Assalamualaikum and hello!
Before I continue, let me just go back down memory lane by recalling that I used to start my posts with 'Assalamualaikum' back when I started writing in this blog until in high school (?) I think and I stopped, thinking that I want this blog to be read by a wider audience including Muslims and non-Muslims alike and don't want anyone to be put off by the greeting more commonly used by Muslims (in Malaysia at least, I know in some countries it's the standard greeting like "How are you?"). However, the meaning behind it - peace be upon you, is one that I think we all could use more of in our lives and I sincerely pray for everyone's peace in this troubling times, hence I'm thinking of bringing it back at the beginning of my posts haha.
Day... ? of quarantine. I don't know. As I'm writing this I'm playing my Ultimate K-Pop Favs Spotify playlist on shuffle, currently on the song Genie by SNSD with BTS' Dope just finished. It's raining heavily outside, as it has for the past few weeks around this time. My mom, brothers and my sister-in-law are in the living room watching Once Upon A Time in Hollywood on the TV's Netflix. My dad is reciting the Al-Quran upstairs. Two cats of mine are nearby me. I acknowledge that I am very privileged to be able to live comfortably now and am very grateful for it. I know that there are so many out there struggling, that there are frontliners risking their lives, and the least we can do to not make anything worse is to stay at home, pray for the less fortunate and try our best to help them including supporting donation/charity projects, local businesses etc. I couldn't do much as a student myself with no income of my own, but I did donate this past week to a few organizations including The Lost Food Project, my Pertubuhan Pusat Kebajikan Destiny I volunteered at, Universiti Malaya's Medical Centre, Zoo Negara Malaysia, JAKIM's Tabung Musaadah COVID-19 and the Islamic Medical Association of Malaysia (the one that was also popularized by Vivy Yusof through her Instagram, regardless of whatever controversy she's going through now) to help those who are affected by COVID-19. I got inspired by this posting I saw in which students are donating RM10 to this organization, which might sound little to some but makes a big difference when a lot of people come together to do the same. I'm hoping with the small contribution I can make, it can help reduce even a little bit of burden to those who are going through hard times. The website Kita Jaga Kita: www.kitajagakita.us has been really helpful as it's a website that compiles all the local organizations people could help out with together with their link and info for donation purposes.
So the title of this post is Routine as I intended to write about my routine these past few weeks. Still like before, I've been lazing around a lot. I barely stick through any routine. My sleep patterns have been really weird the past few months and on most days I sleep after 3AM. I try to lay in bed in the dark a bit earlier but my mind starts to overthink and gets hyperactive when I try to force myself to sleep. Luckily, most of the time they're not negative they're just very loud.. thoughts? Ideas? Making up conversations and situations? Thinking of shows or celebrities or controversies? Thoughts of my friends, family and acquaintances? Yeah. A unit I'm taking this semester is Positive Psychology, and for an assignment I'm supposed to write three good things that happened in a day every night before I sleep so I've been doing that too. A lot of times I ran out of things to write and have to rack my brains thinking for a good thing that happened in the day. It's not that I'm unhappy, it's just that things are constant every day and it's a repetition of the same things again and again. For some reason too, I tried exercising before sleeping and that lasted for only a week I guess haha. There I was at 2AM every day doing 30 sit-ups, 30 leg lifts, 30 side leg-lifts for each leg, 30 squats, 1 minute of planking and 30 seconds of wall-sitting for god know what reason. Buang tabiat ke apa. No wonder I can't sleep at night.
Another assignment of mine for a unit called Health Psychology is to change a behavior of mine over a span of six weeks and I've chosen to reduce my social media usage. I tracked my usage for the baseline data and found out I spend an average of over 7 hours on my phone with almost 5 hours on social media every day (why am I pretending to be surprised here I know I waste a lot of time). My goal by the end of the 6th week is to reduce my social media usage to 30 minutes per day HAHAHA. I've deactivated my online accounts so many times before but this one will be different and more difficult I guess because I have to control myself while the apps are still on my phone and I can't uninstall them.
