afraid of not being afraid

I was scared that day,

I was afraid because I am not afraid after what happened.

I was afraid of myself, 

when I can't trace any bit of guilt or worry inside me.

Something is off somewhere and I am scared, 

because I don't know where and what it is

A day in Pitt Street

Two years ago, when I thought of Sydney, seeing homeless people was never there in my mind. I did not expect to see people that are sleeping at random places and are sitting at corners in the city, of where the Opera House is situated, to ask for change, coins, so that they can survive a day.

It was on 24th of December 2015 when this incident happened. That day, I was feeling a little nauseous after staying at home for the whole week so I decided to talk a walk. I kept walking along the George Street till I reached Queen Victoria Building (QVB) and I chose to go to Kinokuniya at the Galleries, beside QVB. But somehow, I didn’t even enter the shop after seeing the long queue, immediately took the escalator and make my move to somewhere else.

Next thing I know, I was standing somewhere along Pitt St. There were so many people that day, it was Christmas eve, so I presumed people are buying last minute gifts. Right between MYER entrance and ZARA entrance, there were two kids performing, they sang some Christmas carols. People were entertained with the kids as they circled around them and show support when they sang.

On another part along Pitt St, there was a guy, selling his paintings. He arranged his paintings on the floor and he sat there, making another one. He looked pretty immersed with his job and does not seem to bother about what is going on around him. Interesting how he had the inspiration and idea flowing, seems like it never dies.

I was thinking about inspiration and something along this line when my eyes caught a girl, young Chinese girl, most probably in her twenties, maybe we share the same age. The girl was holding a plastic bag, full with sandwiches and she was approaching a homeless woman. The woman was sitting at one corner between the shops. She asked the woman,

"Would you mind for a sandwich?"

To which the woman replied,

"I don’t eat cheese."

"Oh wait, let me check if there is anything without cheese in here."

The young girl quickly go through her bag and found one sandwich and gave it to her,

"Is this fine with you?"

The old woman looked at the sandwich and she was satisfied with it and said,

"Yeah this is fine, thank you."

"Okay, Merry Christmas"

And the young girl walked away, I presumed looking for another homeless to feed with the sandwiches. I took another look at the old woman, she looked happy. I can see that there were already so many plastic bags around her, most probably it was foods people gave her, but still at that moment, I might have been mistaken, but I think I saw her raising her hands and said,

"Thank God."

I saw another guy who was observing the incident like I did and when our eyes met, we exchanged smile and I left.

Of the things I was reminded on this day, there are two things I want to highlight here:

Whoever you are, your religion, your status, your gender, your age; never ever forget to spread kindness. Serve the people the around you that are in need. Remember that there so many ways you can help the community to be better, there are so many means to help the poor, the helpless. Bear in mind that small good deeds, made out of sincerity would always be able to spread love among people.

Never forget to thank God for the things you have in life, even small little things. Remember that help is always from God, so be grateful to Him.

As mentioned in a verse in the Quran,

With that, I end my story.

p/s: I wrote four drafts today of which most of them after I finished writing, I concluded that I don't want to put them in my blog- mostly because of how it is written. I'll come back to my draft and write it more properly. Until then, have a lovely weekend :)

An evening advice

How often do we go to our friend and ask,

"O my dear friend, if there is one advice you would give to me today, what would it be?"

And if you were to ask me that question today, right now, my answer would be,

"Treat others at least the way you wanted to be treated. If you never like being used, don't ever use people of their kindness. Remind yourself, that other people have their needs, their souls, their feelings and themselves. You should always remind you that you are other people to those people as well. So, be kind, be gentle and be helpful. Don't make things hard for others, you wouldn’t want the same thing for you too."

