Roll On: What Did I Do In One Year After Graduating

It's actually about a month or two more but for the sake of generalisation and simple title, we'll stick with one year.

This takes forever to finish because believe it or not, I'm busy. I started writing before Independence Day and well, we'll see when will it finally been published.

eheh. sorry not sorry.
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I'll tell you guys properly later (as in God knows when later truly means) on why I am not a pharmacist yet. Please just believe me that I'm not doing this for fun. But for now, I'm gonna share what I did in all these time.

Let's do this then.

#1 I worked as a substitute teacher for 2 months

About a month after finishing my study, a friend of mine told me about a substitute teacher opening. It is not under Jabatan Pendidikan Negeri (JPN) but was under Persatuan Ibu Bapa dan Guru (PIBG) instead. Apparently, even with the shortage of teachers, JPN just not hiring more substitute teachers. To cope with it, the PIBG gave some money for the school to hire independently. The salary is small (the teachers called it compensation instead of salary). I taught History to Form One student and Bahasa Malaysia to Form Two students. It was a really good expose for me befriending the teachers and the kids. I was really enjoying teaching too. However, it was quite a big challenge for me in being patient and coping with the more badly behaved kids. All and all, I'll do it all over again if I was given another chance at it.

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#2 Blogging my heart out

I was always a blogger and apart from the time constraint, the Malaysian blogging community was another reason why I didn't blog more seriously. You see, during my studies, I still do a little bit blogging but I didn't get involved with any other bloggers. It was hard blogging in English guys. More importantly, I regard writing as a beautiful skill and looks up to those who can write properly. It is quite hard to find these kinds of quality hence I didn't have many blogs that I truly enjoy and genuinely want to know more about the blogger behind it. All factors in, I wasn't a more avid blogger then than I am now. As I start to blog this time, I was so surprised to finally knowing lots of local quality blogs that I truly enjoyed (like the one in my blog list). The blogging community is just so precious for me right now. I hope I can write forever!

#3 Reading *coughs*

Some of the quality blogs that I have grown to like have this Goodreads yearly challenge. It was a wild thing for me. I never met anyone so passionate and is so objective-minded in their reading. I do read, but not so much. This is also the time when I start to learn about book bloggers too. It gets me pumped up and I quickly make my own challenge. I only vouched for 25 books and now I am on my 11th book (kill me). My progress was so slow because I want to read books that widen my views though my true favourite genre is fiction (English preferably). I also read three poetry books and oh my god, you guys don't have any idea how emotionally exhausted I am reading those. I hardly get more than five pages per sitting. 

The Uswatun Hasanah and Gifts of The Heart book were in my possession for years before I finally read it.

#4 Writing poems

On May the 22nd, I decided to use my Instagram account as a poetry account since I don't really post any pictures anyway. At the moment, I just post whenever I get an idea and it was quite childish in a way. The presentation is awful too. I was learning to understand the poetry community in Instagram which turns out to be more exciting than the one in Wordpress. It is easier too since everything is there. I started to join writing prompts and by 16th August I decided that my Instagram account gonna be an official poetry account. I do all things that I want to have in an official poetry account - a proper business profile account (that's why I need to make a facebook page lolz), a proper Instagram account name (@afifahwrites), a symbolic DP (black wings), becoming more interactive, proudly identifying myself as a poet and most importantly - to get more involved with the poetry community. This short experience has taught me lots of poetry writing and I actually set some goals for September. I even do cool feeds etc guys. This is my golden trophy. You guys can scroll down to be linked to my poetry account. By the way, this stuff took a lot of time.

@afifahwrites

#5 Housechores and other stuff

Since my mom passed away, I take the responsibility to cook whenever I'm home. Cooking is such a fun thing for me and to be able to cook a satisfying meal just makes everything worth it. If I feel like it, I even make some dessert guys. Sometimes I didn't let my other sisters cooked because I want it to be done my way. Apart from cooking, there are the regular laundry work and cleaning the house work and so on. I have plenty to do daily even without writing poems or updating my blog. The other stuff is those things that we have to do every once in while like going to our kampung to collect sawit money (my dad grew palm oils), heading everywhere since Muslim studies in Jitra, Natrah with her Ipoh's dental appointment and we usually visits our relatives in Puchong, paying bills and car loans (which took an honest the whole morning to have it settled) and cooking small feast for the weekly  surau's after Yasin feast. Since these are physical and I have the worst stamina ever I might let myself lazying around after finishing the works. Yay unemployment!

He is literally a ball of sunshine
source x Hiatus x (Pinterest)

#6 Movies and TV shows

Mostly movies as I quickly get bored with tv shows. Although currently, I am rather swooning over Tom Hiddleston in The Night Manager and also am eagerly waiting for the second season of Stranger Things. I tried to watch some new TV shows but all bore me like Elementary, Lucifer, Riverdale and 13 Reasons Why. I am a movie kinda girl. I've been meaning to list all the movies I have watched but that's gonna take quite some time to actually remembers it all. Recently, I just finished rewatching Lord of The Ring trilogies as I didn't follow the plot closely when I watched it during high school. You know how these movies take ages - I roughly spend 12 hours to finish it. I am going to finally watch the third movies in The Hobbits trilogies. I was so sakit hati with the second one because it titled The Desolation of Smaug but Smaug screen time was at the end of the movie only and it was only for about 15 minutes. Arghhhhh. 

I might have a new craze
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#7 Tutoring jobs

I've been doing tutoring jobs for some time but it was just part time. About three months ago I started to teach two kids - one is having her UPSR and another one is having his SPM this year. About two months ago I started to teach another kid for his PT3. You could say their moms are resorting to personal tutoring as their last resort for their kids to face exams. I was introduced by my friends who was teaching the kids mathematics. Oh, I forgot to tell that I am teaching English. It was quite hard for me since their grip in English is quite low than what I was during high school. That is why I was hired anyway. I have to spend some time to brush up my Grammar and preparing materials to teach them. It was hard to instil that English is easy but they have to read more and write more. Well, they are kids right. I hope I can at least get the basics right so that they can see how wonderful writing and English language is. #prayforcikguafifah #prayforthekidstogetAinEnglishtoo

I guess that was all. I actually wrote in my notebook on the points  I want to write but the book is downstairs and I am upstairs. I just gonna accept it wholeheartedly if I missed any point.

omg, I FINALLY FINISHES THIS.