Anyway, I still do visit the 'toxic' accounts I follow from time to time to know the news and noticed how toxic everyone is getting while staying at home and being online all the time. For example, an American online news outlet interviewed this American-Chinese teenage girl living in KL about how's it like here now and I guess just because she said her friends can't jog/run anymore they're stressed, followed by the strict law enforcing happening on the roads etc, so many Malaysians start attacking her for her privilege and choice of things she's stressed for. I personally think, yes, those who still jog at this time especially the ones highlighted in affluent neighborhoods like in Mont Kiara are irritating and entitled for ignoring the calls to stay at home, but I also feel that for the girl.. it was just a statement she said.. She could've said so many other things but the news outlet chose to cut out that scene to be put in the beginning... so people think it's alright to cyberbully her?
Which brings me to my next controversial point, about Vivy Yusof. My opinion is a highly unpopular one probably. So she got attacked because people screenshot her replies to someone who's downgrading the government's efforts to help the B40 community. I personally think Vivy's words were taken out of context and that the other person was the more spiteful one for her disgusting comments assuming that the poor will immediately buy a new phone etc from the help received when they're struggling to survive now especially when work is being laid off. I believe in freedom of speech, and have nothing against people now questioning Vivy's competency to be in the board of directors (?) of UITM, with over 200,000 people signing the petition to fire her from the post. I do, however, have problems with the amount of slandering, fake news, and cyberbullying that is spouting out from this issue, which is inciting more hate. Criticism should be constructive and objective. From people making up viral posts and images supposedly quoting her saying something she never did, to people wishing her to go bankrupt, to bashing her choice of language spoken instead of evaluating her points objectively, to wishing ill to her family, her mom, her children... that just doesn't cut it out for me. I hope we are constantly reminded that all our words and actions here will be taken into consideration during Judgement Day. I also hope we are all reminded to be grateful that our lives as 'normal' people aren't frequently scrutinized, judged, that each of our postings aren't being screenshot and our conversations recorded. How many times have we done something bad or said weird stuff that could be hurtful which could potentially be used by others as justification to bash us, hidden simply because Allah is covering up our sins, our aib to the public? Like what someone I look up to, Raja Sarina have said: One day you could be the one everyone has a problem with and you wish you had been kinder to the person you once criticised so harshly.
Whew I didn't expect to write that long about that. But yes, this has been really stressful times for a lot of people, and I can't blame others fully for people being fueled up by the things they see online, especially from people who seem to be out of touch by the reality of people going through hardship. I've gone off my main Twitter account for this reason for a while and taking a step back really made me see how the site is encouraging us to be extra negative to others now especially, in which every statement can be seen through dark-tinted glasses.
I don't know the direction I'm going in this post anymore haha. Um. I finished reading Gantung 2 and Musketeers by Nadia Khan and am now reading another Malay book by the Fixi publishing company called Feminis by Taufik Morhaiji. I started watching The Untamed and am now 14 episodes in. Yesterday I managed to catch up with all my lectures and readings so far as for Week 3. Am still procrastinating on my assignment. I feel like one of the reasons why I'm contemplating so much on whether to continue with my Honors year is that I have problems in doing my assignments and catching up with deadlines. I just feel like it takes away the love from learning. I love learning. I love education. I love new knowledge. I love listening to the lectures and reading the prescribed readings from textbooks and academic journals. I'm just being a typical university student who hates doing assignments haha. I really can't imagine having to continue working on assignments up until Honors, Masters, or PhD.. that's like around.. 7 more years or more? The thought churns my stomach. I just wish I could skip to the working part, but these are things I have to get through to reach that level. Sigh.
I guess that's it. Oooh I haven't ended my posts with song recommendations like I used to in a while.
Before I continue, let me just go back down memory lane by recalling that I used to start my posts with 'Assalamualaikum' back when I started writing in this blog until in high school (?) I think and I stopped, thinking that I want this blog to be read by a wider audience including Muslims and non-Muslims alike and don't want anyone to be put off by the greeting more commonly used by Muslims (in Malaysia at least, I know in some countries it's the standard greeting like "How are you?"). However, the meaning behind it - peace be upon you, is one that I think we all could use more of in our lives and I sincerely pray for everyone's peace in this troubling times, hence I'm thinking of bringing it back at the beginning of my posts haha.