Truly,

Sabrina

Photo credit: fareezrazak

#repost: The best planner and All-knower

Hello :)

It is already 0013 but I am still wide awake, okay no, I am not wide awake, I am just awake. Just so you know, had a quite long day today, my feet are aching and I am quite sleepy but since I've bake a cheesecake, now I have to wait for it to cool down and so I thought, while killing my time waiting, 'Why not do an update for my blog?' 

The thing is I randomly looked at my drafts and found one particular post. I've posted it before but it was in Malay, so I thought I am going to rewrite in English and gonna make it sound more interesting, *hopefully*

Let's go!

One day, when I am still in Sunway College, I got a sudden wish to print out some pictures. I can't remember why but it was so random and I have no idea where to print cheap good quality photos. So, I put the pictures I planned on printing in a pendrive and make a move to Sunway Pyramid, which by the way is only 10 minutes walk from Sunway College.

And it was Monday, since class finished early, I went there with my housemate, Alia. So, here it goes.

Shop 1

Me : Can I print photos here?

Salesgirl : You brought the pendrive? If you did, there's a machine here.

*She walked me to the machine*

S : This is an instant machine.

M : Oh yeah, I have my pendrive here, but how much does it cost?

S : 80cent each photo. How much do you want to print?

M : Around 30 photos.

She handed back the pendrive to me and said;

"You take back your pendrive and go somewhere else. The printer here does not print good quality for coloured photos. Sorry"

So, I thanked her and walk to find another shop while I am thinking, how good is her that she's being honest with me. Alhamdulillah.

Shop 2
Me : Can I print photos here?

Salesgirl : No.

I think she misheard me and when I told Alia what she said, Alia pointed to a machine that look similar to the one in the previous shop, an instant photo printer. But somehow I was too lazy and feel not needing to ask the second time so I just move on to another shop.

Shop 3

Me : Hi, how much does it cost to print a photo?

Salesguy : RM1.50 per photo

GULP!

Me : I thought of printing around 30 photos, so how much ey 1.50 times 30?

S : RM45

M : So expensive! *Yes, I said it out loud! So embarrassed but it's true, it is expensive*

S : Okay, wait a minute, I'll go ask my supervisor.

He went for a bit and then when he came back, he said:

"What about RM36? Is it okay for you?"

Then I gave a thought and since I am just so determined to get the photos printed, agreed even though it was pricy. He helped me to use the instant photo printing machine. And guess what? The machine can't seemed to be detecting the pendrive. Yeay! *no not yeay* and yeah, he did something here and there and somehow now the printer is not detected. All the wires are connected and the guy was feeling helpless and he tried as much as he could and after almost 10 minutes fixing here and there, and it is still not working, he gave me back my pendrive and apologized.

I took the pendrive and thanked him for helping me out. Though inside me, I was totally frustrated because there isn’t any other photo printing shop left in Sunway Pyramid that I know of. But I still went looking for any other shops in Sunway Pyramid and I can’t find any place that can help me print out the photos.

Frustrated, I went back home. Feeling all gloomy and sad. And I tweeted all these things and felt for a second how childish it was but yeah, I still tweet them anyway. Haha

Then, that weekend, I went back to Gombak and I stopped by Alpha Angle to PRINT MY PHOTOS! Haha, I just don’t quit, not just yet. Oh by the way, I took the LRT just for this sake. Haha, can’t you see how determined I am to get these photos printed?

So, when I reached Alpha Angle, I got to a shop, the only shop that print photos. And I was happy and excited and thrilled when the salesgirl told me, it is only 50cent per photo and additional rm5 for service. I was like, *yeayyyyyyy fireworks* However, some things, they just don't turn out as you want them to. It so happened that they can't detect my pendrives. Oh yes, I brought two pendrives because I am scared that this would happened but it still does. So yeah, I just thanked them * oh they are Kelantanese btw, haha, had a good talk with them though* and I went back home, busied myself with Rushdan cute naughty behaviour so that I can forget about this.

