Maryam’s Musings

I have been away from blogging for too long now. I have decided to attempt moving to WordPress. Bear with me while I update!

Finally, I get to write something after my twins are asleep. Life has been a bit more challenging ever since my maid left for Indonesia for good. For the time being, we decided not to get a new maid and try and do things on our own. My twins spend their day at my mom’s place so that is not too bad. Only that my mom is not young anymore, and she needs a lot of energy to be able to take care of the two kids. It costs so much to get a maid now, so we are basically saving up to do so in another 2 - 3 months time. I am doing it to actually help my mom and dad, they want to take care of kakak and adik, but at the same time, they get tired easily!

Anyway, these past few days, I have been reading 3 main topics being discussed so openly - the World Cup (I hope France wins!), Siti and Datuk K’s supposed-to-happen-in-August wedding, and Mawi vs fiance-turned-model Diana. Besides the World Cup, the other two topics seem to appear at the front page of every newspaper - English and Malay (and Tamil I heard!) - and seem to get more attention than other news of national interest. The funniest thing I read last week was about the speculation on the cost of the wedding ring that Datuk K had purportedly bought for Siti - nearly half a million! So what?? If he is that rich and is willing to spend that much of money on a wedding ring, so be it! (But if he spent the same amount for the people in Palestin, that would be much better of course). And I personally think that because of the media, Diana is now turning into a model - look at the way she poses in front of the camera! Despite the fact that I should be on Diana’s side since she is a female, my heart goes all out for Mawi. The more stories I hear from Diana, the more Mawi looks good to me!!! Mawi - stay cool!

Work is getting better. I am doing more things that I like now. I still have a lot to learn though, since I have not practised ever since I graduated in 1997. So some of the legal terms do seem a bit alien to me. And my boss, he is just amazing. He is a bit off when it comes to discipline (e.g. coming to work at 9 am when we start at 8!) but he is a very comfortable person to work with.

I spent half-a-day on Friday listening to Suhaimi Sulaiman telling us about event management. Finally, I get to meet him in person after regularly visiting his blog. He is cool, and he can really joke and of course gets his points across. I hope this event that we are organizing will run smoothly as planned.

I am going to stop worrying now. I am going to finish up reading this book that my husband bought for me for my birthday, and sleep soundly tonight. Hope France wins!

Why do people like to talk bad about you behind your back? If she doesn’t like what I have been doing, can’t she just be honest and tell me straight on my face? I don’t like what happened to me yesterday. I think I had the worst time of my life. What made it even worse is that the people who listened to her blaming me for all the mistakes are my good friends. And she knows it. Maybe she had everything planned out - so that these people would actually tell me and that I would finally know it and then she’d be happy because I will feel so lousy. But one of my closest friend told me that she was actually trying to cover up all her shortcomings (a lot of things did not get done despite the fact that I have informed her in the meeting 2 weeks ago).

Nevertheless It was just so depressing. I cried - and each of my three good friends really understood what I was going through. Of course, my other half supported me and encouraged me, so I felt okay.. finally.

But last night, before going to bed, I reflected again on what had happened. I cried for so long. I never thought this would happen to me. I wished I knew what to do. Do I just ignore what had happened? Do I pretend that nothing happened? Should I show her that I knew that she had been bad-mouthing me?

This morning, she came to my office to get some documents from another colleague of mine. I had the intention to say hello to her, but then, she just walked straight past me! That was the point of time when I felt the worst! But I ignored what I felt, went right to her and asked if everything was alright. Stupid, wasn’t I?

But then.. Rasulullah experienced worse than what I went through today and he still showed good behaviour to his enemies. I should follow the Sunnah, shouldn’t I? She still would need my help since she was the one who took over my place!

Allah.. please give me strength.. show me the right path… guide me…………..

I should be stronger, and wiser, and less emotional at work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I took one day off from work yesterday and had a really good break (although I still have another 29 days leave until the end of the year). I wish I knew how I can finish up all these vacation days. Even getting one day off a week is difficult - what more for a whole month!

Alas.. when I got to work this morning, I was faced with a number of issues. It wasn’t related to my current post, but my previous post. The auditors are coming in tomorrow, and a lot of documentation have not been prepared. We had a meeting about this earlier on the 7th of June but I guess they didn’t realize the kind of work that is involved to ensure everything runs smoothly. But I can only watch. I better keep my mouth shut and stop making nasty remarks about why things don’t get done!

