"There's something wrong with the saying Home Sweet Home. There's nothing sweet about it. But... I'd rather be home than anywhere else."
I'm back home. I'd have posted sooner, but I wasn't allowed online. But when I sneaked on, BlogSpot wouldn't let me post anything for some reason. Finally, since I'm finally doing touch-ups on my History folio, I took this opportunity to blog. I'm going to talk about what happened the last few days. Be warned. This post will be very long. Even for my normal standard.
On Saturday morning, my sister and I had to get up early to go to the Islamic camp. It's by YMP. That's Young Muslims Project, by the way. They have a FaceBook group, so check it out when you get the chance to. Or if you're interested. Whichever one comes first.
Obviously, we got there late. My Dad was sending, what do you expect? Although, to his merit, this time we only got lost, instead of Dad's usual lateness. It's kinda an inside joke now, about my Dad's "punctuality". (Whenever he fetches me from school, there's a 99% chance I'll get home late).
We first introduced each other. Except, though, there was this nice little twist. We had to introduce someone else. The person beside us, to be frank. We had to introduce his/her name, two things (s)he likes and two thing (s)he dislikes as well as their favourite animal. Me and the two people that introduced each other (yeah, we were weird in that while most of the people were in pairs, we were in threes). The guy on my right was Daniel; he was introduced by the guy on his right (Hadi). I introduced Hadi, and Daniel introduced me. It's kinda confusing to tell you without showing any pictures, so I hope you understand.
After the half hour break, we had a workshop on empathy. We were basically learning how to see from the other person's point of view. In essence, what we were doing was learning how to solve conflicts better. We did some role play, and I was in the second set. (I'm proud to admit that I volunteered without hesitation - in front of around 60 people) Our "argument" was this: I was the captain of a football team, and I just took out our strikers. Because of that, we lost. The vice-captain (the guy I'm "arguing" with) was angry at me. Apparently, our argument was so convincing that the speaker (Kuranda Seyit) decided to intervene. He said that it seemed like I was about to beat Marwan (the vice-captain) up. I need to note here that he's taller and older than me. Which kinda made that statement funny. Of course, ever since that role play session, everyone knew me as "captain". Especially during the "Free and Easy" session.
After we had our lunch and our Zuhur prayers, we had another talk. This time, it was about boy-girl relationships. Boy, was that talk interesting. Now, I'm not gonna go into any details, but basically we were talking about how to have a halal relationship. Like, getting our parent's blessings, and etc. Well, as you can expect, we were so interested in the talk that we ended up skipping our tea break. Which then, of course, ended up with us not being able to complete another session called "The Great Debate". Don't ask me what it's about, 'cause I have no idea. But I think it involves a debate, though.
Then, probably because we messed up the schedule, we had a really fun game called "When the big wind blows". Someone has to stand up, and say, "The big wind blows for [insert something like, "everyone wearing black"]", and those that have it [in this case, are wearing black] have to get up and sit at another chair. Yeah, that was really fun.
Since our plans were messed up, we went straight to "Free and Easy" (remember that I mentioned it earlier?). Here, we had 2 whole hours to do whatever we liked. We first played some soccer, and I remember painfully when someone - I think it was Mamoug - kicked the ball very very hard and it hit me in my most sensitive area.
Yes, yes, I know it's funny, but c'mon, don't laugh that much!
Before that, though, everyone on my team were calling "captain" (because of the role playing thing), even though I clearly wasn't. It's kinda our inside joke, if we ever meet again. Heh. After the girls complained that they weren't having any fun, we decided to play kickball. Which was really interesting, since none of us had ever played it before. Heck, none of us even played baseball before. (Kickball is kinda like that... Hard to explain. Meh) It was boys against girls. The first round, us guys were losing 7-6. Then, the game ended with 8-8. Yeah, it was a draw. But if the guy (dang it, I can't remember his name!) had caught the ball, we'd have won 8-7! Well, what can you do?
After we had dinner and did our Maghrib prayers, we watched a documentary by Kuranda Seyit - one of the speakers. It was about his life in Australia, being a Muslim immigrant from Turkey. It was beautifully made, and I think only a beast from the dark (i.e. something not human) wouldn't have felt touched by it. It was really amazing. I might be able to get the CD one day (most of us wanted it), and if I do, I'll be sure to lend it to you. (Note: only applicable to people that I know personally) Before we left, we had a cool game where the person says a scene [say, a battlefield] and everyone has to do something that will complete the scene yet harmonize the situation.