Then then, on Tuesday, I went to Sunway Pyramid *again* to buy present for Amira and Alia told me that someone told her that I can print photos at Harvey Norman. And she told me it was quite cheap so as fast as lightning, I went directly to Harvey Norman. And you know what? There are plenty instant photo printer andddddd it is wayyy cheaper. It is only 50cent each! WITHOUT ANY SERVICE CHARGE! Can you imagine, from RM36 to RM15. That's a lot of difference! Not to mention that it only took a few minutes to get the photos printed. So efficient and so cheap and Sabrina is so happy. Haha.

Ya rabbi, I can't helped but to praise Allah.

So, what I really want to get across from this lengthy story? I want to tell you to have patience and pray to Allah, He really knows best. Allah know whichever is better for you and He'll guide you if He wants to. All those waiting, all those rejections, all those undetectable pendrives, all those dramas, it was only to teach me to have Sabr and to remind me to always depend on Allah and not myself. Allah is indeed the All-Knowing and He is The AlMighty.

So, if things didn’t go as you planned, just keep in mind, He knows. So pray harder and have good assumption to Allah. He's giving you the best of all. :)

That's all from me. The cake is cooled now and I can go to sleep!

Goodnight :)

What's your passion?

*Stones around the sun - Lewis Watson*

Had a small walk with a friend yesterday, we were talking and talking when somehow I asked him about his passion other than photography, he said he likes drawing as well, but it was long before. Then the question come back to me. I remembered I said I like writing. And he said, 'You must have like reading as well. Since in order to write, you have to know a lot or at least the thing you are writing.'

I agreed. He continued telling me how he used to have a blog back then and words come easy to him when he reads but at one point of his life, he stopped reading books that the idea did not come flowing when he wanted to blog, and yes, I truly agree with this. There's two reason for failing to write; less reading or lacking experience.

And I think I have both of that but oh wait, that's not why I wanted to write in this post. I wanted to just ponder upon the word passion. I remembered reading in a friend's blog, he posted an excerpt from Kahlil Gibran, On Reason and Passion;

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. 

If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. 

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. 

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; 

And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion ay live through its own daily resurrection and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

Passion is something you like most. You enjoy doing it, you find happiness in it. You don't have to work hard to feel a genuine feeling for it. And why am I referring passion as 'it'? I don't know but what I am going for this post is that if you have ever discover your passion(s), don't ignore them. Make sure to acknowledge them and keep on feeding the passion so it grows and can act accordingly. 

*Windows - Lewis Watson*

*continued this draft, it started on 31st January 2016*

*Into the Wild - Lewis Watson*

Having said that you should never ignore your passion(s), where I was heading on to say is regardless of how busy or difficult your situation is, never let it go. Personally for me, I love archery so much but I can't see myself keeping to it right now so most probably in the future, I'll have my kids to get involve with archery so that I can indirectly teach them what I knew :). However, in the mean time, I'll continue watching videos and reading up articles about archery.

I almost give up writing at some period of my life and then with so many motivation from people around me, I started writing again. You may have not see any much changes but I do, I realised my thoughts are getting more organised as I speak and I am thankful for that. I even keep my journal with me now. So that I can write my thoughts so I can see things clearly, though sometimes I don't get myself when I reread those things I wrote haha but yeah, what I mean is, you should never give up on your passion.

Though it is true, sometimes you might be liking something that has bad influence in it. If you don’t know whether it is good or not, go and talk to people around you and see what they say about it. And pray to God to His guidance. Usually, things in life, there's always good in it. Maybe you can start using your passion in a better way, a way that can serve a good purpose.

Oh well, look at the time now, it is almost midnight and somehow I can’t think about anything else to write that's relatable to the title. Hoho.

So until then, bye!

