Happy Jesus' Birthday Everybody!

Today I read something that made me happy. Today the Wilayah Mufti announced that we Muslims can wish people "Merry Christmas" and just because we do, doesn't mean we acknowledge the fact that Jesus is God's son. 

Alhamdulillah!

Finally! A news about Muslims/ Islam that shows progress - it's about time!!

I have never seen any wrong in wishing people Merry Christmas - it's a day of celebration for Jesus's (i.e. Nabi Isa A.S.) birthday, why can't we wish people for that? We believe in Nabi Isa too! In fact, we believe in him so much that there's an empty tomb next to Muhammad S.A.W.'s tomb specially for him. 

When the news of Muslims can't wish "Merry Christmas" to others came out, I was enraged. I was like "What stupidity is this?! Just because I wish someone 'Happy birthday' it'll shake my iman?!"
-___-

I won't say I am a forward thinking Muslim, because I still do think I'm quite traditional in some sense - but I don't believe in how some religious bodies in Malaysia prefers to put out blanket statement to "curb" the problems rather than educating our people. 

It is in the Quran that Jesus was birthed by Mary - and if they wanna mark December 25th as the day, why not? It was not mentioned in the Quran exactly when Jesus was born. To me, December 25th is nothing more than a symbol, a point of reference used for a celebration of the birth of someone equally as important in Islam as he is in Christianity. Every year we celebrate 12 Rabiul'awal as our beloved Prophet's birthday, why can't we mark 25 December as a day to celebrate someone who's tomb is ready to be placed next to our beloved Prophet? 

It is just a day. And okay, maybe they didn't want people to get confused with the whole Christian thinks Jesus is God's son - then educate according to what was written in the Quran. 

Like about the hotdog and rootbeer issue -_____-

Macam tuh usage of "cider" and "ale" also should be prohibited and marked as haram no? 

Educate people on what makes a ale/cider/ beer/ dog halal or haram. Not just because of its name! 

*rolls eyes til I can see my own brain*

I had this conversation with my dad about the ban on the hotdog and rootbeer name. He thinks its was done to avoid confusion for all those "less educated" who studies/ travel overseas. 

"They'll question, hot dog dekat Malaysia halal, overseas pun halal lah? Rootbeer boleh jer minum, asal beer cannot?" 

Ayam dekat Malaysia also halal but not necessarily in UK! -____-' 

It is about time that Malaysian religious authorities review back their statement/ rulings. In current time where Muslims are put on such a spotlight, we don't want to be appearing as a regressive and restrictive religion that we are not. 

As a child I was always educated that even though I am in church, does not mean I can simply run around and make noise because I wouldn't do such a thing in a mosque. I was thought to respect all religions just like how I'd respect mine. Respect doesn't mean believing in. 

And this wasn't because it's my parents' own teachings to their kids, it is an Islamic teaching or more of a requirement as even our Prophet wont demolish a holy site during wars. 

Therefore I shall end this post on a happy note, wishing all a very Merry Christmas and 2017 to be a more progressive, peaceful and united year for all humankind, especially us Malaysians. 

Pocayana's Party in the Woods

This is way long overdue, so let's jump into the time machine and go back to August/ September.

____________________________________________________________________________

Cik P finally decided to on what she wanted to do for her birthday like 2-3 weeks prior to her birthday. She wanted a full blown party, solely because she wanted a chalked-out backdrop.

This was actually quite funny also, because initially Emilia (Cik P's friend) and I were planning on throwing her a surprise (I still remember going over the list of "If I was Zayana, who would I invite to my birthday dinner?" with Emilia) and we even got her Cik P's sister (Dada) onboard to help us spy on Cik P.

One day, while I was out I got a text from Dada: "Aisya, I thought this was supposed to be a surprise? Why is Zayana going over a list of party planner with Kak Ya?"

I immediately made my way to Cik P's and from just looking at party planners, we ended up confirming a date and even went to recce a few potential venues for the dinner. By the end of the day Cik P not only had a (self-appointed) party manager (me!), she also had a confirmed venue (as suggested by her awesome party manager of course)!

This was of course done after sorting it out with Emilia where we decided to let Zayana be as involved as possible with the planning (we don't want her to not like her own party), and we would throw our own surprise elements in there.

So as her PM, I was the middle person dealing with the party planner/ decorator and her and this ladies and gentlemen is when my pesting skills is very useful!

