Awesome tennis match!

All hail to The King of the grass court, Roger Federer. The Swiss guy has won 4 Wimbledon Men's Single title for FOUR years in a row. That achievement put him on par with Bjorn Borg (1976-1980) and Pete Sampras (1997-2000) as the only men to win four consecutive Wimbledon titles.

This time he wears this personalized beige/white cream blazer sponsored by Nike, a little bit tongue-in-cheek yet projecting his champion aura which is somewhat similar to those grand slam golfers with their exclusive green jacket. I reckon such an act has prompted the tennis onlookers to compare Federer with Tiger Woods. Alright, i may be exaggerating but the actual words came from the former Masters winner Fred Couples. He was reportedly saying that he believed that Federer and Woods have similar effects on their sports and their opponents.





This boy, Rafael Nadal, is peculiarly gorgeous to me. Sure, he's 10 years younger than me, but I wouldnt mind having bit of a snog with him...tall, dark olive skin, dark hair, angular face, muscular shoulders, nice abs, toned legs...except one thing, he has this big buns for a guy. Probably he has some northern african blood in him. Anyways, i'd love to smack those bottom. Bring it on, baby, yeayyy (now i sound like austin powers...damn).



Look at his graceful moves....his intense eyes....He's about 1 inch taller than Roger Federer.


Sure, Federer, you looked very fired up during all your Wimbledon matches and you only drop one set during your battle with you numero uno nemesis, Rafael Nadal. Congratulations to you, mate, for your continuous achievement in Wimbledon and for being very much loyal to your long-time girlfriend, Miroslava (Mirka) Vavrinec. After four years of watching you winning the Men's Single, she has always been there cheering for you from the stand. I noticed that she is so not like those footballers WAGs (wives and girlfriends). She looks very much a regular lady, a bit plump and wearing normal clothes, nothing flashy. Definitely not those fashionista type.




Ah....the moment of truth. You got what you have always wanted, Roger, as the guy who has his name embossed on the Champion Cup four times in a row.



The smile of a champion. I thoroughly enjoyed watching you play, Roger, especially if it is against Rafael Nadal. Nevertheless, one of the unforgettable matches would be between you and Marat Safin during the semi-final of the Australian Open 2005. Good thing you've won it this year by beating cypriot Marcos Baghdatis. The latter was defeated by Rafa during the semi at Wimbledon.

Rafael and Roger, you guys really make my watching a tennis match worthwhile.

Amelie "Machismo" Mauresmo, The GayLady Wimbledon champ

I just found out today that this minging looking french lady is actually a real life lesbian tennis champ. All these while I just dunno what to say about her looks except that she somehow born with this masculine face. Before, I thought she is another lady-looks-like-a-dude who was a dude like Martina Navratilova. But then, after reading News of the world, I can now relate her looks with her sexual orientation.




Yup, she's the 2006 Women Single Wimbledon Champion,having beaten petit belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne by 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 yesterday, saturday 09 July 2006.

Tonight I am gonna watch the Men final where Fed will battle against Rafa, the spaniard who has beaten Fed on 6 out of 7 occassions. And after that...I would love to sit and watch LIVE final World Cup match of France vs Italy (Les Blues vs Azzurris) at 3.00am malaysian time. And I probably gonna end up dozing in my office the next day....yes, it is Monday tomorrow...!

Classic poem: IF

Just a short note: this poem recitation made hillarious by Mike Bassett (Ricky Tomlinson of The Royle Family fame), of the movie Mike Bassett England Manager.


IF



by Rudyard Kipling





IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

The day I celebrate it on my own

It may be one of the most fucked up bday celebration, but if it wasn't the wishes i got from my close friends, it would be just another day passing by. All that fucking arguments i had while living with my family only added salt to the wound. I am seriously getting more and more fed up living under the same roof. I have been independent all these while and not pretty much keen on living in malaysia except the fact that I am bound to a job contract. I am beginning to love my current job, really, but definitely getting tired of staying together with some of my family members....i seriously cannot wait the day i will move out and start my own life in my own house, driving my own car and basically having things my own damn way.


I think it is best if I distance myself from my family. The fewer i see them the better...by doing that, phone conversations would be of something more appreciated and i dont have to deal with all those silly issues. Yet, i know i have my parents to look after.....but then, it's not that i am gonna move far far away....it is still within 10 miles of radius or so...approximately.


I have been having really difficult time trying to think of settling down in malaysia when i was back in the UK. It's not to say that I despise living in my own birth country. I was born here and had my teenage life here. After that I spent like most of my early adulthood in the UK. It was there that i learnt so many things in life, about myself and about appreciating what i am and so on. OK it's fair to say that I found my human angel in malaysia in 2000, thats between my 1st degree years and my PhD years in the UK. I was in msia the whole time in 2000. And after that I went back to the UK and only came back end of 2005.