Day... ? of quarantine. I don't know. As I'm writing this I'm playing my Ultimate K-Pop Favs Spotify playlist on shuffle, currently on the song Genie by SNSD with BTS' Dope just finished. It's raining heavily outside, as it has for the past few weeks around this time. My mom, brothers and my sister-in-law are in the living room watching Once Upon A Time in Hollywood on the TV's Netflix. My dad is reciting the Al-Quran upstairs. Two cats of mine are nearby me. I acknowledge that I am very privileged to be able to live comfortably now and am very grateful for it. I know that there are so many out there struggling, that there are frontliners risking their lives, and the least we can do to not make anything worse is to stay at home, pray for the less fortunate and try our best to help them including supporting donation/charity projects, local businesses etc. I couldn't do much as a student myself with no income of my own, but I did donate this past week to a few organizations including The Lost Food Project, my Pertubuhan Pusat Kebajikan Destiny I volunteered at, Universiti Malaya's Medical Centre, Zoo Negara Malaysia, JAKIM's Tabung Musaadah COVID-19 and the Islamic Medical Association of Malaysia (the one that was also popularized by Vivy Yusof through her Instagram, regardless of whatever controversy she's going through now) to help those who are affected by COVID-19. I got inspired by this posting I saw in which students are donating RM10 to this organization, which might sound little to some but makes a big difference when a lot of people come together to do the same. I'm hoping with the small contribution I can make, it can help reduce even a little bit of burden to those who are going through hard times. The website Kita Jaga Kita: www.kitajagakita.us has been really helpful as it's a website that compiles all the local organizations people could help out with together with their link and info for donation purposes.
So the title of this post is Routine as I intended to write about my routine these past few weeks. Still like before, I've been lazing around a lot. I barely stick through any routine. My sleep patterns have been really weird the past few months and on most days I sleep after 3AM. I try to lay in bed in the dark a bit earlier but my mind starts to overthink and gets hyperactive when I try to force myself to sleep. Luckily, most of the time they're not negative they're just very loud.. thoughts? Ideas? Making up conversations and situations? Thinking of shows or celebrities or controversies? Thoughts of my friends, family and acquaintances? Yeah. A unit I'm taking this semester is Positive Psychology, and for an assignment I'm supposed to write three good things that happened in a day every night before I sleep so I've been doing that too. A lot of times I ran out of things to write and have to rack my brains thinking for a good thing that happened in the day. It's not that I'm unhappy, it's just that things are constant every day and it's a repetition of the same things again and again. For some reason too, I tried exercising before sleeping and that lasted for only a week I guess haha. There I was at 2AM every day doing 30 sit-ups, 30 leg lifts, 30 side leg-lifts for each leg, 30 squats, 1 minute of planking and 30 seconds of wall-sitting for god know what reason. Buang tabiat ke apa. No wonder I can't sleep at night.
Another assignment of mine for a unit called Health Psychology is to change a behavior of mine over a span of six weeks and I've chosen to reduce my social media usage. I tracked my usage for the baseline data and found out I spend an average of over 7 hours on my phone with almost 5 hours on social media every day (why am I pretending to be surprised here I know I waste a lot of time). My goal by the end of the 6th week is to reduce my social media usage to 30 minutes per day HAHAHA. I've deactivated my online accounts so many times before but this one will be different and more difficult I guess because I have to control myself while the apps are still on my phone and I can't uninstall them.
Anyway, I still do visit the 'toxic' accounts I follow from time to time to know the news and noticed how toxic everyone is getting while staying at home and being online all the time. For example, an American online news outlet interviewed this American-Chinese teenage girl living in KL about how's it like here now and I guess just because she said her friends can't jog/run anymore they're stressed, followed by the strict law enforcing happening on the roads etc, so many Malaysians start attacking her for her privilege and choice of things she's stressed for. I personally think, yes, those who still jog at this time especially the ones highlighted in affluent neighborhoods like in Mont Kiara are irritating and entitled for ignoring the calls to stay at home, but I also feel that for the girl.. it was just a statement she said.. She could've said so many other things but the news outlet chose to cut out that scene to be put in the beginning... so people think it's alright to cyberbully her?
