Life Update: Getting a new job + celebrating my 22nd birthday!

June 16, 2021June 21, 2021 trulyraisaLeave a comment

Hello! It’s been a really long time since I’ve posted on here so I thought it would be best to give you all a life update! Shall we begin?

So I don’t know whether I’ve probably mentioned this to you before or maybe I just put it on my Instagram page but I got a job in the beginning of the year! I currently work as a Laboratory Assistant for a hospital. Because of this, I haven’t properly had the to sit down and write a blog post like this. It’s an amazing place to work and I’m really enjoying myself! But it’s been difficult to manage my time and that’s why I haven’t been able to write to you all 😦

I love my new job but it made me realise how much I sleep because even after sleeping 6 hours a day I always struggle to stay awake in the train. I work in a Clinical Research department and what our department does, is that it runs studies and Clinical Trials for new medicine or to compare medicines for people with various illnesses. The medicine could be for a patient with sickle cell disease or it could be testing treatment for people with cancer. So we use the patients in our hospital as participants in the trial and my job is to centrifuge and ship their blood samples off to a bigger laboratory that will analyse the samples. There are some nutrition-related studies but it is very rare but even just working in a laboratory and in a hospital is a great experience!

Also, last week I recently celebrated my 22nd birthday! It was probably the first time that I celebrated with my friends and had a day out! We went to an art gallery and then ate Korean food for my first time and then we just wondered around the city and took photos! I’ll insert some photos here:

It was so delicious to eat Korean food I ate bibimbap with glass noodles and tried Tteokbokki for the first time! I’ve always heard how delicious it is and now I finally got to taste it for myself! I want to eat it again 😂

It was such a fun day out and I wish I could do something like that again!

That’s all for my updates! I hope you enjoyed this blog post, please like and comment below.

Useful tips for university students and graduates!

March 18, 2021March 17, 2021 trulyraisa2 Comments

Hello and welcome back to another blog post! This week’s blog post was a suggestion from a fellow blogger https://maisjohnson.com/ and today I’ll be giving some (hopefully) useful tips for university students and graduates! Shall we begin?

It’s never too early to start looking at career opportunities

If you’re someone who likes to plan ahead for the future then it’s never too early to start looking at career opportunities and what job role you might want to pursue. In fact even when you decide what you want to study, then start looking at what job roles are available from it. The last thing you want is to study a subject with a very small career field making it harder to find a job. If you’re someone who would like to make something yourselves and you see yourself as being your own boss then it’s also never to early to start researching about how to start up a business and then maybe start by creating a blog, or a website and social media accounts for your business? Gain an audience while you’re still studying and then focus on expanding your business more after you graduate!

Extra reading will help a lot!

If you are studying something at university that is new for you then extra reading is essential! I had never studied nutrition previously before and I often found myself feeling lost in the lectures. So I decided to do some extra reading in my first year and it helped me a lot! So I definitely recommend this! Even if you are very familiar with your major it’s still good to read and be well informed of maybe new studies or books out there that can help you!

Try to space out your assignments and prioritise them by deadline

Having more than one assignment due in the same month can be so frustrating and it’s so very common! So one thing that helped me a lot was spacing my assignments. For example if I had two assignments due in May, one in the beginning and during the end of May, I would probably start planning for the first assignment at the end of March and have the whole of April with a proper plan and writing out my assignment. While I am currently writing out my first assignment I would spend an hour on various days planning the next assignment so that once May comes around the first assignment it ready to be submitted and the second assignment is all planned out and all you need to do is write!

Why 'Study Girl,' Anime Star of an Infinitely Looping Video, Went Missing This Week | Muse by Clio

Sometimes your careers department help, sometimes they don’t

Every university has a careers department and every student has mixed feelings about them. Sometimes they are really useful for some people and for others they are no help. Regardless, you should definitely get to know your careers department better and they might not be able to help you secure a job but they can certainly help you fix your CV and job applications so that they’ll likely get picked for interviews! Remember, while you may think the careers department may be of no help, they are professionals in their job and probably know better than anyone else what an employer looks for so definitely send in your CV and job applications and let them help you with that!

