My bookish journaling story

As far as I can remember, I was a sticker hoarder when I was 10 years old. I even had a few sticker albums. And one of the reasons why I was so into stickers at that time was; my childhood bff had the same hobby. 🥰 

Fast forward, being a form 4 & form 5 student in sekolah agama with many tazkirah sessions made me someone who loves to write in notebooks (to jot down tazkirah takeaways) hence the urge to buy them again and again.  

And when I reached my early adulthood, I've fallen in love with writing whatever I have in mind, be it in diaries or blogs. I've found my happiness in spilling out my thoughts, ideas, feelings, experiences, and almost everything. The secret stuffs would go straight into my diaries 🤫 and the ilmiah stuffs would be published to my blogs.

Let's cut the story short; when I was 27, I started my own hijab business with the tagline "empowering muslimah". My goal wasn't only to sell but to inspire other muslimahs and encourage them to be proud of the muslimah 'label' that they have, as well as to keep on trying to be the best version of themselves. 

Since then I realized that I love everything about muslimah including the merchandises, stationeries, stickers and such. 

Books? Hmm where should I begin... In short, growing up has brought me to the path where I am constantly in need of reading. To conclude, let me just say that the book journaling IG that I've created is a comfort space dedicated for the little me, teenage me and current me. 🥲  

I have many IG accounts and most of them are work related. So to have this kind of account simply to celebrate a part of myself feels so good and for me; it's an act of self love. ♥️

p/s: my bookish journaling ig: instagram.com/sajidajournals

I write journal only for the fiction books I've read.

My favorite view. 

Biarkan Hati Turut Merasa

Pernah tak rasa macam, taknak scroll social media tentang Gaza sebab taknak sedih atau broken bila tengok apa yang berlaku di sana? 

Saya akui saya pernah rasa macam tu. Tapi ada satu post ni dia cakap sesuatu tentang perkara ni. Katanya; jangan elak dari tengok. Let our heart feel the pain, let our eyes shed tears, let their stories shatter our hearts. 

Kenapa?

Satu, sebab kita satu umat satu jasad, jadi kita perlu turut rasa kesakitan tu walau takkan 100% sama dengan apa yang mereka rasa. Juga untuk bina empati terhadap saudara kita di sana yang sedang mewakili kita untuk berjuang lawan musuh. 

Dua, sebab hati kita ni akan semakin kuat bila ia hancur & bila ia lalui sakit demi sakit. Hati kita takkan jadi kuat kalau ia tak diuji atau bila kita terlalu cuba untuk jaga dia dari sebarang rasa sedih, kecewa dan sebagainya. 

Bila hati hancur, ia akan cuba bina kekuatan semula untuk bangkit. Dari situ kita belajar untuk bina hati dan dalaman yang kuat. Biarkan airmata kita terus mengalir untuk Gaza, untuk Palestin. Memang selayaknya airmata kita dikeluarkan untuk mereka. 

Perjuangan ini bukan perjuangan mereka sahaja, tetapi juga perjuangan kita. Selain berdoa & jihad al maal (jihad dari segi kewangan untuk bantu mereka terus hidup), kita juga perlu turut terkesan dengan derita mereka. 

Bukan maksudnya kita sengaja menyakiti diri atau menangis meratap sehingga terabai apa yang sepatutnya kita buat, tapi dalam hati kita perlu ada rasa terkesan dengan apa yang terjadi dan perlu usaha untuk sama-sama berjuang mengikut kemampuan yang ada. 

Free Pal3stine.

That low-key life.

It's interesting to see people yang choose to do job yang memerlukan mereka expose diri publicly tapi personal life mereka very private. 

I mean, people can see the works that they do but can hardly see them uploading stuffs related to their personal life on their social media. 

For me it's empowering sebab dia letak boundaries tu, and it's kinda attractive.

I aspire to be like them. Not in term of buat kerja yang require me to expose myself to public, but in term of staying low-key in life. 

Walaupun I update my social media here & there, I am trying my best untuk make sure the content that I share is only related to my work or at least things that don't reveal much about my personal life. 

I am at that phase where I feel it's better if people don't know much about me, including my real name, husband's name and daughters' names. Bukan rahsia, yang tahu, tahu. Yang tak tahu, tiada keperluan untuk tahu. 

To be honest, it's challenging though. Sure I am not the type of person yang biasa share gambar personal in my social media accounts, tapi my 'problem' is; I love writing. Sometimes banyak menulis sampai tak sedar tertulis tentang perkara yang tak perlu ditulis pun. 

So far I can say that I've tried my best to make sure no one really knows about the big things that are currently happening in my life, the challenges I am facing, the difficulties I have to overcome, the big tests I have to deal with since many years ago, and so on so forth. 

Ada masa bila tertekan, terasa juga mahu luahkan di social media tapi, I know I will regret it so I don't. Thanks to Him and thanks to journaling. 

Anyways, I hope I will see more and more growth in me regarding this. 

p/s: copied from my X account hence the caca marba in the languages I use. 

Stadium JDT

Kuantiti Buku Bukan Pengukurnya

A few years back, saya memang fikir "lagi banyak baca buku lagi bagus". Tapi sebenarnya it's more than that. 

Lepas saya tengok Alex and books (famous bookish content creator) pernah kongsi jumlah bacaan dia hanya 60++ buah buku pada tahun tertentu, ia buat saya banyak refleksi diri. 

Saya jadi tertanya kenapa agaknya orang hebat & terkenal dalam bidang membaca macam Alex hanya baca 60 buku sedangkan lebih ramai yang baca 100 buku ke atas. 

