Mia, My 1st(!) First Cousin... Maternal Side

Speaking of First cousins, I've a got about 6 in this world and one more waiting to be born by next year. But all of them are from my father's side.

To say that the five of us siblings have been waiting to have our 1st maternal first cousin for more or less 10 years already might sound exhage! But really, we've been waiting for that long already.

Our long wait was finally over by December last year. And it actually took 10 years!!

Before Mia Shenade was born, I really prayed and hoped that our first cousin will be born on the same date I was born, the 18th of January. But God had a different plan...

Mia is the daughter of my mother's younger sister, Auntie Ating. We haven't seen her for more than 10 years now. Guess it's really hard to take leaves in her current job.

The 5 of us Arsad siblings are really looking forward to see our dear cousin Mia, Auntie Ating, Aunti Teressa, and Auntie Ating's husband, Uncle Rex... They'll be coming home from the States along with Omboh Ellen and Lolo Ed this July... InshaAllah!!

Mia, My 1st Maternal First Cousin

A Sketch Of A Rose

A sad lonely rose, I thought. A sad rose left in the middle of the rain with her leaves bent down...

I woke up with a not-so-good mood that day. Probably from that dream. I don't know, I can't seem to remember eveything that's happened that day so clearly anymore. Just the dream, and the sketched rose dedicated to those kids who lost their parents right in front of them from my dream.

Children are like roses. They have to be loved, cared for, and guarded from harm in order to grow into lovely, healthy, full-bloomed individuals. As for my dream, those lovely roses lost their gardeners who would care for them, their gardeners whom God has sent to cultivate the land surrounding them. Their gardeners who were sent to nourish them with nutrients and knowledge till they are ready to face the world.

I thought of those children as roses in the middle of a storm. They look as if they've lost their carers. But their owner, God will never leave them behind. God loves orphanned children. There's always sunshine after every storm. Allah s.w.t. will take care of them...

Sunny cat

Just wanted to share somethin'...

 

 

Of Language and Being a Filipino

A lot of  wonderful moments happened during our Saturday's ALS Examination Review on September 11. But the most hilarious one happened when our classmates found out about the language we spoke at home-English. On this post, I'll be blogging about what happened in the class and what we got as an aftermath when we were home.

We were studying a reviewer on Filipino at that time. And everything was carrying on smoothly, everyone seemed to know about the questions and how the answers came to be. That was until my sister and I got confused with a certain question. It went on like this:

"_(blank) Jerry, Ivan, at Kyle ay sabay-sabay na nagpunta sa beach." 

The answer to the question was 'Sina'. And its nearest translation in English would be, "Jose, Ivan, and Kyle went to the beach together."

After explaining the question and it's answer, our teacher, Mrs. Julieth Buis, asked us all one at a time, "Naintindihan nyo na? (Have you understood?)".

Everyone answered her in the affirmative. When it was finally our turn to be asked, she repeated, "Naintindihan nyo na?". I was already finished analyzing the question and quite understood it, so I answered 'yes' also. My sister on the other hand, was still confused so she said 'no'. Ma'am Buis stopped and smiled, then told our classmates in Filipino, "It is because, you know, their language at home... is English." Then came our classmates exclaiming things like, "Woah!", I even heard one of them saying "cool".

Nevertheless, all I know was at that time, my sister and I felt so embarrassed that we hid our faces from everyone else.

A few questions asked after that was about the famous quotation from our country's national hero, Jose Rizal. And it was, "Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit pa ang amoy sa malansang isda" (He who does not know how to love his own language smells worse than a foul fish).

Now that everyone knew that we spoke English at home, we saw about 3-5 of our classmates look at us mockingly. We felt like... SHAMED!

It was the first thing we told our mother when we arrived home as she asked, "So how was your review dears?"... It was also the first thing we told everyone else. We all laughed after we told them about it. That was, except our father. He told us that Filipino was not the only official language of the Philippines but English as well. Then he gave us a brief lesson about languages in the Philippines, then we took up the history of the Philippine constitution using online references. 

