Opportunities like this..

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8 Comments
I've been wanting to do this post for a very long time but I had pre finals and all that. Anyways, so well, in January and 3 of my friends visited this press, The Saudi Gazette to interview this lady out there who is the head of the ladies department since we were doing a presentation on Women in Saudi Arabia as we were told in school to do a presentation on anything we wish, and I decided that we could do something different, not just the usual topics people were doing so with a little research and talking about where we could visit and accordingly, we chose our topic. So, anyways, we were nervous and we had no idea who we were going to interview, all we knew was it was going to be a lady. We entered there through the security and then someone took us to the main office and we were told to be seated in the conference room. We took our places, whispering all our doubts out and then in about five minutes, The lady arrived, she looked like she was in the beginning of her thirties and she was this smiling woman in her hijab and looked like a Saudi Woman but later we learned that, she was originally from Pakistan married to an Arab.So, she was partially an Arab staying here for about more than 15 years.


We started off with our introduction followed by our questions and apart from what we needed to know, we asked several questions on what we wanted to know and it was all so great, she's like one of the most amazing women I've met. Her strength, her determination to her work and her modesty, she inspired each one of us in different ways. After about an hour, we were done with our interview, and then she asked us to meet the managing editor and talk to him too, then we were directed to the Managing Editor's office, we went inside and he was this really friendly man, he gave us a few copies of the magazines he had on the table and then generally talking, he asked if any one of us were interested in writing for them as freelancers, and right then I'm like "I am" and then he asked me to come to the office on the following monday at 4pm for their meeting. 
The following Monday, I went by to the office, I was really nervous, cause I was all alone and I felt good though, more like grown up too. As I entered there, I was a little late and the meeting had already begun. When I entered the conference room, all I saw were people much older than me. I took my seat somewhere next to a lady, this arab head was speaking about the new things they want to implement in the papers and about their new ideas, after he finished, I was asked to introduce myself, and then the head left and we were left, like around 11-12 people comprising of both men and women belonging to mixed nations , all of them looked about 30 except this girl who looked like she was probably 20 and this other guy around the same age. 
    Now, i didn't know what the meeting was all about, later each one of them started discussing the stories they have for each of the supplements. There are weekly supplements each which comes out along with the  newspaper daily. Sports Plus, Time out, Expat life, Business Plus, Education Plus, The Fresh Fashion Magazine and Funtimes. So this particular meeting for freelancers was basically for discussing the stories we have for these supplements mainly concentrating on featured stories and events. While discussing, I saw that everyone had their stories and stuff, and I was all confused about what am I gonna say? Then, while this lady was talking about school events .. and what she said was about a school event which is you know, the usual.. sports day and stuff, which get slotted in the Funtime Magazine which is mainly for kids and covers those school events and then it clicked me that, I had been to this Hi-tech fair at The British International School since I had friends out there, I had gone there hoping for something more entertaining with my friends, but none of them really turned up and I ended up going alone with a couple of kids who were going for my compound, and that day I thought to myself that I had wasted 3 hours in that fair where it was all this tech savy stuff, new innovations by students and workshops, etc, luckily I did have 2 of my friends out there representing their game stall but yet, at the end of the day I thought it was a complete waste of time, and then i decided to tell them about that event, and boom, they told me to do that as a feature for The Education Plus, and I'm just like wow. 
    I was asked to mail the story by the given deadline, however, I wasn't sure how to go about writing the feature, so my first article was a challenge, I had to speak to my friends who represented their stall and through them i got in contact with the event manager of the school and got my pictures and collecting all the information, I had like three tries, cause each time I was told to add more details as it was a featured story and not an event report, I learned so much from it, and then successfully submitted my first article and jumped and smiled when I saw my by line in the newspaper. The only challenging part so far, is finding out stories and events happening around you and here they don't publicize a lot of things, so finding out stories is the challenging part but this is such a great experience. And that moment I knew, that the things which happen to us, the things that make no sense at some point, they'll make sense one day, and that everything does happen for a reason. 


MY FIRST ARTICLE
My Second Article, an interview with a saudi Business women

My Third Article, another interview, which was out in today's supplement


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8 comments:

Unknown said...

You always inspire me Huda...:)

Unknown said...

awwww :) thank you so much :) I'm glad I do, I never knew I could inspire anyone for that matter.

Anonymous said...

wow. some serious yawn worthy articles. this just proves any idiot can write(note: stephenie meyer)."And that moment I knew, that the things which happen to us, the things that make no sense at some point, they'll make sense one day, and that everything does happen for a reason." nice sentence structure. /sarcasm

Unknown said...

hahaha wow how nice do i know you? sounds like I do. Atleast leave your name and don't be anonymous :P

Anonymous said...

at least* who taught you english?

Unknown said...

your mom
btw, just saying it can be written as atleast or at least -.-

who the hell are you? stalker much?

Anonymous said...

my mom is not a moron, so i doubt she taught you.
negative. the only correct way is 'at least'.
i didn't know leaving 2 comments on someone's blog made them a stalker. i was going to leave just one, but i wanted to correct your poor grammar.

Unknown said...

wow okay, then, thank you for the correction on my grammar, you're so nice. Who are you anyway?

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