Long Time No See, Short Time No See...

Dear Reader,

WARNING : LONG POST.

Wow!
It's been long hasn't it?
My last post was in January, and now is March. I skipped the whole of February! One whole month! I guess there's nothing on the month of love I guess.

Nothing much happened anyway. =P

Other than going for the February tests I suppose. Yeah, we did our tests way before the holidays. Well, not really way back. March holidays start on the 14th, Saturday, and the test was held from 23 - 25 February. So February has 28 days, so that leaves 3 days + the 14 days in March, = 17 days.

OK, like I said. Not way back.

Anyway, I have to tell you guys something.
Now what I'm about to say is, indeed, a fact, so don't say I'm being arrogant or a show-off. I'm sorry if I offend you, but here goes :

I am smart. Book-smart, actually.

Yeah. Or, at least, I was. I don't know why but suddenly I feel like I have the whole smart-ness feeling drained out of me. For example, ask anyone who knows me well, and they'll agree that I get jokes, very fast. Whether their funny, offensive, disgusting or down-right dirty, I'd get it. Fast.
But now, it takes me a relatively long time to get even a simple joke. I don't know why.

Probably, it's because I've reached the second age. The second age of what you ask? Well, I don't know the official or scientific name for the ages, but, I call it, "The Shaping Ages". I once saw this TV show on Discovery or NGC about our brain cells. Basically, twice in our lives, when we're toddlers, and when we're early teens, our body will on a large-scale, kill the brain cells in our body, to kind of shape us.
Like for instance, have you ever realized that babies can be given anything, and they'll master it? This is because they have numerous brain cells in each department, i.e Logic, Calculating, Language, Motor, Art, Memory... So, when they reach a certain age, their body will kill the brain cells which have been used or stimulated the least, to make room for advancement of the other departments, if I'm not mistaken. And the thing is, this event occurs twice in our lives.

Now the weird thing is, I love comedy. And I love jokes. So how is it that my body is now destroying these parts? Or maybe it's destroying the processing cells. I feel slow now. I used to be fast, or as they say, "cepat tangkap".

Or maybe it's a test from God. Usually, I would depend on my genius skills to get me A's all the time. So probably now, God wants me to know that hardwork always beats genius. And I completely agree!
But why during PMR year? Oh, no...

Oh well, I must accept this as a challenge from God.

Speaking about God, I actually had a miracle happen to me today.
Praise be to God!
Praise be to God!
Praise be to God!
You wanna know what happened to me today? I'll tell you.
OK. In Islam, there are five pillars of Islam and six pillars of Iman. I understood all of them except for the last one, which was the sixth pillar of Iman : Destiny (Qada' dan Qadr). Now, I had little knowledge about this, and praise be to God, the Form Three syllabus had this included. So I read the chapter, and I learned a lot, like how there are two types of Qadha', which are changeable and unchangeable. Changeable, would be like praying to God and working hard to get A's for PMR. Unchangeable, would be like your death date.
And the thing is, many times when I learn something new to me about Islam, I question it the way I believe a non-believer would, and then answer those questions, so that I would be ready anytime anybody asked. So not only am I able to educate people and kill evil prejudices, but I would have strengthened my faith.
So I remembered a teaching in Islam which I learned verbally from my mother that goes something like "God will not change the fate of a village unless it tries to change it's own fate". But I can't go telling people this is what Islam says just because my mom told me. So then, I go search in the The Meaning of The Holy Qur'an by 'Abdullah Yusuf Ali.
Praise be to God!
Praise be to God!
Praise be to God!
As I opened the pages, I flipped through a few and found a surah. I started reading it because the beginning had interested me. Then, not long before, I shout : "Oh my God!" My sister turns around in shock and angrily says something like "Luqman, don't do that again!". Guess why I cried to God?
Right there before my eyes :
(this is a part of the verse only)

"...Verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it themselves (with their own souls)..."
Surah Al-Ra'd (The Thunder), Chapter13 : Verse 11

Praise be to God!
Praise be to God!
Praise be to God!

I'm telling you, you do not know the feeling you get from an instant miracle like that until you get one yourself. There's a mixture of joy, thrill, surprise, incomprehensibility, gratitude, and so on. I have my sister who shouted at me as a witness, because right after reading that, I quickly showed it to her to 'explain myself' for shouting first.

Praise be to God!

It was... awesome... to have God, The Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, and everything in between, indirectly directly speak to me, you know what I mean?
Of course you don't, until you experience it for yourself.


Peace. Love. Joy.

P/S : Check out this video of Billy and me. :)