By Noor Anis Adila
Anis, a 22-year old young lady, born in Johor, talks about her daring action to pursue her journalism passion at International Islamic University Malaysia. Despite the fact that her parents’ dream for her beloved daughter to become a passionate educator slowly diminishes.
Born and raised by a Chinese-Malay mother and a pure native Malay father, this lady with chubby cheek and slightly arched eyebrows is often described by people as an intimidating and cold-hearted person, but in reality, she would describe herself as a messy over-thinker, anxious-soul and soft-hearted person.
She chuckles and responds, “The first impression comments I often received from my peers were how intimidated and arrogant I am. However, once we get along they finally realise how talkative and friendly I am with them.”
Living with five siblings in a small town surrounded by immensely extensive palm oil plantations, the sound of birds chirping in a gentle cool breeze every morning and free from heavy traffic congestion, she reminisces the good old days as an innocent girl exploring life at fullest living in discreet small village yet so grateful living in a pretty decent and peaceful village.
The primary school has taught her to be independent unlike other children, every day-in-life routines were sent by their beloved parents to school. She, for years, had to walk in her shoes to school every morning and seldom steers her a decent second-hand bicycle bought by her father.
Nevertheless, compassion towards her parents’ duties to provide for the family, she never whines or complains towards her parents though sometimes she feels envious with her friends who eagerly wait to be picked up by their parents.
Despite that, she acclaimed, “ I’m so proud of myself, as young as 10 years old, she stands on her own two feet, it is something that definitely stands out who I am now”.
Her independent streak as she joined the Scouts Club in high school which later offered to be one of the Heads of Patrol in the club. Entitled as a female leader and female fellow mates, undoubtedly breaks through the glass ceiling as female at top level of leadership, which often hinders females from achieving this opportunity.
Indeed, every soul has its own flaws. Her composed face explained contrary perception. Most often, she found herself as indecisive and incompetent to articulate her thoughts and opinions rigorously.
“My overthinking thoughts made me a victim of my own mind, having difficulties to sort out your own thoughts that run circles around your head made me realise how significant it is to let myself out from this mental anguish.”
Known as a lone-wolf, she reflects that lack of social interactions may develop her thoughts far down to the rabbit hole. She added, “I do enjoy socialising with people even with strangers, however at certain points I feel anxious about being judged by people.” Still and all, au fait with the reality of an environment that demands high self-esteem, she never let that weigh her down and yet to be optimistic.
On that account, she manifested her passion to be a better person which she discovered that being a journalist could be used as a tool to engage emotionally and physically with the community through writing. Forbye, she believed through writing would help her to organise her ideas and thoughts.
Being an enormous fan of television documentaries, at night, her eyes glued on the television to the Malaysian investigation show – 999. Occasionally, she opted with true crime investigation Netflix documentaries which she had recently watched Abducted in Plain Sight and Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer.
Filled with curiosity, Anis determines to unravel the core of social disruptions and violence, especially among youth. She added, “The true crime stories have brought greater chances for me into the sense of humanity and empathy not only for the victim but for the suspect as well. Besides, it is a reminder for all of us to take precautions in avoiding enormity of crime and violence through our social norms.”
As she craved the transparency of media, she opted with Astro Awani and The Star as her daily news sources to broaden her general knowledge and views on certain issues and various aspects but likewise, she hopes to improve her language skills, writing style and vocabulary as well.
Apart from reading news to improve her writing skills, How Could He Do It by Emma Charles and The Weight of Your Sky by Hanna Alkaf become her best selection of books that widen her knowledge about psychological well-being.
Her compassion towards youth unstoppable as she joined the facilitator club on her campus, mainly handling programmes for facilitating hardcore and problematic students. As she indulged these experiences, it made her realise that these young-souls crave attention and affection from their parents. The neglect of parents and the influence of contagious values and norms had submerged them into darkness.
She believes every young-souls have their own dream of the future and the youth phase is where our youngsters discover their own purpose and identity. Hence, each and every social institution should play a part to cooperate and approach these youngsters and steer them in the right direction to hinder them from social disorder.
Indeed, all these experiences and knowledge she gained felt like she held responsible and accountable to remind and expose our society to the reality of today’s youth generation slowly falling behind due to our ignorance.
With this, she believes through writing, perhaps used as a medium to provide possible solutions and build a more resilient society towards these issues. All in all, she reflects these youngsters’ attitude and behaviour could be polished through our cooperation, tolerance and affection.
Knowing reality as a journalist, she admits that she needs to be more aware and scrutinise in political aspects. Even so, her views on political beliefs mainly stand on individual rights and public opinion at large. She believes her political views on certain aspects not so much as intense power struggles. She points out that destructive political struggles could be avoided with hindsight if we as a society compassion and cooperate towards human rights.
Her passion for journalism is indescribable. The opportunity she seized throughout these three years of learning and experiencing on her campus perhaps could prepare her to create a better plan for her journalism career ahead. With ambition, she could see herself for the next four and five years as a passionate journalist that could inspire the youth into better generations and build a more resilient society towards social disruptions.
She added, “There is an endless bound between the role of journalist and social responsibility towards a human ethic of society at large. In this sense, journalism is perhaps able to perceive public concern and views on the particular issue especially toward youth problem.”
Her journey to a career in journalism may not be smooth and unpredictable. She learns every journey is a lesson learnt. As long as she believes in herself, the journey continues and the path of learning never ends.
“Until this day, I still have a lot to learn and try my best to pursue what I have been passionate about. It may not be a smooth journey, but through optimism, passion and well-preparedness may lead the path that I have dreamt of.” ***
(This article is written as part of individual assignment series for Feature Writing class)