Surprises galore!!!

Yesterday i received a basketful of SURPRISES...

to begin with my 1st surprise: since Ramadan is on Wednesday, Linus* sms-ed me that he would meet me for lunch at 1pm after he finished his lunch with his friends. and then he would continue his 'gung ho-ness' after his 1st appointment to meet me and these 2 appointments will take up 2 hours of his time. i was touched and went like: "waah... really ah?am i dreaming?" i feel like asking someone to pinch me. so i excitedly waited till 1245hrs and i called him. but there was no answer on the phone. i panicked. i sms-ed him. no reply. was it called off? i missed two buses and before i knew it, i was in a limousine cab. haha. i told the driver my destination but i told him if only i could go further because it's a Mercedes taxi man. No joke!!! anyway, when i was in the taxi, he called and told me he would be late... hmmm... and because he already had lunch, he just sat there and watched me eat. so that was it, the LAST LUNCH of the month for me.

2nd surprise came from a friend i knew from my secondary school. this friend of mine frequent my previous house because we stayed very near to each other. i think he would forgive me for my forgetfulness because i cant recall which block he stayed. we actually exchanged phone numbers when i first met him at a coffeeshop after a gap of more than 7years. i was reluctant to give him my number at first but i recalled that we used to share a very good platonic friendship. he called quite a couple of times but i told him i was busy and we never talked for more than 10mins. it was only last sunday, i made the effort to talk to him a little longer. before he hung up, i told him that there was a big turning point in my life. after some brief exchanges, he said we should meet up.

so yesterday, i choose to meet at my favourite hangout after work. as usual, i normally don my headscarf after work. i was kinda afraid that my friend would felt uncomfortable seeing me in the attire and i didnt want to compromise my commandments too just because i want to accomodate my friend. so i sms-ed him and told him that i would be in a blue headscarf. he asked me why. i told him that its' a religious commandment. after that he didnt respond when i asked him for a final confirmation. i was worried about being stood up by him. patiently waited for him. thank God, he appeared.

the first thing he said about me was: "you looked very cute." i was pretty amazed. after wearing for so long, i never received such compliments. i dont see it as sarcasm but just very interesting comment about my new attire. so i told him to get his food if he didnt want mee soto. occasionally, i mixed english with mandarin. and guess what, after he left the table. another handsome guy sitting next to me turned to me and said: "your mandarin very good. very fluent." i told him: "of course, i'm a chinese." then he went: "Oh... i see..."

when my friend came back, he asked for a bigger table. so while we were looking around, the handsome guy actually offered his seat to us but we didnt take because he was still eating. when we finally got a seat, shortly after he finished and even walked past to said 'bye-bye' to me. this is not the first time i get stares from men when they see a tudung clad woman talking in mandarin...

after dinner, we continued chit-chatting at a void deck near my house. so we talked about life, relationships, family problems, work, goals and religion. he was curious about my decision to convert. and he was also the only one who doesnt express extreme thoughts. even though his perceptions are almost similar like the rest of the people, his opinions were not based one-sided and that really surprised me alot. except for the few times he joked about the way i looked but he didnt make me uncomfortable.

he had spent 3 years studying on christianity and because many people felt that chrisitianity and islam have many similarities, it's never been an easy task to discuss about religion with a christian. but at least there's room for more open talk because he's positive about learning from other religions.. but he said that the belief that i have now would change in the future. but i told him NOPE because i was sure that i had found the TRUTH.

i asked him if he's interested to attend an orientation course about islam, he said he's game for it.

Good, i told him. God's will. we will arrange for him to go for the orientation. hee hee...