Conkers

I had a dream last night that Chelsea had beaten Manchester United to the Champions League trophy tomorrow. After which I promptly woke up, realising with relief that the game hadn’t yet been played.

This could be a sign. I’ve had them before, if only a few. Saying that, I am quite ill at the moment, I have a bad chest and throat. Maybe what it was really saying to me was that Chelsea would only escape victorious if the Manc players were somehow poisoned?

We’ll see tomorrow night…

‘Twas awesome! An amazing trip, I’m really glad I went. I’ve never experienced anything like the gathering that took place there. In just the short space of a few days I now know what I’ve been missing so much, and to have found it again is a sublime feeling. At one point during a talk by Sidi Mounir, (grandson of the shiekh Sidi Hamza) I just broke down. It’s strange how much the many truths of this world can affect you when somebody speaks out about them, yet in reality we stare these truths in the eye everyday and choose to just ignore them. For me personally, I realised how far gone I was from my religion and it scared the hell out of me.

The most beautful thing about gatherings like these is that everybody there is searching for the same thing, trying to attain the same goals; to get closer to God, to increase their knowledge of him and his creation, to pave their way to heaven. When you’re in their company there is no shortage of hospitality, of understanding, of love and advice you can recieve. They, the tariqa, are all just one big family, regardless of cultural or language barriers they all share a connection.

I came back on Monday morning and I’m still dazed. I thought I should write this down becauseit’s still fresh in my mind and I want to savour it. Anyway, I might just get me one of these photo album things to add here to add some photos from my trips around.

Tonight we held a short tariqa gathering at my house. It was good, I really enjoyed it, although I was expecting more people. But it turned out well all the same, seeing as we had just enough food to feed everyone, heh. Hopefully I want to attend them more regularly and get myself motivated to learn more Qur’an su’rah’s…

I should insha’allah be going to Paris at the end of this month for a gathering there. Going by minibus! :O

A few weeks back I began to plan out a graphic novel. Basically it’s based loosely around religion (mainly Islam, obviously), and what it means to be, or not to be a Muslim for various people. I know, very vague, but that’s all I’m saying at the moment. It’s going to be my biggest and longest project to date, probably encompassing a few years to complete. Although it’s split into 3 books, so you won’t have to wait that long for the first edition.

I’m dead excited about this. Not least because it has a lot of meaning, to me, to everyone, religious and non-religious alike. What is coming has been festering in my brain for a while now, and is going to be relevant to the global situation we find ourselves in now, mainly focusing on a clash of ideologies.

Well that’s enough from me. More soon I hope!

On Saturday night I finally had my calling. It wasn’t filled to the brim with false, unworthy ambitions. It wasn’t tainted by opinions. It was my calling. The barriers around my soul were lifted, if only for the night. And I was free.

So, apparently an earthquake hit England last night, at around 1:30AM. I can’t believe the one night when I choose to sleep early, something out of the ordinary happens? Lol. Anyway, not much has changed here. Still have the same aspirations as last time. I started my graphic novel/comic, and it’s coming along slooowly.
Today I went out for maybe 2/3 hours photographing nature. Tree’s and fields and pond’s, that sort of thing. I had this idea that I would start off with really beautiful, unspoilt nature, then gradually show rubbish and pollution seeping into the atmosphere. And show this in kind of a slideshow based movie. Some book I bought last week on graphic design inspired me I guess. I don’t use photography enough. And I also realised, I love to just begin projects at the last stage of production. Totally miss research and planning. I think too much about the end result and not about the journey. The funnest part I’m missing!

Oh, and I got a graphics tablet! It’s a really nice and smooth one, a Wacom Bambo. It’s pretty cool because although it’s only A6 scale-wise, the pen-to-pixel resolution projects it into a larger size. Strangely, it doesn’t seem to affect me so much. I suppose it might take me a while to get used to, but it just can’t beat drawing with a good old pencil on good old paper. If it wasn’t for instant coloring on Photoshop I’d say forget it.

I love my blog’s style at the moment =P

…and its really starting to kick in. Its depressing waking up in the morning with nothing on your agenda that is urgent, or that really needs to be done or else. I know this sounds strange, but I need stability, a routine. I feel useless right now. I hate to whine but I need to say it. I could do what I love, designing, and I am almost everyday, but what’s the return on it? At the moment, nothing.

Entertainment. Past couple of months, I’ve come across some OLD stuff that I like. There is Firefly,  a great TV show that got cancelled after 14 episodes for the sole reason of being shown at the wrong times to the wrong people. It’s a damn shame as well, it is the greatest show I’ve ever come across on TV. Damn Fox.

There is FarCry, an original PC game about a boat skipper named Jack Carver who finds himself in trouble on a beautiful island full of mercenaries. I love it so far, it’s exciting. One review call’s it the game ‘Halo could have been’ if it continued to be a PC game (that is, freeform and gorgeous). Heh, I just think it is the game Halo could have been but wasn’t. Albiet, this game isn’t that old, 2 years. Another game I picked up for a quid is Hidden & Dangerous, lost interest in completing it after picking up FarCry but it is a landmark game which deserves the title.

There is also the new stuff. Coming out of America we have a series based on Terminator, The Sarah Connor Chronicles. If I didn’t respect the vision of the original trilogy, or just have a general liking for Terminator I doubt I would like this show. Some of the acting is a little silly, some good. But the plots are refreshing, mostly because they have a plot.

I never seem to do these technology/media posts. I’ve never really had time to in the past. I shouldn’t really have time now, but here I am at 7:10am writing.

I started to learn Javascript last night. Ever since I discovered I could run PHP scripts on my domain I’ve been looking into it, but never really had the time or enthusiasm to learn. Now I suppose I know it’s within my sights so I’ve gone ahead.  Main functions I’ve played around with today are pop-up windows (potentially useful addition to my portfolio) and slideshows. I’m also interested in running seperate pages inside of one page, I’m guessing it involves sort of the same process as slideshows. Should be pretty good applying CSS styles to them too.