Exhibit A:

The event was <14 days, and we still haven't book the decorator because we're still waiting for the price quote and payment details.. So,

And this is after I messaged her in the morning (previous day): "Hi <insert name>, I think you forgot about me :("

Obviously status reporting is essential in project party management.. She's thankful but Kak Ya thinks Im nuts cause I Bitmoji-ed her, lol. But see that time stamp! It worked!!

Lesson learnt: Always use Bitmoji guys - it'll get their attention and you'll get a reply :p

I've never been more appreciate for pesting skills before this whole entire party management thing, I swear. This is why God placed me in Zayana's life, lol.

Anyways besides managing her party planning, I always was planning on getting her birthday cake - that was something that I told her to leave it up to me. Emilia, Zayana's other friends, and Raema also decided to chip in to the cake and we entrusted KekandCo (love them!) with the cake - and it turned out so beautiful!!

And we also decided to add one "centrepiece" balloon with the cutest name on it (courtesy of Aizat): Pocayana.

I was supposed to pick up the cake during the event day itself, straight from work - which btw I might add wearing all white full day and keeping it clean is a damn challenge (which I barely passed). About 5.30PM sharp I left office and made my way to TTDI to pick up the cake and then drove like a turtle to BSC - which was easy to do anyways cause it's peak hour. However getting to BSC on time during peak hour while driving like a turtle (Milo must've been very shocked at the speed I was driving it) was a challenge!

I needed to get to BSC by 6.15PM as the balloons we ordered were scheduled to arrive during that time. Thankfully I'm quite familiar with shortcuts around Bangsar so I managed to reach BSC by 6.17PM and parked my car, delivered the cake safely to the restaurant all before the balloons arrived!

The balloons arrived with a bang (because one of the balloons popped) and Zayana was in proximity when I collected it (one person you can't expect to come late -.-).. But somehow she didn't really realise what was on the balloons til much later, phew!

All in all the birthday dinner was so perfect - the deco, the kek and more importantly Zayana looked amazing that night. She looked like what Pocahontas should've looked like when Pocahontas went to the ball. 

Isn't it gorgeous?!?! 

The decorator was so worth the money she's paid for because look at the happy face:

What I didn't manage properly for the night was however the servers/ waiters -.- Which quite honestly I thought this wouldn't be something I'm supposed to handle cause well we've been in communication with the restaurant manager, he should've known better..

But I had fun making sure everyone got the food they ordered correctly - I swear I forgot how much I love the rush of event management..

After that chaos was settled, we all enjoyed our food - I enjoyed my lychee watermelon cooler, "cooler" was aptly included in its name - cut the cake, and took lots and lots of pictures!

Some of the pictures from the night:

Clearly not one used to having all the love on her..

In case it wasn't obvious, the theme of the dinner was "Pocahontas" because that's Cik P's favourite Disney princess, so all the guests came as characters from Pocahontas.

Zayana's sister's-boyfriend's-sister made the little playcards/ props of all the characters that people were coming as.

Once a year we do the "Zayana pose" - other times we go back to me always showing the love and she pushing me away.. *rolls eyes*

Batman to Turban

So not too long ago I discovered Bitmoji and life  (read: trolling) has been fabulous ever since.. 

Look who recently jumped on the Bitmoji bandwagon: 

That night when she called me down to her room (I swear, even at the age of almost quarter a century, I still get nervous whenever one of my parents say/ text me: "Sya, come down") was all because she wanted me to set up her Bitmoji.. -___-' And it's all because her friends started using it already, lol. 

And I swear these aunties... They can be CEOs or Chief Investment Officers and their Bitmoji is hilarious. 

This is Aunty X1's Bitmoji: 

"I couldn't find a tudung, so Batwoman pun jadi lah.."

 Both me and my mum cracked up (and actually coughed) after her explanation.. lol! 

Now Aunty X1 is using this Bitmoji (she finally found a more Muslimah appropriate Bitmoji):

This is Aunty X2's Bitmoji: 

I originally wanted to give Mummy a suit for her Bitmoji, but she said "Aunty X2 wears a suit! Cause she's always in one (with her Louboutins), Im not". It's true.. Sometimes my mother wears a jubah to work and only pull out her suits for BODM, so Mummy gets a slightly more casual Bitmoji.. 

She did ask though "Takde jubah ker? That's my signature style".. Bitmoji, take note!

The Torture Session

This evening as I was starting my Pilates class, my Trainer (a.k.a. Fred the Torturer) said,
"Whoa, you're really into Bollywood huh?!"

Fred, you have no idea just how much into Bollywood I am.. 

