The Chaos Of Covid 19: A Personal Reflection

A junior psychiatry MO in the hospital I am currently attached to came to me one day and asked my point of view regarding whether she should go ahead and volunteer to be a front-liner for Covid-19 screening.

“Kak Afiza, we have been asked to volunteer our names to be one of the front-liners for Covid-19 screening. I am not sure whether I should give my name or not. I am worried if I might fall ill and not be able to handle it.”

I didn’t mince words when I said “I would have volunteered, if I were you. If I am not currently doing my attachment and have to finish this attachment within the timeframe, I would have volunteered. You will certainly benefit from the experience, no doubt about it. In fact, I am planning to volunteer once I have finished with this rotation and am back in my hometown, if they still need volunteers.”

This was not just a lip service for me. I love volunteer works because I always learn a lot by volunteering. I was in Program Khidmat Sosial Negara (PKSN) as a 17 year old girl, and I still remember what a good experience I had as a PKSN trainee. Unfortunately, my study commitment interfered with my love of volunteerism for many years after that (I was in KMB for my IB diploma, and then went to Australia for my medical studies, and then there was that 2 years of that grueling housemanship period to go through). As an MO, I volunteered in early 2014 during the massive flood in Kelantan as part of the PFA team. And then I volunteered to be a polling agent and counting agent for Pakatan Harapan in May 2018 and that was a very illuminating experience. And at the end of 2018, I volunteered under IMARET for the humanitarian mission to Palu Sulawesi to do psychological first aid for the survivors of the devastating Palu earthquake and tsunami. 2018 was a good year for me because I did not take any exam in that year and I was quite free. Unfortunately, for the whole year of 2019, I was swamped with CASC preparation and did not get any opportunity to contribute much. But I have missed doing volunteer works that would jolt me out of the same routine every day. My good friend who volunteered with me to Palu is currently a front-liner for handling Covid-19 cases as well. I would have loved to be able to join her. I have told her before when we were in Palu, volunteerism is addictive.

At each of my volunteer mission, I gained massively in terms of knowledge, sense of personal achievement and  feeling of contentment. I love being able to experience how people handle difficulties in life. The reflection that follows each encounter with people who are less fortunate than you is something you cannot get elsewhere. It builds my own resilience and helps me tremendously in facing future difficulties, as I remember how much more fortunate I am as a whole. It told me that life really is fragile and there is nothing much you need to fear because life will continue to happen to you, anyway. You can only do your best and trust God. Volunteerism is not just about having a physical and mental experience that will enrich your life, but volunteerism is SPIRITUAL too. This is something you can never understand unless you experience it yourself. And trust me, you will be addicted to that experience.

(I wrote about my experience in Palu here. You may click the link H.E.R.E to read about it https://afizaazmee.wordpress.com/2018/11/01/palusulawesi-reflection-a-spiritual-journey/)

The next day the junior psychiatry MO told me “I already submitted my name as a volunteer. Feel better about it after talking to you.”

I wished her good luck and prayed for her continuous well-being as a front-liner. The last time I checked on her via Whatsapp she was doing very well and as predicted, she enjoyed the experience.

When you do something that Allah has created you to do – to be a khalifah of this world, to be of benefits to your fellow human beings, to fulfil the purpose of your creation – the sunnhatullah is such that you will feel content. Experience NEVER go to waste. It will make you such an interesting person to talk to, at the very least.

Because we are a sum of our experience.

 

We Are a Sum of Our Experience

Growing up, I admit that I got easily bored talking to people. I just could not stand the small talk that we are expected to make during kenduri, get-togethers and reunion and I would avoid having to  talk to people for an extended period of time. There was nothing for me to talk about with them. Most of them didn’t read what I read…. So what common ground did we have? Zip, zero, nada! What common area of topic and interest can we converse about? Zilch!  Bosan!  I was bored silly and I just wanted to go into my room and read the latest adventure in my next book. (But of course, my parents didn’t allow me to.)

There were times when I feel like I was more mature than my peers. I didn’t enjoy running around playing ‘police sentry one to jaga’. I just felt like “Apadia ni? Ligan-ligan, lari-lari penat… for what purpose?”. I enjoyed it as a 4 year old kid, maybe. But by the time I knew how to read (I was 5 years old), playing lari-lari no longer appealed to me.  I really did not feel it was fun. I preferred card games and chess, book-reading and story writing. So, I got easily bored with most kids my age but I did have 3 good friends in the primary school who shared my interest in reading.

As I grew up into my teenage hood, my father did not think I had enough maturity to attend a boarding school as a 13 year old girl.  I thought he was wrong… because I felt like I was matured enough to handle it. But looking back, I think my interpersonal skill was not that good. Haha. I don’t think I could survive communal living as a 13 year old because I was a very self-centred young girl. I didn’t like to share any of my stuff. I didn’t like it when people wanted to share food or drinks with me…. because I geli hahaha. And in hostel, most kids really like to take other people’s stuff and I would have made a lot of enemies if I went into the hostel environment with an attitude of obvious stinginess like that (as opposed to subtle stinginess LOL)

As a 16 year old girl, I was finally allowed to attend a boarding school of MRSM Langkawi. Even then, I had to adjust quite a bit. I made sure I had two bottles of drinks with me in my room… one bottle was exclusively for me and another bottle was for anyone else who randomly requested for my drinks. (My problem solving skill improved, see? People requesting to share my drinks was a problem to me hahha! But I found ways to maintain my ideal of what is hygienic while also being able to fulfil their request.)

As a teenager having to be in a communal living, I learned how to do small talk. I still preferred talking to someone who shared my interest (by this time I took up poetry writing, thanks to the influence of my roommate, Miss A) but I was no longer that awkward or that bored around people. Over time, I learned to be less self-absorbed. Previously, if things were boring TO ME, I just wanted to get out of that situation and cut the conversation short. Because I felt like, if I was bored, then of course you must feel the same way too. By cutting the conversation short or not engaging at all, I saved BOTH of us from being bored with each other. We can now go and do something else with our time. More efficient use of our resources, right?

But because of having to be in a communal living, I gradually understood the value of good-quality friendships (not just ANY friendship. But GOOD QUALITY ones, ok. Please take note.). With no family around other than hostel friends, I learned that my life was more pleasant when I had good friendships in the hostel.

Before living in a hostel and mixing with people who are not my own family, my idea of friendship was pretty rigid. “If we didn’t have anything in common and therefore neither of us will be interesting to each other, then I didn’t really want to spend time with you because it will be so boring.”  Peer pressure…. It did NOT really work with me. Even if I might succumb to peer pressure and societal expectation occasionally, it wouldn’t be sustainable. Sooner or later, I would have analyzed whether or not this kind of activity/behaviour/mindset MAKES SENSE and gradually I would have escaped from such pressure by choosing other friends or shift my attention to books. When some people had a whole lot of friends to always do things together (pi kantin sekali, pi toilet satu geng), I didn’t understand it. To me, it was so time-consuming and inefficient to wait for everyone to be ready before we can make a move. My idea of friendship could be described as mutual convenience… when it was not convenient, we should be able to separate for awhile. Not EVERYTHING must be done together.

Me: Kalau kau nak pergi kantin, kau pergilah kantin. Kenapa aku nak kena ikut? Aku nak pi library.

Friend: Nanti lepas pi kantin, kita pi la library. (she ‘pujuk’ me)

Me: Kau tak nak ikut pi library pun tak apa, aku tak suruh pun kau ikut. Kau pergi kantin, aku pi library. Nanti kau dah habis makan, kau datang la library. Atau kita jumpa balik kat kelas.

 

That was basically how I behaved when I was young. I didn’t feel I need to bend myself backward to change my habit in order to cultivate friendships because if problems in my life arise, I was sure I could handle it myself or my parents would handle them for me. Friendship was nice but I didn’t always need to do everything with them all the time. It did not occur to me that they might need me to do certain things with them and I should be kind whenever I could rather than thinking too much about expediency and efficiency. (Being kind…. being accommodative… those were new to me. And to be honest, I did not expect them to accommodate me – we can just do things separately –  and neither did I know that I should provide that to others when I had first joined communal living) I was like, if I can do things by myself when you guys don’t feel like doing it, why can’t you do the same thing too? Just do it by yourself if I don’t feel like doing those activities with you. More efficient, kan? Easier for everybody, isn’t it?

But when I was in the hostel of MRSM Langkawi, my friends and roommates were the ones who would help me with Add Maths, Physics and Chemistry (remember, we didn’t get to attend outside tuition as a hostel student). And some of them did not share my love of reading or writing and they were normally not someone I would feel any kind of friendship towards. But because I NEEDED them, I gradually learned how to mask my boredom, asked for their help, and sometimes I rendered my own service to them by correcting their English essays and improving their grammar.

Before I realized it, I had learned an important lesson. I shouldn’t have judged people so soon.

I. Shouldn’t. Have. Judged. People. So. Soon.

Some of these people who I would never be interested to be friends with just because they did not have similar interest as me, were actually really fun people to be around. All these while, I didn’t spend enough time to get to know people (because there were always other fun books I would rather be reading), and therefore before I could get to the point of appreciating their good qualities, I was already bored and I walked away thinking that it was too time-consuming to be their friends. Or I would think that the pros of this friendship did not outweigh the cons. But when the situation NECESSITATED me to tolerate them for awhile because I NEEDED their help, gradually I learned over time that “This girl is not that boring actually. She may not like to read. But she has other worthy quality that I could learn from. She is quite funny. How come I didn’t notice that before?”

So I compromised. “Kita pi Dewan Makan, lepas tu kita pi Library.” While having an outing, I compromised and agreed that we “go to Ismail Group for chocolate first, then we go to the book shop.” Slowly, I learned that efficiency and expediency were not the only thing I should focus on in my daily life. Sure it is more efficient to straightaway complete your task and not having to wait for others and not having to take their preferences into account. But when you are in trouble, you would have no friends to help you because you haven’t spent enough times with them for them to even bother that much about you. And that is a fatal mistake! There’s a reason why human beings are social creatures. (Look at how difficult it is for people to stay at home and NOT socialize in this current crisis of Covid-19 pandemic! We are social creatures!)Because our survival as a species depends on us having pro-social characteristics. Being sociable is a matter of survival in certain situations (but I was rarely, if ever, in a situation where being sociable is a matter of survival LOL. But yes, I had read stories and books on how knowing some important people in their lives had helped them out of a  tight situation)

(However, until now I am picky about my friendships. I cannot emphasize how important it is to have friends who are WORTHY of your compromise. I compromise my efficiency and expediency of doing things for you, because you are worth my effort. I could have gone to the library straightaway instead of waiting for you, but I wait because I know you are not comfortable eating alone. I value you that much because I know we have similar worldview, similar principles, and you are a kind-hearted person who I trust. But if you ever repeatedly do things that violate my ideals of what is right and wrong and then you do not listen to reasons and stop becoming worthy, I am no longer willing to compromise my efficiency and expediency for you.)

One of my friends had told me “If you had judged a song by its boring intro and stopped listening before getting to the beautiful chorus, you would not get an accurate impression of the ENTIRETY of the song.” (See? I have friends who talk this way. Who give me insight and correct my view and enrich my experience. This is what I mean by worthy friends.)

I didn’t understand it at first. But I get it now. You see, some people need small talk to feel at ease with other people at first. Some people need to be guided into a feeling of safety before they can feel comfortable revealing their true opinions to someone they have only just met. Everything has a beginning. A song has its intro and then a pre-chorus and then a chorus. Every story starts with an introduction to set the context, and then the story progresses to conflict, and then it reaches the exciting climax. If you are not patient with the introduction part, you will not be able to experience the exciting part.

It was my experience of living in a communal setting (first in MRSM Langkawi, and then in KMB, and subsequently having housemates while studying in Australia) that actually improved my disposition and my sociability. These days, I was always quite surprised when people described me as an extrovert. (Have I really improved that much? LOL.) They couldn’t be more wrong.  I agree that I am not a shy person and I have pretty strong opinions. But I am an introvert. No matter how much more sociable I am now, I will always need some portion of alone time at the end of the day. My weekends are for ME… to read and recharge. I will always prefer small groups over large groups. I will always be more serious than jovial. I will always prefer reading than attending kenduri. I will always take more time to warm up to people than most.

Or maybe…. I am an ambivert with a preference for solitary activities? I don’t know.

 

I also attribute my improved sociability to my volunteer works throughout these years. I tolerated A LOT of small talks and boredom (during the initial ice-breaking period) because I know I could not do volunteer works alone. In doing volunteer works, you will always need other people’s help and cooperation. You have to meet members of other NGOs, you have to cooperate with leaders of the place you are volunteering in and whether you like it or not, you MUST talk to them. I look at small talk and being sociable as a SKILL SET that I need to master in order to do my work. Small talk is more tolerable now and not much of a problem these days. And trust me, anyone can do it when they practice enough!

Because we are a sum of our experience.

If we don’t seek out worthwhile experience, we will be stuck doing the same thing over and over again. There is nothing substantial to your existence. Your worries consist of every day mundane thing that do not give any special meaning to your life. When people like me meet you, we will regret spending the time tolerating your boring intro… only to find out later that even your chorus is a monotonous, dull torture.

So, when you have the chance to seek out new experience, volunteer yourself for it! Beautify your chorus! Inspire people around you!

But be warned; the side effects of having varied experience is that, you will find yourself having a higher standard of what constitutes a worthy chorus. Over time, you will be more picky with who your friends are and who you spend your time with.

Civilization & Volunteerism

One of the first signs of a civilized society is having its members being helpful to each other.

I could not demonstrate this point better than by asking you to read this insightful excerpt below, taken from an article written by Remy Blumenfeld.

Years ago, the anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about clay pots, tools for hunting, grinding-stones, or religious artifacts.

But no. Mead said that the first evidence of civilization was a 15,000 years old fractured femur found in an archaeological site. A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. This particular bone had been broken and had healed.

Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, you cannot drink or hunt for food. Wounded in this way, you are meat for your predators. No creature survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. You are eaten first.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that another person has taken time to stay with the fallen, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended them through recovery. A healed femur indicates that someone has helped a fellow human, rather than abandoning them to save their own life.

Isn’t that amazing? Helping fellow human being is the first sign of civilization!

So, volunteer and help your society! It is a marker of a civilized person.

Stay Home

And right now, it is very easy for everyone to do their part in helping their society. Sacrifice your freedom of movement for a while in favour of staying at home. That’s all it takes.

Let us, the health care workers, stay at work for you. All you have to do is stay at home to help reduce the spread of this Covid-19 pandemic.

I understand that you might be bored at home. But this is a very ideal time for you to beautify your chorus! I have mentioned before that your chorus is made beautiful by your experience. But experience can also be gained indirectly by reading books that you would not have the time to read without this lockdown. Read inspiring stories! Read autobiography! Read fiction! Enrich your life experience by reading about things you never knew before. Or if you don’t like to read, watch documentaries! That works too!

If you are a parent, maybe this is a time to teach your children to master a particular school subject beyond his/her syllabus. When I was a child, my father would teach me the next year’s syllabus just to make it easy for me to master my subjects later. And it was really quite helpful.

My nephew, Eshan, who is only 9 years old is trained by my sister (a statistician and a lecturer) to do a mathematical task that I had only learned as a secondary school student. I am so proud of this little man. As my very first nephew, Eshan occupies a very special place in my heart. I have such a gooey soft spot for Eshan, right there at the centre of my chest. (Soppy, I know. LOL)

 

I think I am a very cool aunty to all my nephews and nieces. (Hahhah perasan! But this is proven by the fact that they love hanging out in my room so much whenever they ‘balik kampung’. No other rooms hold allure to them but mine. So, bersepah bilik aku diorang kerjakan. It spoke volume of my patience that I tolerated that from them, okay? Haha) I used to feel despair whenever they cried while I was baby-sitting them when they were around 1-2 years old. I would quickly give them back to my sisters whenever they wailed loudly. I didn’t enjoy being an aunty then because they couldn’t talk, they didn’t have any meaningful fun play and I was bored and wanted to continue my reading.

But as they grew up, I could relate with them better. We could play games; Eshan and Aayra are very good at scrabble, chess and card games and they love playing verbal fluency games with me (and sometimes they beat me too!) I could tell them stories. Or we could go out to the movies (Now that their mothers trust me more to take care of their kids LOL. But not more than one at a time LOL). But kids below the age of 4 years old just hate me even when we are blood related. My siblings told me it was because of my eyes. “Scary, garang, mencerlang.” (Of course I don’t believe them. There is nothing wrong with my eyes.)

So yeah parents out there…. I suggest that you play games with your children at home and engage their minds and their intellect. But if your kids are younger than 4 years old, I also have no idea how to engage with them. You have to come up with the idea yourself because I am hopeless with really young kids! Haha.

Books Of The Month

The first book I would like to talk about this month is written by a very famous thriller novelist by the name of Dean Koontz. I had read a few of his books over the years but I stopped for awhile because I told myself that I need to read more non-fiction to increase my general knowledge.

But his book by the title of The Eyes of Darkness was made famous for the past 2 months because it was said that Dean Koontz had predicted the occurrence of the Corona virus. And the book was written in the 80s!

Let me show you the “evidence” that has been circulating around to say that Dean Koontz had predicted this Covid-19 event.

This has been circulating around in the internet!

So, you see, I was so curious and I wanted to read this book. But because I could not find it anywhere (it was, after all, published in 1981, more than 3 decades ago. I wasn’t even born yet!) so I then downloaded it from an online library that I was a member of.

I must say that I prefer Dean Koontz current style of writing compared to how he wrote decades ago. But I guess, every author must be allowed to gain experience and some polish before they can write excellently. Having said that, the plot was actually quite good.

