace do it ? Something is definitely wrong between my version of Islam and your Islam  and since there are no two Islam , there is definitely one wrong , I am not a scholar or interpreter but I am just taking basic of my Religion that teaches me to say Peace to everyone I see or meet ! which is logical enough to understand for a layman that my God asked me to live in peace and let live others in peace. I don’t think it is that difficult for you  to understand or probably you don’t want to understand perhaps you have nothing to do with religion ,so stop taking the name of my religion for your evil actions! ”

I don’t know even if all  muslims of the world  would collectively refute the false claims about Islam from  these terrorists  , would it be suffice  for rest of the world to believe us? ?

Signing off for today with a heavy heart ,and prayers for all humanity.

Writer’s Quote Wednesday : Rumi

It is been another of hectic week at work and my brain is so drenched in coding that I do have  hardly any thoughts for my blogs  ( even in my dreams I am  debugging my code ) but I  am still trying to be regular with my Wednesday Quotes 🙂

For Writer’s Quote Wednesday , bringing you again from treasure of Rumi, I love  reading his quotes and books whenever I get time, they are full of wisdom and  resonate very well with my feelings,moods and thoughts,  so sharing another of his wonderful gem.

 ( In response to WQW at SilverThreading.com 

http://silverthreading.com/2015/11/11/mark-twain-quote-on-character/ ) 

Reason for sharing this quote , I personally feel very associated with this quote , and I have observed it to be so true with my life so far. There are difficult time in everyone’s life ,we all try to be strong  but then there are those breaking  moments when one realizes this is my threshold ,I cannot take it any further! Patience is running up , time is passing by and things are not getting any better. Then also come in self doubt , was it right decision I made ? or am I not good enough!

We are helplessly trying out all the options but nothing works! There is anger and frustration piling up each passing day and we start to lose our motivation,We get sad about our situation . Comparison to  the  happy lives of others bring us more pessimism.We all reach a point  when we have thoughts of giving up on being strong and holding on  , Everything is pulling us to give up but there is something inside, asking us not to give up and hold on ,telling us Everything will be fine! and we wonder  when and how ?

So when you feel that  iota of hope amidst everything going bad, Jump on it and grab it quickly , because it is then when you are so close to things getting done,  finding solutions to your problem  or the end of bad times.

It is alright to cry ,but not alright to give up!

You are just there at end of night,  take a break from yourself ( from your bad mood), take time to think clearly, away from your problems ,say a silent prayer to your Lord for He knows what is inside every heart , just ask Him to ease your way and InshaAllah you will be soon out in the sun again !

( P .S : today again I have deja vu Murphy moment for the metro  but I didn’t get pushed out this time , a bit of Indian style worked for me )

Some days are Murphy’s days!

Wednesday morning I had my lazy version out and I was snoozing my alarm by every 5 minutes until I saw the time and it was time to scream and jump out of bed and start the brushing and rushing routine. I almost ran to catch my metro just to know  there was a problem in track and there was no metro  for another 20 minutes at least , so I knew that it was Murphy’s day and his rules  were playing on,

Murphy how genious you were !

• Everything takes longer than you think.
• Everything takes longer than it takes.
• Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

So I saw  more and more people swarming in the metro station every 5 minutes and soon it was  packed with angry faces all around, one of them was mine too 😛

After waiting for 30 minutes , finally  a metro arrived! A sigh of relief and some smiles around. As soon as I moved forward to step in, there was an announcement  saying ‘this metro has some problem and needs to be vacated ! ‘ , so the people inside also came out  to join us with even more angrier faces .

After 10 minutes we had another metro but already packed with people! I tried to enter but I was pushed out by people.OKAY,alright , I tried again and I was pushed back again, so I tried hard third time but I was pushed back with even more strength  until the door closed automatically on my face!

So I stood there to see the metro leaving ! I know I looked funny then ! My husband had a nice laugh already when I told him what happened that day and he is laughing again that I even made a post about it 🙂

Coming back to my story I was then waiting  for next metro which gave me enough time to calm down ,I didn’t feel  rush or hurry  anymore  because I was already late.A little late or too late is any way late! I suddenly remembered my everyday commuting with Delhi metro for almost 2 years,the incident pushed me back to old memories ! Busy metro stations , lines to get in metros, pushing people ,rushing people,some angry faces having bad day,others listening to Radio Mirchi or their playlists, some chatting in their phones and remaining peeking into their neighbour’s phones! .Waiting for next metro in Delhi in hope of  less crowd  was a waste of thoughts as the metro could be more packed but not less 😛 I was mostly standing in ladies compartment and sometimes traveling with my foot on somebody else’s feet,embarrassed to look up into other’s eyes but to be surprised to see a smiling face saying ”It is alright,don’t worry .This is Delhi Metro.”