For all new graduates don’t be disappointed in yourself if you’re not doing well with job hunting at the moment

2020 has been a very crappy year for all of us and this pandemic has been nothing short of frustration and disappointment. The job market now is in a very tough situation, there are many unemployed people and it’s become the hardest for graduates to find a job. If you’re someone who’s recently graduated and looking for a job don’t blame yourselves for the situation you’re in, it is not your fault there is no way you could have predicted or even prepared yourself for this. It took me about more than 10 months of proper full time job searching to get myself a full-time job and to be honest I was just lucky to have met my manager because I can tell you now I was absolutely crap at that interview! But your time will come and it will shock and you will feel so happy that you finally made it after such a long and hard journey , but it pays off in the end and it just ends up as just another bad memory. So don’t give up and don’t lose hope in yourself, someone will come to realise your potential and offer you an amazing career opportunity!

Use Linked In to connect with employers

For those of you who may not know LinkedIn is a social media platform for employers, businesses and employees to connect and is a useful tool to have! With LinkedIn you can connect with employers and they can learn a little more about you. Now this doesn’t alwasy guarantee a job, but if you keep your profile up to date and if you connect well you may see some career opportunities heading your way!

Take some time out to have a break!

This last piece of advice is for both university students and graduates. It’s essential to take some time out to have a break! It wil be good for your mental health and it will remind yourself that you’re doing so well already and that you deserve that break! So close your laptop every once in a while and go out for a walk or eat something delicious!

I hope those tips helped in some way and if you have any other tips for people than leave them in comment box below!

My favourite Islamic podcasts!

March 11, 2021March 9, 2021 trulyraisa6 Comments

Hello and asslamualaikum! Welcome back to my blog! Recently I’ve been following some certain bloggers that have inspired to talk more about Islam and being a Muslim and also how to embrace myself as a muslim hijabi on this blog! So, this week I decided to share with you some of my favourite podcasts. Shall we begin?

I have recently started to swap out listening to music with listening to podcasts and I didn’t want to listen to any podcasts that may not teach me anything, so I decided to search up some islamic podcasts! I specifically looked for podcasts that were hosted by muslim women as that appealed to me more being a muslim woman. The app I use to listen to podcasts is Apple Podcasts app but you can find all of these podcasts on Spotify as well.

The Aida Azlin Show.

Aida Azlin is a writer and a blogger currently based in Morocco. She is an inspiration to many and I love her for her Tuesday Love Letters that she sends to hundreds of women, empowering them and inspiring them! She talks to many inspiring and interesting guests and listening to their stories just inspires me to reflect and strengthen my own imaan. You can find the link to her blog and more information about her here: https://www.aidaazlin.com/

Salaam Girl podcast!

The Salam Girl podcast is hosted by two amazing women, Nicole and Monica! Their podcast was probably the first ever podcast I listened to and I enjoyed so many of their episodes! They interviewed so many amazing women and also told us so many inspirational stories and every episode will touch your heart as well as have you wanting to listen to more! Their podcast is based in Texas in the US and honestly after listening to them and their guests I wish there was a similar podcast here in the UK! (If there is, please let me know in the comments below!)

Mindful Muslimah Speaks

I have to say I am fairly new to this podcast so I have only listened to one podcast but it was such an insightful podcast about Hazrat Asiya (Radiallahu’anha) who was the wife of the Pharoah. She spoke about her story in Episode 202 if anyone would also like to listen to it. It made me think there are a lot of inspirational women out there but the most inspirational women are the women of Islam who I would like to know more about in the future inshallah.

Islamic History Podcast

After I started to listen to more podcast episodes, I decided I wanted to learn more about the history of Islam so I found this podcast that talks a lot about the history of Islam that tells us all about the history of islam in different parts of the world. Currently I’m listening to the Pakistan series and learning more about the India and Pakistan Partition. I thought it’s very interesting to learn more things about the country and culture I’m from!

That’s all the podcasts I had to share with you! Do you have any good islamic podcasts that you’re particularly enjoying? Please let me know in the comments below!

Life update: Getting back to blogging!

February 25, 2021February 23, 2021 trulyraisa2 Comments

Hello! Welcome back it’s been a while. A lot happened since I was last writing here and I want to explain everything and also share with you some plans for this future with this blog! Shall we begin?

First of all I have some good news to share! After a good 10 months I think it is? Or maybe more, but anyway ever since summer 2020 I’ve been looking for a full time job and I finally got one!