After about an hour, we were satisfied with our father's explanation. He then let us memorize the whole of Section 7 of Article 14 of the Philippine Constitution on Language. He also told us that if we wanted to become lawyers, we should practice memorizing lines like this word for word, nothing more, nothing less.

The Philippine Constitution states that:

For purposes of communication and instruction, the official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English.

The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction therein.

Spanish and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis.

What we often forget whenever the famous Rizal quote is mentioned are the facts that we still didn't have a national language nor a national identity when he said it. But when we talk about those lines today, it was as if it was only meant for Tagalog and not intended for Visayan, Ilocano, Kapampangan, Maranao, Maguindanao and the rest of languages in the Philippines. So that, a Manoboh or an Ita who speaks his own language and cannot speak any other Filipino language cannot be guilty of Rizal's words.

By the way, in our ALS Review Class, the module said it was Francisco Balagtas who said those lines. Like Rizal who was from Laguna, Balagtas was a Tagalog, from Bulacan.

It was understandable for them to say it because the Spanish language had dominated Tagalog as a medium of communication at that time. In fact, the first Malolos Constitution in 1899 had to use Spanish as the official language for the "meantime". Let us read below the Title 14 Article 93 of the Malolos Constitution :

The use of languages spoken in the Philippines shall be optional. Their use cannot be regulated except by virtue of law, and solely for acts of public authority and in the courts. For these acts the Spanish language may be used in the meantime.

What happened during our Review Class opened up a wider perspective for us about what language really is. My GREAT thanks to those classmates of ours who gave us mocking stares, my sister and I got to learn something new and very significant about our country's constitution and history! LOL!

Wassalam...

References: http://www.chanrobles.com

Arabic Class With Fellow Openschoolers

Last June 12, my mother and my Auntie attended a seminar for Integrated Madrasa Administrators in the University of the Philippines - Institute of Islamic Studies. My sister and I on the other hand, came along for the weekly Arabic Class to teach in our father's stead for fellow Openschoolers who live in UP Village. Since the seminar was at 9 am, we had to set course from our house an hour before.

We arrived at the Campus just in time for some drop-off at our Auntie Sol's house then a drive back to the Institute. And Alhamdulillah, my mother and auntie were not late, at least not for few minutes. There were others who came a little later.

My sister and I were surprised to find that our 2 students had just awoken! The eldest among the 4 siblings, Alifdin told us that his 2 younger siblings stayed up playing in the computer till midnight. My sister and I noticed that too for they were still a little bit sleepy when we were about to start the class.

The elder one among the 2, Zul-nun had overcome his sleepiness out of his excitement for seeing us. He started running, rolling, shouting and jumping around their house. The youngest among them all, Al-Ameen remained shy and timid. He just kept smiling at us then hid his face with anything he could.

We had our class after the 2 of them had breakfast. Our father already gave us instructions on what to teach. He told us to give the younger 2, Zul-nun and Al-Ameen, a review on their previous lesson about the arabic vowels and teach them about the sukun. He also told us to just let the elder 2, Alifdin and Meemo, to read their arabic languge books.

The class started at exactly 8:59 am. I was the teacher, while my sister assisted me. We had one hyper-active student and another shy one. Little Al-Ameen was still feeling kind of sleepy. He was covering his face for the whole class. Their cat, Mau-Mau seemed to be interested too! He stayed with us for the first 15 minutes of our class.

Zul-nun and Mau

We've always thought of different ways to let kids learn and remember their lessons. Storybooks, Games... But we decided to use Reading and Writing Arabic with their names and expressions for that day. And we had a great class with lots of fun! Alhamdulillah...

And of course, after the class, we never miss playing outdoor games and climbing trees since we only see each other once in a while.

Zulnun climbs while Al-Ameen watches

Al-Ameen

The time for goodbye hi-5's came at around 12 pm when our Mother and Auntie arrived from the seminar. They had a surprise lunch treat for me and my sister to a family friend's newly opened cafe. Auntie Sol, the mother of the little kids was supposed to come with us but sadly wasn't able to because of a headache. I'll write about the cafe trip in another blog, Inshaallah...

