Muffindom

“Life is a matter of choice, and the choice is yours.” Cikgu Zul

I could have invested my time and energy to forge friendships with my batch mates. I did so back in year 1 and 2. Reflecting back, I cannot believe I got close to some of them. Today, we merely smile and wave from far. :’) If anything, it was my fault. I started to drift away as I got busier with my CCA (Muslim Society). Due to this, I got closer to my CCA friends.

Finals for Semester 1, academic year 2017-2018 were approaching fast. So one fine day, one of us decided to study in the library. Humans being social beings, needed social support. One person invited another and then that became a routine for the 5 of us.

Background for memory’s sake: Fatinah introduced me to Athirah and Hazirah. Hazirah was Syahmi’s faci for freshmen orientation day. Slowly, all of us got closer as we worked with each other during Learn Islam Festival 2017 (LIF 2017, an adhoc under MS).

The plan was to update our group whenever one of us came early. Then we would chope seats and send the group the location:

Finals period was crazy as it got harder to chope seats in the library. It was also quite unethical because to chope, meant depriving other students of a seat. Hence we tried common areas such as the study lounges instead where it is a norm to chope seats because it is essentially meant for group discussions.

Just last semester, we tried a different approach. Hazirah and Athirah booked Group Study Rooms (GSR) for us to study. The main reason was to clear the hours we had (each student has a dedicated amount of hours to book facilities) and it was more convenient for us to pray.

However, I found myself unfocused in GSRs because it was SO EASY to get distracted = so easy to talk. Acknowledging my style, I began to study alone or just face a wall or a window and only met up with muffins for solat/lunch/dinner :’)

I love how it has always been organic when I’m with them. We come from different intakes and backgrounds – Social science, Accountancy, Economics and Information Systems and even have conflicting schedules. Circumstance made us more of a support group as we met to eat, solat, exercise and go for MS/MLCC events more than to study. We even organised a badminton and cycling session for other MS exco members to join! How fun.

Above all, they have influenced me so so much in the following areas:

• coming to school early
• eat healthy
• bring own food
• learn more about Islam

For that, alhamdulillah.

Coming to the origins of our group name, I have TBH to thank for the inspiration. I shared an article about pancakes in early November 2017. I liked how pancakes resemble our generation where our networks and knowledge are wide yet without any essence or depth. TBH pointed out that the author actually propagated Muffindom instead. Here is what he said:

Muffins have a wide top symbolizing a wide command of various fields of knowledge while the cake part  shows the ability to store information (depth) instead of an over-reliance of the internet for information.

So we settled on this name, ever since. Thank you, TBH! 🙂

To Muffins, thank you for being such great anchors, source of tranquility and support in an otherwise hectic life as a student. Thank you for all that you’ve done and thank you for today. Thank you for sharing the happiness and joy about each other’s present and future. (Appreciate how each of you were genuinely excited and happy!)

May Allah guide our every step and grant us hasanah always.