Example, the scene is "a war zone". People ended up walking to the "stage" doing war poses. Some people were medics. I myself was an infantry unit that was killed by behind. Remember, we weren't supposed to do something that stood out. We're supposed to do something that'll harmonize the place. As an example, our first scene was "pasar malam" (night market, Malaysian style), and it was a catastrophe. The stalls were a mess. The road was missing (because everyone was so jumbled up), and there was a motorcyclist in the middle of the stalls.
But the last one, "Hari Raya celebrations" (Eid celebrations), was perfect. There were some people playing with those cannon fireworks ourside; I was messing my friend's hairstyle, and he was pouring a drink for a girl; the said girl was giving her friend some food as well as having her cup poured with water; some people were playing PS2 in the living room; others were seeking forgiveness from parents; there were some that were checking to see if the money they got were real... It made everything perfect, since it all fit in. Man, that was the best game, ever. We were sad when we had to go to sleep. (One rule for the game: No talking allowed)
Then, we ate supper (I'm still unsure what's the difference between supper and dinner) and went to sleep. Before I forget, remind me to shoot Faheem countless times with a BB gun. He kept shooting everyone that passed his bunk with an electronic BB machine gun. Man, that hurt...
We were supposed to sleep at 11.30, but because we talked so much, we ended up sleeping at around... Oh, I dunno, sometime around 2? Yeah, around there.
The next day, we woke up at 5.30, for Fajr prayers. Five freaking thirty! That's only, what? 3 hours of sleep! Thankfully, I managed to get up. I'm gonna thank Aiman here, for waking me up by hitting my butt with a towel (or pillow - I can't really remember). Good times, gooood times...
At 6.30, there was aerobics. The majority of us, though, went to sleep instead of exercising. The next workshop would be at 9, so we wanted to get as much sleep as possible. Yeah, yeah, we should have slept earlier. Sue us for wanting to socialize more before going to bed. Heh.
After we all woke up and refreshed ourselves, we had a workshop on how to make a mark as a Muslim. How to leave an impression on the world as a Muslim, and in a good way, not like those stupid suicide bombers. A note here: Islam bans Muslims to react with violence, unless to defend yourself. It's filled with religious stuff, so I'm going to have to stop talking about this one, since I'm pretty sure not everyone that reads this is a Muslim.
The next workshop was really interesting. It was generally about "How to be a teenage Muslim and still be cool". They kinda just taught us that we weren't really restricted because we didn't want to, say, smoke, or drink beer, or do drugs. But they were restricted, because that's all they can think about to have fun. After all, as a Muslim, who says we can't bike ride? We can't rock climb, parachute, scuba diving, swim and all those other fun things?
There was more, but this blog is getting a wee bit too long, so I don't want to bore you with more meaningless details. A little too late, but meh.
After the Zuhur prayers and lunch, (I was "volunteered" to be the Imam; Oh, and I forgot to mention. On Saturday, for a reason I can't remember, Kuranda said that I was probably going to be the next Prime Minister! Ha ha, is that funny or what? ... Come on, laugh!) we had a really nice talk by a professor. I'm not gonna say her name, (partly because I don't want to, and partyly because I... Forgot) but she was a really good speaker. This talk was about sex before marriage.
Yes, you read right. Sex. Of course, it wasn't about sex in detail. It was about how we reach sexual maturity after puberty (10 years old nowadays) and by the time we get married (30, on average). That's 20 years! 20 years! Well, because of that, we obviously became "creative", so to speak. You can see it in loads of teens. In fact, this is the reason why teenagers end up having sex before marriage. Now I'm gonna share some cool facts and statistics that I learned or were told in the camp. Prepare to be amazed.
For every baby born, there is at least two abortions.
Out of 887 teenage girls, aged 13 - 16, from around 40 different schools, only one was a virgin.
A survey was done to 18 year olds. 40% admitted that they started dating when they were 13 (I'm part of the 60%! Woo! Ha ha). By the age of 18,
84% admitted to having held hands.
85% admitted to kissing and/or necking.
83% admitted to petting.
~> 9% have had pre-marital sex. Most of them were boys.
All I can say to those are... Wow. People are... Wow. Yeah, I can't really say much, can I? I'm almost speechless. Now, to those think that they're ready to have sex, read this. Please.
You're Not Ready To Have Sex If...
~You think sex = love.
~You're afraid to say no.
~You think everyone else is doing it.
~You don't know the facts about pregnancy.