Wassalam.

Hunting In The House

"SQUEAK!"... "What was that bro?", I asked my eldest brother after attempting to distract him from his serious mode  on the internet. "I don't know.", he answered. Then came the sound of flapping tiny wings... "A BIRD!" I exclaimed.

While my brother didn't seem to notice, I ran as fast as I could from the room to the sala, only to find my cat catching a sparrow in action. "Lyncat... NO!", I exclaimed. Although my command stopped him for few minutes, it was too late. The bird was already down. My cat had somehow scratched its left wing and it could no longer fly. Lyncat was looking at me right through the eye. He looked at me as if saying, "What have I done wrong?". Yeah, he was a cat. And I guess it's not so bad to hunt once in a while. But then, whenever I looked at the bird, I get reminded of the other birds that get themselves eaten half by the outdoor cats. Besides, I was thinking that the bird might have flu... These were the things I had in mind at that moment. XD

My thinking was distracted when I saw my cat coming towards me in the kitchen with the bird in his mouth. Was he offering the bird as a gift for me like what the how-to-care-for-cats book says? Did he want to eat it? Or... Did he want to play with it? That turned out to be the answer. He put the sparrow down and started tossing it, stalking on it, and slightly biting it. 

"Ajran...", I called out to my younger sister. I guess it was natural for cats to play with moving things. But for some reason, I could no longer watch what seemed natural. I held Lyncat back just on time to stop him from his eyes-wide-open-ready-to-stalk move while my sister got the bird. "Does it have any wounds?" I asked Aj. "No, but it's thirsty.". 

My lil' sis tried to feed the bird and make it feel comfortable, but it had to die out of shock and exhaustion. My sister and the dying bird have their moments but I leave it to my sister to blog about. 

I went back to the kitchen to check on Lyncat and found him looking for the bird on every nook near the place where he saw it last.

Sorry Lyncs... Just stick to playing fights with my youngest brother as you always did... Much safer! hehe

  

The Tawaf of Creation

Everything moves around its center, while at the same time moving around itself. This is the dance and the natural worship of creation. I believe the Arabic term for this movement is 'Tawaf'. The way we Muslims do around the Ka'abah. And so the English term for this should be 'Circumambulation'.

In Surah Yaaseen Ayat 40, the Qur'an says:

"Each flows in its own orbit."

In the atomic level, these movements of entire creation are exactly the same as electrons rotating around its nucleus.

When we talk about atoms, we really cannot help but talk about Quarks. This is called the Sub-atomic level. Electrons in this level behave either wave or particle. It could no longer be described as solid. It's an empty space after an empty space. It has no reality except in perception. The Qur'an says it clearer in Suratur Rahmaan ayat 26-27:

"All that is on earth will perish," "But will abide (for ever) the Face of thy Lord,- full of Majesty, Bounty and Honour."

In the sub-atomic level, quarks are found inside the protons and neutrons. Each of this has 3 quarks. There's this theory called the String Theory suggesting that electrons and quarks are tiny loops of vibrating string. This string is what connects atoms together. Therefore it is what is holding everything together. If we may follow up this String Theory with Qur'anic idea, we find that it commanded us to "hold together the Rope of Allah".  (Qur’an 3:103)

String or rope in this sense is what gives us the realization of truth. Outside of this Rope of Allah, we are lost. Outside this rope, there is no existence. And within this rope, there is only one reality.

This one reality is what gives creation its true face. It is the beauty behind everything. The Qur'an describes it as:

"To Allah belong the east and the West: Whithersoever ye turn, there is the presence of Allah. For Allah is all-Pervading, all-Knowing." (Qur'an 2:115)

The remaining question here would be "Who am I" and not "What am I".

But my father advised me to take no answer except what is given by the Prophet (s.a.w) who calls himself "Abdullah" in its truest sense.

Allah knows best.

Atoms

Atoms are the ones that make up matter. They are the ones that make up our skins, organs, tissues, and cells.

