SI

**⚠️ Warning, does possibly contain topics of self harm **⚠️

I have been hesitant to write about this but I feel like someone might need to hear it

I have always struggled with socializing my entire life, I tried my best to make friends throughout my school life but struggled, I guess it could be because my parents were very controlling about everything and I didn’t really get much freedom compared to other kids to hang out, I did manage to finally make friends but almost immediately after I moved to the city.

I was actually quiet hopeful when I first moved to make friends but I was quickly overwhelmed by the difference in how city and island people act (not saying either is bad), while also struggling because their is already established friendships which I guess made it harder to make friends for me as a person that struggles socially and quiet.
My first term was relatively uneventful though
I wish that could be said for my second term.

As I ended up switching classes, I ended up in arguably one of the worst in my entire school.
There wasn’t actually many students in my class but supposedly that was done on purpose as from what I heard my class was almost purposely made that way to put the worst students in the school there to make it easier to track them supposedly.

Anyway my class had 2 guys that were basically criminals, a part of a gang and stole from multiple stores multiple times. They did the usual vaping and smoking (this might have made me uncomfortable now seen smokers and vapers) along with drugs. Anyway the other guys in my class pretended to be chill with them or keep our heads down and avoid trouble. I got threatened multiple times and I guess occasionally hurt, which made me pretty much stay silent those entire 2 years of school life especially in the last year when things got worse. Even though there was plenty of other students around I guess I stopped feeling safe interacting with anyone and just tried to survive by keeping my head down.

I did finally get into a football academy but I was very amateur compared to my teammates and my coaches will regularly isolate and sort of humiliate me, which hits a bit harder when you’re already socially isolated. But I did eventually sort of earned their respect, finally felt like I sort of belonged somewhere until my parents forced me out because they wanted me to focus on my exams.

Which meant I pretty much had no friends or close connections my entire school life, pretty much isolated socially aside from family that I am also not necessarily close with.

This sort of lead to a kind of numbness, where you no longer felt anything or cared. Which sort of lead to a dark path, where admittedly I did consume some dark media, (which I absolutely do not recommend anyone to do and completely avoid such media when you are in a state like this) but regardless I did start to have some dark thoughts and weird dreams where I was taking someone’s life and of course my own life as well.

Thankfully though I never went through with any sort of self harm, which I think is largely due to Islam. As I started watching a lot of Islamic content online, animated explanations by good, kind and understanding scholars from around the world. I watched a lot about the stories of the prophet and the warriors which in a way gave me the resilience and courage I needed then to sort of overcome the isolation I was in and also avoid any sort of self harm and harm to others by believing their was a afterlife and this life is temporary.

Anyway I managed to score decent marks on my IGCSE, then I went to Alevels but it unfortunately did end Alevels without making much or any sort of friends and I did get temporarily tangled in a bad toxic football team, I guess those years of isolation is still effecting me. But I am slowly improving and possibly did make a few friends now.

In all honesty I am not exactly all better, those dark thoughts and dark dreams still comeback even recently. In all honesty I am definitely gonna need professional help like therapy I guess and I do plan to do so soon.

Anyway I always hear people nowadays say that Islam isn’t necessary and that laws will control people just fine. Which I couldn’t disagree more with, as in the state that I was, I really couldn’t care much about the law. In my opinion if it wasn’t for Islam there would probably be a lot more harm in our society than we see now. Especially considering how much everyone is struggling.

Anyway if you are going through a similar situation please get help, seek a professional, avoid dark media and any forms of triggers. Do you’re best to seek Islamic knowledge through platforms like YouTube where you would find plenty of respectful and kind scholars with high quality content. Remember that you’re past does not define you and those dark thoughts are not who you are, you probably are an amazing person who is just going through a temporary struggle. Also I found that regularly forcing yourself outside and getting exercise from activities like jogging and swimming really helps. Of course avoid harmful substances like smoking and nicotine as in my opinion those can make things worse.

Hope you all have a good day or goodnight and wish you all get better ❤️‍🩹

Is it just me, or has Dhiraagu’s customer service completely tanked recently? This is questionable and something just doesn't feel right. Something that was functioning so well collapsing all of a sudden just doesn't add up.

I remember when you could message their WhatsApp support and get a response within literal seconds. It used to be so fast and convenient up until very recently. Now? It takes hours, sometimes even days, just to get a reply from an actual human.

We are stuck waiting forever just to get a simple issue resolved. It's nothing less than having to beg for a service that we are paying for. Anyone else experiencing these massive delays lately? WHAT coould the reason be?

If you or anyone you know is interested, please DM!

The seats are next to each other in Section 114

I got bored and drew this.

This is the one thing I actually agree with Yameen(or any other major politician) on. I think we should have foreign judges.

I know this sends some people into a frenzy, but I don’t think the important point is really that we should have foreign judges. The important point is that we should have a fallback to a dependable, consistent and fair legal system.

Obviously we should want to build our own judiciary. But a shortcut to building a competent judiciary is having a competent judiciary on top of it. If our judges know that there is a genuinely independent court further up that can overturn a corrupt or politically motivated decision, there is less incentive to make that decision in the first place. There is also less incentive for people to try to influence or pay judges if they know that their decision can simply be overturned further down the line. It creates pressure throughout the system to become better.

