Turkiye: Day 6

KONYA
They use coal to keep warm. A very polluted city.

But we were there because it was town of Rumi, the most famous Sufi poet, mystic and theologian.

Sufism is the mystical side to Islam. It is in which Muslims seek to find divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. Sufis seclude themselves for months and meditate to ends to open up a different way of thinking and reach a different level of devotion and Love for God. Self-discipline and concentration on God leads to the belief that by quelling the self and through loving ardour for God it was possible to maintain a union with the divine in which the human self melted away (ie: state of non-existence). Rumi believed passionately in the use of dance, poetry and music as a path for reaching God. The whirling dervishes, a mystical journey, became a ritual in Sufism because of him.

He not only appealed to the Eastern world but also the Western as he was the "most popular poet in America" in 2007 (800 yrs after his death). Yay! I got hold of his book :) His poetry is an observation of nature around him and Love only for God. My cousin debated that if you were to follow Rumi's teaching then there is no room to love another. True, perhaps. But I want to be in love with another! There must be a way and to which what I discovered gave me goosebumps and a sudden jolt of humility. I reasoned that Rumi believed that God is within everyone and every being. And this justifies one to love another :)

But to follow it in the strictest sense, to love everything and everyone around you and to see God in everything and will to them as you will to God brings you to humility as everything around you is far more divine and strips you of your ego self.

I know I shall be filled with love of life if this is what I breathe but (i) I do not exclusively belief in a higher order/power and (ii) even if I do...even if I do have a leap of faith, this is too much for me to comprehend, too big of a change of how I see life and imaginably too crazy of a life...how do I even start by seeing God in us.

CAPPADOCIA
1. Reached Cappadocia in the evening. Some parts were used in the Star Wars movie! DUH coz its so out of this world!

2. At night, we went out to Yasar Baba to be entertained by some folk dance and traditions and ceremonies

Fire dance outside. So full of energy.Belly dancing. My cousin got pulled up to dance with her and lets just say he was more than eager to go *grins*

^8 Cee

December, month of festivities

It has finally dawned upon me that:

1) End of year is finally here,

2) I am taking days off work for the first time,

and what seriously occurred to me two minutes ago was that I am very excited....

3) 6 days countdown before I am in this land right here.Please click image. You have to see it enlarged!

Cee gets to travel again!

Love
^8 Cee

Latest Raya Accessories:

Babies!!


We were co-hosting...so at one stage my mum, my sister and I babysat so that the mothers could relax and enjoy the yummy raya dishes. Picture this:

This could very well be reality for my family a couple years down the road.Scary?! Yes!!! :s (even my grandma's confused!) But so exciting!

^8 Cee

Updates from my end

Time for an update coz 2 weeks of no-blogging is a looooong time. Update is gonna be mostly work related coz honestly thats all I've been up to. Some of your sms-es during the week made me smile. Good to know that I still have friends even without the time :) So *cough* *cough* sms me moreeee.

Ok. Updates from my end:

Update 1: Puasa and Raya
Fasting month is over. Hardly felt like it was fasting month. Hardly had any proper buka puasa as I was mostly in the office. Sahur was probably the only quality family time I had.
Raya will be here and I look like shit. Plenty of eyebags. But cant wait for it anyhow :) Since I'm a working girl this yr, I'll be giving out duit raya. Hehe dunno why but that'll be quite exciting too. Its like another phase of life

Update 2: Exams
4 down.
1 fail as you know but have since passed the other 3. Yaaay!
If only you guys knew how feverish I felt for my Treasury exams.
One final exam coming up after Raya.

Update 3: Corporate Finance week just ended.
We had to do sales pitch, debates and host EGMs.
Loved, as in LOVEEEEEEEED the week.
We learnt and did case studies on IPO, secondary offerings, and mergers and acquisition (M&A).
To me, M&A is the best bit of em all. Its the best sort of arts and science I've seen. The workings to a marriage that statistic shows to be 10% successful.Lol.
We camped overnight at work for two nights (my darling parents even sent me pillows and change of clothes at 4am in the morning), spent our lunches stocking up on sleep and used the work gym to shower in the mornings. Lol. Plenty of invaluable memories with my batchmates.
Oh well the week is over. Relieved to have my sleep back but am actually quite sad its over. Withdrawal symptom!



All in all, its been quite a crazy week. I'm not complaining coz I have really enjoyed it.

Selamat Hari Raya to all and Maaf Zahir Batin

Sincerely yours, Cee

^8