An atom has three parts: Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons. Protons are positively charged, while Electrons are negatively charged. Neutrons however are neutral. A kind of cosmic glue called ‘The Atom's binding force’ sticks the Protons and Neutrons of an atom to each other.

Once the cosmic glue loosens, the atom will crumble… It can be called the Mercy of Allah covering all things.

Scientists have been studying atoms for years… And they found out that although atoms are composed of Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons, an atom is an empty space. Therefore everything is nothing but an empty space since atoms make up everything in the Universe. This means, the Earth is an empty space. It means that our body is just an empty space. So who are we? And who am I?

When I asked my father about this question, it turned into a special class. He satisfied my inquiries. He also told me a story of someone who said "I am not, only Allah is." long time ago. Then he explained to me the verse below:

Allah S.W.T. said in the Qur’an.

“Everything will perish except His Face.” (Surah 28:88)

Allah is the Absolute Truth. And the whole existence of all creation every moment is totally dependent on Him alone.

Ramadhan Kareem!!

Alhamdulillah, Ramadhan has finally arrived! It's a month every Muslim in this world is looking forward to. As for us here at home, the five of us Arsad kids have been looking forward to it since the last Ramadhan has passed.

And as for me, I've been thinking if i'd still be alive from the last Ramadhan till this year's Ramadhan.

Welcome back to the words "NO MORE TV DURING RAMADHAN" written across the tv screen. Our father made the rule 4 years ago when we were  first homeschooled. We've loved them so much and it's one of the things the 5 of us are always looking forward to every Ramadhan.

May Allah s.w.t. Grant us His favor and blessings on this month.. Ameen

Enrolling For an ALS Examination

Assalamu Alayukum!

My younger sister and I are gonna be taking the ALS A&E (Acceleration Learning System Accreditation and Equivalency) exam this year. It's an examination for out-of-school-unit children. As home schoolers, we're required to take it before we can get into high-school or college. My sister is gonna be taking the Elementary level exam while I'll be taking the exam for Secondary level.

 I remember the first time I took the ALS examination 2 years ago. I was still 13 then and the day of the examination was one of the first few days I started "permanently" wearing the hijab. As I've been wearing it on-and-off since Kindergarten 2. I very proudly carried it while I was the only one among all the examiners in that place wearing it. It also helped me cover my exam answer sheet from the person behind me to whom I had the feeling was leaning over looking at the papers of my seatmate and I. XD
The exam was quite easy I suppose. The only thing that made it kind-of-confusing for me was that it was in Tagalog. I've had some problems with this subject since kindergarten. My brother knew about this and I remember him giving me pinpoints on the names of polygons in tagalog in case I might forget.

June 15, 2010...

I was in the middle of washing my clothes when our Auntie Salha came calling, telling me to write an essay about the Importance of Education or Ang Kahalagahan ng Edukasyon, to be specific. "What? But I'm not in the mood yet.", was all I could answer. "Well, you've only up to this afternoon before 4 pm to finish it. You'll need it before you could register for the Exam.", she answered. When I came inside the house, my sister was already writing the essay. And so we spent our morning till afternoon writing the essay in a language we found not-so-easy to write an essay with.

After hours of thinking, writing, and browsing for translations in dictionaries and in the internet... We exclaimed, "Success! Alhamdulillah!". We barely had time to get ready to go to the registration center, Upper Bicutan Highschool. But we went there only to find out that the essay we wrote was not the essay to be written...

Aww... But at least the essay topic they gave was much easier. They also told us that we're required to take review classes before taking the exam. I wasn't letting that chance of inquiring further pass. So I asked the teacher assisting us whom to look for and the schedules for the review.

My sister and I were glad that the processing of our registration forms were done fast. We were told to come back after 2 days to claim our Examination Slip.

I admit that we had trouble inquiring about the registration before that day. But Alhamdulillah, we were able to register before the deadline, which was extended for a few more days.

We've been taking up review classes for the exam for about 2 months already here in the Silangan Elementary School, Taguig.

