al-Ishs

my album, “visions”, is out already! you can buy it from cd baby.

what’s news… my beloved wife is pregnant. it’s about 10 weeks now.

i managed to get my green p plate after failing once. i failed my test in broady, and then went to an alien land, hoppers crossing, and got it there. yet i still find driving a hard thing to do.

i recently met a lot of high school friends in facebook. i decided to create a group for ‘95 alumni (facebook login required). if you’re on of them, please join.

two days ago, i passed my hazard perception test.

i’ll do my driving test in the next two months.

today, we had a lot of fun having a trip… to our backyard.

we ate together under a big tree there. we had fried noodles and tuna fillets. yummm…

daud needed to wipe his hand. so, he did it… on me.

and daud also had fun playing with his ball.

we finished by praying together there.

last night, i spent about 2 hours producing 3 hard-copies of my thesis (as rmit requires). 2 hours??? yeah, several accidents happened. i printed one copy on the cave, took it upstairs to the data preparation room, made two copies of it, and now i was ready to bind them… and i wasn’t. i noticed that the photocopier produced extra visible lines. ugh, if i were the examiner, i wouldn’t care, but you know, academics, while some of them have really low expectations for artistic presentations (see the posters in conferences to see pixellated images), some of them can be absurdly finicky (“your paper is good, but i don’t like it. i flag it as ‘reject’.” i’m not kidding. it happened to my senior supervisor). therefore, i printed another one. and to speed up the process, i tried to print another copy to another printer. my access was blocked for printers other than the one at the cave! what happened? anyway, gayan helped me printing another one. thanks, mate.

and then, the laborious task of binding… creating the holes, putting the pages in, and tada. i gave them to beti, and phew. wish me luck, everyone.

this month is approaching its end. oh my, this is the best ramadan i’ve ever had. the blessings of saints shower this month.

many good things have happened this month. our family getting a car, my wife and son obtaining their pr, me finally (yes, finally!) having my thesis penetrating through the school’s gate (well, almost. i’ll do the administrative errands within the next few days)… should i also include me losing 6 kilos of fat?

i ask for the intercession of the saints of god and their support. madad…

the title line seems to be a not-so-frequently asked question for me and my wife lately. well, not really. some actually phrase the question more unambiguously, replacing “home” with “indonesia.” but, to all (if not most) people that i know, the word “home” means “indonesia.” while i can accept that, that word doesn’t mean the same… quite literally.

i’ve lived here for about 6.5 years. this already feels home for me, and i’m a legal permanent resident here, and also, legally, i’m considered a foreign resident in indonesia (although i still retain my indonesian citizenship). so, i can call melbourne my home, in all sorts of points of view.

however, i still consider jakarta as my home, like my wife considers sukabumi as her home, and i consider her home as mine, and vice versa. (and daud has currently no choice other than following our definition of home.)

so, am i going home this year? well, i’m already home!

what’s been happening?

i’ve been busy working. since february this year, i’ve been working as an analyst programmer for linfox armaguard. in addition, i’ve revised my thesis (i know, i know, i already submitted it to the school, but i was required to buff it with more stuffs), and i’ve re-submitted it to the school about two weeks ago. but anyway, i went on with my life, partially…

earlier in 2008 (or was it the end of 2007?), i wrote a new song, “summer rain.” i haven’t got time to record it yet. while on the topic of music, i twisted my right thumb a few months ago. the pain was excruciating. recovering took a while… well, actually, it’s not back 100% yet. i still occasionally feel the pain, although it’s not bad and not hindering me from doing most things, and best of all, it doesn’t make me sad.

my second bro has also taken bay’a to the sultan of saints, through shaykh mustafa haqqani, shaykh nazim’s representative in indonesia. he has also enjoyed the presence of shaykh hisham during the shaykh’s recent visit to indonesia (bahasa indonesia).

my family and i had a nice trip to ruffy and euroa (and unexpectedly, shepparton. more on that later) to fulfill an invitation from shaykh abdul wahid to gather at his house for nisf sha’ban. we also met the sydneysiders there. daud had an accident while we were in euroa. he fell from the chair and it caused a little cut on his lower lip. we ran him to a clinic in shepparton with the help of motaki and amatullah. to our relief, it wasn’t a serious wound. it recovered pretty quickly.

recently, in front of my house, there’s been a white ford fairmont (built in the 90s) parked everyday. big thanks to the big chief and siraaj.

and just yesterday, my wife and son obtained their pr visa. so, the circle is now complete. we’re all permanent residents of australia.

finally, i finished writing my phd thesis. i already submitted it to the school about a week ago, on 18 jan. that means, i’ll get some feedback some time next week, and do (hopefully) only minor fixes, and then finally formally submit it to uni for examination. now once that’s done, i’ll get on with my life.

in the past two months, i’ve written two new songs. i just haven’t got the chance to record them and put them online. “morning feeling” was written on 2 march 2007. “solitude” was written on 14 april 2007.