Sunrise, Batu Burok Beach, KT, Oct 2, 2018

One of the things that I love while travelling is watching the sunrise or sunrise on a beach. This was captured during one of our visits to Kuala Terengganu in 2018. We stayed at the BNM Resort and we just walked out of the back entrance to access the beach.

A Room With A View’ and Stimulants

Many of us value a room with a view because it will create a certain sense of happiness for us to be looking out from a window of a room. It is therapeutic resulting in a healing process for both body and soul. This is because in general, we like natural things as in a view of nature. In the absence of such a view, we will view a view and different perspectives that we can get from arts such as paintings. Arts have proven to promote mental health and has almost the same effect of looking out a window to a view of nature.

Learning and knowledge centres are places and spaces that should be built surrounding such views. In the absence of nature, it should be supplemented with beautiful and thought-provoking arts especially paintings. This is one great opportunity for libraries and other knowledge centres in Malaysia. Together with the local arts community, the library spaces can be a gallery. It is a win-win situation as the library will get more ‘rooms with a view’ and the artists will have a gallery for their products.

This is one of the best parts of working at BNM. It really utilises its art collections to enhance the knowledge spaces. I have visited many libraries in Malaysia and saw a lot of opportunities in the area. Rather than putting up ‘factory arts’ we can have the originals by the local artists displayed. I suggested this to some libraries to work with the local artists. Good to see Pustaka Sarawak and PPAS leading the way for public libraries. PPAS really leverage its Royal Arts Collection. Some may say this will be an additional security challenge. I say it worth it as the benefits outweigh the risk tenfolds.

Footnote:

 

1. Farley, K. & Veitch, Jennifer. (2001). A Room with a View: A Review of the Effects of Windows on Work and Well-Being. 10.4224/20378971. 

2. Hansen, Margaret & Jones, Reo & Tocchini, Kirsten. (2017). Shinrin-Yoku (Forest Bathing) and Nature Therapy: A State-of-the-Art Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 14. 851. 10.3390/ijerph14080851

3. https://theconversation.com/brain-research-shows-the-arts-promote-mental-health-136668

A Time To Let Go

I wrote this in 1994 and I just feel like it was yesterday. 

I decided to park the van there in front of the Shariah Court and took a minibus to PWTC. I walked to the PWTC from Chow Kit as that was the first time in so many years. I really did enjoy my walk until I saw a woman carrying a bag in her right hand and holding her son on the left. My thought went straight away to Ghazi. I just didn’t know, maybe because the area was where I used to walk with him when we were wanderers of KL. Then I saw the back slump of Chow Kit, how some people live there, took me back to the worst part of my life with my young son. At that moment at 3 pm 19 August 1994, for the first time after almost a year working with a steady job, I realised how far I had gone through the hardship with Ghazi. Only both of us would know and feel not even his mother in this context. 

Sam, Baqir, Az-Zahra and Ghazi had gone to sleep, but I have to write this down now. I just do not want to lose the moment and really learn and be thankful to Allah for what he had given me and my family. No matter what other people might say, we had been successful to this day in our test of life. 

A Time to Let Go 

No matter how tough you are, there will be a time that you will be totally hopeless. It is especially true when your first child is breaking away from you to join the mainstream, school. It is true to me anyway. It never occurs to me that I am going to feel this way when my son started going to school. The thought that he is going to take a school bus every morning and be back on the same bus in the evening never really compute. It seems so unnatural and as if I cannot accept the situation. Two days to go, on the 1st Dec. 1994 he is actually going to do just that to me. Whether I like it or not he has to go through it alone. I am so hopeless...........