~You don't think a woman can get pregnant the first time.
~It goes against your religious and moral beliefs.
~You're doing it to prove something. (*Cough loser cough*)
~You think it will make your partner love you.
~You think it will make you love your partner.
To every teenager out there... It's okay to wait! Save sex for marriage! (Yes, it's "save", not "safe")
We had a final game, which was called "Zip Zap Boing". I'm not going into details here, because I'm too lazy to. If you wanna know how it's played, lemme know, and then I'll let you know. Oh, and I forgot to mention, we had two other activities. Both included non verbal communication, and writing was not allowed. For one, we had to construct a "sacred space" (a place you go to feel calm, relaxed, at ease, etc.; My groups' "sacred space" was the stars: You just have to look up, and it's always there.).
In the other activity, we were grouped up in pairs, and one person had to give instructions on how to draw, and the other person wasn't allowed to speak. The person with the picture had to say stuff like, "Okay, draw a triangle. Now another triangle below it. Next, under the second triangle, draw a horizontal rectangle." for, say, a tree. I apparently didn't get the memo, cause I was saying stuff like, "Alright, draw a horizontal line. Then, draw two vertical lines going downwards on both sides. Then connect the two vertical lines together with a horizontal line." for a square. Amazingly, it turned out really good.
We had to go home not long after. My sisters brought Aboo, and everyone was fawning over him. He ended up showing off, by climbing on my head and looking at everyone. Ha ha, he was so cute. We took a group picture, and went home. The people I met there... Marwan, Amar, Syafiq, Faheem, Shakeen... It's gonna be hard to forget about them. I just hope that I manage to keep in touch.
Well, Monday ended up being a really uninteresting day compared to the weekend. In fact, I skipped school. Official reason? I had a headache. (It wasn't that bad, though. It was just a reason). Unofficial reason? I skipped it. Yeah, it's a good thing that we're no longer learning anything, and it's all just pop quizzes and work sheets. I was so not in the mood of any of that.
I came to school on the other days. Well, I'm gonna end this long post now.
Salut,
~Josh the Joshster~
Edit: I forgot to mention, the reason I didn't say we prayed Asar or Isyak is because we combined them. We can do that, if we're out of our hometown. Oh, and to those interested, Anwar Ibrahim's daughter, Hanna, was there. Just wanted to let you know.
I'm back home. I'd have posted sooner, but I wasn't allowed online. But when I sneaked on, BlogSpot wouldn't let me post anything for some reason. Finally, since I'm finally doing touch-ups on my History folio, I took this opportunity to blog. I'm going to talk about what happened the last few days. Be warned. This post will be very long. Even for my normal standard.
On Saturday morning, my sister and I had to get up early to go to the Islamic camp. It's by YMP. That's Young Muslims Project, by the way. They have a FaceBook group, so check it out when you get the chance to. Or if you're interested. Whichever one comes first.
Obviously, we got there late. My Dad was sending, what do you expect? Although, to his merit, this time we only got lost, instead of Dad's usual lateness. It's kinda an inside joke now, about my Dad's "punctuality". (Whenever he fetches me from school, there's a 99% chance I'll get home late).
We first introduced each other. Except, though, there was this nice little twist. We had to introduce someone else. The person beside us, to be frank. We had to introduce his/her name, two things (s)he likes and two thing (s)he dislikes as well as their favourite animal. Me and the two people that introduced each other (yeah, we were weird in that while most of the people were in pairs, we were in threes). The guy on my right was Daniel; he was introduced by the guy on his right (Hadi). I introduced Hadi, and Daniel introduced me. It's kinda confusing to tell you without showing any pictures, so I hope you understand.
After the half hour break, we had a workshop on empathy. We were basically learning how to see from the other person's point of view. In essence, what we were doing was learning how to solve conflicts better. We did some role play, and I was in the second set. (I'm proud to admit that I volunteered without hesitation - in front of around 60 people) Our "argument" was this: I was the captain of a football team, and I just took out our strikers. Because of that, we lost. The vice-captain (the guy I'm "arguing" with) was angry at me. Apparently, our argument was so convincing that the speaker (Kuranda Seyit) decided to intervene. He said that it seemed like I was about to beat Marwan (the vice-captain) up. I need to note here that he's taller and older than me. Which kinda made that statement funny. Of course, ever since that role play session, everyone knew me as "captain". Especially during the "Free and Easy" session.