I may sound like I sooo prefer to be abroad. But after a while, i realised, it's not the UK itself that i desire, it's the freedom i have for so long and have already gotten used to it. It's my own personal liberation, to be able to design my own life the way i like. To be able to decorate and arrange my house the way i feel like. To travel all around, be it in malaysia or abroad whenever i like. Probably i am sounding a bit self-absorbed, but hey, i love it. The more i am further away from my family, the better. Then, my time spending with my family would be some sort of a quality time. And by then, i can make any excuses of fleeing if things got worse.


Earlier on, i went out and bought meself pizza set meal from pizza hut. I couldve just rang them and ordered a pizza delivery. Instead, i just felt like going out for a breather....people in the house may think that i am a me, me, me person, nobody else is correct but me, but on the contrary, i felt as if they undermine me a lot more. I prefer my own piece of mind. I am not one who loves to quarrel...but if the injustice is so unbearable, it freaked me out.

This whole distancing thing reminded me of the hindi movie: Hum Tum. There was this part where Rhea (rani mukerjee) left india and went to paris not because she hated her life in india, but she can just get herself lost amidst paris and amidst the strangers while trying to recuperate from the tragedy of losing her husband. She made her choice such that she could escape any familiar things that might breed greater contempts. UK to me was in some way similar to paris for Rhea but I have still many close friends in the UK. One of the main reasons why i enjoyed my life there was that UK is my main gateaway to travel to many places either to the european side, or crossing the atlantic or probably around the world. If I am working there, and staying single, i could afford to manage my savings by allocating some of it for travelling purposes. That was actually what i did from my bachelor degree years all the way to my PhD years. I really missed that lifestyle.


I missed those days where i could just lay down in the park doing nothing, or sitting somewhere under a tree and reading a novel. I missed those summer and winter sales. I can easily find a pair of jeans that fit me well. I can always target those shoe shops that cater the size i wear. I think all i need now is more money and not just my monthly salary in order to get meself off the malaysian shore and back to where i can find my groove. (damn, that reminds me of that movie: how stella got her groove back)


Pretty sad story for a birthday.

Wisdom, Knowledge and Virtue complement each other

After all that I have been through, I resort to a simple way of understanding any new system, things unknown to me or even things that I have not fully grasped:

LISTEN, OBSERVE AND LEARN

Listening to me is the first step of grasping something new while you observe at the same time. Listening and observing should come simultaneously and occur harmoniously unless if you are born blind or born deaf. Nevertheless the blind ones (but able to hear) sees with their heart and instinct and the deaf ones (but able to see) observes with imaginative sound from their heart as well. It is the power of their mind to break down things that they are less capable of.

Learning comes after listening and observing. It is the process realised through reading about the things that has been heard of and observed followed by hands-on practical. In between each of the learning process flow is the process of putting all the knowledge pieces together by gathering all the information that was seen and heard into a complete form of jigsaw puzzle.

Reading on its own can only lead to self-imagination and possibly misinterpretation of the knowledge. However, reading while observing the information we read with open heart and mind while incorporating all the information we have heard before, makes acquiring knowledge an exciting and, not to disregard the elementary essence of reading itself, a potentially powerful insight. Reading should always instigate an exercise of our brain's millions of active neurons accompanied by the physical alertness. The alertness will not be propagated unless we invoke a certain level of interest as a result of listening and observing of the importance of receiving such information while relating all of its relevance. This is what i call critical thinking while reading. Making some notes and highlighting on the main issues as well as the keywords as we read would create a balance flow between the mind, body and soul. The mind interpretes the information, the body exerts enough energy to assist the mind and the soul stabilizes the human aspect of ascertaining the interest towards knowledge quest. In addition to the physical alertness, there is this old proverb quoted as: "Early sleep and early rise makes a man healthy and wise" . Without good physical condition, the process of searching more information based on what we have heard, observed and read would not be that smooth.


So far, the biggest mistake that I have ever done throughout my schooling years was the mistake of not optimising the listening part. This is not to imply that I do not listen at all while i was in the classroom/lecture hall/lab/meeting with the teacher, lecturers, supervisors. I often listened to myself 55% more than trying to take note of what was said. That has led to communication breakdown and loss of some of the essential information that was delivered during that very moment itself. Secondary information was the consequence as I then resorted to asking my friends of what have i missed during an important class. I have then realised my mistake and have tried to improve it during my bachelor degree studies. The result was rather tremendous. However, this did not stop there only. During my PhD years, I had had some disputes and disagreements with my supervisor resulting in some horrendeous moments in my life. He often accused me of not listening to what he said, and i said to him vice versa. I got told off on quite many occassions and so i said to myself, this has got to stop. There must be a very important and yet very strong element, an equilibrium point that will unite us into a more acceptable level of compromising each other and contemplating towards mutual agreement. And there it was: I failed to LISTEN wisely. To listen is not a one-way process. Listening process has 3 degrees of freedom: to listen to what is said first and foremost, to be able to accept what u hear and to analyse the outcome; an ideal countercurrent process. This does not mean that we just accept everything we have heard blindly, it means listening is an integral part of learning and by understanding that, we will be able to analyse the information that we have obtained through listening.