After a long time of inquiring, we feel very relieved that finally, we're on it already.

Alhamdulillah...

Me and My Math (FRACTIONS)

Before I was home-schooled, mathematics has always been a mind-bugging and nose-bleeding subject. It was not until one morning during our semester break 6 years ago when my father gave me and my siblings a focus on the basic math operations and some simple fractions that my interest on this topic sprang out of the blue. After that semester where the days my brother, younger sister and I started to excel more in mathematics. But things didn't end with that, there were lots more to be learned.

When our parents decided to homeschool the 5 of us, the first thing they focused on teaching us was MATH! Our father taught us how to draw a borderline. He was very specific about the measurements of one line from the other. He would leave for the office every morning leaving with our Mother and Auntie our assignments for the day. And when he arrives home at night, the first thing he asked us was, "How was you borderline assignment?". This went on for months for neither among the 5 of us could make it perfectly.

After some time, we, the Arsad siblings thought our days of hard math were gone. Our parents had changed the math topic on focus by then. But we were only greeted by an actually much more complicated topic... FRACTIONS!

Knowing our Dad has already taught us about it, we thought things would go on smoothly. But things did not turn out quite well with the way we ought it would. Our parents gave us a higher level of fractions.

Everyday, we would do our 10 items quiz of fractions before we start reading and answering our recommended books.

14 1/5 + 18 6/9 = ?, those things appeared like hieroglyphics on the blackboard. It was like solving and unlocking another mystery inside the Egyptian Pyramids... It took us almost 2 years to master the rules and ways of the mysterious Fractions before we got to move on...

After "quite" some time, those hieroglyphics started to turn into ABCD's... But we still got confused at times...
I'd say we should always practice our math skills regularly as not to forget them... Just like practising how to read the Egyptian symbols regularly as not to get confused with them..

Wassalam...

Experience as a one-time Elementary Boyscout Commander

Last March 25-26, I got to experience being a one-time boyscout commander. Called by Auntie Sal, I had to be in  the MVIF elementary school by 3pm. I've been training them commands and have been giving them activities for the past few fridays already... And so the big day of their overnight camping came..

"ATTENTION!!!".. As I always commanded them. Those boy scouts were very boisterous! They always got distracted during formations.

For all those Fridays of  training them, I can say that being a boyscout commander was tiring. You always have to shout when you give commands. I guess if it weren't for my parent's frequent voice control trainings, I wouldn't have been able to do this tiring commanding-under-the-late-noon-sun activity. But then Alhamdulillah, everything was worth it.

We started training with the commands at about 4:00 pm. And to their surprise and excitement, I cut their 1 hour training and let them start their fires for cooking at about 4:46 pm. Then and there, they started trotting around gathering stones, bricks, and wood for their teams' fire.

But of course, their gathering of firewood is not without them playing...

They got done cooking their rice after about an hour. It was because of the fires dying out due to insufficient firewood. Nevertheless, the rice tasted reeeally good.. hehe

When Maghrib time came, the teachers assigned the patrol leaders to guard the fish being grilled while I gathered the others for some Surah recitation and story sharing afterwards. Then we let them have a boodle fight. Some of them felt kind of icky saying their saliva might mix.. After that was the bonfire activity.

Lights out was at 11:30 pm. We got them all sleeping before 12 midnight, except the first year high school students the teachers asked to stay to guard their little elementary brothers. They occupied themselves catching and killing lizards till they could no longer find any... Those silly kids. I, on the other hand started scattering some flags for the scouter's' activity the next. At past 12 midnight, I was roaming around the 8000 square meters school grounds. I just didn't know why I couldn't sleep! I finally got some rest at 2:30 in the morning... waking up time was at 4 am.

The next day came... After Subuh prayer, some stretchings, then breakfast, I let them do the activity of locating the flags I scattered around the night before with a map. An activity they were really anticipating. 

After all the activities were done, we called them for their final formation then let them set home... 

