Selamat Hari Raya, Eid Mubarak.

On the occasion of this special month, I'd like to wish everyone a great time in your life. I pray that Allah will grant our wishes, providing that we will work very hard to achieve it (if we're ambitious), otherwise you can wish for something small, and work small, and obviously the result will be small as well.

I'd like to wish for us to be His most loyal believers and for that we will always be happy and blessed by Him under whichever situation we are in. Be true to yourself and treat others with kindness. Happiness comes from within and this is an exercise that you must practice in order to achieve it.

This is my first year celebrating spending the month of Ramadan and Syawal without my family's presence. It feels very strange. I could vividly see my family breaking their fast every evening. The times when they rush out to buy food from Bazaar Ramadan for the whole family. When after iftar, Dad would summon for us to go to the masjid and before going out, we will perform Maghrib prayer together at home. In my mind, I could see my brothers performing their ablutions. And in our room upstairs, my sisters putting on their praying gown. Mom would already be sitting down on the praying mat, reciting surah Yaasin or maybe some other verses from the Quran.

Alhamdulillah, I haven't really had the chance to celebrate the first day of Syawal, but I had the opportunity to spend some hours during an open house with fellow Indonesians and Singaporeans residing in Sweden and they're very friendly towards me. I felt instantly at home when I entered the house of Mbak Lala and Pak Mat.

And next week it will be the meeting with Malaysian ambassador at Malaysian embassy in Stockholm. Also going to be my first time in Stockholm. I'm super excited! I'm planning to give my business card to the ambassador :-)