Dear Diary,I guess the cat's out of the bag.
I kept and held it inside for as long as I could:
to not let it affect me emotionally,
to not share it out in my public Diary,
to not get pitied, and
to not let it change how beautiful I always see life is
and to let it change me as a person.
But
- when your life saving is zeroed,
- when your credit card(s) reached its' limit,
- when your utility bills are mounting,
- when you can't even ask for personal loans from banks because apparently your supposedly-deducted-EPF-monthly and annual tax deduction have never even been debited,
- when you had to ask for advance rent from your housemates just so that you can feed your car, drive to teach and pay for parking,
- when you can't afford to continue paying your house rent, car's monthly installment, life insurance, phone bill AND when you had to swallow your pride to ask for a handsome loan you never know when you can ever pay back; from the upset father you hardly communicate with and has never really approved of your chosen career,
- when you had to depend on your boyfriend to buy you dinner every night for the past six weeks,
- when you can't afford to go to your weekly futsal trainings because you have to carefully choose; fork out RM10 for your court's share and you won't have lunch tomorrow,
- when you still continued teaching 10 grueling yoga classes within Monday and Tuesday despite your body was only fed with soy milk and bananas for those two days, not to mention the weekend earlier,
- when your resources and spirit are dampened to the core;
because your last full-paid salary was for the month of April,
I know,
I have changed.
And I don't fancy this change.
I am no longer the Ninie Ahmad my friends love having over overpriced breakfast and coffee,
I am no more the laughing machine and drama queen I used to be,
I am no longer the love-shrink / money-lender my close friends used to turn to;
but I know for sure,
I am still the yoga teacher I inspired to be.
For the past few months,
I still wake up 6 in the morning on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays just so that I can attend to my beloved students at The Weld, Plaza Damas and Taman Desa because they wake up at 6 am too just so that they can have one hour of practice and self-centering very early in the morning before they head to office,
For the past few weeks,
I still battle evening traffic to drive to town to teach because my passionate practitioners might have had a long day at work and my yoga class might be their only channel to de-stress and cleanse themselves before coming back to their family that need dinner and homes that need cleaning from them.
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If you wondered,
Why do I still teach there,
what am I still waiting for,
why do I still hope;
despite not being paid for more than 3 months?
Because I know some of us are going through it worse that I am,
some of the cleaners have been starving for days because they don't have their family around to provide them with sympathy meals,
some of the foreign teachers have been kicked out their apartments because the rent and lease have not been paid for more than three months now,
some of front desk & consultants have been sleeping in darkness because their electricity has been cut;
Because this, humbles me.
Because cursing and blaming it to only one person doesn't solve it and won't pay my rent,
and my lunch for that matter.
Because I still want to believe in miracles.
Because I still want to believe that things will happen our way if we believe enough.
Because I know God will somehow work His way to ease our ordeal across our students' prayers in our honesty and hardwork in teaching.
Because I still want to believe in 'believe' and that,
there is still a tomorrow. Or a better August for some, if not for all of us.
AMIN.
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To end this on a lighter note,
if I can still smile or make you smile with me
(or even over my 6-forehead and 1000-pimples):
since our
zone has been making front page and prime time headlines since Friday,
I have been receiving many condolence calls and SMSes from friends and students asking me if they can buy me breakfasts, lunches and dinners.
Yes, you can :)
Foot and shoulder massages are accepted too.
Dearest Yasmin,
I love you.
And love is an understatement.
I admire you for making me not ashamed of having been going to the cinemas again to watch Malay movies (although I had to walk out on Senario The Movie and Jangan Pandang Belakang after 15 minutes. God knows, I tried).
I thank you for portraying Malaysia beautifully in your ads, for capturing beautiful Malay values in your movies, that I am not proud to say - most of the time more beautiful on silverscreen than what we know happening and for making lines from Malay movies memorable again.
I am a Malay Muslim (soon to be banned?) yoga teacher in KL that's having the trial time of my life by MY own people that can't seem to stop keeeeeeep telling me (in my blog) ways to 'be a good Muslim' by listening to our Muftis, to cover up, to not live with non-Muhrim when all I am trying to do is, to 'be a good person' with big dreams to make Malaysians look better and live longer.
(I am) On the brink of giving up 'blogging'
(before I become the words they have been putting in my mouth),
I thank you for lending me some strength from meaningful quotes you often paste here, for your lovely words and wonderful insights and for many more inspirations you never know.
Thank you.
May God bless us all and forgive all cruelty we have done to each other.
Peace, love and light,
Ninie Ahmad