I’m actually very lucky to have this job because the job market in London during this pandemic has been nothing short of chaos. People have been losing jobs, graduates are struggling to find jobs because of lack of experience. There are more experienced people now who are applying for entry level jobs aimed at graduates and leaving university graduates without any experience or a chance at a job. It’s been a month since I got a new job and to this day I still find it unbelievable that my manager picked me out of other candidates to give me a job offer. From my point of view, I felt like that wasn’t my best interview but I feel like the fact that I asked questions to the empoyer really impressed them!

So to introduce my new job, I actually work as a laboratory assistant for a clinical research team in a hospital! I’m loving it so far and although it’s not directly related to nutrition I still can work in a healthcare setting. It’s a really successful hospital that also has it’s own nutrition and dietetics department so if I wanted to shadow a nutritionist and gain some experience there is a lot of opportunities for me to develop my career! I’ve loved working there for the past month, I’ve learnt so much about working in a clinical environment as well as meeting some really nice colleagues and enjoying everyday there!

Although, I am loving my new job and learning a lot, I have been very very busy and I just can never seem to find the time to sit down and produce any content. So now, that I’ve actually settled into a routine, I decided to make some time (and sacrifice some sleep) to writing more blog posts and creating more content! I feel like I always write posts like this, explaining how I’m going to blog regularly and then I just stop but this time I am going to actually try and commit to it! I’m going to designate a day in the week where I plan what blog post I’m going to write, and one day will be kind of like a “marketing” day where I’ll create some instagram stories and work on promoting my blog. And one or two days actually writing out a blog post and then scheduling it to publish! So that’s how I’m going to plan out my week and hopefully inshallah it will work and I can finally reveal something that I’ve been contemplating about this blog on for some time! Until then, I’ll leave you with some photos that I’ve taken while exploring London!

Let’s take a break together

January 13, 2021 trulyraisa2 Comments

Hello! I’m back again with another blog post. This week I just wanted to take a step back and instead of writing out my usual posts I just wanted to share some of my favourite quotes with you all so you can feel inspired or motivated. Let’s take a break together.

To be very honest with you I just spent the past 15 minutes thinking about what kind of blog post to write for this week. Then I thought to myself why not take a break? I really didn’t want to end the week without a blog post but I thought of the idea of taking a break together.

So, I decided to just share some of quotes with you all that can help you relax or motivate you this week.

Body image.

December 7, 2020December 6, 2020 trulyraisa2 Comments

Hello! Welcome back to another post. This week’s post is going to be about something that is a major concern in our media today. It’s a lot to discuss so shall we begin?

Unrealistic body image in the media has a huge cause to eating disorders and eating behaviours. We see a lot about body image in the media from books to movies to social media platforms like Instagram. We fall prey to the “perfect” body image we see on our screens and forget that we don’t necessarily have to look like that.

I was reading a journal that looked at some scientific studies linking social media, body image and food choice in healthy young adults. They looked at previous studies and found that social media engagement and specifically exposure to image-related content (Instagram can be a huge example of this!) can negatively impact body image and food choice in young adults. I will paste a link here so you can read the review in more detail. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1747-0080.12581

So who is body image in the media affecting the most? The main victim that falls prey to the media’s portrayal of body image is indeed females. I found another study that tests whether the increase in major depression in adolescent girls is caused by body image and eating disturbances. This was a study that lasted for four years and they found that after puberty major depression in girls was indeed caused by body image and eating disturbances. You can read more by clicking on this link. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0021-843X.109.3.438

There are many other studies like these that investigates body image representation in the media and how it can affect people. TV Shows, films, social media, books all of these things show one type of body image as the “ideal” body type and because of this representation it affects people to believe that they are obligated to look a certain way.

The fact is that every single one of us is not the same shape or size, think about it, how boring would this world be if we all looked the same? But because of the media’s representation of body image it affects mental health and ultimately eating behaviour. It can lead to eating disorders and poor health.

The main group that is largely affected by this is females as there is a lot of body image representation in the media that is targeted towards girls and this causes bad eating habits and affects food choice. That’s not to say that there isn’t a stereotypical body image representation for males too, I’m sure you’ve all heard the cliché “Tall, fair and handsome” that is thrown around a lot in the media. Isn’t that a stereotypical body image representation for males too?

The truth is the media is just a fantasy world that people create. In reality, we are all different in our own unique way and beautiful too. It’s time to put away stereotypical body images in the media and start being more practical about eating a balanced diet to take care of our health instead. Just remember you’re so beautiful the way you are and it’s time to start taking care of your health instead of chasing an unrealistic body image. So try not to skip meals and I’ll see you again next week!