Dan saya temui jawapan bahawa; apa kita baca dan sejauh mana kesan positif dari bacaan kepada diri kita; juga perlu jadi ukuran, bukan kuantiti buku semata. 

Dari situ saya mula: 

- tepis rasa insecure bila tengok orang baca lebih banyak buku setiap bulan

- ajar diri rasa selesa untuk baca tanpa terkejar-kejar

- dah tak ada monthly TBR (to-be-read) list 

- suka berlama-lama pada halaman yang bermakna pada saya, samada untuk baca demi betul-betul faham, untuk anotasi, untuk dinikmati bersama kopi, untuk diabadikan dalam format gambar dan sebagainya

- tak kisah reread buku yang sama

- tak kira dah baca berapa buku

Membaca buku bukan pertandingan dengan sesiapa. Tak perlu rasa down bila jumlah bacaan orang lain jauh berganda banyak berbanding kita. 

Yang penting kita tahu kita sudah usahakan yang terbaik, sudah cuba konsisten membaca, sudah cuba fahamkan apa kita baca & cuba praktikkan semampunya ilmu serta nasihat dari bacaan kita. 

Bila kita membaca dengan nama Tuhan, kita tahu kita membaca untuk sentiasa baiki diri untuk jadi hambaNya yang lebih baik. 

I am not a serious person.

I am not a serious nor a shy person. 

I might be quiet at times but I am also that type of woman yang mudah terhibur & I love people yang mudah terhibur. For me these kind of people are the people who can appreciate little things in life amidst the struggles. 

Yes, people see me as someone who writes a lot about life's reflection, self growth and so on. But that doesn't mean I am all the time serious. Get to know me, talk to me and if I am comfortable with you, you'll see a part of me that you never see online.

When I look back, the people I am comfortable with are all 'crazy' people. 🥲♥️ They're the type of friends who are loud,  happy go lucky, extroverts & not ala-ala perempuan melayu terakhir. 

I am not really a loud person, hence why I think they complement me. Oh how I miss them so much. Life happens and here I am, without them.

Studio Sajida

I was reading a book about course creator and the author mentioned that it's still significant for a course creator to update their blog once in a while; for the sake of SEO. 

So here I am, trying to update my beloved blog. There's nothing much to share about my life but let me write here about my current job. 

Some people think my job is a book reviewer, and some even think that I am a full time author. Truth be told, I no longer do paid book reviews (coz I wanna choose the book I read on my own, and I don't wanna force myself to finish reading a book simply because someone paid me to do so). 

My current source of income is actually from the course I offer, it's called Muslimah Content Masterclass. So it's basically an online course where people (specifically Muslimah) are being taught about building their personal brand through creating content on the topics they choose. 

I wanna inspire women to realize that they can be confident, can have their own income, and they will keep growing as an individual if they truly practice being a content creator; and being consistent in optimizing their platform to help others as well as to spread knowledge. 

I don't want our generation to use social media mainly for updating stories of their life and family, but way beyond that. Hence why I tell my students that a content creator is different from an influencer (in term of their online content). 

So what's with Studio Sajida? Well, that's my IG username, the name I use to build my personal brand regarding the niche. Muslimah Content Masterclass is one of the classes that I offer. 

I guess I need to sleep now. It's already 0122 hours. Good night! 

Of the UK, my childhood dream and us.

One of my childhood dreams was to go back to the UK to experience going to school there. I was born in Scotland but my family returned to Malaysia when I was only 9 months (if I am not mistaken) coz Abah had completed his degree. 

When I was in primary school, I had quite a number of friends who came back from the UK and undoubtedly their English speaking & writing skills are profound. And that surely increased the desire in me to go there too, to improve my English proficiency as well as to 'balik kampung.' 

When I was 10, I kinda heard my mom said that there's possibility for Abah to pursue his master in the UK. Upon hearing that, I had an indescribable feeling inside. 🥹 

I vividly remember having beautiful dreams of waking up in a room with a snowy view from the window, touching down the Heathrow Airport, as well as spending the weekends with family in London. I prayed even harder since then, for Abah to fly there and bring the whole family with him.

Well, Allah knows best and that didn't happen. However on that particular year, Abah went to the UK for work matters for 2 weeks and he brought back luggages of gifts and chocolates! 😍 I still remember how wonderful I felt at that time to receive items from the UK. It kinda heal my yearning to visit my birthplace. 

I can say that, knowing the fact that I was born in the Scotland is a motivation for me to keep improving my English. It makes me fall in love with reading English books as well as talking to myself in English. 

Till today, I still long to be there, to walk on the quiet roads in Scotland, to experience raining season in lovely Edinburgh, as well as to spend time for bookstores-hopping. ♥️

Husband once said that it might be a great idea if we hijrah to the UK for a year or two, for him to pursue his study as well as to experience living abroad. Unfortunately it was kinda joke coz it's not in his mind (yet) to pursue his formal education to the next level. 

He was born in the UK too (many Malaysians my age were born there coz our parents studied there) and returned to Malaysia when he could barely remember anything about it, so he kinda had the same dream as mine about the UK. Fortunately he had the chance to visit England (his birthplace) a year before we got married, and I envy him. 🥲😂

Husband had the dream to pursue his degree in the UK but Allah knows Australia is the best for him at that time, so He sent him there for 2 and a half years. 

Fun fact; I had the opportunity to fly to the UK for degree in accounting but I chose to study in Malaysia instead (precisely UIA) because I don't want to be an accountant, I wanna learn Arabic, or anything related to Islam. And truth be told; at that time I was sure that I don't wanna go to the UK for years and leave my parents. I told myself that if I were to go there without family; it's for traveling and that's it. 

Whatever it is, when the time is right, we'll surely be there bi iznillah. Amin. 🥰