When we listen, we observe the person who speaks to us and observe the points delivered. When we read, we observe what we read and not just simply scheming and scanning the text. Observation is the crucial link to listening and reading.

Nevertheless, acquiring the knowledge will not be complete without instilling virtuosity in ourselves; the virtue of gaining the knowledge by ourselves and the virtue of gaining the knowledge from other sources (people mainly).

More about knowledge, wisdom and virtue in the following texts below:


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Some quotations regarding wisdom:


"Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end" - Leonard Nimoy's Commander Spock of Star Trek series.


"The wise man questions the wisdom of others because he questions his own, the foolish man, because it is different from his own." - Leo Stein

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." - Mahatma Ghandi


"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something." - Plato

"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it". Albert Einstein


"Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic". Fyodor Dostoyevsky


"Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom." Charles H. Spurgeon


"Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future." Dale E. Turner



"To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe." Marilyn vos Savant









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Taken from: Islamicity

Author: Sadullah Khan


Wisdom has been defined as:

* the ability to make correct judgments and decisions.

* as foreseeing consequences and acting to maximize beneficial results.

* making the best use of available knowledge.

* thinking what is best and doing what is best in any given situation


Hikmah (denoting 'wisdom') is a positive term used repeatedly in the Quran as a characteristic of the righteous [refer: Quran 2:251; Quran 4:54; Quran 5:110], as a quality of those who truly understand [refer: Quran 31:12].

1)The Quran is referred to as the Wise Quran [Quran 36:2]; the Book of Wisdom, the verses of a Book of Wisdom [refer: Quran 10:2; Quran 13:2]

2)Wisdom is referred to as an integral component of the Message and Guidance provided by Divine Revelation ... taught the Book, the wisdom, the Gospel and the Torah [Quran 5:110]
3)And even the Almighty refers to Himself as The Mighty , The Wise [Quran 2:209].

4)When Prophet Abraham prayed for the fulfillment of the mission of prophets, he prayed for one who would " relate scripture to the people, convey hikmah (wisdom) and provide a means of purification." [Quran 2:129]

5)Hikmah is the lost property of the Believer; the Prophet Muhammad said and he encouraged us to take wisdom from any source.

6) in the case of debating and argumentation, hikmah should be the primary instrument [refer Quran 16:125]



Hikmah (Wisdom), 'Aql (Mind)


At times the word hikmah is interchanged with 'aql; as evidenced in the saying of Sayidina 'Ali: "the tongue of a wise person is behind the heart and the heart of a fool is behind the tongue".


Hikmah & 'Ilm

Though 'ilm (knowledge) may open the doorways to hikmah, but hikmah is distinct from 'ilm. Knowledge and information provides means for enlightenment ;

Remember Allah's Blessings and the (truthful information) sent through the Book and the wisdom it provides by which you may be enlightened. [Quran 2:23]

The Prophet said ask the learned, consult with the wise and accompany the poor.

There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom. [Ancient Greek philosopher, Democritus]

In our age... people seem more than ever prone to confuse wisdom with knowledge, and knowledge with information [author and poet, T.S. Eliot]


Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty. [Philosopher & writer, Will Durant]

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. - [Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, 1988 ]

Though 'book knowledge' enhances the potential for wisdom; wisdom is often attained by learning in other ways; By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and Third by experience, which is the bitterest. [Ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius]



Virtue & Wisdom


Ethics is the branch of philosophy which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to define that which is right from that which is wrong. Ancient Roman orator, Cicero said; "The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil." The Ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, suggested that the four cardinal virtues are wisdom, courage, self-control and justice.

In Islam, wisdom is always linked to virtue. "You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the capacity for hearing, sight, and the intellect, and you are responsible for using them effectively. You shall not walk with arrogance on earth - you cannot bore through the earth, nor can you be as tall as the mountains. All impropriety is condemned by your Lord. This is of the wisdom inspired to you by your Lord. You shall not set up another object of worship beside God, lest you end up in hell; blamed and defeated." [Quran 17:36-39]

Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq stated that the cardinal virtues to live by are ... piety, contentment, patience, gratitude, humility, modesty, generosity, courage, enthusiasm, benevolence, truthfulness and trustworthiness.



Effective Wisdom


Wise ones have said that the height of wisdom is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, our emotions to our conscience and our deeds to our values it is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. [Gandhi]

The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man. [Ancient Greek playwright, Euripides]

Wisdom is a bounteous thing that is invaluable, and Allah reminds us in the Quran:

Whoever is granted wisdom has indeed been granted something tremendously beneficial; but none reflect except people of insight. [Quran 2:269]