See, I've this huge crush on Deepika since like 2013 right? About a few weeks back I saw Deepika doing her usual Pilates workout (1 point) while wearing the same sports bra that I have (1 more point for Aisya)!!!

So now I'm like 2 points similar to Deepika, I feel better about my workout clothes choices now guys. #nikealltheway

Today also I've unlocked a whole new achievements of doing 60 squats in total. Normally it's 7-10-12 reps for each set of workouts, today I did 20-20-20 guys!!! Aisya feels very good about herself, she decided to have a burger after that (hi Fred, see you next week!) 

Seeing how squats didn't affect me as much (I have my off days okay), Fred decided to swap my legs/ bum work out to some "unilateral work" as he calls it and that.was.a.whole.new.level.of.torture - my butt is still feeling it eventhough Im laying down on my stomach guys!!! As I was doing the butt workout, I thought "Hrmm, I think Deepika did this kind of workout too......" (I needed a distraction in class okay!!)

So of course I went home and stalked Deepika's trainer.. Nope, completely made that "scene" up in my head :( No extra Deepika-wannabe-points for Aisya today :(

Oh well, here are some of the workouts I've done in class
(to make myself feel a lil bit more accomplished)

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Aug 2, 2016 at 9:39am PDT

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Jul 13, 2016 at 10:00pm PDT

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Jun 23, 2016 at 6:07am PDT

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on May 31, 2016 at 2:15pm PDT

Some of the workouts I'm just waiting for Fred to ask me to do and that this is gonna go into my fitness "achievements"... >(

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Jun 13, 2016 at 9:56pm PDT

I await for the day til I get on this "bed" and that's when I'll make damn sure that Fred records me working out

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Jun 7, 2016 at 4:16am PDT

Until then, I present to you, my Queen:

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Nov 6, 2016 at 11:05pm PST

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Nov 1, 2016 at 1:29am PDT

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Oct 7, 2016 at 6:59am PDT

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Sep 30, 2016 at 9:27am PDT

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Aug 28, 2016 at 1:17am PDT

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Jun 21, 2016 at 11:21pm PDT

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Jun 19, 2016 at 4:19am PDT

A video posted by Yasmin Karachiwala (@yasminkarachiwala) on Feb 3, 2016 at 3:20am PST

Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them

When I love something, I obsess about it. 

It's the same with Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika, Deepika-Ranveer, and now lemme talk about my obsession with Harry Potter.. 

With the latest movie from one of J.K. Rowling's books released recently, Harry Potter became a subject of discussion at work last week - side track a bit, I love how at work we can burst out into random topic of discussion! We typically sit at a round table and more often than not someone would open a topic (by accident) and the it'll become a roundtable discussion/ forum. Our topics have ranged from religion (so serious, I know!) to Dan Brown's novels & Harry Potter to sometimes less intellectual ones like shitting/ excretion... #peopleiworkwith... Love them anyways! Some of them I've been working with for like 2 years (basically my entire career) okay!

Anyways, back to Harry Potter (I told you my brain just jumps around these days if I try to write!), we were recapping about some of the characters (up to the 8th book/ Cursed Child) and my bosses were impressed how these minor minor facts still stay intact in my not-so-good memory..

"How do you even manage to remember all this??"
"I am re-reading the series, and sometimes I just watch the movies 1-8 for the fun of it"

I am a geek (minimal social life remember? Plus sometimes I don't have time to sit thru 3 hours of Bollywood films).

I just watched Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them and I now have 4 Harry Potter Wikia page opened researching about Grindelwald, the Elder Wand and the Lestrange family. Tomorrow I shall re-read the Fantastic Beasts book to relearn about the creatures in the movie!

While watching the movie, I screamed to Zayana "ITS THE HALLOWS!" and she asked "How did you know it was the Hallow?" .. What else could it be when you see a straight line in a circle within a triangle? (Even if you only saw like half of it..)

I love how the movie had some sense of familiarity that we all know and love from the original Harry Potter series - like the use of some of the well known spells "Alohomora"/ "Accio"/ "Repero", the mention of notable names "Grindelwald"/ "Dumbledore"/ "Lestrange" and the Hallows.

In fact after learning about one of the beasts, I am now convinced that Ariana Dumbledore was an Obscurus and think I have made the connection there about some of the events mentioned in the Deathly Hallows (the book) and this movie..

Why can't Harry Potter be a university subject?!

Also apparently now you can dine at the Great Hall set at the the Harry Potter studios in London!!!

"Hi Malaysia Airlines? One return ticket to London please?"