Tiring, I should say. But Alhamdulillah, everything was worth it. And the first thing I did when I arrived home was of course... SLEEP! I only slept for about 2 hours in the camp and I already forgot how long I've slept when I arrived home...

Wassalam...

A Wonderful Thursday

March 18, 2010...
-----------------------------------


It was 4:30 am in the morning when Zakiran, our little brother suddenly comes in our room and touches my right foot with his cold hands...


"Salamu 'Alaykum, Kakah Haleema, Kakah Ajran, wake up naa..." he whispers.


As we got up, I remembered that I had taken my Sahur earlier...
And so everything goes...


I heard the morning call of prayer which I haven't heard for a while. The voices of the muezzins from all the mosques in this village merged into another voice in the soft morning air...


How nice it was to wake up early in the morning but then, I slept again.


I woke up again at 10 am from the noises Ajran and Zakiran were making while playing in Aj's bed.
I was about to ask her why didn't she wake me up when I remembered one of house rules. 

"Don't wake up a fasting person from his/her sleep."

Alhamdulillah all of us were able to do everything we needed to do for the day. 

By Maghrib time, the 5 of us were left at home with our Iftars layed out in the dining table. Amah and Auntie Salha had left earlier for their classes...


We made sure that everyone was ready for iftar before we ate.


With bread, tea, dates, and chicken curry... We were SOLVED!!

The Making of The King Puppet

My mother told me and Ajran, "Girls, help your Kakah Imran prepare the things assigned to him for his school project, okay?"

Kakah Imran was going to have a puppet show along with his groupmates, and he was assigned to make grasses and a king puppet. We were only supposed to make the grasses for him. But Ajran was doing something urgent... And I kind of got more interested on making the king than the grasses.

I've made about 2 grasses already, when Kakah Imran made a mistake on making the head of the king. o_0
I, on the other hand was trying to make a peasant. When I found out about it, I quickly changed what I was working on into a king.

I was about to hand it to him already when I held my hand back... He was doing another assignment.. COLLEGE LIFE!!

With my paint and pastels, I colored the head, made some holes for the eyes and a mouth... Then inserted 2 wooden brown beads for the eyes...

I didn't bother to color the inner parts of the body anymore, "I'll be dressing him up anyways" was what was on my mind then.

Who would've thought that something as ugly as this:

 

Would look like this:

Yeah, I'm kind of surprised myself. We all just need to extend our imagination.

I put approximately 8 layers of clothes on that.. And the sign in the middle goes like this:

                                                    -----------------

                                                         \       /

                                                           \    /

                                                             /\

                                                           /    \

                                                         /        \

                                                    ----------------    

Wassalam,
Haleema

Lyncat My Cat, Did This and That II

1) Played with the mosquito net right when I was setting it up.

2) Bit and scratched my hand after I found him when we were playing hide and seek.

3) Watched love stories with our Aunties late at night. "Lyncat, kittens are not allowed to watch THAT!"

That's all for now...

Wassalam.

Lyncat My Cat, Did This, and That

1) Slept like this...

I don't know if I should say that he sleeps like a human, or should I say... Like a frog!

2) Slept on our beds, laying down right in the middle. 

3) Sat on top of Auntie April's DVD player but also sat on the chord for the TV channel... Which made the TV chord get deattached... And cut the show we were watching. Haysh!

That's all I can show for now, because I need more... EVIDENCE!!

Wassalam...

Lyncat Looking for a Mate!?!

Lyncat has been acting strangely for the past 2 months... He kept on going outside the house watching Cutey's kittens play, went to our neighbor's garrage at night, and did other things he wasn't supposed to do.

We didn't know what he wanted then. Not until I remembered that he's turning 1 year old this January 30. Male cats, called Toms get ready to mate when they are about 6-8 months... And Lyncat is almost 12 months old!

And now I guess I'll be busy looking up websites for adopting animals. I looked up PAWS (Philippine Animal Welfare Society) already. Too bad, cats there have already been neutered or spayed.

I guess Lyncat's mate will come sometime. We'll just have to wait... =)

Wassalam,
Haleema