The synopsis (spoiler alert!):

A young mother had been mourning the death of her son for the past 1 year. Her son passed away in an accident together with other kids in a camping trip. The mother was discouraged from seeing her son because she was told that her son’s body was very badly mangled, and therefore they had a closed-casket funeral. However, one year later, strange things started to occur around this young mother. She started to doubt her sanity and her own perception because of the poltergeist-like occurrences in her house.  She attributed these strange events to grief and lack of closure secondary to not looking at his son before he was buried. So the young mother requested for the body to be exhumed to help her get some closure. However, the moment when she requested for the exhumation of her son’s body, FBI/secret agents/ secret police started to hound her. She and her lawyer boyfriend (who also conveniently happened to be an ex-spy LOL) tried to get to the bottom of the mystery. They finally found out that her son was actually alive and was held at this lab as a test subject to study the effects of a virus originating from Wuhan. All those strange things that happened to this young mother was because her son had developed telekinetic and telepathic ability after being infected by the virus. Her son had been trying to send a message to her to rescue him from  this lab.

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars (I was engaged enough. But I felt like his style of writing was not much to my liking compared to his later works.)

Would I recommend this book to my readers? Well, if you are curious enough to know whether Dean Koontz really did predict the arrival of Covid-19, you can read it too. I downloaded this book from an online library I was a member of. I don’t think you can find any new prints of the book nowadays. If you are interested to read this book, let me know, and I will give you the link to the website via email (I cannot publish the link here, LOL) 

So the question remains… had Dean Koontz REALLY predicted the arrival of this deadly corona virus? Haha. An article discussing this topic is already available in Google. So jangan malas, google it yourself 😛

The next book I had read in this month was a memoir written by Daoud Hari, a Zaghawa tribesman who had worked as a translator for various reporters who were covering the civil war and genocide in Darfur.

He had lived through a harrowing experience after being captured by the Sudanese Government in one of his translating mission with Paul Salopek, a renowned reporter who was on an assignment from National Geographic.

The whole story was basically about his Zaghawa background in Darfur, his various assignments as a translator and how he was finally captured by the Sudan government. Fortunately, while working as a translator, he had made a lot of useful friends, most of them are International reporters who knew powerful people. They helped releasing him from capture and he finally escaped to the US and wrote this memoir (See? This is an example of how cultivating good relationship with others is a matter of survival. Never experienced this kind of situation myself. Because I will always take precaution against needing someone for survival matters. But this kind of situation can certainly befall you. When you are in that tight spot, having a solid network of relationship is an absolute advantage.)

 I give this book 2.5 out of 5 stars. It was pretty average to me. I have read better memoirs of similar experience. I was not engaged enough throughout the reading. I think there was a lack of balance between facts and sentiments.

And this is the problem with writing memoirs. You cannot have too much facts, or the story becomes too dry. You cannot have too much sentiments, or else the context and the message would be overshadowed by too much emotion. You must have the amount just right. And I guess, this is the problem with this book. I need more sentiments to be there so that I can be more invested in the outcome of the story.

But by the end of the book, I wasn’t invested enough. I was simply glad to finish reading it so that I could move on to  the next interesting book.

Still, you guys might want to judge for yourself. How about reading other reviews about this book in Goodreads website before deciding whether this book is worth your money and time? Who knows, you might like reading this book!

Until next time, my dear readers. May Allah deliver us safely out of this Covid-19 catastrophe. #StaySafe #StayAtHome. Much love and may Allah bless all of us.

Political Cleansing!

Langkah Sheraton

 

The great Plato had once said “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics, is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

What a man of wisdom Plato was.

I cannot help but think that politicians are our inferiors in a lot of ways. They couldn’t see the forest for the trees. By bickering and fighting for power constantly and consistently, they demonstrated the spirit of the famous Malay proverb “Menang sorak kampung tergadai,”

What is the use of being the political power of a poor and dysfunctional Malaysia? Even if you win in the end, Malaysia’s economy is suffering and you end up with a lot more headache and little pleasure of winning.

If you guys are anything like me, you might find yourself in a state of acute attention deficit (LOL) while completing the chores of your daily life… because the bulk of your concentration has been swallowed up by political issues in the social media.

Well… I certainly admit that I sure was distracted and kept on refreshing my newsfeed every now and then in between patients, just to be up-to-date on the progress and repercussions of Langkah Sheraton by the Azmin camp (I couldn’t help but think that perhaps Tun M was the mastermind behind the move regardless of what other people say to the contrary. He is a cunning old fox, that man!)

 

The political scenario in Malaysia has never been more interesting. But at what cost? One has to wonder, is it worth the sacrifice?

To me, it is worth it. If it means we can take DAP out of the picture, it is worth it. Because I believe, judging by the various racial and religious issues for the past 2 years, Malaysia desperately needs political cleansing.

***

DAP IS A LIABILITY

Have you ever tried working with a difficult person? How efficiently can you do your work when you have to navigate the myriads of attitude problems, incompetence and dramas that ensue due to the person’s difficult behavior? Sure, you might still be able to complete your task at the end of the day but the end result would not be as good as it could have been if  only you had teamed up with a better person who shared your vision.

And Malaysia is desperate enough to need an efficient leadership that can focus on delivering good results for the people rather than having their leaders being embroiled in a lot of dramas secondary to excessive politicking of issues (Isu arwah Adib, isu kuil di tanah haram, isu jawi, isu tanglung, isu ponggal, isu LTTE, isu LGBTQ, isu menteri perpaduan racist). There are so many racial and religious issues these days that are politicized ad nauseam, ad infinitum…until politicians could not channel the bulk of their time towards governing.

I kind of empathized with Tun M’s need to do something drastic to change the whole cabinet working under him. There might be times when he feels like his hands are tied from doing what is right… because ministers under him listen to the direction of their respective parties which prioritize their own party’s agenda rather than the agenda of the country. There is no unanimous idea of what constitutes the Malaysian aspirations anymore. Politicians from different parties that make up the government are pulling Malaysia in many different directions that at the end of the day, we don’t move at all. In fact, we regress!

Maybe this is what we need now to move forward for a better Malaysia. But most political analysts are saying that we are not ready for it.

 

DAP will always champion the dubious concept of Malaysian Malaysia while at the same time turning a blind eye on how vernacular schools is not conducive to the concept of Malaysian Malaysia! There will be no true unity when the future leaders of Malaysia go to different type of schools in their childhood and each race grow up being distrustful of another race because they could not agree on something as basic as the content of the Malaysian Constitution. They screamed ‘discrimination’ when things don’t go their way, demanding the Malays to sacrifice their privileges bit by bit,  but at the same time  they are not willing to meet us half way by agreeing to be educated in the same school to promote unity. I have always said that we should stop with racial-based quota if other races would agree to be schooled in the same system. Let’s declare that the first batch who enter the national stream will no longer be subjected to racial quota. I am trying to be fair in which all races sacrifice and compromise. You want to gain something, you must give up something too. Jangan kiasu!

Remember, the social contract exists because their forefathers were given citizenship en masse… and their forefathers had insisted on vernacular schools because initially, the Indians and the Chinese had always wanted to return to their Motherland. The vernacular schools existed initially as a preparation for them to return to their respective countries. What is the relevance of vernacular schools now when they all claim that they are as much of a Malaysian as the Malays and demand people to stop treating them as second class citizens! At the same time,  they go “oh even though I am Malaysian, I am learning the syllabus of another country and so please recognize the UEC ya.” They play victim all the time. The Facebook status of a fellow netizen, Mohamaad Jamalee below, illustrate my point so perfectly.

You cannot have it both ways! And then, you shamelessly play victim when we don’t allow you to manipulate us into allowing you to have it both ways. We are not that stupid to not see the game some of the Chinese chauvinists are playing!

In a way, I applauded UMNO’s decision to insist on exclusion of DAP from future government! These chauvinistic Chinese should not be allowed any more leeways until they learn to compromise. Most Malays I know are saying they will never again vote for any coalition that has DAP in it! And I am one of the Malays who are saying that.

***

The Propagation Of LGBTQ Agenda

In the West, the pro-LGBTQ people have succeeded to push their propaganda on innocent kindergarten kids!

Some non-Muslims are not trying to champion their religious values of Hinduism or Buddhism or Christianity… but they are championing the immoral values from the West instead. This kind of trend is becoming more prominent after PH won GE14, 2 years ago.

Look, let’s be clear here. NO RELIGION has ever endorsed homosexuality. A devout Muslim/ Christian/ Jew/Hindu/Buddhist will similarly frown upon homosexuality. It’s just that Islam is more vocal about it in the context of Malaysia. Some Malaysians from other religions are also too timid to profess their true stand about homosexuality because they are so afraid of being labeled ‘backward and intolerant’ by these pro-LGBTQ people. But Muslims do not have a choice of being silent about this… keep on reading, and you will know why we don’t have a choice of being silent when we see something like this is being championed.

Let’s examine our worldview first. Some of our fellow Malaysians are championing the freedom to “do whatever we want as long as we don’t harm others” (I have talked about it in my previous blog post. Click HERE   https://afizaazmee.wordpress.com/2019/12/17/how-did-you-know-that-who-told-you-that/ ) and are trying to impose THEIR worldview on the religious people of the country.

It is THEIR worldview that they can do anything they want as long as they don’t harm others. However, OUR worldview  as a religious person is “we are not free to do anything that we want even if it doesn’t harm others because things that we do that don’t harm others might still harm ourselves and those things are still wrong in the religion!”

So now, we have two different worldviews… BOTH are saying that the other is imposing their view on them.

So, you must understand that your opinion, your ethics, your culture, your religion… they are all personal to you and others might not agree with you. A good debater can argue both sides of the argument and espouse BOTH causes convincingly if he/she is in the mood to play devil’s advocate (I also tend to do that in my head as a form of mental stimulation and intellectual exercise). So your opinion and your idea of what is ethical is always a grey area, ok! Your idea of what is right is not objective and not absolute!

But!! What is not grey is the law!

In Malaysia, the law (Section 377 Penal Code) clearly states that homosexuality is wrong regardless of your own personal opinion and your worldview! Until you can change the law, you must abide by it.

Bullying fellow doctors to support homosexuality, making them feel less-of-a-good-and-ethical-doctor by saying things like “As a doctor, we must not discriminate our patients. We must be professional and treat everyone the same. We must be tolerant and do not impose our religious views on others!” is not going to work in Malaysia.

Yes, I treat everyone the same. A gay patient who is depressed will be given the same kind of  bio-psycho-social-spiritual model of treatment just like how it is given to  a heterosexual patient. So that’s not an issue. I also do not preach or propagate my religious values while I am doing my work as a doctor or as a therapist. I make sure to the best of my ability that my patients are heard when they narrate their issues  to me and that they receive the help that they are entitled to without them feeling judged. But that is my professional life!

In my personal life (including in my blog and in my Facebook) I retain my freedom to propagate whatever I wish as long as it is in line with the law of the country. And so far, we haven’t changed the law of the country to accommodate the LGBTQ society like what is happening in the West.  So if you propagate for LGBTQ causes in Malaysia, you are actually propagating the committing of crimes!

So don’t you dare to manipulate your fellow Muslim doctors to renounce the tenets of what is wrong and right in their religion by forcing them to agree with the LGBTQ agenda. Muslims CANNOT say homosexuality is right… Muslims may commit homosexuality acts themselves but they themselves would not say those acts are right. Saying something wrong in the religion as right is almost as bad as renouncing the religion. In fact, some ulama are of the opinion that “menghalalkan sesuatu yang diharamkan dalam agama” is already murtad. A Muslim may not wear the hijab, but she would never say “menutup aurat tak wajib” because she knew it would render her murtad. If I go around saying “arak itu halal” or “homoseksual itu tak ada masalah dalam Islam”, it can nullify my status as a Muslim because I had “menghalalkan sesuatu yang jelas haram dalam Islam”! This is serious, ok! You may commit the crime yourself but you cannot say that the crime/sin is allowed in the religion because it will nullify your status as a Muslim.

So jangan harap kamu akan berjaya buat semua Muslims suddenly sokong LGBTQ no matter how hard you propagate. Islam has a fail-safe mechanism in preserving the values of the religion and this mechanism guards us from saying things that are wrong as right when we are under societal pressure to do so. Our religion guards us from bowing to societal pressure by asking us  to choose “do you want to please people or do you want to be a Muslim?”. I rather be continuously pressured and looked down upon rather than being a Murtad. Most Muslims also do think like me. So Insya Allah, the majority of Muslims will never wake up suddenly and say “Oh, we approve LGBTQ”! It would stretch my imagination quite a bit to think it might happen in Malaysia en masse. Because if I know anything about Malays and Muslims, they LOVE their religion to death if they are true Muslims who really understand their religion (Sebab tu ada peribahasa “biar mati anak, jangan mati adat”. To the Malays, Islam itu lebih kurang sama macam adat and so intimately intertwined. And this can be problematic sometimes because some Malay’s adats actually have no basis in the religion. It causes misunderstanding about Islam because some idiotic Malay adats are being thought of as stemming from Islam.)

This is a simple matter of science, biology and genetics! XY is always gonna be XY no matter how much of a woman you feel deep inside, ok!

The best thing you can do to manipulate Muslims to support LGBTQ causes is just to shame them into feeling as though they are ‘less professional, less ethical, less good, too judgmental’ as a doctor for not agreeing to your concept of sexual freedom. But most Muslims (kalau mereka ada jati diri yang kukuh) would have stopped caring what you think about them anyway, by now. In fact, maybe like me, they will become so angry by the purposeful attempt to malign their image, that they will start hitting back and counter all your propaganda with their own counter-narrative. We have the weight of religious tradition of multiple religions, biological science and scientific facts to back up our stand that homosexuality is wrong for the society. So be warned. Malaysia still recognizes Islam as Agama Persekutuan and the law is bound to follow the constitution! So pick your battle wisely.  (If you notice, I don’t really talk about stuff like this before. But I have started doing it recently when I notice how some non-Muslim doctors are trying to make Muslim doctors feel ‘less than’ just because we do not support LGBTQ. As though religious doctors who do not support LGBTQ are less intelligent, less rational or less ethical than them. I belong in some forums consisting of doctors and I have witnessed what they are saying about Muslim doctors, kononnya religious doctors are “imposing their religious values on their patients”.  Heck, doctors are also bound by the law. Don’t you forget it! With the way the political scenario is going in this country, I have had enough of being silent! And I have started hitting back. And once I have decided on a particular cause, you won’t stop me talking (or writing) until I am ready to stop. And I won’t be ready to stop until you too stop propagating your idea of sexual freedom in a Muslim-majority country of Malaysia. We are all bound by the law. Capisce? If I feel the slightest threat to my freedom to propagate for what I believe as right just because I am a doctor or a civil servant, I will start fighting back.)

 

Civil Servants/ Doctors Cannot Be Political In The Social Media?

Don’t be ridiculous! There are MANY doctors who are political in the social media. I am one of them and I have never hidden that fact. I used to openly state my political views around GE13 while I was still an UMNO supporter. I openly renounced the BN government and openly campaigned for PH around the time of GE 14. I openly announced that I was a PACA (polling agent and counting agent) for Pakatan Harapan in Parlimen Pokok Sena and DUN Bukit Pinang in the last GE14, while BN was still in power. Yes, even though I was a government servant! And when I am upset with the current government now, I also write about it openly in my blog and in my Facebook too. Alhamdulillah, so far I have not been called up to defend my conduct. But if that were to happen, I am ready to defend myself.

I have never hidden the fact that I follow political news and am passionate about politics without being bound by any party. My principles cannot stand being bound to any political party. My support for any party is based on issues that are close to my heart.

And PH had promised freedom of speech and expression! Remember?

So, I really don’t understand it when one particular acquaintance of mine had said “Tak sesuai la letak isu-isu kontroversi kat social media as a doctor. Bukan boleh ubah apa pun! Social media untuk connect with friends and foster good relationship… nanti jadi gaduh pula.”

Oh, God. Have you been living in a cave all these while? Tak boleh ubah apa pun, you said? What do you mean?? The fact that our government had revised their decision to abolish critical allowance for junior doctors was because we made a big issue out of it in the social media. And don’t you forget that! Social media can be a battle ground in and of itself! Whoever propagates strategically and efficiently via the social media would have ensured that half of the battle is won. That is the very reason political parties spend a lot of money hiring cybertroopers! Do you think politicians hire cybertroopers for nothing??

Wake up to the real world, please!

Just because YOU use the social media to post pictures of where you go for vacation or to show off your latest material acquisition or to tell people about your daily life (yang orang tak lah berminat sangat pun nak tau haha), doesn’t mean EVERYONE shares your view that that is the only thing social media is good for. Self-promotion and self-absorption are not exactly attractive attributes, ok?

Some of us use social media MAINLY for propagation and advocacy of the causes we believe in! Some of us do not feel the need for others to validate (by the number of likes) every single mundane, mindless, pathetic thing we do that we posted on the social media. Some of us do not crave the number of likes based on the beauty of the photos that we posted. Furthermore, I certainly do not use social media to connect with friends. With friends, I go out and meet them and talk to them face-to-face or on the phone. That’s how I really form my connection. Social media is not how I maintain my connection to my family and friends.

So really, for me personally, I use social media MAINLY to spread issues and awareness, to propagate, to advocate and also to counter-narrate! And hence, I don’t care if people are butt-hurt by the opinions I have stated on my Facebook as long as I believe I am propagating the right thing and supporting the right causes.

Propagation is dakwah! It is our beloved Prophet’s biggest Sunnah to follow! If you don’t like to do it yourself, that’s ok. You do your own thing. But you don’t get to stop people from propagating what they believe as right just because you don’t have the spine or the courage to do it yourself or because you don’t think social media is a good place to do it. Because you are wrong! Social media is an EXCELLENT place to do it. In fact, I would argue it is the most effective way of doing it in these days and age.

Some people do not live for ‘wake-up, eat, go to work, earn money, sleep and then do it all over again the next day until the day we die’ routine. Some people care about other bigger, more important things that give their lives meaning, okay? So, live and let live. Capisce? 

I don’t care what causes you want to propagate in YOUR Facebook page. And you should not stop me from propagating what I want to propagate in MY Facebook page. At the end of the day, may the best propagator win in influencing the lawmakers to create or maintain the laws and policies that will swing in our favour!

Nanti kawan-kawan Cina/India terasa…

The same acquaintance of mine who had admonished me for posting a lot of political issues in the social media had also said “Kawan-kawan kita yang Cina/India terasa. Don’t you care about their feelings?”