After we had our lunch and our Zuhur prayers, we had another talk. This time, it was about boy-girl relationships. Boy, was that talk interesting. Now, I'm not gonna go into any details, but basically we were talking about how to have a halal relationship. Like, getting our parent's blessings, and etc. Well, as you can expect, we were so interested in the talk that we ended up skipping our tea break. Which then, of course, ended up with us not being able to complete another session called "The Great Debate". Don't ask me what it's about, 'cause I have no idea. But I think it involves a debate, though.
Then, probably because we messed up the schedule, we had a really fun game called "When the big wind blows". Someone has to stand up, and say, "The big wind blows for [insert something like, "everyone wearing black"]", and those that have it [in this case, are wearing black] have to get up and sit at another chair. Yeah, that was really fun.
Since our plans were messed up, we went straight to "Free and Easy" (remember that I mentioned it earlier?). Here, we had 2 whole hours to do whatever we liked. We first played some soccer, and I remember painfully when someone - I think it was Mamoug - kicked the ball very very hard and it hit me in my most sensitive area.
Yes, yes, I know it's funny, but c'mon, don't laugh that much!
Before that, though, everyone on my team were calling "captain" (because of the role playing thing), even though I clearly wasn't. It's kinda our inside joke, if we ever meet again. Heh. After the girls complained that they weren't having any fun, we decided to play kickball. Which was really interesting, since none of us had ever played it before. Heck, none of us even played baseball before. (Kickball is kinda like that... Hard to explain. Meh) It was boys against girls. The first round, us guys were losing 7-6. Then, the game ended with 8-8. Yeah, it was a draw. But if the guy (dang it, I can't remember his name!) had caught the ball, we'd have won 8-7! Well, what can you do?
After we had dinner and did our Maghrib prayers, we watched a documentary by Kuranda Seyit - one of the speakers. It was about his life in Australia, being a Muslim immigrant from Turkey. It was beautifully made, and I think only a beast from the dark (i.e. something not human) wouldn't have felt touched by it. It was really amazing. I might be able to get the CD one day (most of us wanted it), and if I do, I'll be sure to lend it to you. (Note: only applicable to people that I know personally) Before we left, we had a cool game where the person says a scene [say, a battlefield] and everyone has to do something that will complete the scene yet harmonize the situation.
Example, the scene is "a war zone". People ended up walking to the "stage" doing war poses. Some people were medics. I myself was an infantry unit that was killed by behind. Remember, we weren't supposed to do something that stood out. We're supposed to do something that'll harmonize the place. As an example, our first scene was "pasar malam" (night market, Malaysian style), and it was a catastrophe. The stalls were a mess. The road was missing (because everyone was so jumbled up), and there was a motorcyclist in the middle of the stalls.
But the last one, "Hari Raya celebrations" (Eid celebrations), was perfect. There were some people playing with those cannon fireworks ourside; I was messing my friend's hairstyle, and he was pouring a drink for a girl; the said girl was giving her friend some food as well as having her cup poured with water; some people were playing PS2 in the living room; others were seeking forgiveness from parents; there were some that were checking to see if the money they got were real... It made everything perfect, since it all fit in. Man, that was the best game, ever. We were sad when we had to go to sleep. (One rule for the game: No talking allowed)
Then, we ate supper (I'm still unsure what's the difference between supper and dinner) and went to sleep. Before I forget, remind me to shoot Faheem countless times with a BB gun. He kept shooting everyone that passed his bunk with an electronic BB machine gun. Man, that hurt...
We were supposed to sleep at 11.30, but because we talked so much, we ended up sleeping at around... Oh, I dunno, sometime around 2? Yeah, around there.
The next day, we woke up at 5.30, for Fajr prayers. Five freaking thirty! That's only, what? 3 hours of sleep! Thankfully, I managed to get up. I'm gonna thank Aiman here, for waking me up by hitting my butt with a towel (or pillow - I can't really remember). Good times, gooood times...
At 6.30, there was aerobics. The majority of us, though, went to sleep instead of exercising. The next workshop would be at 9, so we wanted to get as much sleep as possible. Yeah, yeah, we should have slept earlier. Sue us for wanting to socialize more before going to bed. Heh.
After we all woke up and refreshed ourselves, we had a workshop on how to make a mark as a Muslim. How to leave an impression on the world as a Muslim, and in a good way, not like those stupid suicide bombers. A note here: Islam bans Muslims to react with violence, unless to defend yourself. It's filled with religious stuff, so I'm going to have to stop talking about this one, since I'm pretty sure not everyone that reads this is a Muslim.