*Grow Old With Me - Tom Odell*

Live update : Bondi to Coogee, a lone-coastal walk

3rd February 2016
1732
Central Station

I suddenly got this idea of jotting down my thoughts as I went for a quick escape today. And yeah, I hop on this train from Redfern station just now. So what I am currently thinking?
"Why is it that the air conditioning for this train is not working? Haha."
Oh and just now I saw someone I knew. I guessed whenever I thought of having a total me time, I'll always bumped into somebody. Hah so much of alone time. Hm

1747
Bondi Junction Station

1752
Bus to Bondi beach, a guy is sitting beside me. Haha motif sangat nak bagitahu benda ni but I am just curious that there are so many empty seats available and he chose to sit beside me. And I have to sit still if I want to keep my wudhu' hm so, the sky is looking a little bit cloudy, hopefully it will not start raining though I brought my raincoat with me. We'll see how it goes then haha.

1812
Started coastal walk from Bondi Beach to we'll see where later haha.

Funny how I stayed at one place whenever I see a dog haha

Whenever I see stairs, I remembered my bushwalking trip to Blue Mountains with some friends few Weeks ago. So embarrassing but that trip assured me how blessed I am with good friends

Between Bondi Beach and Tamarama Beach

now tengah dilemma should I continue walking or just sit here and enjoy the view 

Mackenzies Bay

So I walked. I'm gonna miss all these scenery. Hm

Bronte Beach

1908
Bronte Beach

1928
I can Coogee Beach! Yes

1940
Penatlah, haha walaupun Coogee is so near. But since it is almost sunset and I have no idea how to go back home from here, I have to make a move now.

1955
Safely made it to Coogee Beach yeayyyy

2006
Alhamdulillah dah settle solat Maghrib. Now now, we can go find something to eat and head back home

Just now I was thinking that I didnt think about anything while walking but I did think about not thinking anything so I think? Haha. and following that thought, I was thinking that I should do this walking as my therapy so that I can stop thinking haha again with 'thinking' but then again, why would I want to stop thinking? It should be a continuous process like right now I should be thinking of how I am going to go back home haha

2018
Being here this time reminds me of the day when I came here to celebrate my birthday with Iman,

2049
Now boarding the 372 bus from Coogee to Bondi Beach. It'll pass Malaysia Hall for sure but I am not gonna stop because I smell so bad and I am just tired and want to go home and bathe,pray and sleep.

And this bus ride gonna be a long one since it's like from first stop to last stop haha. Anyhow, I hope not to sleep!

Watched a family just now, the Dad was bringing the kids' bags and his children wanted to tap off their Opal cards themselves. I don't know but looking at that guy reminds me of how much a father did sacrifice for his children. Must be tired to carry all the bags and to bear with the children's tantrums and behaviour. To all dads and soon to be dad, you are one great man!

2147
Reached home safely alhamdulillah

Just now, before I reached the gate of where I lived, I remembered that I still haven't posted the postcard for my lil sis, stressed haha i've been carrying it in my bag for two days, need to go out tomorrow and post the postcard. That should be it!

that's all from me today haha. Bye

p/s: thought of explaining but then again, why not leave you wondering right? It good for your brain hihi.Till then, BYE!

Archery; part(i)

Team Gombak Setia 2009

I've been planning for this post for quite some time actually. I just didn’t know where to start. So, to avoid myself from procrastinating, I'm just gonna do it and see how this goes.

I've started learning the basic of archery in standard 5. I was introduced to archery by my P.E. teacher, Cikgu Azman. How? Well, the first day of class, we have to introduced our names and he randomly picked any students that he wanted and asked they to do push up at the teacher's table, and yes, I was chosen as well. I managed to do 10 push-ups and then he later said,

"Come to archery training at 3 p.m. later this afternoon, it'll be conducted behind block G."

I remembered that time I don’t have my own sport yet so I just went on and tried. It so happened that that day the primary school are having training with secondary school. So, there I went with my friend, and what do we know, we learned the basic of archery from one of the greatest coach in Selangor, Cikgu Mazlan! I gotta be honest with you that I still remember every details he told me and I am so proud when I went to another school, the new teacher was impressed with my good basics. And all I can say is that I have a good coach from the beginning.

