Well, I know they took the photo on a Tuesday morning (rubbish bins are out and haven’t been collected yet). Our current house looks reasonably nice actually. I reckon it was taken some time over the early spring, given the state of the grass.

Even before Yasmin was born, Abu Yasmin and I discussed homeschooling. It’s not that we are averse to schooling as such, but simply most schools do not live up to our expectations for what we want for our daughter. So… the plan was that I would most likely homeschool Yasmin once I finished my PhD. Because submission isn’t until April 2009, we have been thinking that we would send Yasmin to a year of prep in a school. After all… what damage can a year of prep in a normal school do right? Prep isn’t that different to kindergarten, and she already goes to a Muslim private school kindergarten (which she really enjoys).

So, we have been looking around at different options. Because we pass by the local primary school regularly and from the outside it looks pretty grim, we didn’t even bother considering it. Not many expectations there, besides the government standardised testing gets up my nose.
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Well… my Sufi retreat in Indonesia has been cancelled but everything is according to qadr Allah , so it wasn’t meant to be. I am now wondering whether or not I should cancel my flights (and cop the $500 penalty) or should I go to Indonesia myself and just have a holiday. I have never been to Indo before, although my father lived there for nearly fourteen years.

If I go, I will probably end up having to spend a little more (because I will be doing touristy things rather than attending a meditation retreat) and I probably should spend the time working on my PhD rather than doing touristy things. But then I was planning not to be working on my thesis for that time anyhow, and it seems a waste to just lose $500 for nothing.

Maybe I should run a poll hehehehe. What do you guys think?

I know I owe a whole heap of you emails (Umm Aisha, yours delighted me in particular re: da’wah efforts of certain religious organisation) will definitely respond soon inshallah!

I am now the proud owner/user of a CPAP machine. Earlier this year I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnoea after Abu Yasmin desperately begged me to do something about the Richter Scale Splutter Snoring, and swapped beds with the sprog. After a couple of trips to a sleep specialist and a sleep clinic I was given a prescription for the CPAP machine set at 13 cm H2O. (Apparently, most people require somewhere between 6 and 14cm, so I’m at the higher pressure end of things).

The effect has been somewhat startling. Even the sleepover at the hospital where they fitted a mask, and tested what pressure I need, I woke up feeling very alert, and not at all my usual groggy self. I’ve slept with it two nights now, and although I don’t feel like my sleep is any different than normal, I feel very alert and full of energy. So I am now realising just how sleep-deprived I have been for goodness knows how long.

The machine is a bit strange though. I feel like Darth Vadar being hooked up to it. It basically forces air down my windpipe so I can’t talk whilst I have it on (otherwise the air just comes whoooshing out my mouth). That and I have woken up in the middle of the night, once or twice, and pushed it off my face, and then woken up and put it back on again. It also gets wet at night, because the air is humidified so I think that’s why I pushed it off my face. But the benefits of a good night’s sleep are so wonderful I am definitely perservering.