Look, in my daily life as a doctor or as a person, I get along well with any race as long as they don’t say or do something that I believe as unfair, unjust or untrue. If they do, I will just work it out with them in a polite discussion. I have always been very outspoken even with my own bosses. If I believe their decision is unfair, I will let them know as politely as possible. It is simply not in my nature to pretend to be okay when I see something is unfair, especially if it affects me as well. (There was one time when the MOs were asked to see all psychiatric referrals even though some of the referrals were not indicated or not urgent .… and we were being paid passive calls only.  I voiced out my concerns and said that we have no problems to see all cases but let us claim active calls la… otherwise allow us to stick to passive calls and screen referrals based on urgency. Alhamdulillah my bosses are so nice and they are reasonable people. I am so lucky in my superiors. In other places, what bosses say are regarded as law even if it is unfair. I really detest that kind of bosses and it would trigger my rebellious tendency, LOL. Fairness and justice are my core belief. I don’t let anyone violate it. And I will not passively bow to it without a protest.)

I certainly do have Indians and Chinese colleagues… some of them are pro-vernacular schools. So we simply agree to disagree. I would not feel hurt if they decide to propagate for vernacular schools or to propagate for pro-DAP agendas, or to voice out  their support for LGBTQ in their own Facebook page. When they posted such a thing, did they think about my feelings? No! And I don’t expect them to, anyway!

But I also would not stop posting my anti-vernacular school stand in Facebook. I also would not stop posting about the liability of having DAP in any political coalition. I also would not stop posting about my anti-LGBTQ narrative even though I am sure some of my friends in Facebook are part of the LGBTQ community or pro-LGBTQ. And they also should not expect me to think about their feelings while I am doing my own propagating and awareness spreading.

Truth (or what each of us believe as the truth) trump feelings every single  time! I don’t expect you to care about my feelings when you are propagating what you believe as true. And I also wish you would understand that I have my own version of truth that I am going to continue to propagate regardless of your feelings about it. No offence, ok?

If you don’t allow our differences in opinion to affect our friendship or our working relationship, it shouldn’t be an issue.  We can always continue as usual… politely and professionally go about our daily life. But if you are going to make our differences as a problem in our relationship, then it is on you. Because I personally can work with or talk to anyone I disagree with if my work requires it, but I will not stop the propagation of my causes.

Know that every narration has a counter-narration. Know that every propaganda has a counter-propaganda. Sometimes the side that ends up winning the battle is not the side of the truth. And therefore, if you believe you are on the side of the truth, the onus is on you to speak up and propagate for your own agenda.

I have said it before, an agenda is won when we can cause the law to swing in our favour. Because regardless of your religion, your worldview or your personal opinion, people don’t have to follow them UNTIL it is made as law! The law is the ultimate recognition of  the truth as it is accepted in your country (but not necessarily in other countries. So you have the options of migrating to other countries if you want to escape the law of your own country, ok?) The law is made in the parliament. The lawmakers in the parliament (our politicians) listen to what is popular. That’s why if we want our causes to win, we have to propagate just as diligently and as loudly as the other party! Otherwise, we would lose. And what a shame to lose if we are on the right side. In the West the LGBTQ propagation has won and the law has changed in their favour. If we are not careful, the same thing can happen in Malaysia too. All of us have a part to play in making sure this will never happen.

This is why Islam made it compulsory for us to do whatever we can in our capacity to right a wrong, as evidenced by the hadeeth below:

“Sesiapa dikalangan kamu yang melihat kemungkaran maka hendaklah dia mencegah dengan tangannya, sekiranya dia tidak mampu hendaklah dia menegah dengan lidahnya, sekiranya dia tidak mampu maka dengan hatinya. Dan itulah selemah-lemah iman.”

So what Muslims have to do now is simply not to fear “celaan orang-orang yang mencela,” and keep on propagating! That’s what we have to do!

Say what you believe as right and stop caring how other people are trying to emotionally manipulate or guilt you into agreeing to their concept of freedom and worldview. Insya Allah, that kind of emotional manipulation will never work on me. Because whenever I experience cognitive dissonance, I reserve my judgment, I research and I read up until I am satisfied. Only reasons, rationale and truth would win me over. Not any emotional manipulation or inducement of guilt that are based on paltry sentiments! That NEVER work with me! In fact, it would make me so annoyed that you had tried to manipulate me emotionally that I will fight even more (Haha…. agreeableness is never part of my personality strength, unfortunately).

And speaking of reserving judgment, researching and reading… this brings me to the next section of this blog; the books of the month section. (Because reading is one of the best things you can do to nourish your mind, no?)

Books of The Month

The month of February has been so busy for me that I was only able to finish two books in the entire month; one fiction and one non-fiction.

The first book that I read this month was The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly who is one of my favourite legal-fiction author. (I like his works much more than I like John Grisham, and I like Grisham quite a lot. So that might give you some idea of how much I regard Michael Connelly as an author.)

Synopsis of the Fifth Witness:

Mickey Haller is a criminal defense lawyer who, due to lack of business, had to turn to handling foreclosure cases in order to get some income. But his real passion has always been criminal defense. As fate would have it, one of his foreclosure case clients, Lisa Trammel, was accused of murdering the banker who was involved in the foreclosure of her house. So the mystery revolves around whether Lisa Trammel was guilty. The book also went into very good and detailed explanation of Mickey Haller’s defense strategy. We were also given some insights on the relationship between lawyers and prosecutors inside and outside the courtroom. If you do not know much about court procedures (well, the ones in the US at least), you will have a rough idea by the time you finish this book (or any Michael Connelly book that features Mickey Haller as the protagonist).

What I like about his books is that they are always full of great courtroom scenes. Just when you think the protagonist lawyer might lose the case, something unexpected happens, LOL. The plot twist and turns are always engaging too. Some of the dialogues are funny and I laughed out loud a few times. So, yeah, if you are interested in fiction based on law/legal issues, please do check out Michael Connelly.

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars (which is really good by my standard. The only reason I don’t give 5 stars is just because I have given 5 stars to The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini before, and so far not many books have come close to make me feel what I felt while reading The Kite Runner. So yeah, please do read The Kite Runner as well, LOL).

I learned so much new philosophical ideas in this book, and hence I placed a lot of those colourful bookmarks for easier future reference.

The next book I would like to promote is by Hamza Andreas Tzortsis, published in 2016 by the title of The Divine Reality: God, Islam and The Mirage of Atheism. This book was written to deconstruct atheism and provide a compelling case for the rational and spiritual foundations of Islam.

If you are a student of Theology, you should read this book. It teaches you the philosophical aspect of learning how to think about materialism and metaphysical knowledge. In this book, you will learn why atheism has a lot of contradictions and has very weak foundation philosophically, scientifically, intuitively and rationally. It will blow your mind.

Some of the questions that this book tries to answer are:

• Does hope, happiness, and human value make sense without the divine?
• Do we have an ultimate purpose?
• Can we have consciousness and rational minds without God?
• Did the universe come from nothing?
• Does evil and suffering negate Divine mercy?
• Has scientific progress led to the denial of God
• Are revelation and prophethood myths?
• Is God worthy of our worship?

Interesting questions, don’t you think? I certainly did enjoy reading some of the philosophical concept I didn’t know exists. Some of  the thought-provoking concepts are:

• Occam’s razor: a philosophical principle that basically says the simplest and most comprehensive explanation is the best one.
• The question of: Is something morally good because God commands it; or does God command it because it is morally good?
• The concept that ‘science is forced to restrict its attention to problems that observation can solve’. But there are a lot of questions that observation alone cannot solve, right? Things that are not observable…. how do you make sense of them without science?
• What are the criteria for truth to be called as self-evident? If someone says to you that the past doesn’t exist and asks you to prove that the past exists…. is that rational? Or because the existence of the past is self-evident, therefore the more rational thing to do is to question the questioner “what evidence do you have to prove that the past doesn’t exist?” (Basically, when someone questions a self-evident truth, the onus lies on the questioner to come up with reasons for rejecting something that is self-evident. For example if I question the fact that someone must have written this blog post and I argue that this post was just there and no one had actually written this post… I must provide my reasoning why I believe this blog post was not written by anyone and it just happens to be. Because it is self-evident truth that someone must have written this blog post and uploaded it on wordpress. There are other more complicated arguments in this book, but you must read it yourself to appreciate it better)
• The concept of Solipsism – that you can only be certain that your mind exists. Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one’s mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. (Can you imagine how a Schizophrenia patient in the midst of a hallucination would feel… knowing for sure that the voices are real… but actually only in their minds that those experiences are real. They cannot know whether or not things are real or not real… until someone told them it actually wasn’t real. But what if that someone was also wrong?) Interesting, isn’t it?

So, I give this book 4 out of 5 as well. And I highly recommend this book for all Muslims and non-Muslims who are seeking for knowledge of the big questions in life.

Unfortunately, this book is not sold in Malaysia and I had to order it online via Book Depository (free shipping, ok!). And seriously, it was worth the money spent and worth the agony of having to wait for the arrival of the book all the way from  the UK (almost one month waiting time, guys).

The price of the book is MYR69.13. Not too bad for a 332 pages book (The actual content of the book is only 301 pages. The rest consists of bibliography and references.)

Before I end this post, I will just discuss a little bit on the author of this distinguished book. Hamza Tzortzis has a Master in Philosophy and currently pursuing his doctorate in Philosophy as well. He is also a student of Theology and a renowned public speaker and writer. You can find a lot of videos of his talks in You Tube as well. I have watched many of his videos and he is a very good, rational, and convincing speaker. So do check him out on You Tube before you decide for yourself if his style of reasoning is much to your liking. If you like his speeches, chances are you will like his book too.

Until next time, my dear readers. Much love and may Allah bless all of us.

Happy New Year 2020: A New Year Rant!

Wishing everyone a blessed year ahead.

Dear readers,

I hope it is not too late for me to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Truly, I have given up making any sort of New Year Resolutions because it has been made clear to me year after year that I truly do embody the true spirit of hangat-hangat tahi ayam. And therefore, I have given up on having yearly goals or resolutions.

I only have short-term agendas… daily agenda, weekly agenda, monthly agenda and so on and so forth.  And my resolution is to cross off the list of my agendas and just get things done within the time I have stipulated for myself.

And that is why I am particular about time. Because I have daily goals to achieve. Even if the goal is as simple as to finish my latest fiction, or to finish reading the latest journal article suggested by the Royal College or just to finish writing an article for my blog (Remember that I have a monthly agenda of one blog post per month. And included in that agenda is to finish at least 2-3 books per month so that I could write about them in my blog post in the section of Book Of The Month at the end of each blog post.)

So yearly resolution doesn’t do much good for me. Never have I ever lost the weight I wanted to lose at the beginning of the year LOL.  Instead I have my “let’s try to jog and sweat more today” days and my “I just want to eat Secret Recipe cakes and Baskin Robbins ice cream” days. These two types of days are of equal importance to me. Because… it’s about balance, guys… right?

Never have I ever been a good, obedient daughter for the whole year. But instead I have my good daughter “I am a blessing to my parents” days and my bad daughter “Poor my parents, I am giving them the worst kind of headache” days. LOL.

Never have I ever been a good, sociable friend who is always available for everyone all year round and will attend all kenduri invitations and get-together events. Instead I have my “let’s try to socialize more today” days and my “I really just want to be at home and read and do my own thing” days.

Never have I ever for the whole year been diplomatic and soft spoken always. But I have my “I can be patient about this for a little while and will try to respect your authority even though I think you are making a wrong decision” mood and my “I absolutely cannot tolerate this and will argue till kingdom come if you don’t withdraw your faulty decision no matter who you are in your position” mood. (In general, this involves people doing something unacceptable that I think violates my sense of justice, fair treatment and good conduct. I cannot be patient about that. But I have learned to pick and choose my battle these days. Because… priority, guys!)

So I find that daily renewal of good intention works better for me. Because I am human. I am not infallible. I forget my intention. I forget my purpose sometimes. And I am thankful that I am surrounded by people who can metaphorically whack my head when I am being a pain in the proverbial backside.

You see, I choose my friends carefully. I have inspiring friends all around me. I have friends who have such a similar view with me that she will fight side by side with me or support me if I choose to pick up a battle. I have friends who teach me to be patient and diplomatic when I am so upset I forget to hold my tongue. I have friends with whom I can talk for hours about anything heavy or light-hearted that we are insensible to the passing of the time. I have friends who are so strong that they can face trials in life multiple times and they can still get up from their falls, forge ahead and able to make it in the end. I have friends who enjoy adventurous stuff so that we can travel to earthquake-ridden places and do meaningful volunteer works when we feel like it. I have friends who share similar worldview with me that we will marvel for hours over a cup of coffee on why most people don’t think the way we do. LOL.

In short, I have inspiring friends whom I can learn from and I can emulate.

I do not place myself in a position of having friends with negative attitude and negative mindset. If I sense from the very beginning that you will weigh me down with all your “unprincipled, pemalas, kerja cincai, tak tepati masa, kaki bodek, negative about others all the time,” I will still treat you with distant politeness but you do not fit into my inner circle.

I truly hold on to this hadeeth below:

The Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) said:

“A good friend and a bad friend are like a perfume-seller and a blacksmith: The perfume-seller might give you some perfume as a gift, or you might buy some from him, or at least you might smell its fragrance. As for the blacksmith, he might singe your clothes, and at the very least you will breathe in the fumes of the furnace.”

(Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 3, Hadith 314)

As a doctor, our clinical practice is based on evidence-based guidelines. As a Muslim, our whole life has been guided by the Quran and the Hadeeth  though I am not perfect (FAR from perfect) in following all of them. But when it comes to choosing friends and my close companions, I do follow this hadeeth strictly. Because I believe that the impact of friends on you is significant. At the end of the day, you must have enough strength of character to walk away from bad friends because otherwise, they will affect you little by little and before you realize it, you have changed.

It is true that good people around you can influence your behaviours. I credit my much improved patience now to my calm, amiable, friendly friends that I met in Australia. If God had left me to my own devices, I think I would not be able to moderate my temperament and would still be that tiresome argumentative child who just wants to win and have the last word (even though one can argue that I still retain that tiresome traits until now LOL. But in my own defense, I really did believe that I was right when I was being argumentative. If you do not have the oratory skills to convince me, how would I know that I was wrong?) Their calm, logical, kind understanding in answering all my questions… I had never met someone like them before I went to Australia. I don’t think I have ever told them about how much they have impacted my worldview about life and about religion… maybe if they still read my blog, at least they will know.

There are still so much room for improvement in me… but really, this is a much better version of me. This is Afiza version 3.0 ha ha ha.

A review of 2019 & The Beginning of A Rant (LOL)

2019 had been full of ups and downs. But I managed to complete my MRCPsych exam in 2019. So that was something major in 2019 for me to be thankful for and to be jovial about. That was the goal I had successfully achieved last year, Alhamdulillah. #AchievementUnlocked #MoveOnToTheNextLevel

But what’s next?

 

I received an offer from Athona recruitment centre in the UK to become a psychiatrist there around 2 weeks after passing my exam. At first, I ignored the email from the recruitment centre because I didn’t think I wanted to work in the UK. My whole family is in Malaysia and I wanted to remain in Malaysia. But later, when the social media was abuzz with the news that critical allowance for newly appointed doctors would be abolished, I found myself staring at the email from the recruitment centre again. I found myself evaluating the idea of moving to the UK and continue working there.

Solidarity for junior doctors!

I was wondering whether I should really give up on Malaysia.

I have experienced a lot of…. well, dissatisfaction… about a lot of things. I am wondering if I could be a better doctor somewhere else, if I could do more somewhere else…where the system is superior, the allied health workers are enough and functioning, and the admin is reasonable when you lodge a complaint against any staff who does not treat your patient professionally.  Truthfully… there are times when I am tired of working in Malaysia. It’s not about the money. It’s never about the money because I am relatively financially free with no responsibility to anyone other than myself, Alhamdulillah. When I say I am financially free, I am not saying that I am rich… because I am not, LOL. But then, I don’t need to be rich. I am content. My freedom is my greatest treasure ever. I can speak up and challenge authority if I am so inclined because I know that should anyone try to oppress me unfairly, I can fight them back. If I lose the fight, I can afford to tender my resignation (after first creating a lot of havoc and probably dragging that person to court. LOL. But most people do not push me  that far.) This is the reason I choose MRCPsych. I have more options in where I can work if I have had enough of Malaysian bureaucracy. And the freedom that comes with a world-recognized qualification is a bliss.

Alhamdulillah, thank God that He had placed me in a job I love. Going to work is not even a job for me…. but a vocation. If I ever decide to leave KKM and go to the UK, it will not be about the money.

It will be about having to be under the thumb of foolish people in the admin side who discriminate the psychiatry field in the way that they deal with problematic staffs. Sometimes these admin people let dysfunctional staffs with criminal-like behaviour to continue working in psychiatry when the same kind of behavior in another department would not have been tolerated and would have caused them to be transferred out from that department pronto. (And these rejected staffs from other departments got transferred to PSY Department most of the times! And then this kind of staffs continue to create havoc in PSY department but when we complain about them, the admin people will not bother transferring them out from PSY department. The double standard is abominable!)

It’s also about dealing with rigid, bureaucratic red tape set by KKM admin who sit around making decisions about us without discussing their (unfair) decisions with us first. It’s also about the increasing pressure of being oppressed in which the burden of work is increasing (has there ever been a time when doctors’ burden of work is decreasing?) but the privileges and the allowances are abolished (or are being discussed and debated for abolishment). They have revoked their decision to abolish critical allowance for now, but who knows what else they would try to take away from us in the future?

On a larger scale of disenchantment, Pakatan Harapan proves to be disappointing to most of us who had worked really hard as a PACA in the last GE14. There are so many issues that have made us wonder on whether or not we should vote for BN in the next GE. Despite thinking this way, I never regret choosing Pakatan Harapan in GE14. The message we sent to the politicians was crystal clear. You cannot take for granted the loyalty of our votes if you do a poor job of governing the country. BN got the message already in the last GE14.

