Looking Back At 2016

Hello,

It's been a while since I wrote something, but as it's the last day of 2016 & New Years Eve, I thought I would look back at how the year was for me.

"You Don't Look Blind" #HowISee

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Believe it or not, it's been a while since I talked about solely being visually impaired. Which is why in today's blog I'm going to talk about what society thinks being blind/visually impaired is and RNIB's latest campaign. Also when it comes to the latter I'm going to talk more about my sight.

Everything Happens For A Reason

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It's been a while since I've written on here. A lot of things have happened since we last spoke some of these are personal events in my life  that those of you who know me in real life know about and others are more general like moving on to another year at University, finding out my blog is being shared by Bosma Enterprise (thank you! I really appreciate it!), having my seminar tutor share my blog (thank you!), oh and RNIBs latest campaign has peaked my interest and I intend to write a blog post about it "soon"- yes I'm aware a month in between posts isn't everyone's definition of soon, but my contribution to the campaign will be up before August ends! I just need some time to do my own research. Last but not least I'm also trying to change some aspects of my life- relax it's nothing drastic or anything for you to be concerned with!

Alright so as you know I'm a Muslim, which means I believe in God and follow the teachings in Islam, what Islam actually is not the "acts of terrorism in he name of Islam" those acts are a load of BS because they aren't what Islam is. Anyhow, I also believe everything happens for a reason and Allah (SWT) knows best. Today I'm going to talk about moments where things are out of our control and to let whatever happens, happen.

Trip To The Victoria & Albert Museum

Hello!

So today I'm going to talk about something I haven't mentioned in a while: my social life. Calm yourselves please, I know I don't go out much like other people my age but I still do have some form of a social life. Now that you've gotten over your initial shock, this post is about my trip to the V&A last week.

Is there still a need for feminism in our society?

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My exams are done and I can go into my second year of uni at Goldsmiths! Anyways, putting that moment of celebration aside, let's talk about this blog post. It's about what I learnt about feminism this year.

Change Is Everywhere

Hi,

So it's been a while since I've posted anything- you know with exams and deadlines back in May and early June I've been very busy. But I'm back now with another post on my life and to an extent, the world. Today I want to talk to you about change, it's easy for some and hard for others. Since change is such a vast topic I've decided to divide it up into the following categories:

People

First of all I know people change, it's part of growing up and life. What I want to talk about here is how we realise people change. I think a good way to explain the latter is when you haven't kept in contact with someone in a long time and one way or another you start talking to therm and you see they're not as how you remember them, they've become someone who still has the same traits you remember but also something different.  A good example of this is my snap chat story (I'm aware I sound very full of myself there) where along with my uninteresting life updates i tend to swear, both in text and verbally. I'm aware swearing is quite common amongst young people, but for some people were surprised by the fact that I do it since I have " when people first meet me they see me as innocent" (I'm just quoting some comments I've been given, I'm not two-faced ok!).  To relate this to my point, when we don't see people for a while and use social media as a means to keep up to date with their lives, we see how they present themselves online on some platforms which may be different to others. I think I'll refer to a concept in Goffman's impression management concept, which consists of an idea that we present ourselves to an audience (the way we want others to see us) on a front stage, and both these audiences and stages change, so we have different performances for each audience. In this case, there are some things I post on Face Book that I want people to see, but with snap chat I post things I know some that people on my snap chat won't mind, but those who follow me on Face Book will. 

I think there are moments where we look back and think I was so different back then, how could I think that was a good idea? These moments might be your cringe moments that you wish you'd never done, but at the time these moments were occurring you were probably thinking it's something you'd never regret? Also another possibility could be that deep down you've acted like this, but have never shown anyone else this side of yourself and are slowly Beginning to do that; to relate this to Goffman you act in this way (like swearing) when no one's around, in a backstage and don't let your audience use such language. Maybe the people you surround yourself with also play an important part in this, you could end up feeling more comfortable, more confident to act a certain way around them over time. In my case I felt more confident, like breaking out of a shell to show I'm not as innocent as people think I am (at least on snap chat, on other social media plat forms I'm more careful to avoid confrontation and disagreements amongst those around me.)