*I left this draft on my OneNote since 13 January2016*
So yeah, well right now I am still emotionally affected after watching Never Let Me Go, I think the movie is just so sad :( now I am feeling very sad, *sigh*

Anyway anyhow, let's talk about archery.

So, as I've written up there, I started joining at the age of 11 and stopped when I was 17. Yes, a total 6 years of life as an archer. Though at first I really want to continue archery even after finishing my high school and I actually got an offer to join the training for SUKMA but Allah has predestined something better for me, Alhamdulillah :) so I stopped being involved with archery from that day onwards. That being said, I still sometimes spent my time watching videos about archery and always got excited with them. HAHAHA, yeah I know, I shouldn’t be but old habits die hard isn't it, yes?

So, my initial plan for this post was to allow people to see properly my journey in archery; but then it'll too much details that I don't think nobody gonna read them. HAHA. Now, I feel like writing a new post altogether, hahahahaha, so bye.

Okay so not bye, I am just too lazy to really start a new one, so let's go with this.

I stopped at when I got to know my first coach right? I didn't joined any competition until I am 12 years old. Yes, the very same year I'll be having my UPSR; yes, risk-taker Sabrina is being develop! Haha. Anyway, alhamdulillah I managed to get a spot to represent Gombak to state tournament. I think, from this point onwards, people start calling me Sab since there are two Sabrina on the team. And yeah, I got to know a lot of people from this too hahaha, now that I think about it, this is when I started to fall in love? Eceyyyyyy, astagfirullahhaladzim, forgive me. I am just writing things that popped up in my head.

So, I remember MSS Selangor 2006 was featured in The Star and since I got second place in 20m category for under 12, my name was in the newspaper and my dad was very proud of that though my parents still complain about how tanned I got to be after the tournament. Then, came UPSR and finished primary school and I got an offer to 'Sekolah Projek', not really a sport school but it is but only for Selangor I guess? And my parents were okay with me going but since I was so determined in going to boarding school, I declined the offer and guess what? I DIDN'T GET INTO ANY BOADRING SCHOOOOLL!! YEAY! *okay tak yeay*

*sedih tahu tak? Sebab dah lama nak pergi asrama :(*

Anyhow, I ended up going to SMK GOMBAK SETIA which is still cool since I can continue joining archery kahkahkah. And I got to do lotsa fun stuffs, oh maybe exciting too, there. Haha. So, in form one, my performance in archery dropped so much that I didn’t even qualified to MSS Selangor (MSSS) hah, I think I don't get any medal that year! I don’t know what happened to me but it was kinda hard I guess because I now need to shoot under a new category and I was struggling. Oh maybe I should explain how the category works. The category followed by the distances we need to shoot.

Under 12 - 30m, 25m, 20m, 15m
Under 15 - 60m, 50m, 40m, 30m
Under 18 - 90m (male only), 70m, 60m (female only), 50m, 30m
But during my year in under 12, the furthest was 25m and the nearest was 10m. But they changed it some when during 2007 and these are the latest ones that I remembered. I don't think they changed again after that. So yeah, you can see the differences in the distances so in order to shoot more distances, you need to increase the power of your bow. And I am not sure whether the terms I am using is correct but in primary school, I only used 'wooden bow' and it weigh around 22pounds whereas in high school, I got to use 'advanced bow' that weigh up to 36pounds. But somehow since I couldn't do it, I managed at 32pounds. Haha.

And I remembered how my coach told me to do push up ad he even gave me rubber strips to train at home. Oh haha and he even allowed me to bring a bow back home so that I can practice, funny when remembering how Abah helped me through to set up the bow. Ah I missed those ol good times.

This is getting too lengthy I think, so I'll save some more later?

Till then, bye!

Oh and thanks for reading. hihi.