Sunday, January 30, 2011

Which of the favours of your Lord do you deny? (Ar-Rahman)

In the name of Allah the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful..

Pernah tak rasa banyaknya benda-benda yang sangat "challenging" berlaku dalam hidup kita? Menyusahkan kita, memenatkan kita dan membuatkan kita rasa, "mencabarnya....". Atau kita tidak mendapat apa yang kita mahukan...atau ada yang menyedihkan berlaku..

Saya rasa ubat paling mujarab apabila perkara-perkara ini berlaku ialah dengan ingat balik semua benda-benda "senang" yang Allah kurniakan. Rahmat, anugerah, rezeki, kejayaan, kasih-sayang, kesenangan dan segala perkara yang menggembirakan, yang Allah telah berikan.

Kalo ingat-ingat balik, kira-kira, yang mana lebih banyak sebenarnya? Perkara-perkara susah ke perkara senang dan membahagiakan?

Tidak ada sesuatu kesusahan (atau bala bencana)
yang ditimpakan di bumi,
dan tidak juga yang menimpa diri kamu,
melainkan telah sedia ada di dalam Kitab (pengetahuan Kami)
sebelum Kami menjadikannya;
sesungguhnya mengadakan yang demikian itu
adalah mudah bagi Allah.


(Kamu diberitahu tentang itu) supaya
kamu tidak bersedih hati
akan apa yang telah luput daripada kamu,
dan tidak pula bergembira (secara sombong dan bangga)
dengan apa yang diberikan kepada kamu.
Dan (ingatlah), Allah tidak suka
kepada tiap-tiap orang yang sombong takbur,
lagi membanggakan diri.

[Surah Al-Hadid : 22-23]


When I try to remember the blessings Allah has bestowed upon me, it is indeed most humbling..

I could not count, over the years, of so many things that ever happened. Allah, indeed belongs to You all glorification..


Thank you Allah for all that You have bestowed upon me:)

Thank You, Allah..

“[...] and if you should count the favors of Allah, you could not enumerate them,” (14:34)

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Lift, Stairs and I

Alhamdulillah, esok Jumaat.

I started attending class last Friday (21.1.2011).

It was my "ófficial" first day. I decided to take bus from my house to go to class. I was quite worried to drive as the class start at 8am, I did not really know the road inside UiTM, and the main reason was, my car got its first "scratch" a.k.a "calar" on 12.1.2011, (the day I took Emergency Leave from KPMG to go to class). I left the car somewhere in parking area at 8am and I saw the "scratch" when I want to drive home at 4pm. Being quite worried for the incident to happen again, I took the bus.

I stopped at bus stop near Kolej Seroja and walked uphill, climbing and taking stairs for about 3 floors before I can arrive the ground floor of Accounting Faculty.

It's such a dramatic moment, when I realised that all the lift are not working, which means that I have to take stairs to 14th floor. My class is at 14th floor!

Everyone was taking stairs, I have no choice then. So, I took the stairs, one by one, and strongly believe that i will faint at 7th floor (added that there's already apprx 3 floors before the ground floor). With that in mind, my hand kept on holding the side of the stairs...walked slowly and ready to faint=D. 8th floor, 9th floor...10 floor...I wait and wait, to faint. Suddenly I realised I already in 14th floor! safe and sound!

The lecturer was not yet in the class when I stepped in. I glimpsed at my watch, was it only 10 minutes to climb to 14th floor?...??


Moral of the story: never underestimate yourself.

p/s: second day also climbed the stairs to level 14! yeay, I am healthier=D. No need to weekly visit the park to jogging anymore:D

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Deja Vu: Arthur Andersen-Enron?

Going for the auditors

The ultimate target of the lawsuit may be Lehman’s former bosses

Ernst & Young sued over Lehman

WAS the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 aided by a fraudulent cover-up of balance-sheet shenanigans? Andrew Cuomo, New York’s outgoing attorney-general and incoming state governor, thinks so, and has filed suit against Ernst & Young, Lehman’s auditors.

Mr Cuomo alleges that E&Y committed fraud by signing off on an accounting manoeuvre used by Lehman, known as Repo 105. Under this scheme, towards the end of each quarter Lehman temporarily swapped some of its assets for cash with another bank or investor, but booked this as if it were a permanent sale of the assets. By doing this, it and the other banks that used this manoeuvre in the run-up to the credit crunch made themselves look less indebted in their quarterly results.

The lawsuit seeks penalties equal to all the fees E&Y has earned from Lehman (about $150m) plus unspecified damages which could amount to the same again or more. E&Y says: “We look forward to presenting the facts in a court of law.” However, both sides have an incentive to settle. Jury trials over accounting matters are unpredictable, given their technical nature and jurors’ limited expertise.

The auditing firm says that it obeyed the principles laid down by America’s Financial Accounting Standards Board. In particular, E&Y will argue that one of the board’s rules, FAS 140, allowed it to certify Repo 105 the way it did. However, a report into Lehman’s bankruptcy last March, by a court-appointed examiner, said that while E&Y had become “comfortable” with Lehman’s use of Repo 105, it did not examine the extent to which the investment bank used the manoeuvre or the extent to which this flattered its reported figures. E&Y, fearing a fat-cat-hating “runaway jury” imposing colossal penalties, would probably rather not take its chances at trial. But neither can Mr Cuomo be sure of winning.

E&Y is questioning Mr Cuomo’s use of the Martin Act to bring his case. This state law is a powerful one (and beloved of Mr Cuomo’s predecessor as attorney-general, Eliot Spitzer), since it does not require proof of any intent to defraud. But in its nearly 90 years in force the act, says E&Y, has never before been used against auditors, as opposed to the company that had taken the alleged actions.

One possible outcome is a settlement in which E&Y agrees to co-operate with the prosecutors in cases they may bring against Lehman’s former executives. If so, the fines and sanctions suffered by the auditing firm and its partners may be stiff but not ruinous.

After all, no one wants to cause the fall of another big accounting firm. In 2002 Arthur Andersen was found criminally liable for its shredding of documents and other actions linked to its audits of Enron, a collapsed energy giant. Though Andersen’s conviction was later overturned, the firm was already gone. With just four big accounting firms remaining, and none of the next tier big enough to take up the slack, the corporate world cannot easily handle another accounting-firm failure. This is another reason to suspect that the authorities’ real intent is not a credibility-busting hammer blow against E&Y, but perhaps one against Lehman executives instead.

Source: The Economist

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Moving

Alhamdulillah..

Saya selamat mendaftar dan menjadi pelajar ACCA sepenuh masa.

Hampir semua orang merasakan ini adalah satu keputusan ala-ala nekad.

Saya juga mahu mengatakan begitu.

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InsyaAllah akan cuba hidup sebagai pelajar, dengan cita-cita untuk menamatkan ACCA ini dalam masa setahun. InsyaAllah. Moga Allah membantu dan mempermudahkan.

nota kaki:
10.1.11- Daftar Sebagai Pelajar Sepenuh Masa.
19.1.11- Tarikh Rasmi Berhenti Kerja di KPMG.