“I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.”


skin follow flavors

There are two types of people in this world. One is the people who wear their personalities on their exterior and you can read them like a book, and the other is the people who look different than who they really are and you'll never know who they are until you're really close to them. Ain is definitely the latter.

It's not that she's totally different than who she seems to be, it's just that there's more than meets the eyes. She may look like the shy type, the introvert that's always avoiding the public, but that is definitely not the case. When there's a presentation, or we're debating on who's right, her confidence would be unleashed and she'd be unstoppable. She has an average sound voice, but going deeper in a debate, her voice gets louder and louder without her noticing. There was this one time, we were in my room and we talked for 3 hours straight, and my roomates tried to sleep but they couldn't because Ain's voice was quite loud, and Azwa called me out the room "Bila korang nak habis bercakap ni, aku ngantuk gila, dah pukul 3, tolonglah habiskan perbualan korang tu!" lol. Not only that, they teased me about it the next day. "Dah tau semua rahsia Naelah, ha ha ha" "Haah, tak berniat nak eavesdrop pun tapi suara Ain kuat" (kureng asem punya room mates -_-")

She's very serious when it comes studying, exam season is equivalent to sans Ain moments, because she rarely hangs out with us after papers, and it's totally fine, we understand and respect her for that. Sometimes she does attempt to let loose a bit and try not to study, I think she joined us dancing the other day when we studied at her room, but the guilt creeped up her spine very efficiently and she ended up at her table in no time.

In my observation, Ain changed a lot since the first time I met her. Way back in Semester 1, it was quite obvious that she was homesick and experienced culture shock, which resulted of her constant worrying throughout the whole semester. It wasn't severe, she survived, but Semester 1 seemed like a very hectic period for Ain, for everyone really, but I especially saw it in Ain's situation, and during Semester 2, and I noticed that she was getting used to the whole situation, and by Semester 3, she seemed comfortable. Her integrity is still intact, she just grew out of her naivity, and it's a good thing.

I went to her house the other day. Yup, all the way to Terengganu, because of Una's Huffaz award ceremony thingy. Stayed there for a couple of days, and it opened my eyes to a new side of Ain. I went there about a couple of days after returning from Aisyah's house in Sarawak. After the whole Sarawak craziness, peaceful Terengganu was a really sudden yet soothing atmosphere. This was after her hectic Semester 1, so seeing her in the comfort of her own house, with her loving family, drinking tea, eating keropok during a peaceful evening in Terengganu, was very different. She seemed relaxed, grateful...genuinely happy, her face was radiating with happiness, and I felt happy for her. Living with her family for three days kind of felt like living in one of those happy family photos at the front of a cereal box, her brother being very funny and nice, her mother being great company, Ain herself being very happy about it, and her dad being a normal dad, it kind of almost seem perfect. No wonder Ain's always home sick, Her home's very..homey.

The best thing about Terengganu was the beach, I remember me and Ain just standing there staring at the sea, the waves gushing around our feet and toes in a rhythmic motion, the smell of the wind, the sands, the seashells and everything. The cool breeze blowing in our faces. We stood there for like hours, just staring at the sea, we didn't even talk much, we just stared, lost in our own train of thought. And then we walked along the beach, talking, walking, giggling. For that single momentous event time figuratively seemed to slow down relative to us, and I've never felt so peaceful. I'll never forget that day, the most memorable moment I had with Ain, at the most memorable place on earth.


So here's the thing, we were roomates during Semester 2, and I learnt a lot about Ain during that short period of time, and I believe she learnt a lot about me too. There are so many unspoken things that happened between us that it effected our friendship pretty bad, but what's ukhuwwah without sheds of blood and tears? If anything, I think our friendship grew stronger. She saw me at my worst state of depression, yet right now she's still friends with me, and I think that's quite unbelievable because I was acting so freakishly weird all the time and I thought I freaked her out, but she stayed, and I don't know how to express my gratefulness for her presence.

You see, that's the best thing about Ain, if you tell her to drop it, she'll drop it, stomp it, bury it and the subject will never be brought up again. It's almost magical to find someone who does that. Sometimes I feel noone knows me as much as Ain does, because she surprises me with how accurate her description of me can be. It's weird, because nobody is supposed to know me that well, but Ain inevitably does. I cherish her a lot, and I really mean that, and I don't know how to repay the things Ain has done to me and for me in the course of our friendship, but I do truly honestly want our friendship to last. Ukhuwah fillah.

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