By Sarah Sofiyyah
As a kid, when the teacher asks, what is your dream when you grow up? The pupils who raised their hands proudly say, “I want to be a doctor,” “I want to be an engineer,” “I want to be a teacher”. However, it is a different story for a girl named Sarah Sofiyyah. She is a girl who never knew where the future is holding her. Every year, her answer will be different.
How will it be different?
Growing up being the only princess in the household surrounded by three “bodyguards” and not mentioning her neighbourhood full of boys, she instead spent most of her time watching her favourite television channel, Cartoon Network.
Watching Cartoon Network has influenced her in various ways, such as speaking and writing in English. Nevertheless, her mother tongue is Malay. As for a four-year old girl who lived in Selangor with pure Malay speakers, speaking in a foreign language made her feel superior.
During her high school life, which was full of enjoyment and a stress-free zone for her, she was an extrovert person who would voice out every opinion without fear. She actively participated in the debate and was willing to volunteer her class, which her school occasionally holds.
With her outstanding personality, Sarah was selected by the respected teacher to attend an event called “‘National Innovation and Invention Competition Through Exhibition (iCompex’16) in Kedah to represent her school and won a bronze medal.
People view her as an extrovert person; however, she is the opposite of what people have seen her. The habits she has been built up at the age of 12, which are writing and watching the news on TV3, make her realise her passion, which is to be a soulful journalist and “since then, I know, it has always been my dream job,” Sarah said.
Starting from writing a simple diary entitled “how was your day” on Tumblr makes her unspoken voice felt relive ever since that, she will burst out the thought and lost in the ocean of her words.
For Sarah, it is essential to stay updated with the surrounding, or maybe she has the syndrome of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), which leads her to read every day. She will try to pick up with the fast-changing news. She gets this complimented a lot by her friends as she has been described as “well-known of everything” with that, she thanks herself for keeping herself updated with the news.
However, one word makes Sarah feel blue whenever she hears it, which is “politics”. The word “politics” somewhere is an allergy term for her where she does not like and tends to avoid reading and conversing with everyone. Whenever Sarah sees political issues on television and in newspapers, it is nothing but full of dirty agenda, ignorance, and greedy politicians. There is no positive thought about it. “Politics are bad and dirty in which all politicians make the country corrupt.”
She added, “Along the way, I started to realise the importance of politics to society, but politic is needed to run the country for citizens’ benefit, however, those who hold the positions made the genuine name of politics turn into bad reputation.”
Among the news portals that Sarah watches in order to stay on track with the news are Astro Awani and The Star. “These news portals are among the best place for a busy citizen to be aware of what is going on in the country.” she said.
She further added, “It is impossible to not getting news every day where every event must be recorded and be told to people at large.”
“However, in order to make the news is trustworthy, the journalist must hold great principles in life.”
Sarah is now pursuing her degree in Communication with specialisation in Integrated Media Journalism at International Islamic University Malaysia. She firmly believes that this is the best time to set her wings to fly high. With this degree, she knows that it is a golden opportunity and a stepping stone for her to learn in-depth about journalism.
She views journalists as a crucial occupation as they are the distributors and the “intermediary” who spread words of mouth to people worldwide. Without them, people will be clueless about their surroundings.
Taking account of every aspect of journalism, she is trying her very best to pick up with the writing, interviewing and reporting as, at first, she thought it is an easy job to do. However, she finds it a stepping stone to overcome her weakness by improving and sharpening her skills and becoming a great Muslim journalist.
“Everyone can become a journalist, what differ you from others are the special and outstanding qualities that you need to have in this field,” Sarah mentioned. Some of the online news reports that she read were biased towards specific groups and telling falsehood news.
As intermediaries of the citizens, we should be neutral and not involved in the holes of bias. With that vital pieces of evidence and beliefs, she wants to show the world what is fact and what is neutral, where the Quran says in Surah Al-Baqarah verse 42, “and do not mix the truth with falsehood and conceal the truth while you know it.”
With being given 24 hours a day, Sarah uses her leisure time to pick up books in order to make herself stay informed and get knowledge for it. As she turns older, she is now into self-help and religion books in which these genres are entirely untouched and avoided alley in the bookstore.
One of her favourite books is Love for Imperfect Things by Haenim Sunim. The book brings herself up from her insecurities to love every aspect of her life and live with it.
The quote that holds her is, “We should accept the fact that things did not work out, and figure out exactly where you went wrong, don’t repeat the same mistakes in the future.”
By that, to the future Sarah, who is always wondering and being afraid of uncertain events, just do not be scared of making mistakes; the more you make mistakes, the more experience and knowledge you will acquire.
To people, we serve with the most remarkable qualities, this means it starts from yourself. ***
(This article is written as part of the individual assignment series for Feature Writing class)