I received quite a number of belated birthday wishes today. I feel so much older!

By the way, I have added Ahmed into my list of favourite blogs. Check his webpage out!

I turned 32 today. Scary. And I decided to change the look of my blog to make it look pinkish (makes me feel younger.. hehe). This morning, my twins wished me… “Hepi Berday mama” (after their dad taught them) so that really made my day. As I am writing my blog now (it is 3.52 pm) the younger twin had just walked out of the room. :).

So, happy birthday to me. May the coming days make me a better person - an obedient servant of Allah, a loving daughter to my parents, a loving wife to my husband, a caring mother to my twins, and a trustworthy employee of my organization!!

Hmm.. Exactly two month since my last posting. I wanted to write, in fact there were so many things I wanted to talk about.. but I just couldn’t. My life was in a turmoil for the past two months. The excitement of the new job and a new boss, the sadness of leaving the previous job, the death of a dear friend.. sometimes I felt as if there was too much to handle..

But Allah is great.. I am still standing strong. I am getting used to my new job and, I still spend some time to help my previous department.

My husband has been extremely supportive.. and my darling daughters have been understanding, especially when mama has to work late nights!

The past few days have been mentally and physically challenging for me. My colleague and I were on our to KL for an exhibition at Midvalley on Thursday afternoon when I received a call from a good friend of mine who happened to be in a meeting to discuss on staff transfer. “You are coming to my department by 1st June!” I said, “What? No, please, not your department. As what?” “Err.. legal” he sounded hesitant. I kept quiet. I simply said ok and disconnected. I cried, I cried so badly that I was unable to speak for sometime.

That was Thursday. I was so upset that my newly appointed boss called me saying that he felt uncomfortable with the change since he is still new and I have been the backbone of my department for the past 6 years.

I reflected over the weekend. I called my soon-to-be new boss and asked him what he expected of me, and what plans he has for me. We discussed for some time, and I am quite happy with the outcome.

So, I am going to move forward and take up a new challenge.

There is nothing wrong in change if it is in the right direction. To improve is to change so to be perfect is to have changed often. (read this somewhere…)

There are only 2 more days left before this major change takes place at work. It would definitely affect me badly, and I am not sure how much my work will be affected. But yesterday was the last meeting chaired by my boss, and he was very excited about leaving! Maybe he has had too much of office politics in the last 7 years! Anyway, last Tuesday, we had a presentation and I would remember what my boss said to me for the rest of my life… “Thank you so much for making my last job easy to complete!” I had tears in my eyes. I went to get something for him yesterday night, and after 15 minutes, I decided on a crystal which has a 3-d vision of a person playing golf - maybe to signify that he now has more time and can improve his golfing skills!

Anyway, I spent 2 hours at the KL International Book Fair on Tuesday morning. It may be short but I spent more than $200 buying books for myself and my children. I could have stayed longer (and of course spent more) but my kids were getting tired. Now, these books would keep me busy for the next 3 months at least!

Well, it looks like I am only able to update my blog once a week now. This has happened two weeks in a row, which is not good. And this is the third time this is happening!

Anyway, I attended a course from Monday - Wednesday this week, on Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It was part of the common core courses that everyone is the organization must attend. We did even talk about the newest 8th habit that Covey had discovered. All in all, it was a very useful course. But it would only be more useful if we could practice it, not only at work, but at home. During the first day of the course, we were asked to think about our mission in life, what we are here for. And I suddenly felt so lousy. I mean, I have been such a bad muslim. I forget that I am a creation of Allah, and that I am here for one purpose only, that is to serve Him. I should plan on how to improve my life. Hereafter is my destiny!

Something else happened at work when I returned on Thursday. There has been rumours that my boss is about to be replaced by someone else since he has to concentrate on a special project under the vice president’s office. Even he admitted it. I was a bit depressed back then, but he told me that it was bound to happen anyway. But on Thursday, I received news that they have appointed someone to replace him. And that person is someone I don’t really favour. I even have posted my opinion on him some time ago. I was so depressed this time, I hid myself under a table. Shucks! If only people really understand his character! Allah, please protect me!