Maybe PH needs the same message as well during the next GE. Hmm? Maybe for the next GE, I will be a PACA for BN pula? LOL. My maternal aunty (whose house has been a BN Bilik Gerakan in Sedaka for decades) will be pleased about that, I am sure. She was so upset at my parents, myself and my siblings when we voted against BN during the last GE.

Let us be demanding of our government to deliver high quality governance. We can keep on switching our votes between various different parties till the end of days if we have to. That’s why I am not a member of any political party. I choose who to support based on issues. Not because I am a member of any political organization. I wish to stay objective and unbiased. I don’t believe in misplaced loyalty and unconditional love to any person or organization. My love and loyalty will always be conditional upon you being a good and worthy person. Because I don’t like to waste my time and my resources. (My INTJ traits could not have borne it! We loathe inefficiency in anything or anyone).

The same reason : The craps that they accumulate if they are not changed often.

Ex-Education Minister

A lot of people in my Facebook newsfeed had expressed sadness and dissatisfaction about Dr.Maszlee having to resign from his post as Education Minister. I didn’t express any feeling whatsoever about this because I believe that if he is really good, he will make a comeback. In fact, he will come back stronger and wiser if he learned from this experience. Even Tun M was expelled from UMNO once upon a time because he was too loud in his criticism against Tun Abdul Rahman, remember? And yet he is our PM twice over. Sometimes, things happened so that you can internalize the lessons that you would not have learned, otherwise. He has a lot of loyal supporters. Insya Allah, he will make a comeback.

I do believe that Maszlee is a good person but I did not always agree with all his statements and actions. When most people in my Facebook newsfeed were shocked about Dr. Maszlee having to resign from his post as Education Minister, I was not all that surprised by the news. I had predicted it in my previous blog post.

Below is the snippet of my previous blog post by the title of ‘Truly Non-Partisan’ :

Nowadays, Dr. Maszlee has received criticism right, left and centre! He has nothing to lose if he just says “We will abolish vernacular schools. The standard 1 batch who first enters the new education system will no longer be subjected to any quota system when they are applying for matriculation, 10-11 years from now. We hope to promote unity between races by abolishing vernacular schools as well abolishing quotas between races.” 

But what did he do instead? He said  something to the effect of “Quota should be there because even job openings are discriminatory. Private companies only hire mandarin-speaking candidates.” Gosh! Is he saying that one act of discrimination justifies the use of another act of discrimination?! “Oh sebab hangpa discriminate kami dalam pekerjaan, so kami discriminate korang dengan quota lah.” OMG…. no wise politician will say something like that!

Politicians should have basic debating skills, in my opinion.  Rather than comparing quota with job discrimination, you should compare quota with vernacular schools…. because the existence of quota is part of Hak Bumiputera. And if Bumiputera have to sacrifice their rights, then the non-bumiputera must also sacrifice their vernacular schools. Barulah comparable kat situ, faham tak? Barulah kau tak kena bash! Dan kalau kau kena bash pun, at least it will be for a WORTHY statement and a WORTHY move!

If  you are interested, you can read the whole article in the post ‘Truly Non-Partisan’. But basically, I had written about how unsatisfied I was that he did not put his foot down and be firm about abolishing vernacular schools. How he was seen to be focusing on frivolous issues. It’s good that he is concerned about Pendidikan Untuk Semua especially concerning OKU kids… but get it done in a single-stream school. It’s good that he upgraded schools in the rural area and all… that can happen while prioritizing single-stream school too. It’s good that he is concerned about ‘beban kerja guru’…. again beban kerja guru could be dealt with while also making the bigger and more important change of having a single stream school.

Tackle the most important priority, first! The problem in Malaysia is racial disunity secondary to childhood racial segregation in schools! At least, even if you ended up making so many enemies that you had to step down, it would have been for a worthy cause. But now even without touching vernacular schools… he still had to step down anyway. What a shame.

Leadership is not about trying to please everyone (but ended up making every faction hates you anyway because of your lack of firmness). It is about doing the right thing, even if you please no one. When you do the right thing, even if you get a backlash from it, at least you will be satisfied and content. But when you try to compromise and please everyone, sometimes the strategy will backfire on you and at the same time you don’t even get the satisfaction of having done the right thing. For example:

• Go ahead and be firm about learning Jawi in schools. Even if you had to displease the Chinese and the Indians, insist on learning Jawi because it has been decided. Tapi tiba-tiba daripada 6 muka surat jawi… tinggal 3 muka surat. Because you want to compromise and please everyone. But what happened instead? The Malays are very displeased because it was supposed to be 6 pages. And the Chinese/Indians are still displeased because they don’t even want to learn 3 pages of jawi! What did you get? None of the races are happy with you! At least if you had stick to your gun and insist that we are sticking to 6 pages of Jawi…. because you believe that this is the right thing to do (otherwise why would you have made that decision in the first place)… you will still please the Malays. But when you reduced the learning of Jawi to 3 pages, hoping to appease other races (but at the same time trying to comfort the Malays that Jawi will still be taught albeit with a reduced number of pages), every race is angry at you! Nampak tak how being Mr. Nice Guy to EVERYONE will backfire on us! Just do what you believe as right. Because when you do what you believe as right, that intention of yours please God. Don’t try to please others because there are so many of them who have their own conflict of interests that you can never please everyone. There’s a lot of freedom in knowing that you don’t have to please anyone else other than God. Try it sometime, okay? You might get so addicted to that freedom, you will never go back to being a Mr-Nice-Guy-To-Everyone again. #Leadership101
• Go ahead and defend tanglung at schools because CNY is a cultural celebration and not a religious one. Defend tanglung even if you had to displease the Malays. (Tapi yang ni, pandai pula PH Government defend bagai nak rak. Isu jawi pula diorang macam tak ada spine!)

 

When it comes to Jawi, you said PIBG’s decision was the reason not to implement it. How about Tanglung? It was the PIBG who decided to get rid of the tanglung! This is a rather obvious inconsistent reasoning!

• You want to enforce the rule of no smoking in public premises to please the non-smoking public. But then you ambivalently flip flop and decided to allow a smoking area in the restaurants to cater to smokers. Seriously… whaaatt??

Create a pattern of leadership that is so fair and so firm in its fairness no matter who is displeased, that you inspire respect in your leadership.

And I am not saying this only about Dr. Maszlee. But the whole laughable PH government is an epitome of spinelessness. I think the young generation is getting very disillusioned about this country. Part of me feel like I should have stayed in Australia when I had the chance.

I am a very patriotic person. But when the fate of our country lies in politicians whose honour is questionable at best, the inclination to pack up and get out is very strong.

Why do I say their honour is questionable?

Well…if I were a politician, I certainly would not have hired political aides who are involved in drug parties. (Remember the hadeeth?) And I certainly would not want someone who commit adultery/sodomy to be among my trusted circle and working with me in developing my political career. In order for me to work with you, I need to know that I can trust and respect your integrity. I make it compulsory that if I am going to have to deal with you day in and day out, you better buck up and deserve my friendship and the trust that comes with it. I don’t want to waste my time having to deal with the complication of your dubious character. Time should be spent focusing on things that matter. Not dealing with bad behavior of undeserving people in your life that makes your life difficult to the point that you spend the bulk of your time settling headache-inducing personal issues, when you could have spent your time doing important things that would make a difference; things that would give you a reward in this life and the hereafter.

When it comes to dealing with my subordinates, I don’t go around checking the whereabouts of my HOs or my staffs every single minute of their working hours. I have better stuff to do with my time. But I want things to be done within the stipulated time that we had discussed. I will check and follow up on what I had asked them to do. I want them to show results without me having to micro-manage their time. You can keluar ambil anak from school or do whatever you have to do as long as you deliver progress and good results in your work. Tapi kalau kau pemalas, kau tak berdisiplin, kau suka buat pesakit atau kau tak buat kerja sampai pesakit under your care banyak relapse…. You should be sacked out of your department! Don’t demotivate other staffs around you who had to put up with your behavior.

As a leader, they must start learning the concept of Pygmalion effect. People deliver something better, because YOU expect something better! People will try to meet your standard because you expect it from them and will not put up with anything less.

As simple as that.

So why did you expect low?

 

***

The Worrying Global Trend Of Religious & Racial Persecution

Things that are happening to Uyghurs in China and to Muslims in India and Kashmir…. they are very disheartening.

In our own country, racial issues are fired up constantly and consistently.

Modi’s government wants India’s Muslims to prove their Indianness because their faith renders it suspect.  Seriously!

Some of fellow Malaysians of Indian race had dared to question Tun M’s stand to continue to criticize India, because now India had retaliated by not buying our palm oil. And some of these ‘Malaysians’ who are still LOYAL to India are saying things like “Take care of the economy of your own country first and guard your mouth, Tun M.”

Wow…. their priority is certainly skewed.

So, I then wrote this Facebook status. I hope my message is clear. Jangan main dengan api just because the majority is silent. I am certainly not the silent type when I have had enough.

One of my friends were saying to me, “Aku tak berani nak tulis some of the Facebook status that you had written even though I agree with you. Facebook aku ada kawan-kawan India, Cina…. aku takut depa offended.”

I have said it before. I say the truth even if people don’t like it. I am not responsible for your hurt feelings. I certainly do have Chinese and Indian friends in my Facebook as well as in real life and in our day-to-day life, we get along well and respect each other!

But this is political! Everybody will have their own political opinion which may be influenced by their race or their religion.

But regardless of which race or religion you are, justice is a universal concept! Regardless of which race or religion you are, FACTS are facts!

Below are the facts!

In China, the main culture/religion is Buddhism, and they speak Chinese languages (Mandarin/Cantonese/Hokkien etc), and the Chinese students take exams based on the syllabus in their own country which has been tailored to suit the Chinese values, Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy. Can a Muslim whose Malaysian ancestors had migrated to China demand that the Chinese Government recognize her SPM qualification (based on the Malaysian syllabus) so that she could enter universities in China? How is that fair to other citizens who took different kind of exams? #SayNoToUEC

Likewise, in India, the main culture/religion/language is not Islam or Arabic…. it is Hindu as the religion of the majority and Hindi language is the official language. Can a Muslim whose ancestors had migrated from Saudi Arabia demand that the India Government recognize her exam qualification based on Saudi Arabia’s syllabus in order for her to enter Indian Universities?

In Europe, the Western values is the dominant culture and Christian is the main religion. Before going to study in Australia, I took International Baccalaureate (IB) qualification before I can enter Newcastle University! Should I have demanded that they recognize my SPM, instead? I could sure try, if I wanted to be a barrel of laughs!

In the Middle East, the main culture is Arabic and the language is Arabic. I am sure they too have their own system!

In EVERY region and EVERY country, there is one dominant culture and one dominant religion and one official/dominant language. This is the country’s identity! Every country has ONE dominant identity which is usually influenced by the culture and religion of the majority! #FactsOfLifeInThisWorld  Please get this into your head!

In Malaysia, that dominant identity and that dominant culture is the Malay culture and the official religion in this country is Islam… but we didn’t stop you from practicing your own culture and religion! But respect to the dominant culture and the dominant religion must be there! You do not get to demand EQUALITY of all religions and cultures in Malaysia. Just like other minorities in other countries also cannot (and DID NOT!!) demand EQUAL recognition of their own cultures and religious practices in that country. As long as they can practice their religion and culture without disturbance, they do not demand that everything about their culture and religion is treated equally with the dominant culture/religion. In fact, they assimilated! Some of the Chinese and Indians in Australia could not even speak their mother tongues, and they have Western values and they adopt the Western culture.

Sure, Barack Obama who is a black American had been the US President for two terms. But don’t try to compare that situation with Malaysia by saying stupid things out of context such as “Malaysia is so backward… in the US,  they already have a Black president. Kat Malaysia, kenapa orang Cina/India tak boleh jadi PM? So racist!”

Hang on, guys! Barack Obama didn’t speak Swahili… he speaks perfect English. And his culture and religion are Western and Christian. He has assimilated! THAT is the difference!

He is so assimilated that people were not worried that someone like him was going to be the President of a white-majority country… because they were very confident that it wouldn’t affect their way of life in any way, shape or form. But can you imagine if Barack Obama speaks hesitant English, and more fluent in Arabic than in English, and is a practicing Muslim rather than a practicing Christian, whose values are Eastern rather than Western…. would he have been the US President? Think about it! Be fair in your judgment!

So if you want to be a Malaysian PM, come and join us and assimilate with us… starting from learning with us in a similar environment at schools during childhood. Tapi kalau itu pun kau tak boleh buat, tiba-tiba nak demand jadi PM Malaysia? Are you out of your mind? Who would vote for you to be Malaysian PM in a Malay-mojority country? This is not about being racist. This is about understanding facts and contexts! In Australia, MOST members of parliament are WHITE…. hardly any Asians or Muslims or Indians can be an MP despite them having assimilated completely with the Australian culture. Most of them don’t speak their own mother tongues and hardly know anything about being Asian or being Indian. And yet, they are much less represented!

Compare that situation to Malaysia where there are SO MUCH MORE Indians and Chinese who are MPs.  I and many Malays certainly would vote for a PM who is a Chinese Muslim like Brother Firdaus Wong. I am sure a lot of Malays would vote for an Indian Muslim like Brother Shah Kirit to be a PM… because we feel like they have assimilated perfectly with the culture of the majority! They would not suddenly question Islamic practices or the fact that Islam is the official religion of the country. Sebab tulah Barack Obama boleh jadi presiden US…. because he assimilated! #PoliticalScience101 Kalau benda simple macam ni kau tak boleh grasp (or maybe it is actually too complicated for you?), how can you have the maturity to be a PM?

Below is  an introduction to the wit of Brother Wong, to those who have never known him.

When you go to the Western countries, pandai pula kau tak demand vernacular schools kat sana. There are so many Indians/Chinese living in the UK or the US…. but why does no one demand for the UK or the US government to recognize their syllabus based on their country of ethnic origin? Why do you dare to insist on your vernacular schools when you are in Malaysia but not when you are in the Western countries? Perhaps minorities in the Western countries are more reasonable and they know not to cross boundaries. They know their place, their rights and their limitations. So, I reiterate #SayNoToUEC

Nak dapat cuti CNY/Deepavali… jangan haraplah kalau kat Australia! During Eid day pun aku pergi lecture hall ok! Nak bina kuil, rampas tanah orang suka-suka hati kat Western countries, kau berani ke? Kau ingat negara tak ada undang-undang??

If I ever decide to migrate to the UK, I would NEVER behave like some of the minority extremists here in Malaysia. Because in Islam, we are taught #FiqhMinoriti (Fiqh Al-Alqalliyyat or Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities). Did you know that in Syariah Law, Muslims minority must follow the law of the land they reside in? Otherwise, we have the options to berhijrah. Simple kan? We will still do the actions required in our 5 pillars of Islam (rukun Islam; namely shahada, praying, zakat, fasting, hajj pilgrimage) but we are not asked to change the law of the land to be in accordance to Islam.

But when we are in a Muslim-majority country, we are obliged to uphold the Islamic Law without trampling on the rights of the minority. And Malaysia is a Muslim-majority country!

“Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat”—the jurisprudence of Muslim minorities—is a legal doctrine introduced in the 1990s by Taha Jabir Al-Alwani and Yusuf Al-Qaradawi which asserts that Muslim minorities, especially those residing in the West, deserve a special new legal discipline to address their unique religious needs that differ from those of Muslims residing in Islamic countries.

According to Taha, “While Muslims in Muslim Countries are obliged to uphold the Islamic Law of their state, Muslim minorities in the United States are not required either by the Islamic Law or rationality to uphold Islamic symbols of faith in a secular state, except to the extent permissible within that state.”

But there will be extremists in any religion and any race. We certainly do get Muslim extremists in  the West too. And in Malaysia… there are minority extremists who are being given a wide publicity by the local media. My question is, what are you playing at? Are you trying to burn the country to the ground with racism and racial hatred?

So, if you are wondering why I can write controversial stuff in my Facebook my answer is…. “Kenapa kita kena senyap bila ada orang lain tengah propagate for falsehood, wanting something beyond their rights? Kenapa diorang boleh cakap lepas dan mulut capoi macam dengan apa dan post kat Facebook benda yang salah? Tapi kita tak boleh propagate benda yang betul? Kau boleh terima ke bila ada Malaysian biadap yang cakap jangan menyibuk soal India… jangan sibuk speak up bila Indian Government discriminate orang Muslim kat sana just because our palm oil will be boycotted? Economy first, before humanity and justice…. is that it? Religious persecution is okay ke… as long as our palm oil can be sold to India? I cannot accept that. So kalau orang boleh berani tulis benda yang salah, kenapa aku  tak boleh tulis benda yang betul!”

I posted what I believe as right! That’s my answer to why I don’t care whose feelings are hurt by what I write.

If you are hurt by the truth, you are the problem. Not me.

***

Book Of The Month

In the month of December, I had finished 5 books; 3 fictions and 2 non-fictions. But I would like to write only  about the non-fiction ones because I think these two books are quite beneficial to be read by my readers.

Some of my patients had asked me about what books should they read that would motivate them. And usually, I would be at a loss to recommend one for them. You see, the truth is, I do not set out to motivate myself by reading motivational books. I find that they are too contrived and they are trying too hard to motivate us in an unnatural way to the point that they sound unrealistic. I read fictions…. on justice, on quests, on hardship and difficulties… in which the hero would win in the end after facing so many trials and tribulations. To me, THAT is motivating.

So I don’t read books like ‘Chicken Soup For The Soul’… Or books like ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ or ‘How To Win Friends And Influence People’. I mean… I guess, they are alright but they are not my cup of tea. I was never able to finish them and have given up buying them.Those kind of books are too… instructive, for me. Too contrived. Like I have to follow a manual instead of leading my life naturally. LOL.

So, I didn’t know what to recommend my patients if they asked me for that kind of books because I don’t read them, in general.

But one day I came across an instagram page of Mizi Wahid and I kind of like the things he posted. Later I found out that he had authored a book by the title of The Art Of Letting God. I bought this book in Senai Airport at the price of  RM50, and for  a 147-pages hard-cover book, I must say it was a great purchase.