Life

Along with people, their lives also change and maybe one of the reasons why people change is so they can get through whatever life has in store for them? You could be about to start High School in the Autumn, or finishing High School and going to Sixth Form or collect, or going to University or straight into employment; whatever it is things are always changing when you move forward and you need to adapt to these changes. Perhaps a good example of this is university life, I suppose you're thinking, isn't the uni experience the same for everyone? My answer is simply no. Each university has a different way of doing things, and people handle university in different ways; to relate this to change I personally realised university was different from school, so academically I handled my assignments by doing further research, reading over them, seeing my teachers and improving my writing (my social life is still a work in progress).  Also in comparison to my friend's experience of uni mine was different, I lived at home, my holidays were at a different time to theirs, they had online exams, more assignments than me, they socialised more etc. Also I think I've become more confident with my sightless whilst at uni compared to school, since I'm doing more things on my own. 

I think I'm getting off topic here, but my main point in this section is that our lives change and with it so do we. 

Society

Last but not least society is always changing, but there are also some things that still re-emerge more often than we think (I'm a sociology student how could I NOT include this into my blog? Don't judge). This post is already very long and maybe society deserves a separate post of its own, what do you think? Which is wy I'll keep it simple and talk briefly about fashion, technology and culture- I say brief but you know how when I start talking about a topic, I never shut up!

Fashion
The thing with fashion is it's always changing, one year stores will have loads of outfits everyone is wearing and you have to buy; then the next none of what you want is still in stock. Or it could be things that you haven't seen being worn in a long time like chokers that are coming back into style because the 90s are making a come back! Or some things that for the sake of this blog I'm calling a "classic" (I'm not a fashion blogger so don't quote me on this!) like jeans and a simple top are seen as casual and fine to wear; people get quite surprised when they hear some people don't own jeans, and are like how can you not have jeans? Although, I don't know my fashion history but I do know that jeans weren't around all the time maybe they became popular in the 70s/80s? So not that long ago, but are still worn today. The point is fashion is always changing, but there are also things within fashion that those from an "older generation!" view as things that are making a come back. Also to relate this to society, there are things in fashion which during the period in which they're "in fashion" are seen as cool, good choice; it's not until years later when you look at pictures of you and others (now known as selfies) that you question your choices. An example of this is thin eyebrows, a few years ago everyone had their eyebrows done to make them look thin because that was the current trend back then (I've never had my eyebrows done so I didn't participate, or just to make myself sound somewhat cooler, I'll say I don't follow the crowd I do my own thing). Anyway back to the brows, nowadays I hear it's rare to see people with thin eyebrows, they prefer thick and wonder what they were thinking when they went thin. I'm referring to what I've heard because if I wear to look at someone's eyebrows, with my level of vision I'd have to be very close to their face invading their personal space, so it's not an option.

Technology
technology is something that's evolving and nowadays a lot of countries seem to use it and the internet, like we're dependant on it. Which in itself is strange because it's not that long ago that we lived without all these handy gadgets like smart phones, with apps like google maps, bus count, You Tube, Face Book, Twitter, you name it. Also it's enabled us to communicate with others around the globe instantly. Technology is also evolving to the point where it's being used more in education, since more books are online now and some schools have home work online on google classroom, or use Ipads in class. Plus a lot of young people have smartphones now, I didn't get my smart phone until I was 14/15 and now young people aged 11/12 or younger have them! Plus kids who are 2/3 years- old know how to use them! Technology also has it's benefits, but I may be biased in saying this because i have quite a few gadgets and gismos to help me do things everyone else does with my sightless. I even read an article the other day about an app that's being developed that helps women get to know their bodies, I think it's free but you have to pay for the required items to be sent to you. Overall, technology is constantly changing and we as individuals try and keep up with it. 