Human beings are same everywhere and so are their reactions! As soon as we had crowd in metro station here, there was no rule! only chaos to rush in the metro first ! or I would say the reactions were stronger here compared to India  because people in Belgium are not habitual  to seeing so many people or travelling this way! Some were almost in panic and overwhelmed! We do not know how we will react to a certain situation until it arises and  I exactly saw it there!

so Murphy’s day was over that day with some observational   human  and self analysis !

Ending with another of his law:

Smile ,Tomorrow can be worse  

(donot kill me for this one :P)

Writer’s Quote Wednesday – Rabia Basri

I am sharing the quote from Rabia al Basri, She was a muslim saint known for her great devotion and piety, has high regard among sufi scholars and  considered among first female sufi saints. Her life is narrated by another contemporary saint and poet ‘Farid al-Din Attar’ in his teachings and writings and that is how the world knows about her.

Birth Name:Hazrat Rabia al-Adawiyya al-Qaysiyya
Born in: between 95 and 99 Hijri. In Basra, Iraq.

Her life is an inspiration because she managed to achieve what she wanted  to in her life i.e Nearness to Allah without having any formal education or following any great master in her early life .Her story motivates me through her determination with which she sought her goal ,her focus on reaching her destination and not for a second her attention wavered  . She never gave up in the world where being saint was only a man’s thing then, not that she aimed to become a saint but it was a part of her journey and she didn’t hesitate for a while of doing something which was unusual for a women .

You can read more about her on  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabia_Basri

Her above thought is so strong and empowering that we are bound to think that  Are our problems , really  ‘problems’ or they just exist in our minds ?

Have we created mental barriers that stop us to see beyond that barricade?

What if there is no problem and it was just our perspective to look at things ? and when we adjusted our perspective the problem has suddenly disappeared!!

Are we knocking on an open door and complaining  that nobody  is opening and coming to our help ?

Isn’t time to check if we really need help and if we are doing something about our problems ?

We do not have to panic or worry too much for our problems because they blind our minds and we lose the ability to  think what can we do and what needs to be done in right time! and even if we do panic , we shouldn’t make it longer to revive , We need to overcome it quickly by having courage to see the open doors and keep moving in this journey called life .

Another of her quote that will inspire you :

(In response to Writer’s Quote Wednesday  at http://silverthreading.com/2015/11/04/writers-quote-wednesday-george-orwell/)

Premio Dardos Award

Finally I decided to pull my nominations and share with you all,It’s been long time  that they are pending even the people who nominated me would have forgotten about it ! 😛

Thank you accidentallyinked ,Loubnanya, Tanveer Rauf for nominating me for this award.It really motivates  me  to know people are reading my blog and thinking about it.

I hope to do my other nominations soon too 😉 !

I have summed up the questions from every one here :

1. Where are you from?   India
2. What do you love most about your culture? Food of course 😀
3. What is it like to be a muslim in your country?  India is democratic and secular country so even being a minority we have enough freedom to follow our religion peacefully.Currently I am staying in Belgium and I feel no issues in observing my religion  or wearing Hijab , Alhamdolillah.
4. How many languages do you speak? Two,English and Hindi .Learning French and Arabic
5. If there was a colour that you could omit from your life.What colour would it be and why? none, I love colors .
6. How does this AWARD thing start? No idea but whoever did it was a smart guy,my thanks to him/her, it is a great way to acknowledge other’s work and know them.
7. Reason for writing this blog? I wanted to share my experiences about  Hijab,help others who want to wear it and share my reflections on the inner journey I have taken after wearing Hijab and taking off the materialistic hijab I used to wear on my mind and heart.

 RULES:
* Mention the person who tagged you
* Answer the questions
* Please tag up to ten other bloggers at the end

 My nominations below, I am not nominating who nominated me but I know you deserve it again 😀

noorainsobiya

tamtam012013

Star of Persia

sulphurman

Aaliyah Zahra

Fatmawaty

The Meek Chic

Hijabi-Online

throughtheglitterglass

juliahmadhijabista

 My questions 

1. Reason for writing this blog?
2. Your favorite Food ?
3. Early Riser or Late night worker?
4. Tea or coffee addict?
5. Your 3 Favorite books ?