This book is for Muslims who are looking for inspiration, motivation and the strength to let go of their past hurt and regrets. And it is the Muslim version of evidence-based practice (i.e, dalil-based) for letting go and letting God. I certainly enjoyed reading it and I finished them in 2-3 days. It does intrigue my mind and challenge my thoughts in certain things and that is quite rare to happen for me these days. For example in Chapter 9 “Leave Your Enemies To Him”… hahha…. I had a long thought about that. Because my core belief is Justice.

Let me quote some of the sentences in this Chapter:

In Islam, the choice to avenge a wrongdoing is a valid one. It is an option as long as the “retaliation” is equal or less than what was done to you. But there are other options too. And they are: the choice to be compensated and the choice to forgive the wrongdoer.

I will never be able to talk about forgiveness until you first acknowledge that avenging a wrongndoing is also a valid course of action! Most motivational books would jump straight to “Forgiveness of Others” as though the wish to be avenged is unnatural. But Mizi Wahid took a balanced approach. He had rightly stated that being compensated and being avenged is also a valid option. It does celebrate our natural human nature of seeking justice. And only AFTER talking about justice, he talked about forgiveness. That is very good…. very palatable to someone like me.

Don’t you just HATE it when some ‘budget bagus’ preacher talk about forgiveness without talking about justice? So impractical and so devoid of any understanding of human nature! Padahal dia sendiri pun mulut boleh tahan and taklah automatically forgive orang. Ha ha.

I like something real, genuine and practical. Don’t sound pretentiously religious when actually the reality is different. I tend to question your intention if I don’t trust your holier-than-thou tone.

So I do recommend my readers to read this book by Mizi Wahid, The Art Of Letting God. I think this is one of the motivational books that are less pretentious compared to many others out there. And like I said, it is dalil-based (evidence-based).

The next book I would like to talk about is Labyrinths by Catrine Clay. I bought this book in Alor Star during the Big Bad Wolf book sale last October. The reason I bought this book was because it is related to my career in psychiatry.

This is about Carl Gustav Jung and his marriage to Emma Jung and the early days of psychoanalysis. Even Sigmund Freud made an appearance in this book and he was like a father-figure to Carl Jung…until finally Carl Jung departed from Freud due to their disagreement about one aspect of psychoanalysis… namely the psychosexual part of psychoanalysis.

After reading this book, I had a clearer idea on how psychoanalysis was practiced in the early days and frankly, I am not impressed by how very unscientific their methods were.

Below is a table outlining the differences between Carl Jung’s assumptions and Freud’s assumptions (Nama pun assumptions, ok!)

I find this book is particularly illuminating when it comes to personal anecdotes of Carl Jung’s life and childhood (he was sexually abused). There were some questions on whether or not he might have suffered from Bipolar?

It was interesting to know about the ménage à trois between Carl Jung, Emma Jung and Toni Wolff. I felt so sorry for Emma Jung about that.

In this biography, Carl Jung was depicted to have had multiple romantic relationships with his patients. For someone who should know better about transference, he certainly didn’t give a damn. There had been times when he continued to encourage romantic feelings in his patients.

I find that at the end of the book, I could not respect Carl Jung as a person. Maybe as a psychiatrist he deserved some recognition and respect. But on the whole, I find that he is not up to the ethical standard that should be expected from a psychiatrist. I wonder if the ethic governing doctors back then was much different than now.

But do I recommend this book to my readers? Well, I recommend psychiatrists and psychiatry MOs and psychologists to read this book. But I don’t recommend it to the general public.  Because you guys might have a wrong idea about psychiatry when you read the unscientific nature of dream analysis and psychoanalysis based on free-association.  Adeh!

Until next time, my dear readers. Much love and may Allah bless all of us.

How did you know that? Who told you that?

There have been a few hot topics in the social media that I am personally interested in and have been following for the past few weeks.

1. Polio virus made a comeback after 27 years of eradication in Malaysia. (heartbreaking, really)
2. A famous da’i who had previously rejected 18 proposals from other women finally could not resist the aura of the 19th woman and got married to her, who also happened to be a fake doctor, before divorcing his pregnant first wife. (#DramaSangat)
3. The (old) news regarding the change in the landscape of HIV transmission in Malaysia received a lot of emotionally-charged comments on the social media.

Do let me know if you have any opinion to share on these topics. I have personally shared my opinion on these in my Facebook and I don’t feel like repeating myself in my blog.

***

The Conversational Impasse

The Atheist: Why are Muslims against LGBT? They are very nice people. It’s just  that they have different sexual orientation. They don’t harm other people. As long as they don’t harm others, let them do whatever they want.

The Believer: Who told you that? Who told you that “it is okay to do whatever you want as long as you don’t harm others?”

The Atheist: Memang macam tu pun. Why should we curb other people’s freedom to do what they want when they don’t harm others? I don’t believe in your religion, so I am not going to follow what your religion says about LGBT being haram and all.

The Believer:  I repeat, who told you that “it is okay to do whatever you want as long as you don’t harm others?” I assume, you believe there is no objective truth… no absolute right or wrong in this world?

The Atheist: Stealing is wrong. It harms others; taking the rights of other people is wrong. Murder is wrong…. It takes life away from others. But in things that don’t harm others…. Why should we bother to push our religious beliefs onto other people?

The Believer: How did you KNOW that “it is okay to do whatever you want as long as you don’t harm others?” Was it something you read? Was it an opinion of an author you had read? Which philosopher told you that? Or is it just your opinion?

The Atheist: What are you getting at?

The Believer: There is NO OBJECTIVE TRUTH to your statement that it is okay for us to do anything as long as we don’t harm others. In fact, you are pushing YOUR OPINION, YOUR IDEOLOGY, YOUR WORLDVIEW on me. I don’t believe that we can do everything that don’t harm others. I believe that in certain things there are clear-cut rightness and wrongness. Yes, I call them good deeds and sinful deeds… but that’s just words and semantics. You have your own internal bias that clashes with mine. You believe that people can do anything that don’t harm others. I don’t believe that.

The Atheist: But I don’t believe in your religion. So don’t push your religious values on me.

The Believer: And I don’t believe in your opinion. Why are you pushing it on me?

The Atheist: I am not pushing my opinion on you. I am saying, be free to do anything that don’t harm others.

The Believer: And I am saying, that there are certain things that we should NOT do even if it doesn’t harm people. Not all sinful things harm others… but I don’t believe it is okay to do it. Because things that you do that don’t harm others may actually harm yourself. Religion is not meant to just protect others around you but also to protect yourself. Things that you do that don’t harm others but harm yourself is still wrong. You want to indulge in alternative sexual lifestyle… go ahead. But if you ask for my opinion, I am not going to lie and pretend that I don’t think it is wrong. Am I not free to state my opinion? How does my opinion harm you? Why am I not free to state my religious belief as long as, ehem, it doesn’t harm others?

The Atheist: But your religious opinion harm others!

The Believer: Says you! I think, your opinion harms others too. Impressionable Muslims/Christians/Jewish kids, for example. It confuses their minds. They will start doing dangerous things that harm themselves…maybe take drugs/indulge in extramarital sex leading to teenage pregnancy for example… because they don’t believe they are harming anyone by doing it. They are just harming themselves and destroying their own future…. but to you, that is okay? It’s funny! You think your opinion doesn’t harm others… but you think MY opinion based on my religious values harms others?

The Atheist: Your opinion causes others to discriminate LGBT people. You call them deviants, deny them their rights to marriage, destroy their political careers and their reputation. Is that okay?

The Believer: Your opinion causes others to discriminate religious people. You call them backwards, orthodox, kampung, and distort other people’s impression of their intellect by labelling them religious bigots. Is that okay?

The Atheist: It seems like we are at an impasse. You don’t believe in freedom.

The Believer: You are wrong! I believe in the freedom to do what is right. I don’t believe in the freedom to do what is wrong… to lie, to cheat or to distort truth! I believe there are things that are right and things that are wrong… and at the same time, there are things that we are free to do because they are neither right nor wrong and God simply left it to our own preferences and discretion. In Islam, we call it halal, haram and harus. If two adult siblings engaged in sex consensually, it is STILL wrong even if they don’t harm others. If a parent and his/her adult child choose to have sex with each other even when they don’t harm others, it is STILL wrong! And when it comes to homosexuality, my opinion is that it is wrong and I am not going to change my opinion. I don’t go around shouting my opinion to others unnecessarily… but if anyone specifically asked me for my view on homosexuality, I am not going to lie and pretend that I think it is okay just to please them. As a Muslim, I CANNOT say it is okay… and forcing me to say things I couldn’t say as a Muslim does not reconcile with your concept of freedom of speech, does it? My worldview will always clash with yours but it doesn’t mean I am pushing my worldview on you…. because then, I can also say that you too are pushing your worldview on me. See? Truth is not objective because none of us can agree on one similar worldview. In this world, where no one can agree on what is the truth… what is right becomes debatable to the public.

The Atheist: Yes, we cannot agree on what is the truth. I will continue to say what I say. And you religious zealots will continue to say what you say.

The Believer: And each of us will continue to propagate what we believe as right. Each of us will try to gain followers for our cause, influence public opinion, lobby our MPs to change laws in the parliament! In this world, the truth is acknowledged by the law because everyone in that particular place will have to follow the law. And the law in Malaysia says that homosexuality is wrong, period. In fact homosexuality was wrong even in the West not so many decades ago! Because in this world…  we can never agree on what is the truth. We can’t even agree if there is a God. And even among those who agree that God exist… they couldn’t agree on which is the right religion… and among those who can agree which one is the right religion, they could not agree on which mazhab/sect within that religion is the correct one. But if you change the law, you can change the truth as it is perceived in  this world.

The Atheist: I guess, the word ‘truth’ becomes a study in grey. Nuanced. Uncertain.

The Believer : That’s why various groups from different ideologies will continue to push their opinions on others… will continue to try to influence public opinion and public policy. People go to war to champion their ideologies until now! In this world… what is the truth is best determined by policies and laws. If your country approves LGBT and creates pro-LGBT policy… that is the truth of what is accepted in your country. But in Muslim-majority countries, we have a different truth. Likewise, I cannot go to the Western countries demanding my idea of the truth to be upheld there until I can change the law there. Just like you cannot demand your idea of the truth to be upheld in Muslim-majority countries until you can change the law here. Our truths are reflected by the law. You change the law, you change the truth. That is kind of sad for the truth but that is how it is. In the West, LGBT is winning and the laws are gradually changing in their favour. Isn’t it funny how what used to be wrong is now right? Isn’t it sad how subjective truth can be in the hands of human beings who are always at the mercy of their conflict of interests? Over time, I wonder if consensual incest can be made right too as long as they, ehem, “don’t harm others”.

That Atheist: So we are engaged in an ideological war? Where truth is subjective and whoever can influence the public opinion more and whoever can cause the law to change in their favour will win?

The Believer: Exactly! It’s been like that since time immemorial. Didn’t you notice? May the best propagator win! To you is your belief. To me is mine. And we will see which one of us can influence the society more. And which one of us can cause the law to swing in our favour.

***

“Doing the right things start with knowing the right things.” In what way does responsible action depend on sound critical thinking?

That was my Theory of Knowledge essay question that I had to answer as an IB student back in 2005. I got an A in that essay, Alhamdulillah. And since then, I do believe that Pendidikan Islam must be taught this way. Ask the students to write an essay, UTILIZING and APPLYING their knowledge.

I have spoken about this before, how very unsatisfied I was when ustazah and ustaz gave me half-baked answers and an incomplete picture of a story. “What do you mean Al-Quran is a miracle? What do you mean gaya Bahasa Al-Quran tak ada siapa boleh tanding? Ada judge ke yang come up with who is the winner? Ada pertandingan gaya bahasa ke zaman Nabi dulu? Give me examples of the Quranic verses that are so miraculous that the Arab poets were stunned speechless? Who were the poets involved? I am thirsty for details! Give me some details!” Don’t simply give me simple one liners in answering things like this! Because my default mode would be to question and question and question… until I am satisfied. And I am glad I did that… because now that I have found the answer, I am a confident Muslim and I know that Islam is the truth. But there are SO MANY people… even dah adults…. who STILL had no idea how to answer basic questions of creed like this! Tapi ada hati nak jadi ustazah/ustaz ajar impressionable kids and the gullible public! We have people with questionable intellect and dubious honour being a loud self-proclaimed spokesperson for our religion (And they are products of reality TV competition with titles like  Da’i and  Pencetus Ummah. Gosh!)  #18/19Aura anyone?

Why can’t we have more Malay Muslims like Dr. MAZA or Dr. Rozaimi to make up the majority of our religious leaders? Why do I have to turn to International speakers or revert Muslims in order to gain more knowledge about Islam? Why do we make reality TV personalities famous when they usually smear the beauty of our religion? There will be no market for mindless poor-quality entertainment if the majority of Muslims in this country are serious-minded and demand more thought-provoking TV programs.

As Muslims, we should really work on our critical thinking. We should really hone our ability for clarity of thoughts. We should practice how to vocalize our point of view so that truth would resonate from every single syllable of our words. Because as we all probably realize now… truth can be buried under false propaganda when the said false propaganda has the ability to gain more public favour. So it is our responsibility to be a competent propagator. Because at the the end of the day, the best propagator wins. Remember?

***

This is the fact that most men are ethnocentric. They believe there is only one true morality and it is their own. It makes it difficult for people to know what is right and what is wrong.

But if you CARE enough….if you REALLY want to know the truth, you would have found it. Eventually.

Take the picture above as an example. People love to reference this situational picture to show others of how every perspective, every point of view can be right or wrong depending on which angle you see things. As though there is no absolute truth in anything in this world.

Well, I beg to differ.

In real life situation, depending on criteria and the weightage of the criteria, you can always come up with what decision is more right to be done.  For example, there are ways we can know whether the number should be 9 or 6. I would resolve the situation by hearing the arguments on each side of the party…. why he says it is 6, and why the other party says it is 9.  Perhaps, a few metres down the road, there was another number carved on the road as 7… and therefore it makes sense that this one should be 6. Find out la! Jangan malas! Hear all arguments…. Hear everything. If things are still blurry, I would find out who wrote that number 6/9 and I would search for that person, call him up and ask him myself, “What did you mean to write, actually? 6 or 9? Why did you write that number in the first place? Was there a purpose to the writing of the number?”

The thing is, when something is important enough to me, I want to know everything there is to know about the answer to that particular question! I want to be convinced.  I am not easily satisfied by people’s laziness in answering “Bergantung kepada situasi. Bergantung kepada factor-faktor tertentu.” Aduh! You should elaborate and tell me “Bergantung kepada situasi yang macam mana? Faktor yang macam mana? In what way would things change if the situation or the factors change?” Don’t give me half-assed answers that satisfies no one. At least have the honesty to admit that you don’t know and you too would love to explore further. Admit your ignorance and vow to find out the truth and clarify the matter.

There are ALWAYS ways we can find out the truth! Either you want to go through that effort or not… is up to you. So in trivial things like the picture above (6 or 9), I might not go to the trouble of finding the person who wrote the number because it just wasn’t important enough to me. Effort should be proportionate to the significance of the expected outcome. Our time in this world is limited. Choose where we put our effort accordingly.

But in finding out about whether or not you are following the right way of life, in finding out whether or not your worldview is right (your religion/ your life philosophy/ your political ideology) I believe you have to go ALL OUT and search for the truth until you find it! It is worth finding. If you can invest so many years of your life to become a doctor, why can’t you spend some time just reading on philosophy, World Religions, comparative religions, watching philosophical and religious lectures on You Tube. This is only a very small effort on our part. It amazes me that people can be satisfied when things don’t click! It amazes me that people are not bothered by contradictory facts that don’t connect. It amazes me that people can live with cognitive dissonance and continue to believe things that they doubt deep inside. And they can brush off their worries and concerns that they might be wrong… just because they have been brought up with an unconscious internal bias.

Examine your mind properly… how did you come up with that opinion? Is there an objective truth to it? Or does it ‘seem’ to be the truth because it is the law of the country or the sentiments of the majority of the people in your circle?

I hope my readers will do one thing in their life whenever they are confronted with a new information, a new thought, a novel ideology. Always question and verify that information! Ask them… how did you know that information? How did you come up with that opinion? Do you have a reference? Do you have a book I can read on that topic myself? Is there another possible explanation? (Even in learning worldly matters like psychiatry… I am like that. For example, don’t be offended if I question some stuff in Psychoanalysis. To question is to learn. Be worried if your students don’t question everything you said. How interested are they in learning what you have taught them if they don’t have ANY question and ANY doubt at all?)

Al-Hasan al-Basri said: “The believer reserves judgment until the matter is proven.”

***

Book Of The Month

Dear readers,

I have decided to end all my future blog posts with books that I had read in the previous month. I have been reading 2-4 books per month since I started working as a doctor (previously when I was a student, I was able to read 2 books per week. Those were the good old days when I still had the energy and the luxury of time to indulge in my hobby). But I rarely shared with my readers about my thoughts of the books I had read. I think this should change. Reading is a large and important part of my life and by sharing my thoughts on books that I read, I hope to inspire you guys to read them as well. It would be a shame not to tell you guys about books that you might possibly enjoy reading too.

So from now on I would end all my blog post with the section of Book of The Month. And if you are not fond of reading, you can simply skip this section in my future blog post.

 

 

So in November, I had read Animal Farm by George Orwell and The Silence of The Lambs by Thomas Harris. You guys are probably familiar with the film version of The Silence of The Lambs, featuring Hannibal Lecter as the genius psychopathic psychiatrist. So, I don’t think I should say anything more about the book. It was not a bad book, but it wasn’t exactly awesome.

But I am more impressed with Animal Farm.

I recommend Animal Farm to all my readers because it is a very thought-provoking satire on politics and society. The plot is a thinly-disguised political criticism of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution. To those who don’t know about The Russian Revolution, Vladimir Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution who had chased away Tsar Nicholas II, the last Russian Emperor. Vladimir Lenin then passed away and Joseph Stalin took over the leadership of the Revolution. Joseph Stalin had used a lot of unscrupulous methods and various propaganda to eventually betray the ideals of the deceased Vladimir Lenin in The Russian Revolution.