The next workshop was really interesting. It was generally about "How to be a teenage Muslim and still be cool". They kinda just taught us that we weren't really restricted because we didn't want to, say, smoke, or drink beer, or do drugs. But they were restricted, because that's all they can think about to have fun. After all, as a Muslim, who says we can't bike ride? We can't rock climb, parachute, scuba diving, swim and all those other fun things?
There was more, but this blog is getting a wee bit too long, so I don't want to bore you with more meaningless details. A little too late, but meh.
After the Zuhur prayers and lunch, (I was "volunteered" to be the Imam; Oh, and I forgot to mention. On Saturday, for a reason I can't remember, Kuranda said that I was probably going to be the next Prime Minister! Ha ha, is that funny or what? ... Come on, laugh!) we had a really nice talk by a professor. I'm not gonna say her name, (partly because I don't want to, and partyly because I... Forgot) but she was a really good speaker. This talk was about sex before marriage.
Yes, you read right. Sex. Of course, it wasn't about sex in detail. It was about how we reach sexual maturity after puberty (10 years old nowadays) and by the time we get married (30, on average). That's 20 years! 20 years! Well, because of that, we obviously became "creative", so to speak. You can see it in loads of teens. In fact, this is the reason why teenagers end up having sex before marriage. Now I'm gonna share some cool facts and statistics that I learned or were told in the camp. Prepare to be amazed.
For every baby born, there is at least two abortions.
Out of 887 teenage girls, aged 13 - 16, from around 40 different schools, only one was a virgin.
A survey was done to 18 year olds. 40% admitted that they started dating when they were 13 (I'm part of the 60%! Woo! Ha ha). By the age of 18,
84% admitted to having held hands.
85% admitted to kissing and/or necking.
83% admitted to petting.
~> 9% have had pre-marital sex. Most of them were boys.
All I can say to those are... Wow. People are... Wow. Yeah, I can't really say much, can I? I'm almost speechless. Now, to those think that they're ready to have sex, read this. Please.
You're Not Ready To Have Sex If...
~You think sex = love.
~You're afraid to say no.
~You think everyone else is doing it.
~You don't know the facts about pregnancy.
~You don't think a woman can get pregnant the first time.
~It goes against your religious and moral beliefs.
~You're doing it to prove something. (*Cough loser cough*)
~You think it will make your partner love you.
~You think it will make you love your partner.
To every teenager out there... It's okay to wait! Save sex for marriage! (Yes, it's "save", not "safe")
We had a final game, which was called "Zip Zap Boing". I'm not going into details here, because I'm too lazy to. If you wanna know how it's played, lemme know, and then I'll let you know. Oh, and I forgot to mention, we had two other activities. Both included non verbal communication, and writing was not allowed. For one, we had to construct a "sacred space" (a place you go to feel calm, relaxed, at ease, etc.; My groups' "sacred space" was the stars: You just have to look up, and it's always there.).
In the other activity, we were grouped up in pairs, and one person had to give instructions on how to draw, and the other person wasn't allowed to speak. The person with the picture had to say stuff like, "Okay, draw a triangle. Now another triangle below it. Next, under the second triangle, draw a horizontal rectangle." for, say, a tree. I apparently didn't get the memo, cause I was saying stuff like, "Alright, draw a horizontal line. Then, draw two vertical lines going downwards on both sides. Then connect the two vertical lines together with a horizontal line." for a square. Amazingly, it turned out really good.
We had to go home not long after. My sisters brought Aboo, and everyone was fawning over him. He ended up showing off, by climbing on my head and looking at everyone. Ha ha, he was so cute. We took a group picture, and went home. The people I met there... Marwan, Amar, Syafiq, Faheem, Shakeen... It's gonna be hard to forget about them. I just hope that I manage to keep in touch.
Well, Monday ended up being a really uninteresting day compared to the weekend. In fact, I skipped school. Official reason? I had a headache. (It wasn't that bad, though. It was just a reason). Unofficial reason? I skipped it. Yeah, it's a good thing that we're no longer learning anything, and it's all just pop quizzes and work sheets. I was so not in the mood of any of that.
I came to school on the other days. Well, I'm gonna end this long post now.
Salut,
~Josh the Joshster~
Edit: I forgot to mention, the reason I didn't say we prayed Asar or Isyak is because we combined them. We can do that, if we're out of our hometown. Oh, and to those interested, Anwar Ibrahim's daughter, Hanna, was there. Just wanted to let you know.
