July, 2016

I was so not looking forward to writing July’s recap as it means that only one month will be left until the summer vacation ends. Because I’ve been having the best summer of my life, yet, but I’m going to save that best-summer-ever rant for August’s recap. For now, let’s focus on how good July was to me.

As you may have noticed, I haven’t blogged much in June because of how swamped my month was. So I seriously challenged myself to keep up with my blogging schedule for July, even though it was as busy as June. To be frank, running a blog isn’t as easy as planning it; it never is anyway. Although I planned my posts ahead, I didn’t have enough time to either make those plans come to life or write them down in a post. It was surely stressful, but at the end of the month I take pride in July’s blog performance. I managed to get 9 posts published; one of them is a really personal one that I’ve been trying to share with you all for a long while now. Also, I started July at 5200+ total blog views and as you’re reading this I’m nearly at 7000; my mind is blown away! It has been a crazy 7-month journey that keeps taking me to new places and I’m lovin’ it.

Most people aren’t comfortable with sharing any personal matters with the world (like my mum), and I respect their wish; however, I’m not like those people. I don’t fear sharing a personal experience with anyone, for through real experiences do people learn, and I wish to help others by giving them an insight into my experience. I got personal in a previous post where I talked about my insecurities and how I try to love myself every day; which everyone easily related to and hopefully considered my words. Last month, I wrote another really personal post where I talked about my emotional journey with hijab and how it has affected me for 8 years long. I’ve been frustrated with my hijab for almost a year now and so I’ve been trying to express this frustration either verbally or in writing for a while, but I failed miserably. So it all started to pile up inside me for months until I finally succeeded to pour it all out in a blog post weeks ago. I got really emotional while writing it; I felt the adrenaline rush through my blood, I felt my heart in my throat and I even teared up a little bit at times. But now that I’ve shared my thoughts online, I feel more comfortable to speak them out loud as well and dig deep into other hijab stories to hopefully put an end to my frustration one day.

July was my last working month at the office so I wanted to leave on good terms with everyone. On the last week of July, I woke up one morning with one goal set in mind; that is to go thank Amy Mowafi, CEO and Founder of Mo4 Network, for giving me the opportunity and experience I wished for. I am the kind of person who overthinks everything before and after it happens which is an open door for the nerves to easily kick in. I was really nervous; I felt a lump in my throat and my hands were really shaking. I was afraid to mess my thank-you-speech up or my nerves would be too obvious, but I couldn’t just let my fear take control over me. So I literally forced myself to walk into her office and told her what I wanted to say. This is the kind of situation where I remind myself that the nerves only kick in on the inside not on the outside, and so it’s all in my head and I should do it anyway or I’ll regret it later. I like to think that it went really well; I mean we hugged and did a very cool boomerang. I’m proud of myself! (Can I get a high five?)

One thing I learned in July is to know as many people as you can and stay on good terms with them, even if knowing them is just to the extent of exchanging greetings. You never know when they will be of great help to you or the other way around.