It taught me that people tend to distort truth (in the novel: the truth is dubbed as ‘commandments’) with the passing of the time in order to justify the conflict of interests of the society leaders. Animal Farm is only a thin novella… but it is one of the greatest books in history and arguably Orwell’s finest work. So, if you are interested, do check it out.

 

I also recommend you guys to read 1984, also by George Orwell. But if you are new to political satire, you might have more tolerance and patience to read Animal Farm first before you move on to read 1984. (In my case, I read 1984 first… and became interested with George Orwell afterwards. And only recently did I have the opportunity to read Animal Farm.)

If you guys have any book recommendation for me, do let me know. I always appreciate people recommending me a good book to read. After all, I was told that “seeing someone reading a book that you love is like seeing a book recommending a person,” I think that this is quite accurate. I can make an educated guess of what sort of person you are just by knowing what is your favourite book.

 

Until next time, my dear readers. Much love and may Allah bless all of us with knowledge of the truth. And may Allah give us the strength to be steadfast in practicing the truth and speaking the truth that we had painstakingly found. Amin.

The Hong Kong (Mis)Adventure

Assalamualaikum my dear readers,

Alhamdulillah, after passing my CASC exam, I had received a lot of inquiries for tips on how  to pass the CASC exam. And the answer is….

…..I really don’t know. Haha. Really!

Because there were certainly a lot more candidates who were much better than me but did not make it anyway. I have several practice buddies for CASC exam, locally in Alor Setar as well as in other places and let me tell you, sometimes who ended up passing and who didn’t make it surprised me too. Some who I personally know are so good, did not make it. Some who I feel are okay (not excellent, not bad, but average) made it.

This is a real puzzle for me when it comes to CASC. (In paper A and paper B … it is different. If you study, if you know what you know… and if you answer the questions based on what you have studied… chances are you will make it. The outcome largely depends on YOU yourself, and of course, also by the will of Allah).  We have had some candidates who were very good… some of them were so motivated that they took BOTH the master pathway and the parallel MRCPsych pathway. Some of those who made it in the master pathway with no record of failure during their master exams had to sit for CASC 3-4 times before they finally passed. So please don’t think that the MRCPsych exam is easier than the master exam. It isn’t. Likewise, I also don’t think the master exam is easier than the MRCPsych exam. They have different criteria and system in grading their candidates and regardless of which pathway you choose, you must find ways to beat the system in order to pass. It’s like playing two games with different rules. You cannot expect to win in one game by using the strategy employed in another different game. Get it? Even though I made it with CASC, but who knows whether I would pass if I took the master exam instead.  So, kudos to those who took BOTH exams… you guys are really awesome!

You see, I am the sort of person who has a very internal locus of control (and this is not necessarily good, either). I believe that, Insya Allah, your success in life depends on you MOSTLY… with some minor external factors minimally influencing the outcome. But I must admit that when it comes to CASC… my locus of control really shifted. Big time!*LOL*. Because I could not explain how come some outstanding and experienced candidates from other countries who are already a consultant in their own countries could not make it in CASC. It really puzzled me.

And I put it down to rezeki and fate. At the end of the day, it really is!

Just pray HARD for a miracle…. for things to go smoothly for you during the exam. Just pray HARD for a miracle… for you to be struck by an epiphany of wisdom while performing your task in the CASC station. Just pray HARD for a miracle… for the examiner to suddenly perceive you as outstanding, nice, likeable yadda yadda yadda.

My Chinese friend Dr. C was my study and travel buddy for this Hong Kong CASC, and had been a witness to my 5 prayers per day routine while travelling. Like me, she had an attack of post-exam anxiety after we went out of the exam hall (because the exam was a bloodbath of trickeries and ambiguities in how they set the task in each station, I tell you!). So she started to say “I think I will go to Temple while waiting for my CASC result”. *LOL*. And another friend of mine teased her by saying “Oh, only now you remember God, is it?” *LOL* (Muslims pray as an act of worship, 5 times a day. We do not necessarily pray for something specific while worshipping. Even if we had perceived ourselves as sufficient in everything, we would still pray 5 times a day for the purpose of worship. God is to be worshipped…. not only when you need something from Him but especially when you don’t. It shows sincerity when you worship Him anyway even when you are already satisfied with whatever He has given you. But yes, even Muslims would pray much harder and more frequently during exams. I am guilty of that too…Haha. May Allah forgive us for whatever conflict of interests is going on in our mind while worshipping Him. And may Allah guide us to worship Him with better sincerity in the future. Well, just to clear that up.)

This shows how very MUCH the candidates’ locus of control would shift when it comes to CASC. Those who don’t pray would suddenly feel like they should visit the temple, LOL. And those who don’t believe in any deity would suddenly invoke the name of God they don’t really believe in.

And me? I just pray even harder.

25 candidates were successful at the MRCPsych CASC Examination in Hong Kong held in October 2019. A total of 46 candidates sat the examination. So, the overall Pass Rate is 54.3%

All in all, I had passed 14 stations out of 16 stations. The passing mark was set at 63.7%. And Alhamdulillah, I obtained 70.8% in the exam. That is the miracle I was praying so hard for and I am so grateful that Allah had granted it for me. Allah has been Most Beneficient and Most Merciful towards me for granting me this happiness. And trust me, dear CASC candidates out there… just do your best and pray hard! Ask your parents and loved ones to pray for you too. Pray for each other. And Insya Allah, you will make it. (And just some tips… it is better to do your CASC in the UK straightaway. Invest a bit more money and just get it done once.)

Alhamdulillah… it is official!

The morning CASC stations results

The PM CASC station results

 

But let me tell you, my dear readers, there were a lot of misadventures that I had to go through before Allah gifted me with this happiness. As my sisters would know, I had created a hashtag #RanjauSepanjangJalan to describe my Hong Kong CASC Journey. Haha (So, if you think you are going through a hard time now, the harshest of storm precedes the appearance of the clearest sky. Have faith… your turn for happiness will come, my fellow comrades. It is just a matter of time. Believe it… and PRAY HARD!)

Want to know why #RanjauSepanjangJalan was chosen as my hashtag in describing my CASC journey in Hong Kong? Hahaha. It is a quite funny story, but it is not at all informative or illuminating in any way. So you guys can skip reading the contents below and do something more productive with your time (seriously… be more productive). I am just writing them as a personal record for myself, and if it benefits you, well and good. And if it doesn’t, well, you have been warned.

***

#RanjauSepanjangJalan: The Novel

My dear readers, are you familiar with Shahnon Ahmad’s literary work entitled Ranjang Sepanjang Jalan? Shahnon Ahmad was a Sasterawan Negara, as you guys probably know. (He was also famous as the writer of SHIT, around the era of Malaysian political turmoil in 1998.) When I was doing my IB studies, I had to do a literary analysis of Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan as part of my IB syllabus.

It was the most boring (but thought provoking) ordeal I had  to do as an IB student. Sorry Mr. Shahnon Ahmad…. I didn’t really enjoy reading your book at that time. I have always been an optimistic person and this book did not celebrate my values of ‘hard work begets success’. So, I positively hated it! I am the ‘happy-ending’ kind of person. I personally feel, it is not an ending unless it is a happy ending (sure you can die in real life… but you still have the hereafter to look forward to where great things can happen and you get to enter paradise. Yes bad things like divorce can happen…. but it is not yet an ending. You can go on with your life and attain more success with or without your spouse! Nothing bad in your life is an ending! You decide, with  the help of Allah, to make the most out of  your life). In my books, good MUST prevail. It MUST! And I am quite rigid and autistic about it, LOL. Hard work must be rewarded! Struggle must end with success. Those are my values and I would NOT read any fiction that does NOT celebrate my values.

Unless it is an academic reading. And so, I had to do it. *LOL*

SYNOPSIS (my version)

Till the end of the book, the family of Lahuma and Jeha with their seven kids were filled with one trial after another. They were a family of paddy planters during the 1960s, which was around the time when the Malaysian government encouraged farmers to make use of modern farming techniques. But Lahuma and his family were persistent in using the traditional method of farming even though they hardly made ends meet. Lahuma passed away in the middle of the book from busung (can you believe it? Busung is like ascites, right? I could not remember Shahnon Ahmad describing the cause of the busung), leaving Jeha as the sole breadwinner to the seven kids. Jeha had some sort of mental disorder  (not properly described and thus, I could not come up with a diagnosis. Most likely, Schizophrenia) due to the stress of the trials that she had to go through after Lahuma passed away. There was one time when Jeha was traumatized by an encounter she had with a SNAKE ‘ular tedung selar’ at the paddy field (the snake is the decisive factor of why I choose my hashtag, LOL).  Jeha was even committed to Tanjung Rambutan at one point. It was so depressing and there was no happy ending!

Have I said that I hated it? So, I am saying it again. I hated it! Hahah

But Alhamdulillah, my version of #RanjauSepanjangJalan had a happy ending. Haha.

***

#RanjauSepanjangJalan: My MRCPsych Casc Hong Kong Story

Let me enumerate all my ordeals in a chronological order (because INTJs LOVE logical order):

Ranjau No 1: The Hong Kong riot

My two friends and I had already planned to take our CASC exam in Hong Kong in October even though we knew that there would also be one CASC exam in  the UK in September. The reason was financial in nature. I could not afford to go to the UK for my exam with the savings that I had at that time.

So I decided to do my CASC exam in Hong Kong. Even though I knew that there was a political turmoil going on in Hong Kong at that time (between the Hong Kong freedom fighters and the Hong Kong government who is subservient to the China mainland leadership; and it is still ongoing until now), I was hoping that the political upheaval would settle down by the time I would be going for the exam (yup, sometimes I am too unrealistically optimistic and it can be a bad thing. Haha).

Sadly, I was mistaken.

So some had advised me to cancel my plans to go to Hong Kong. But I had already paid for everything! So, I just decided to trust fate and go for it. In my mind, I was like “I can die anywhere. No one can escape death, right? You can die while you are in bed because your time on earth is up! So just go and hope for the best.” 

Some had suggested that I should just ask my parents for money to go to the UK. But I have never been the sort to do that. I was not brought up freely asking parents for money for non-necessities (and exam is not a necessity! I grew up during an economic downturn in 1997/1998 and I knew the value of money. I didn’t simply ask my parents for money as a child and I won’t do it as an adult). I used my own savings for all my exams… and if my parents wanted to sponsor anything, they freely offered it to me without me ever asking. I am an adult and I do not want to rely on their money. I made it a point to only spend on what I could afford myself (because I tak suka berhutang… even for credit cards)… but if they want to give me some money as a show of support for me, I will take it. But I don’t want to need it. It is a matter of pride and principle for me that even without their money, I could still take the exam with whatever I could afford myself. If I couldn’t afford something myself, I should simply adjust my needs and wishes according to priority.

I knew I could afford Hong Kong. And I knew I could not afford UK. It was a pretty straightforward decision, in my mind. My parents did offer to sponsor my flight ticket and hotel rooms … but by that time I had already paid for everything. Their money came as an extra I could replenish my bank account with. (Thank you, Mamita. You are awesome!)

So decisions had been made… and every day, my two study buddies and myself followed the news in Hong Kong, hoping things would settle down. But the situation persists until now.

Below is the picture of the Hong Kong police on standby in the MRT, preparing to deal with the riots. So yup, the Hong Kong riot was my first #Ranjau.

My Macbook screen cracked 

Just one month before my exam, my Macbook screen was somehow cracked and I could no longer use my Macbook to study. Unfortunately, all my notes and CASC videos were in my Macbook.

It was so stressful.

I checked the Swift store for the price of repairing or replacing the Macbook screen. I was heartbroken to find out that the cost was RM2100. That is almost the cost of a new Macbook.

At that time, I had just spent a large amount of money paying for my CASC exam, my flight tickets, and my hotel room and I had put aside some money for my expenses in Hong Kong. I could not justify spending more money that I didn’t have to repair my Macbook. There was an option of using my credit card… but like I said, I don’t like to do it. I am uncomfortable with unnecessary debts. I felt like perhaps, I could still study even without my laptop.

So I downloaded all the CASC videos into my mobile device (google drive app) and I just printed out my SPMM notes so that I could study without my laptop. The most amazing thing happened, my dear readers. I could focus better without my laptop to distract me. With my laptop, I tend to use more You Tube/ Netflix and social media. My brain no longer associated the usage of laptop for pure studying. Instead one can argue that laptop is now used more for entertainment than studying per se. Haha.

So without my laptop, I got more things done, Alhamdulillah. Sometimes Allah’s help comes in the form of calamity and we are without wisdom to know the reason behind what has happened. So trust Allah and do your best. Plan with what you have. It will never be ideal. If you can afford it, go ahead and buy a good laptop to help you study. But if you can’t, make the best of what you have. No one can say for sure that you would not succeed just because you lack certain material comforts. Just do your best with what you already have and pray that it would be enough. Remember that when things are difficult, it is not an ending unless it is a happy ending, ok?

URTI at the start of my study leave

You know, I am very bad at being sick. I would be so lethargic and would only stay in bed during weekends. When I go to work while having URTI, my friends can actually notice that I seem lethargic, irritable and less animated than usual. Even though it is just URTI! (other people handle URTI with much better poise and grace, I must admit. Well, not me. But I would still go to work because I could not justify getting MCs for URTI. However, at work, my suffering shows on my face. LOL).

You see, I am allergic to Paracetamol and NSAIDs. I don’t take any meds when I am sick or in pain. I could take Tramal, I suppose… but Tramal makes me dizzy and groggy.

But the good thing is, Alhamdulillah, I rarely got sick. But when I do, it hits me harder because I could not take anything for it.

Of all the time to get sick, I got sick just when I was starting my study leave. And it lasted a few days during which time I was quite unproductive with my study. That was a few days of my study leave wasted, my dear readers.

So many stressful ranjau, huh?

Interrupted study time during study leave

Those who knew me knew that I am a social hermit during exam times. I simply can stay in my house for an extended period of time without meeting anyone when I am studying. And I have no problems doing that because I am an introvert. I feel okay doing things alone and being alone. In fact, I am at my best when I am in peace, away from outside noise and disturbance. My hobbies are mostly solitary; reading, writing, blogging… even hiking, I can do it alone!

But CASC is not the sort of exam that you can study alone, I am sure fellow candidates know that. And this is a struggle for me. For the CASC practice during my study leave, I had to take a shower, dress up and wear tudung and all… and then go out and drove to the clinic to our study room to practice with my study buddies… those activities took precious time AWAY from my studying and memorizing tasks! While I was doing Paper A and Paper B, I could cover a lot of topics because I didn’t have to take a shower until I was about to perform my Zohor prayer….I could study continuously without pause from the time I woke up until around Zohor time. There was no need for me to get out of my house at all because I didn’t get involved in any study group for Paper A and Paper B. And to me, I studied better that way. I don’t like interruptions in my task once I have gained the right momentum and have zoned out into the task. But with CASC prep, just when I was getting into the task, suddenly I had to stop my studying and prepare to go out for study group meeting. There were many frequent pauses instead of continuous studying. I don’t like that kind of pauses and disturbances.

So in a lot of ways, CASC was a challenge for me because there was a huge deviation in my study patterns.

Also, around this time, my parents went for umrah and left our cats outside their home in the cage. They had hired someone to come every day to feed the cats so that I wouldn’t have to go out of my house and drive to their house just to feed the cats. Unfortunately, due to frequent storms in Alor Setar (and thus causing electrical power outage), the automatic gate in their house got stuck a few times during my study leave, and I had to go settle the matter so that the lady my mother hired to feed the cats could enter the house and feed the cats. But when you think about it, I might as well feed the cats myself since I had to go out anyway to let the lady in. Adeh! Really… this was also an interruption for me.

These are the kind of  things that don’t bother most people. I know that. But it bothered me because I was not used to studying with this kind of frequent interruptions. I am the sort of person who plans my activities and I always have things to do. Unforeseen interruptions are mostly unwelcome to me. (Even when I am free, I have fictions to read. So I don’t actually have free time because whenever I have free time, my default mode would be to automatically pick up a book. That’s how I rest. Or I will sleep. Sleeping is also an activity…the purpose of which is to gain good rest for your next activity. So really… what free time do I have? None! So be honoured if I spend my time with you. If your plan is sudden but I accommodate you anyway, it must mean that you are important enough to me to the point that I am willing to alter my plans for you… otherwise, I wouldn’t have done it! LOL. I am the sort of person who is not comfortable with people saying “Let’s see how it turns out”, to explore what happens next. Adoi! I am more comfortable with “Let’s plan how this is going to happen” Hahha.)

But deep inside my heart, I wonder if this is probably Allah’s way of teaching me to be more flexible, to be more comfortable with sudden interruptions and to be less bothered by unforeseen circumstances. I mean, I have to grow as a person. And flexibility is my area of deficit and weakness. And maybe this is something I need to grow to be good at. (Well, that was what I told myself as I was dealing with those interruptions. It was actually a form of self-consolation LOL) All these while, my family and friends accommodated my needs for certain orders and I have no reason to change and be more flexible. To me… being on time is good. Having a plan is good. Why should I change? Convince me that your method of “no plan, no specific time, and let’s see” is better than my method. LOL.

So I have never had to be flexible. Because people adjust to me (and in their opinion, they were compromising. To me, they were not compromising… they were just doing the right thing. They were not following me per se; they were just following the right way and the efficient way of doing things. If they could come up with a more efficient and timely way of doing things, I would follow them too. Nowadays, I can be flexible with change of plans. But I am still very particular about time! I don’t think I will ever change in that!)

So it takes these kind of unforeseen interruptions to make me be more flexible. I could not blame anyone for electrical outage following a storm… so I simply had to adjust, right? Storms are natural occurrences. They happen through nobody’s fault. There is no specific time for storms to happen too. Haha! And if I am going to learn to be more flexible, I can only learn when something like this happens! Things that are beyond my control and NOT caused by someone’s lack of punctuality or someone’s lack of efficiency. Otherwise, I would never change. And Allah knows that. So He taught me how to be flexible in this way.

Well, as it turns out, I was going to need the lesson when I arrived in Hong Kong.