Which brings me to my next controversial point, about Vivy Yusof. My opinion is a highly unpopular one probably. So she got attacked because people screenshot her replies to someone who's downgrading the government's efforts to help the B40 community. I personally think Vivy's words were taken out of context and that the other person was the more spiteful one for her disgusting comments assuming that the poor will immediately buy a new phone etc from the help received when they're struggling to survive now especially when work is being laid off. I believe in freedom of speech, and have nothing against people now questioning Vivy's competency to be in the board of directors (?) of UITM, with over 200,000 people signing the petition to fire her from the post. I do, however, have problems with the amount of slandering, fake news, and cyberbullying that is spouting out from this issue, which is inciting more hate. Criticism should be constructive and objective. From people making up viral posts and images supposedly quoting her saying something she never did, to people wishing her to go bankrupt, to bashing her choice of language spoken instead of evaluating her points objectively, to wishing ill to her family, her mom, her children... that just doesn't cut it out for me. I hope we are constantly reminded that all our words and actions here will be taken into consideration during Judgement Day. I also hope we are all reminded to be grateful that our lives as 'normal' people aren't frequently scrutinized, judged, that each of our postings aren't being screenshot and our conversations recorded. How many times have we done something bad or said weird stuff that could be hurtful which could potentially be used by others as justification to bash us, hidden simply because Allah is covering up our sins, our aib to the public? Like what someone I look up to, Raja Sarina have said: One day you could be the one everyone has a problem with and you wish you had been kinder to the person you once criticised so harshly.
Whew I didn't expect to write that long about that. But yes, this has been really stressful times for a lot of people, and I can't blame others fully for people being fueled up by the things they see online, especially from people who seem to be out of touch by the reality of people going through hardship. I've gone off my main Twitter account for this reason for a while and taking a step back really made me see how the site is encouraging us to be extra negative to others now especially, in which every statement can be seen through dark-tinted glasses.
I don't know the direction I'm going in this post anymore haha. Um. I finished reading Gantung 2 and Musketeers by Nadia Khan and am now reading another Malay book by the Fixi publishing company called Feminis by Taufik Morhaiji. I started watching The Untamed and am now 14 episodes in. Yesterday I managed to catch up with all my lectures and readings so far as for Week 3. Am still procrastinating on my assignment. I feel like one of the reasons why I'm contemplating so much on whether to continue with my Honors year is that I have problems in doing my assignments and catching up with deadlines. I just feel like it takes away the love from learning. I love learning. I love education. I love new knowledge. I love listening to the lectures and reading the prescribed readings from textbooks and academic journals. I'm just being a typical university student who hates doing assignments haha. I really can't imagine having to continue working on assignments up until Honors, Masters, or PhD.. that's like around.. 7 more years or more? The thought churns my stomach. I just wish I could skip to the working part, but these are things I have to get through to reach that level. Sigh.
I guess that's it. Oooh I haven't ended my posts with song recommendations like I used to in a while.
Lizzo ft Ariana Grande - Good As Hell. It's a song that makes me feel better, and I could imagine listening to this song after going through a breakup haha. It's the kind of song that makes you want to shout YES I'M A STRONG WOMAN I GOT THIS I'M DOING GREAT!!!!!!
Actually for some reason for the past few months I've been listening to a lot of mainstream Western pop songs by amazing female singers, the kind that makes you feel like it's great being a woman the kind that hypes you up the kind that makes you embrace your femininity you know? Like Dua Lipa, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande... god knows how much I've listened to thank u, next, no tears left to cry, 7 rings, Don't Start Now, and songs in the Lover album... what have I turned into...
Anyway, thanks for reading this lengthy post and have a great year ahead! Assalamualaikum!
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