Culture 
Like society, I feel culture is a very cast topic so there's a lot I can say and so little time (this post is already long enough and you all must be tiered of hearing what I have to say), so I'll just mention a few things and keep this paragraph as short as I can- which we all know will be an epic fail. Anyways, one way to talk about culture is people's view on homosexuality, years ago it was seen as taboo, something forbidden but in the west it's become something more accepting and people are judged if they don't support the LGBT community, According to a friend of mine, I'm quite open-minded, in the sense that I'm very accepting of people, which I think is why I'm fine with people preferring the same-sex. I think that how these people feel s their feelings and the person they need to answer to is Allah (SWT), who will answer them accordingly, but we as individuals should treat them equally and not discriminate them from us with comments like"it's so weird" "how could they do that?". However religiously I know it's wrong to have a same-sex partner, so I think if people view themselves as always having these feelings, then it's ok to feel a certain way about things but as long as you don't act on these feelings, you'll be fine? I'm not qualified to give religious advice and I probably shouldn't mention it on here, this is just my opinion on it, on things I've researched; so please speak to someone about it if you are facing these w difficulties. What I'm trying to say here is, yes I know homosexuality is wrong religiously, but what about the way we treat these people, we don't know them, I mean for all we know they could be just having these emotions and are trying to not commit any sins by not acting upon these feelings; Allah (SWT) will decide their fate. Another point I want to make about culture is racism, which despite the acts for racial equality that we learn about in history, still exists today. I'ts something that's changing, but also reoccurring at the same time.  Also things like Islamophobia and Antisemitism may fall under these categories because I've read stories about people who dress a ceretain way being labelled as a terrorist, or a person being identified as belonging to a certain religion because of their skin colour or name. Overall, culture is something that's changing and will continue to do so, as things that were considered socially unacceptable are now accepted, but there are also aspcts of discrimination that still exist in today's world. 

Wow so I got a little carried away there Sorry! I hope you enjoyed this post and if there's anything ;you'd like to add feel free to do so down below!

Do I Know My Disney?

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So if you're wondering why I'm writing this post, my brother did  a trivia quiz with me during dinner on the Jungle Book, and guess what? I GOT NOTHING RIGHT! I DON'T REMEMBER WATCHING THE FILM AS A KID, I THINK I MIXED IT UP WITH TARZAN?! I'M SORRY INTERNET!

Nineteen And None The Wiser

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So this post is about how I celebrated my 19th birthday on Wednesday. I'm not into big parties so I usually do something low-key. This year me and my best friend (who's 1 day, 4 & a half hours older than me!) decided to go out and celebrate, which is what I'll be talking about today. 

Things that make a VIP/ blind person uncomfortable

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I got inspiration for this post from this video: so I thought I'd talk about some of the "scary" or uncomfortable things about being blind or visually impaired. I agree with some of the "scary" things mentioned in the video, but I'll also talk about some of my own.

Without further ado here's my list:

Chiswick Lights

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Today, I'm going to do something a little different. By that I mean I'm going to talk about something I haven't talked about before on this blog- my social life. Did you get that? I hope you're not too shocked; although I like being alone and staying home, I do go out occasionally and interact with other humans. So this post is about when I went to see the Chiswick lights in early March 2016 with my sister and brother in-law. I've also included some pictures of the lights which I think are really cool! 

An Update on my progress on achieving my goals in life

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It's been a while since I made a post on this blog, so like the tittle says, I thought I'd give you an update on how things are going in terms of achieving my goals. So in no particular order let's review:

The VIP tag in blog form

As you know, I'm a VIP.

I thought I'd do another post and tell you more about what it's like being a VIP. So I decided what better way to do that than the VIP tag? 

Before you ask, no this tag isn't about the VIPs that stand for "Very Important Person/people"; in this tag VIP means "Visually Impaired Person/People" which if you've read the rest of my blog know I'm part of this category. Now, this tag was originally a You Tube video tag but I've decided to mix it up a little and make it available for bloggers by changing a question around. So let's get started!

A New Year means change is inevitable

So, I got this idea after reading my friend's blog post and decided to give it a go. I'm terrible at sticking to plans or resolutions; for instance in 2014/2015 I planned to exercise every week and that failed miserably. I also planned my revision for my A-Levels which as you can guess didn't go to plan... I got a 'little' obsessed with Pitch Perfect 2 to the point of watching it and reading fanfics more than the average person- that's normal right?  

So this year I thought I'd write... well I guess in this modern age 'type' what I want to do. These are not #2016goals or #newyearresolutions2016 (I'm not down with the kids so I don't know what the trending hashtag is. Sorry!). This post is just a list that's more like a reminder of what I want to do, not this year specifically but soon in the future. I think that's enough of an explanation so let's get started! Also this list is in no particular order, just what I come up with as we speak.

An Introduction is never easy

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Welcome to MY EYE MY WAY. Like I said in the tittle of this post, starting something new isn't easy... well that's the case for me anyway. Maybe I over think this or I worry too much. It took me two days with the help of a friend to come up with a tittle and URL for this blog!