Luggage Lost In Hong Kong Airport

Okay, in general, I don’t trust Air Asia airlines. I have always been loyal to MAS. But my Chinese travel buddies (who were also my tour guide in navigating the Hong Kong MRT from the airport to our hotel at BlueJay Residences) preferred to book the Air Asia flight because it was cheaper. So I followed their plan (because I needed them since I could not speak Mandarin or Kantonese) and we booked the Air Asia flight from KLIA2 to Hong Kong.

But because I didn’t trust Air Asia, I decided to place all my exam stuff (the exam documents, some of my exam notes, my exam outfit, my exam shoes and some miniature toiletries) into my hand luggage so that if my checked-in baggage somehow got lost, I would still have the most important stuff with me.

See? It’s not so bad being a rigid planner, right? Part of being a rigid planner is anticipating bad things that might happen and make contingency plans for it.

Because my dear readers…yes, my baggage did not arrive with me in Hong Kong. Adeh! Even though I had most of my important stuff with me, but I also STILL needed some of the stuff in my baggage. I didn’t have any other change of clothes other than my exam clothes. My contact-lens solution was also inside my checked-in baggage. The books that  I had planned to read in the next two days before the exam were also in the baggage (even though I did have the more important notes with me in my hand luggage. Still, it was a bother!)  I also had my Brahim’s pre-cooked food inside my baggage… so, my source of halal sustenance for the next 5 days was lost to me. I remember thinking, “I am going to have to shop for bread… and hopefully they have IndoMie here. Takkan nak makan roti sampai 5 hari!”

And to make matters worse, I had only very limited funds with me because I did not expect to have to pay for anything other than taxi fares. And Hong Kong is an expensive city.  In a lot of ways, I was really unprepared to deal with a lost baggage.

Below is a video of me walking around town searching for cheap clothes, only half an hour after I had reached the hotel. I was tired after the journey from Malaysia to Hong Kong…. I had wanted to rest and then get some study done at night. But instead, I spent most of the afternoon walking around town to replenish some of my supplies and then I slept that night without studying because I was so exhausted.

Thinking back, sleeping without studying when the exam was so near was a HUGE change of plans, for me. It was something I would never have done in the past. But I guess, I was finally able to be flexible about the whole thing. *A proud moment for me. LOL* Or maybe, I was just too tired to stick to my plan and thus to make myself feel better, I simply chalked it up to me being flexible. Haha.

 

Luckily, later at midnight, I received an email from Hong Kong airport service that they had been successful in tracing my baggage and I could pick it up the next morning. Dr. C was so nice when she offered to go back with me to the airport to pick up the luggage with me.  She was worried that I would get lost if I went out by myself. Again, we had actually planned to study the next morning…. but we had to pick up my baggage at the airport instead. Again… I dealt with the change of plans with as much poise and grace as I could. LOL. Throughout the journey to and from the airport, Dr. C and I practiced our CASC stations on the train. For someone who hate practicing or studying in a noisy environment, I have to say that I did quite well adjusting to it. *Proud Of Myself*

It’s good to know that at the end of the day…. I could still go back to my survival principle of “You have to do what you have to do. If you have to adapt, then you have to adapt and do it!” Alhamdulillah, Thank You Allah for letting me adjust to the whole drama of lost baggage with manageable level of stress. I don’t think I could have handled it well if I hadn’t had the practice during my study leave, courtesy of the storms. LOL.

Below is the video of me using a hair dryer to dry my clothes after washing it…because I really did not have any more change of clothes.

 

The whole experience taught me that indeed, I could live with less. We can always make do and we can find ways to deal with having less. In that short time when I was without most of my stuff, I realized that I could still survive with whatever I had in my hand luggage. I just had to be frugal enough in my spending, and only spend on cheap food for the next few days (I did find bread and IndoMie for dinner) and I just had to be diligent enough to wash my clothes frequently and use  the hairdryer. There was one point when I came to the conclusion that, “Yup, even if the airport service never found my luggage, I will adjust to this just fine. I just had  to put in more effort, that’s all. But I can do this.” (I was surprised that I could think this way. Previously, it would take much longer for me to snap out of any disappointment and to feel okay about an undesirable situation, given my ruminating tendencies. Haha)

Not one hour after reaching that conclusion, I received an e-mail from the airport service that they had been successful in tracing my luggage. Alhamdulillah. Perhaps – I’d like to believe – that Allah wanted to teach me a lesson about dealing with delays and interrupted plans in a calm manner. Perhaps He wanted me to learn how to make the best out of botched plans and still be okay about it. And having learned the lesson by coming to the conclusion that adjusting is not that hard, He returned my stuff back for me as a reward.

Alhamdulillah.

And here comes the snake to complete my #RanjauSepanjangJalan

On the day I arrived in Hong Kong, my brother-in-law went to my parents’ house to feed the cats because again, the automatic gate did not function and thus, the lady my mother hired to feed the cats could not enter the house. Before going to Hong Kong, I had passed over the job of dealing with the gate and feeding the cat to my brother-in-law (Alida’s husband).

While dealing with my luggage being lost at the airport, suddenly I received a Whatsapp message from my younger sister, Alida, telling me that her husband had found a snake on top of the cats’ cage. Oh my God.. I had just arrived in Hong Kong with a lost luggage, and now there was a snake posing a danger to the well-being of my beloved cats!

Could the day go any worse? I wondered to myself with a heavy chest.

Luckily, the snake did not yet had the opportunity to bite my two cats. Kuja and Ku-Ni removed themselves from their customary position at the top of the cage and stayed at the lower level of the cage. I have another cat named Ku-Shan but she was in another cage and was not in any immediate danger like Kuja and Ku-Ni were.

When I saw the picture of the snake lying on top of my cats’ cage, I felt my stomach drop. The snake was not exactly as big as a python but it was not small either! And I didn’t know what type of snake it was and whether or not it was a dangerous kind.

I just told Alida to call abang Bomba because I really didn’t think it was safe for my borther-in-law to deal with the snake himself. At that time I was thinking…. wow… my CASC journey this time was filled with such tribulations from the very beginning, culminating in the appearance of a snake threatening my beloved cats. I had double whammy of worries to deal with simultaneously… lost baggage in a foreign country, limited amount of money to deal with the difficulties and the fear for the safety of my beloved cats. What else could go wrong? Hopefully, my exam will be something that goes right, I remember wishing. Please God, let this be the last #Ranjau, I had prayed hard. (But no, my dear readers.  It turned out that the tough exam was my last #Ranjau. Haha! Adeh.)

While telling my sisters in our siblings Whatsapp Group about my bad day, I joked with them that what I had been going through for the past few weeks reminded me of the novel Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan by Shahnon Ahmad. “In fact, there was even a plot involving a snake in that story,” I told them. They all concurred wholeheartedly.

And it was thus that the hashtag #RanjauSepanjangJalan was born in describing my CASC trials and tribulations.

 

***

After the exam, my friends and I were left dazed by the level of difficulties that we had encountered in the exam. We felt like some Asian actors in the CASC stations were not helpful and were withholding information despite us having asked plenty of open ended questions. We wondered whether their level of English was not sufficient to be able to provide us with a good answer when we asked for it during the exam. We noticed that the Caucasian actors were more helpful and forthcoming in giving information when we asked an open ended question. (Some of the candidates, including myself, had written a complaint about it to the college. We felt like the college should know about this so that it won’t happen again in the future. I will, Insya Allah, write about this in my next post. So stay tuned, yeah?).

We were quite worried about how our results would be. But what is done is done. It was time to hope for the best.

Our worried face, after the exam

Right after the exam, we went sight-seeing at Aberdeen… not like there was anything much to see. It was just a fishing village, really. So, we simply went for a short boat ride, had our dinner and then went back to the hotel.

 

 

The next day, I went to Ocean Park which is a popular theme park in Hong Kong to reward myself after the crazy exam and to have a reason to shout on top of my lungs while riding the roller coaster. We wanted to go to Disneyland initially, but then we found out that there was probably going to be a riot there. So we had to cancel the plan. It was so sad because really, I have never been to Disneyland before. And I was so looking forward to it.

But again… I was getting better with change of plans these days. Hahah. So we improvised on the plan and went to the Ocean Park instead, which was also an enjoyable outing, Alhamdulillah.

 

I enjoyed the 20 minutes cable car ride.

 

I also enjoyed watching various species of sharks in the shark aquarium. I had never seen a shark before… so I told myself that this outing was also educational. Haha.

 

This one below was an insane ride. They turned us over 360 degrees up the sky. It was crazy fun! Greater thrill than the roller coaster! (By this time, you will probably know that I am a thrill junkie. Hahha. Which is quite weird considering that I am an introvert. But when I do decide to have fun, I REALLY do it! I just feel like, if I am not going to pass this exam, at least, I have had some fun out of my Hong Kong trip. LOL. Otherwise, it would truly be wasted money.)

 

I am glad that after all the misadventures and the #RanjauSepanjangJalan I had had, Allah gave me the happy ending that Shahnon Ahmad did not create for Lahuma and Jeha. Haha.

And for that, Your slave is forever grateful, Ya Rabb.

And to those who did not make it in CASC this time, Allah will give you your own happy ending one fine day. You will do well, next time. Keep practicing and pray hard for the best outcome. Do not give up. It is just a matter of time and you too will make it in the end, Insya Allah.

There will be times when you feel like nothing will go right and everything is always going wrong in your life. Hang on… pause for a minute. Exam is not everything, at the end of the day. It is great when you pass any exam. But not passing it is not the end of the world. There are OTHER aspects of your life that are equally important. And Allah certainly had taught me about that when I failed my first CASC attempt just a few months prior. So I do know what I am talking about. Some lessons must be learned the hard way… and it will make you a much better person, Insya Allah.

I do receive a lot of personal messages through Facebook asking me about MRCPsych and CASC. There were some personal messages from Master students too (not just in Psychiatry but in other fields as well). Some asked me practical questions about the exam which I always tried to reply when I had  time… but I did not always have the ability to reply to everyone. And I am sorry about that.

Some contacted me to ventilate about their difficulties and trials while pursuing their post-graduate studies and I myself could not help much because I did not know some of them who had contacted me through Facebook. I could not tailor my advice accordingly when I don’t know you. In psychiatry, there is no place for generic advice when dealing with contextual problems. And I regret that I really could not help much. Please seek professional help if you feel like you need support to go through your difficulties in life. I could not help you through Facebook, as much as I wanted to.

But know that whatever difficulties you had in your life, it will pass. You will learn a great life lessons out of it! It serves a purpose. Nothing that Allah does is random. Believe it!

So to those who are feeling hopeless while facing their difficulties, I created this post for you. I might not be able to respond to all of you personally, but I hope you can get some hope and motivation out of what I had written. I wish you would know that I had had my difficulties too and in the end, I made it by the grace of Allah.

I repeat, it is not an ending unless it is a happy ending. So, bersangka baiklah with your Lord. And you will get what you expect from your Lord. I am not saying these things out of my own mind… but this is Allah’s words in hadis Qudsi.

Aku mengikut sangkaan hambaKu kepada Ku, Aku bersamanya (memberi rahmat dan membelanya) apabila dia mengingati Ku. Jika mereka megingati Ku dalam dirinya nescaya Aku menyebutnya dalam diri Ku. Apabila mereka menyebut nama Ku dalam kumpulan nescaya Aku menyebutnya dalam kumpulan yang lebih baik daripada mereka. Jika mereka menghampiri Ku sejengkal, Aku mendekati mereka sehasta. Jika mereka menghampiri Ku sehasta Aku mendekati mereka sedepa dan apabila mereka datang kepada KU dalam keadaan berjalan, Aku datang kepada mereka berlari’

(Hadith Bukhairi & Muslim)

Until next time, my dear readers. Much love and may Allah bless all of us.

Remembering The Grace Of Allah

I know. I know.

I know… that it has been more than 2 months since I last wrote in this humble blog of mine. For the countless times, I had broken my promise to write consistently, at least once per month. But, my dear readers… trust me…. I have some really good reasons for not blogging once per month as I had promised.

Reason No 1: My Macbook screen was cracked and broken a few days after I posted my last blog post in August. And I took my sweet time repairing my Macbook screen because the repair cost was too expensive for me, especially since I had just spent a lot of money to pay for my CASC exam. I just couldn’t afford to repair my Macbook screen just yet. (Very good reason, no?)

Reason No 2: Exam! (Enough said. LOL)

My CASC exam was held on the 18th of October 2019 in Hong Kong. I am not exaggerating when I say it was the hardest exam of my life. At the end of the exam I felt like crying bloody tears. There were 16 CASC stations altogether and we were allocated 7 minutes to perform the task in any particular station. My problem with CASC was that I always felt like I didn’t have enough time to perform the task to my heart satisfaction. So, there would be times when I covered enough depth… but not the range that was required to pass the task. That was what happened during my first CASC attempt. My study partners were always telling me “You tak payah tanya dah yang lain-lain tu. Cukup criteria for diagnosis, move on. Tak payah tanya everything. Banyak lagi nak tanya….past psychiatric history, family history, risk assessment, coping, drug and alcohol. Kalau tanya detail sangat, yang lain-lain tak sempat. ”

Okay, but that is my problem. I whiningly told my friends “Susahlah. Aku rasa tak puas kalau aku tak tanya bagi habis semua symptoms for that diagnosis even if symptoms yang aku dah dapat tu dah cukup untuk diagnose. Tapi mungkin dia ada more symptoms yang aku tak cover lagi, right?” I would still feel like I might have missed something. That was the OCPD part of me that was ugh!! really troublesome for me. I just didn’t have enough time to cover the task for each station to my heart satisfaction.

There was a time when I had to give myself a serious pep talk. “Afiza, this is not about your heart satisfaction. This is about the examiner’s satisfaction! Please get this into your head! Just because you have covered the depth that is required to make the diagnosis, you still wouldn’t pass if you didn’t cover the range of the marking scheme. Range and depth! Not depth alone! 7 minutes is all you have and you cannot be too detailed on just one thing. Prioritize! Come on!”

CASC is so different compared to Part A and Part B. In Part A and Part B, I could still indulge my OCPD-ness to a certain extent. For example, for each question in Part A and Part B… even if I already knew that the answer was E, in my head I would still go through my own method of reasoning regarding why A, B, C and D were not correct. I just had to check and double check each answer even when the correct answer was quite obvious already in the first glance. I did all that because… yup, I have some OCPD traits that just could not be ignored at times. LOL.

But CASC was a whole new ball game. I had to learn to think quickly and to not ruminate. I had to learn to cover just enough in depth and then quickly move on so that I could cover the breadth/range of the task. It took hard, intensive practice for me to overcome and suppress my obsessive tendency but Alhamdulillah… as the exam date was geting near, I was able to overcome the urge to dwell on one thing in too great a depth. But ah… it was hard. I am the ruminating type. When something doesn’t make sense or when a story just doesn’t have enough details to it, well… it bothered me. (Which kind of explains why even as a child, I had a lot of questions about anything that was taught to me especially in learning the religion. The same obsessive ruminating trait that was so bad in exam, was the same trait that allowed me to discover the beauty of having real faith and real conviction in my religion. Because I questioned stuff, I now understand Islam better and it was the best thing that could ever happen to me especially when I was in my early 20s. So yeah… I don’t always regret having this OCPD trait. But I must admit it can be troublesome in certain situations… such as in exams. LOL).

***

There was one time when I was so frustrated while studying for CASC that I felt like giving up. Seriously… CASC is the worst exam for many of us. The financial burden was huge! Some people had to borrow their parents’ money to take CASC exam one more time because they had already run out of all their savings courtesy of previous payments of past CASC attempts.

Some of the candidates were already consultants or specialists in their own countries… but they took this MRCPSYCH & CASC so that they could work in the UK. They were so much more senior than us…. what chance do we have in competing with these people?

There were also times when I felt angry at myself for not passing CASC the first time. Doctors are always hard on themselves when they don’t pass exams, you know. Because the experience of failure is so rare and far in between. Most doctors are top students their whole lives. When they got into medical school, then they realized that there were so many other people who were just as good and clever as them, if not better. Then they would feel overwhelmed by the competition. And if they actually fail, they would feel like the stupidest person on earth. Even though failing your professional exam is quite common, it is still a bitter experience for any doctor to have to undergo.

Alhamdulillah, Allah created me with an ability to self-motivate. I am a very optimistic person, in general. And for that, I thank my parents very much. My father always encouraged repeated efforts in order to gain success. The concept of putting in an effort was very prominent in my upbringing. “Kena usaha! Sampai dapat!”. And until now, I internalize that concept. And it is a very motivating concept. Because my dear readers, Allah sees your effort. And I believe it wholeheartedly and behave accordingly. I don’t believe that my effort guarantees anything. I just believe that effort is required to qualify for God’s help. And I need His help in everything that I do. And therefore I have to make myself qualified for His help. So I put in my effort, hoping it would be enough.

And it is true that it is in the remembrance of Allah that the heart finds rest. It is really difficult to feel bitter about not passing an exam when I know that Allah has blessed me in every other aspect of my life so mercifully… that it would be very stupidly ungrateful of me to indulge in endless self-pity. I was afraid that Allah would punish me for being an ungrateful slave. Very difficult to pity myself after that. LOL.

One of the ways I calm myself is by reading and writing, which is something that I am sure you guys already know about me. I love reading stories and seerah. I also love composing poems of religious themes because I think they are motivating, uplifting, always relevant…. well, Islamic poems are evergreen, no? Because Islam will always be relevant in our daily lives as Muslims.

So I wrote a poem to remind me to be a grateful slave of Allah. To always be mindful that I also have another test to pass. The test of patience and fortitude and the test of NOT despairing of Allah’s mercy. And the outcome of this test would only be revealed in the hereafter which makes it far more important to me than passing CASC would ever be in this world. It doesn’t even begin!! to compare!

So I moulded my thinking accordingly and asked Allah to forgive me. I wrote the poem below around 3 weeks before my CASC exam in order to gather my thoughts properly. It was the most therapeutic thing I had done in a long time. The title of my poem is Remember.