Becoming a Registered Associate Nutritionist!

November 18, 2020November 19, 2020 trulyraisa3 Comments

Hello and welcome back to the Nutrition side of this blog! I have some good news to share and I’m going to be talking about some changes that are going to be made to “TrulyRaisa”! Shall we begin?

As you can probably tell from the title of this post that I’ve officially become a Registered Associate Nutritionist (ANutr)! In the UK the title “Nutritionist” is not as protected as the title “Doctor” or “Nurse” what this means is that anyone out there can give one piece of nutritional advice and call themselves a Nutritionist. So, the Association for Nutrition is an organisation of officially Registered Nutritionists who are professional Nutritionists that have completed an accredited course and has experience within the field.

My university course is accredited and after graduating I was able to officially register as a Registered Associate Nutritionist (ANutr). This title is different from a Registered Nutritionist (RNutr) as I have the sufficient knowledge but I have yet to gain professional experience in the field. After one year of working in a Nutritionist position whether you are working for another company or you are taking clients and working for yourself, you can apply to become a Registered Nutritonist (RNutr) and that is a professional nutritionist title.

I hope that wasn’t too confusing! This week I was finally able to submit and have my application approved for a Registered Associate Nutritionist! I can now open up my own practice and gather some clients! However, before doing that I would need to find a niche that I am going to specialise in. After talking to my old lecturer she gave me the idea of maybe specialising in Nutrition in South Asian women. Nutrition in South Asian countries are quite rare and almost non-existent and the obesity rates there are high, therefore working with South Asian women and creating a presence for nutrition in those countries would be a huge achievement!

Another niche I am considering specialising in is Nutrition and psychology. Eating behaviours, eating disorders and things such as food choice and body image is a topic that needs to be worked on especially in women. It’s also a really interesting topic to go through and study what influences food choice in certain individuals!

Once I decide on what niche I am going to be working with I am going to be working on this blog a lot and creating more nutrition-related content that could be useful to potential clients and sharing lots of information in the process! So please stick around if you’re interested to learn more! For now I hope you enjoyed this blog posts and I hope you can help me achieve my dreams together!

What self-growth means to me.

August 10, 2020August 13, 2020 trulyraisa4 Comments

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my site! Today’s post is about what self-growth means to me. Shall we begin?

Talking about self-growth is a sensitive topic for me. Maybe it’s because I have a lot I could improve on. As I mentioned before in “My Self-growth journey” post that I’m a huge introvert and just an awkward social being. But that is something I would like to grow on and something I felt like I was growing on during my time in university.

Self-growth has a different definition for everybody. It’s not the same thing for me as it is for you. This is why I am writing this blog post to explain my own definition and my own points of self-growth I feel like I need to work on.

One thing is for sure, the first step to self-growth is having confidence in yourself and let me tell you that is the hardest thing to have. Will I be able to do this? Am I capable? Am I too weak? Questions like this and more are what comes in the way of having self confidence. This is what comes in the way for me. Don’t get me wrong I do have my moments when I think why can’t I do this? If everyone else is succeeding then why not me? And that gives me the boost of confidence I need in that moment.

For me self-confidence is not really a point of self-growth for me it’s more about going out and doing it. Not being lazy, not being afraid to put myself out there, being social and figuring people out, telling them what they want to hear. Those points are part of my self growth.

So I guess in reality, self-growth for me is putting myself out there. And this blog post is doing exactly that. Everything I write about my own self-growth are my points of weakness and right now that’s me showing my vulnerability so someone reading this can turn around and ask me about it.

I still have a long way to go and a lot to work on but hopefully I reach my goals in the future!

With all that being said I’ve planned a new blog post to come out next week! It’s going to be so fun to write and it’s completely different to what I’m used to writing here!

Sunshine blogger award!

July 24, 2020 trulyraisa11 Comments

Hello! Today is a special blog post because I have been nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award! I want to thank Sara@Sunflower Seeds for nominating me! Shall we begin?

Rules

Thank the blogger who nominated you for this award.
Make sure to list the rules and to post a photo of the award logo.
Answer the 11 questions that your nominator asked you.
Nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them your own 11 questions.
Notify your nominees by commenting on one of their recent posts.

Let’s move on to the Q&A!

What’s your favourite season?

