bright and shiny

i do not suffer from monday blues today. i am clearing my leave days brought forward from last year. two weeks of bliss. after this, it'll be another 3 days of work at the House, and then i'll be gone for good =D

again, the idea of that sparks mixed emotions. oh, well.

spent my morning doing docent duty at sultan. i have missed that a lot. i stopped when i was busy with ramadan stuff at work, and the projects did not abate post-ramadan. so there was i, leaving the sultan people wondering whether i was still interested in helping out.

docent duty at sultan is not the same as hosting goodwill visits at the House. at the House, i will usually have to take the role of the sole informer, presenting the visitors the roles of religious institutions here, what mosques aim to achieve, the common practices of, and the misconceptions about, muslims, and doing q&a. on some days, it can be quite a one-way thing.

at sultan, it is more intimate, more personal, to me. visitors- tourists, mostly- will come, and it is not so much of imparting info than it is a sharing session. i do not quite like flooding them with information on pillars of faith and such. those are merely the practices, and i do not want them to think that we muslims are regimental, and islam is all about do's and dont's. i believe that there is more to the religion. i prefer to let them know how we live islam here in this country; how we hold on to our values, and try to stay relevant at the same time.

what i get in return is priceless. the visitors would share their experience, opening for me the windows to their life back home. we would then swap stories, debate on education systems and talk about what's hot in the papers. priceless moments, all of these. and more often than not, i would end up with their name cards and email addresses.

wish i could do this full time. what is in store for me, i wonder.

but i do know what i'm gonna do now. finish my assignments, that is. two more to go.