REMEMBER

Once upon a time,
I stretched my arms faithfully upward
Supplicating in silent soulful solitude
Hoping You would deign to look downward
And grant Your slave in prayer stood
All the wishes and dreams of her heart
to fly to heavens, a brand new start.

But the hand of fate was full of pain
Dreams of mine went down the drain
I wondered why my prayers were in vain
When You have the power to grant my gain.

Did I not to You faithfully worship?
That You had so forsaken me
Have I not for You a love so deep?
That You entirely shunned me
Have You withdrawn from me Your favour?
To bleed my heart all over.

But immediately I felt a twinge of shame
What You must think of me, I’d take the blame
As I imagined the response You exclaim
To this ungrateful slave that I became.

Remember Ya Ibadi,
When you prayed to me with outstretched hand
For things you thought I wouldn’t grant
Instead I bestowed you a better one
Gratefulness for Me you displayed scant.

Remember Ya Ibadi,
Sins You committed I’d overlooked
Without you begging My pardon
Still your soul-cleansing I undertook
All that you lost I then returned.

Remember Ya Ibadi,
All the promises to Me that you broke
Hoping it would be of little concern
Still your heart purification I undertook
Your will and resolve I then hardened.

Remember Ya Ibadi,
Good things happened you didn’t ask how
Glorious miracles you asked to allow
They happened without your bargaining vow
How could you forget all my blessings now?

Remember Ya Ibadi,
Did you suppose things happened in coincidence?
Did you not see the purpose in all happenstance?
Should everything go your way in every instance?
What do you suppose your reason of existence?

I remember now, Ya Ilahi,
And fervently I promise to do better
Pardon this slave, in need of Your favour
Forgive my sins past, present and future
Have mercy on my soul now till the hereafter
Only to You I place my worries, my fear
I accept Your decrees, doubts burst asunder
Whatever transpires, to My Lord I surrender.

-Afiza Azmee-
29/09/2019
6.00 pm

***

Dear readers,

Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, has bestowed upon me his blessing once again.

Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. A wave of happiness and gratitude filled my heart so overwhelmingly that my eyes teared up as I informed my parents the happy news. That I have passed my CASC exam.

• 

I imagine that once upon a time when Allah had created the story of my life in the Luh Mahfuz, He had probably written “Today, Afiza will be filled with happiness for passing her CASC exam.”

Alhamdulillah, Ya Rabb.

• 

 

 

 

 

Freedom & Independence

Dear readers,

The month of August is the month of Independence for Malaysians. And therefore I thought it would be nice to share with you guys how I view the concept of freedom and independence and why I believe that they are not the same but are very much related to one another.

This is just my own point of view and everyone is free to think differently. Those who have followed my blog since I was in medical school would understand how frequently I write about freedom. How preferentially I choose which fictions to buy based on the plot revolving on freedom. I value it very much. I believe that being relatively independent (and therefore, more free compared to those who are relatively dependent) is mandatory if you want to be a good person or a good Muslim. I believe that it is a religious obligation and a religious principle for you to keep yourself as independent as possible because without independence, you can be oppressed, coerced, thwarted from doing the right thing because you have no other choice.

***

My General Philosophy On Freedom

What is independence to you?

I might be the odd one out here but I don’t really think that independence is the end goal that we should aim for. Independence is only a TOOL…. and it is a relative one too! Because we are always dependent on something or someone, one way or another. We are dependent on the oxygen we breathe to stay alive, aren’t we? (haha I know that is an extreme example, lol). As a Muslim, we believe that we are always dependent on The Almighty for our every sustenance. We are also dependent on our family and friends for social and emotional support. No man is an island, right? We are all inter-dependent. We also learned about organisms interdependence in the food-chain chapter of our Standard 4 Science subject, didn’t we? (well, during my time, at least. Nowadays, the kids might be learning it in the kindy!).

I like the word freedom better in describing our end-goal in life. We can be inter-dependent while still being free to make our own decision and chart our own course in life. Just because I am dependent on you in certain aspect of my life, it doesn’t mean that I cannot have my own will and choose my own actions. You can disapprove my decision and hence choose to withdraw aid/resource/support from me, and I am sure I will be affected to a certain extent… but there are OTHER aspects of my life that has nothing to do with you whatsoever and therefore it wouldn’t be fair for you to dictate to me what I should do that doesn’t affect you just because I am dependent on you in one particular aspect only. I can choose to depend on other people as well to give me what you are not willing to give. So, go ahead, condemn me, threaten to withdraw aid/support…. I will just find a more compatible entity to be inter-dependent with.

But in order to boldly state that sentiment to ANYONE, we must be inter-dependent ‘just enough’ and no further. In other words, we should not be dependent on others for survival matters… but only for matters of comfort. So that if people try to get us to do their unjust bidding, we can just say “Look buddy, don’t overstep your boundaries with me. What makes you think you are so important that I cannot just walk away and find my resources elsewhere? It’s not like I need you to survive, ok?”

That is freedom! Irrespective of how dependent we are on anyone! Freedom is a mindset and our end-goal.

And any free, sovereign country should be able to say that to any other country who might be trying to manipulate us just because we are dependent on them on certain things. Our official foreign policy is based on the principle of neutrality and maintaining peaceful relations with all countries, regardless of their political system. During the time of cold war between the Soviet Unions and the US, we did not favour one political system over the other. And that is the only wise stand that a small, non-powerful but proud and sovereign country can have. Neither can use us against the other. We form our own independent opinion based on issues and how it affects our own interest. In certain issues (like the support of the US for Israel’s terrorism towards the Palestinians) we will condemn the US and Israel. But at the same time, in championing democracy and human rights, we will support the Western countries. We can warn Philippine to beware of China’s debt-trap while at the same time support China in its trade-war against the US by not banning Huawei in our country. See how great it is when we do not limit ourselves to a sense of false loyalty (to any organization or party) but instead, we choose our stand CAREFULLY by analyzing on issues!

Freedom or free-will is the concept being debated back and forth among theologians too. Some have posed the questions of “Do humans have free will… or has everything been pre-determined by God?” Very interesting debate. You can check it out on You Tube.

In Islam we believe that we’re free to choose our actions but God has the ultimate control over the outcome of those actions. According to the teaching of Islam, Allah has given humans free will to make choices in their lives but only God has foreknowledge of our destiny.

See? Freedom is our birthright given by God. Whereas independence is just a tool to reach freedom. No one is truly independent! But free? Yes… we are truly free!

“Come on, are you saying everyone is TRULY FREE? We have the law to abide by and we have our own culture that we are bound to. Violate them at your own peril.” some might point out.

Yes! I really am saying that we are free! It is our birthright, guaranteed by God. We are free to make our own choices. And we are also free to face the consequences of our choices. If it means going to jail and losing our physical freedom, then yes, you are free to make the choice that might lead to that. Just because you are afraid of the possible consequences and therefore refrain from doing any particular action, it doesn’t mean you are not free. It just means that you have weighed the risks and benefits of your actions and choose not to do certain actions because you are not willing to pay the price for it. But if you REALLY want to do those actions regardless of the consequences, can anyone stop you? No!

So, you DO have free will!

But because we are dependent on our surroundings and our society, we exercise our free will cautiously by weighing the risks and benefits of our actions.

For example, when someone said that they were not willing to fight the ex-PM Najib while BN was in power back then (or not willing to fight their HO-molesting or HO-assaulting boss, for those working in MOH), “because their hands were tied and they were not free to fight against him who is more powerful”, what they were REALLY saying was “Look, I know I am free to fight and go against anyone. Not like anyone can stop me if I am REALLY determined to do it. But I have weighed the risks and benefits of fighting my boss and I don’t think I can do it. My job and my livelihood is dependent on him. So, I am sorry.”

(Well, weren’t you sorry when Najib lose the election? Weren’t you sorry when your HO-assaulting boss got sacked from MOH? Now, you are saying that you, the enablers of immorality, had nothing to do with what your boss did? You had your chance to do something about it. You were not REALLY that un-free. You just weighed the risks and benefits and decided not to fight for your principles, didn’t you?)

This is why….. the more dependent you are, the more cautiously you exercise your free-will. This is why if you value your freedom, you will be hesitant (and in my case, paranoid hahah) about being too dependent, if you can help it. There are times when you cannot help it. Recognize why and make plans for the future so that you won’t be placed in a similar situation.

***

Financial Independence & Freedom

In the past, your inability to pay your own debts can cause you to be enslaved, did you know that? This is called debt-bondage or debt-slavery. This is SO SCARY because debt bondage could be passed from one generation to the next. If you were unlucky enough to be born from parents who were debt-enslaved, you have been dealt a terrible hand by fate. You were born physically enslaved (but hopefully, you are free in your mind. No one can enslave your mind if you don’t allow it! And you must NOT allow it! Freedom is a mindset too, remember?)

Similarly, we heard phrases in our modern era like “enslaved by debt”. Think about this!

Think about a person who is juggling his house mortgage, his car loans, and all the items he bought via instalments… things that he bought because he wanted a certain level of lifestyle that he used to be able to live without! Wouldn’t the thought of debts weigh heavily in his mind every single day, robbing him of happiness and contentment in his life? Wouldn’t he lose his passion for working if he found himself having to do a lot of overtime (or locum works, in the case of doctors) in order to pay his debts? Would he dare to firmly state his opinion even if it is different from the popular opinion of his colleagues or his superiors if he has to always be careful because he wouldn’t dare to jeopardize his current job in any way, shape or form?

“Aku kerja sebab aku perlu duit. Kalau aku cakap banyak, orang tak suka kat aku pula. Nanti aku nak pi kerja pun jadi tak syok. Nak berhenti kerja pun tak boleh juga sebab aku banyak hutang ni. So buat ja lah macam biasa. Boss molest pekerja ke, assault pekerja ke, pandai-pandai lah mangsa bela diri sendiri. Kalau boss songlap duit syarikat dan cakap itu derma from Saudi Arabia pun… what to do? Apa aku boleh buat? Bukan tanggungjawab aku.”

Hmm… this is the mentality of someone who is NOT financially-free. Just come to work, do the most minimal you can get away with, no need to uphold anything of human principles and values and at the end of your shift… just go home. Sad, isn’t it?

And whether or not you are financially-free has nothing to do with the objective state of your income. A cleaner can have financial freedom by living within his/her means whereas a CEO might have to file for bankruptcy! Whether or not you can attain financial freedom has A LOT to do with your ability to maintain your lifestyle according to your income!

If I have X amount of money, I am going to make sure my mortgage, my car loan, and my lifestyle is less than X-amount every month! That I have enough savings for a rainy day! I am not going to upgrade my lifestyle every time I get a hike in my salary. I am not the sort of person who would have multiple houses or multiple cars just because I can afford it. One house to live in and one car to get me from one place to another is enough for me.

The rest of the money will be used for the sake of increasing my independence. I finance and service my independence, regularly. Because the more independent I am (even though as I said, no one can be truly independent) the more liberally (and the less cautiously) I can exercise my free will. 

Freedom is expensive. It is knowing that if things happened, you have money to tide you over until you can find the next job. It is knowing that if things happened, you have money to sue people and take legal actions. It is knowing that if either of your parents or your child are not well, you can take unpaid leave to care for them because you have enough savings to do so or maybe you can hire a nurse to care for them while you continue working (instead of IRRESPONSIBLY taking multiple ELs and causing trouble to your colleagues… or not settling the issues that crop up in your marriage causing you to take multiple MCs from psychiatry department by using your psychiatric diagnosis to not come to work! And you cannot settle your marriage problems because you don’t have money to hire a lawyer to fight for you for proper divorce settlements! So your marriage will continue to be the perpetuating factor to your depression because you JUST CANNOT SETTLE YOUR PROBLEMS! And you continue using your diagnosis to irresponsibly MIA from work!)

But how can you hire a nurse to care for your sick family members while continuing to go to work if you have multiple mortgages and loans? Your financial freedom is gone because you have become accustomed to a certain lifestyle that NO ONE force you to maintain yourself at.

The more materials you have, the more care and time needed to invest on them! Instead of the materials making your life comfortable, they are making your life more difficult. It always annoys me when I have to pay my ‘cukai pintu/cukai tanah/car insurance’ because I would start thinking that these are the money I won’t need to spend if I don’t own these materials. Lagi besar periuk, lagi besar keraknya, isn’t it? It always annoys me when I have to spend time cleaning my house because I feel like the time spent cleaning my house can be used for reading fiction! (Hahha… forgive me and my stereotypical, repetitive routine of fiction reading!) I used to live well with just having one room when I was a student at the uni and I didn’t remember my life back then as lacking anything in particular! But because I now have a house, I have to invest even more time and money for these materials that in the end, I could actually live just as well with less! What’s wrong with just renting a studio? Less cleaning time, less maintenance expenses! What’s wrong with just using public transport (especially if you are living in a Western country where public transport is amazingly reliable)? Why not use the extra money that you save for not having these materials by travelling and improving your mind and your view of the world?

This is the basis of the Japanese Zen-concept of minimalism and simplicity. (Mary Kondo, anyone? LOL!)

In Islam, we have the concept of ‘bersederhana’ or wasatiyyah which means best, middle, centered, balanced. It refers to the “middle way” or “moderation”, a justly balanced way of life, avoiding extremes and experiencing things in moderation. (But, of course we all have different needs. What is moderate to you, might be too much for me or vice versa. You know best what kind of lifestyle suits you better. But what I am saying is… be sensible. Don’t go overboard with materialism.)

So when my parents suggested that I changed my car because they felt like it was time to kind-of upgrade hahha, I just told them “The only reason I am going to change my car would be because the car can no longer be used or for some other practical or safety reason. As long as the car can safely and comfortably bring me from point A to point B, I am okay to use the same one.”

Likewise, I am not interested to invest money in properties. To me, if I have an urgent need of money, what would usually happen is I am going to have to sell the plot of land or the house at a cheaper price, won’t I? Because my financial need is urgent, how can I wait for better offers? And I might not even have finished paying the bank for those plot of land or house, in the first place! So whatever cheap offers I have to settle at, a large chunk of it still need to be used to pay the bank first before I can use the money urgently! Too much leceh-ness and paperwork and procedures! I hate it!

Compare that to investing in gold! Acquiring gold is a straightforward process. Just walk into any gold/jewelry shop and pay for them and I am done! Minimal paperworks and no complicated procedures! I can also get money stat whenever I need it by pawning them off! I might as well invest in gold jewelries which I can also use to accessorize my outfit haha. So practical, isn’t it? I just love, love, love simple things like that!

When it comes to financial aspect of things, my aim is to stay liquid! I don’t want to be tied up in assets that are going to use up more of my money and time to care for them. Because I use my money to buy me independence… as the road to freedom (of speech, of action, of movement)! Not to buy materials which I don’t need and which also troubles me with all their maintenance and up-keep and taxes!

This is my financial freedom philosophy. I know some people would think about it differently. Some people straight-out advocate for property investments! But not me. This financial freedom philosophy works for me for now. You can even call it my over-valued ideas. I am paranoid, even, about losing my freedom! Perhaps I was influenced by the books that I read… the struggles that other people had written about breaking away from oppression. I pray to God, I will not be placed in such a situation.

Whenever I talk about financial freedom, I would reflexively think about the doa below that I repeat every time I perform my prayer. Notice that ‘being heavily in debt’ and ‘being overpowered by other men’ are being grouped together! Amazing, isn’t it!? Once you are in debt, you are VERY VULNERABLE to being overpowered! If you value your freedom above extravagant lifestyle, you will NOT put yourself unnecessarily in a position of being in heavy debts!

Have you noticed how being heavily in debt and being over-powered by men are being grouped together? Because they are very related!

In terms of the state of the country, remember how everyone was worried about China debt-trap? Makes sense, isn’t it…how debt can restrict your freedom! A lot of countries have fallen trap to China debt and some even said that Malaysia was also at the brink of it during the time of Najib! Some are not even sure if we have truly been saved from it, anyway!

My take home message is: FEAR DEBT! You can lose your principle and your very soul because of debts! Don’t do it to yourself, I beg you.

***

Other Factors Can Restrict Freedom Too…

Other than financial debt, there are other ways that your freedom can be restricted. Your freedom can be restricted by forming bad relationships that you then become stuck with, for example. But unlike financial debts, this can be easily managed by having some willpower and by coming up with strategies to modify the behaviour of the people around you so that you can have some breathing space.

People have also gotten into financial problems by forming bad relationships and lost their money due to having to finance a ‘biawak hidup’ in their lives. Some of these biawak hidups are drug-addicts who exploit their partners financially. But if you have a concept of how your freedom is highly related to sound financial independence, you wouldn’t have tolerated this biawak hidup for long because you want to protect your freedom. Right?

No?

There are times when I despair at the fate of women who do not know how to look out for themselves especially when our religion is so protective of our rights as a woman. But we are all adults here. You have free-will and you have a choice to leave your biawak hidup. If you make a choice of sticking with your biawak hidup, you know the consequences for it which would include being in debt! There are times when I feel like maybe this is a lesson to those women. “Allah gave you freedom or free-will. To make the right choice when you had to make it! Then you made the wrong choice…. against ALL REASON! So Allah withdrew your freedom by putting you in debt. And when you think about it, it wasn’t Allah that had put you in debt and thus restricting your freedom! YOU had chosen to stick to your biawak hidup… and then your biawak hidup exploited you financially. Your debt now is YOUR choice…. don’t you blame fate or God.”

I put more emphasis on debt (rather than any other factors that can also restrict your freedom) because being in debt is the highest threat to freedom (and thus, reflected in the doa I posted above). If you are financially-free, other things (including bad relationships) can be easily managed. If you cannot manage it despite having financial freedom, you might have issues with problem-solving or getting enough willpower to get things done (like ending your no-good relationship). Don’t worry. This is where our psychiatrist and clinical psychologists can help you. We can give you some really good problem-solving advice and skills.

Come and visit our clinic and we will, Insya-Allah, help you! But gosh… please help yourself, first! Please help us to help you.

Last but not least….

Happy Freedom Day, everyone! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! May Allah bless our country with peace and prosperity for many more years to come. Amiin, Ya Rabb! Until next time, my dear readers. Take care and may Allah bless all of us!