I used to like winter a lot but recently I love spring! The way I think of it is as a season of fresh starts. The sun starts to come out a lot and the flowers and wildlife start to bloom and for me that is a sign that if things are not going well I can always start the year again with a fresh start! Sunny days and flowers always give a happy feeling but I can’t stand when it’s extremely hot in the summer.

2. What is a meal that you are pro at cooking?

Pasta is always a dish that I am a pro at! I like a lot of different cuisines like Japanese (Sushi is my favourite food of all!) , Korean and of course Pakistani food but Italian food and pasta will always have a special place in my heart.

3. Who/what inspired you to blog?

Back in the end of high school I always had my nose in a book and I was reading one book where the main character was a blogger. And so I wanted to try it and I created my own book blog! A fun fact is that I had about three other blogs before this one!

4. Sweet or savoury?

This is a hard one because I love anything sour and spicy but at the same time I have a sweet tooth and can’t resist anything sweet!

5. What book would you read over and over again and never get bored of it?

I don’t really read books as much anymore but my all time favourite book series that I can never get bored of would be The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare

6. Out of three, which would you want to be: actor/actress, director or scriptwriter?

Scriptwriter for sure! I would also like to be an actress but I’m a writer through and through, and the chance to write stories for a lifetime is something I wouldn’t miss for the world!

7. What quote do you stand by / inspires you?

I don’t have a famous quote that I live by but something that I live by is “Nothing is impossible” and because I’ve bee through situations before where I thought things weren’t possible, but they actually did come true and so that’s a saying I live by.

8. Do you play any sports? if yes, why that specific sport?

I don’t play any sports but I run a lot, although I don’t like it very much. A sport I used to enjoy a lot back in high school was badminton and I would love to play it on a regular basis these days!

9. Where would your dream house be?

I haven’t thought of this much but the prospect of living in France appeals to me a lot! I would love to go to France one day and see all of it! So I guess I would like a dream house in France.

10. One unusual piece of advice?

Don’t listen to music through headphones while reading a book on the bus, trust me you will miss your stop!

11. What is one good thing that happened to you this week?

One good thing would be being nominated and writing this post!

Nominees

I’m going to break the rules a little and nominate you. Yes, you! If you’re reading this and have a blog of your own I nominate you to take part in this award and if you do, put a link to your post in the comment below so I can read it! I can’t wait to see your answers!

11 questions for my nominees

What is your favourite cuisine of food?
The best thing you’ve ever baked.
Recommend a good book to movie adaptation!
What is one thing that you’re really proud of?
Dream holiday destination?
What’s one thing on your bucket list that you’ve completed?
What is your favourite music artist, or what is your favourite genre of music?
When did you start blogging?
Would you like your blog to be an overnight sensation or are you satisfied with your blog as it is now?
Recommend a TV series.
K-drama or anime? (This is always a hard one for me to choose!)

I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it!

My self-growth journey

July 8, 2020July 15, 2020 trulyraisa12 Comments

Hello! Welcome back to my site! For those of you who read my previous post would know that I decided to put out more lifestyle posts and this is one of them! Shall we begin?

This week’s post is about my personal self-growth journey so let’s start from the beginning. I am a very big introvert, I’m quite shy and quiet unless I’m comfortable being around a certain person/people (friends, family etc.) It’s easy for me to write my thoughts on a blog and post it and I’m sure readers who may not know me personally wouldn’t have a first impression of me as an introvert.

I’m telling you, stop me in the street and try to make small talk and the conversation will die in minutes.

For me this is a major shortcoming and something I would like to change around. Something that I am trying to work on and will continue to work on! So for me this is my main goal through this self-growth journey.

Now I’d be lying if I say that I haven’t changed over the past couple of years and the truth is that I have. I’ve gained that little boost of confidence when socialising with others and this is something that happened while I was at university trying to make new friends and meet new people. Gone were the days where I was a nameless invisible individual who loved to spend her time in the library reading all the books on all the shelves.

I would say I’m proud of the tiniest bit I’ve grown, no matter how small it was it definitely was some progress and now for the rest of my self-growth journey I’m going to be growing more as an individual both physically and mentally. Becoming more confident about myself, putting myself out there and meeting new friends and making new connections and growing a lot more than I am now.

Believe me, I have A LOT of growing to do and this is only the beginning, I am only aiming to work harder in the future.

Tag: blog