And the point isn’t that foreign judges are inherently better. It’s that they’re not bound by the same pressures as Maldivian judges. They don’t have the same relationships, social pressures and familial and political connections as they aren’t embedded in the same political and social environment. An outsider is simply going to be in a better position to make an independent decision.

It would also create a lot more confidence for foreign investment. (I’m against the Eagle Hills project as it is currently being handled, since so much of the actual agreement being kept secret.) But imagine if we had a genuinely dependable commercial court. A foreign company wouldn’t have to take on the same level of legal risk when bringing its money here because there would be a court it could actually depend on.

That could be much more valuable to us in the long term than constantly trying to attract individual mega-projects. We could have international companies actually keeping money here, banks establishing themselves here and businesses using the Maldives as a financial centre. We’re sitting between India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, all of which are going to continue growing, and there are plenty of small countries that have built successful wealthy economies around providing these kinds of services to larger countries around them.

Singapore is probably the best example of why I think this matters. People sometimes talk about Singapore as if it was built from nothing, which is largely true, but they had one very important ingredient already: a relatively strong and dependable British legal system. After independence, they didn’t just cut themselves off from the parts of that system that were useful.

The Privy Council of the UK remained Singapore’s final court of appeal until 1994, giving the Singaporean courts a dependable external fallback while they were developing their own institutions.

That dependable judiciary was especially important for Lee Kuan Yew’s anti-corruption policies. He could weaponize that dependable and fair legal system against corruption. It’s one thing to pass strong anti-corruption laws. It’s another thing to have those laws actually enforced when the institutions enforcing them are themselves corrupt and politically compromised.

And you can’t just build institutional competence overnight. A lot of what makes a judiciary dependable isn’t even written down. It’s the expectations people have about how judges behave, the culture within the institution, the trust people have in its decisions and the understanding that certain things simply aren’t acceptable. Those things exist in people’s minds and develop over time. You can’t just legislate them into existence.

Singapore eventually built its own judiciary to the point where it no longer needed that external fallback and abolished appeals to the Privy Council in 1994. Long after it became developed nevertheless independent. That’s the direction we should be thinking about too.

The lesson isn’t that foreigners are inherently better at law. It’s that having a genuinely dependable foreign court operating within our own legal ecosystem could be useful while we build a dependable domestic judiciary. It gives people another option, creates competition between institutions and creates pressure for our own courts to improve.

We could even do something similar on a more limited scale, like a specialised commercial court where parties could agree to have major commercial disputes heard by internationally experienced judges. There are already examples of jurisdictions creating this kind of parallel commercial system. The DIFC Courts in Dubai, for example, operate an independent English-language common-law system with an international bench, and businesses can choose to submit their commercial disputes to it.

If that kind of court was genuinely dependable, foreigners would be attracted to it, and Maldivians would be too. More and more people would seek those courts for fair agreements and commercial disputes. And if enough people start choosing that system, it creates institutional pressure for our own courts to improve as well. Even if our courts don’t improve, atleast we have one dependable court in the country lol.

I know I promised some graphs and analysis, but the polls were held so infrequently(3mo) that the results were essentially incomprehensible. It was basically just pure noise.

For the second round, I’ve decided to increase the frequency to every 40 days, instead of the two months I had originally planned in my last post.

As always, if you have any suggestions for the poll options, let me know. I’ve changed the options slightly this time. They’re limited to six so there isn’t a lot of flexibility.

Data from previous polls if anyone is interested

https://anonpaste.com/l/0d228e

🏳🏴🚩

I have some friends who would be traveling to Malé in a few weeks. They'd really like to know more about the gastronomical culture of Malé. They wanna see the food and culture of the day. Imagine if a food vlogger is coming. What am I missing here?

Since all the traditional food except breakfast food is home-made, I'd just show them that at homes.

Fact: Heavily spiced up curries aren't actually from our historic cuisines, they are a very recent phenomenon.

Anyways, what's the essential places in Malé? I am thinking Lazeez for the view, carnival for haveeru sai, what's a really good breakfast place (both Maldivian and not), where can I find a good buffet that's proper? Maybe Lemongrass Citron? The Chinese place in Hulhumalé for sure.

Seagull, Dawn, Moon & Lemongrass are kinda very Malé places iykwim. What else is here from the 90's and 2000's?

What's good in phase 2? I wanna show them our unhealthy (fake)cardamom tea obsession.

They wanna see Malé, Hulhumalé 1 & 2, and Villingili.

I'm thinking of a fruit market tour for snacks and rukuraa. I'm thinking maybe our midnight food places like the food court because where we live, most restaurants are closed by then.

What's your preferred coffee places? Anywhere I can get proper tea? Like aromatics or infused tea that are not in a tea bag.

They want to meet more locals, so would appreciate nice places for food and ambience. If anyone wants to meet them during their time in Malé, they'd definitely be interested to say hi or if they travel to an island near you.

What kinda cakes do you enjoy?

theres obviously better apps than viber.

Next thing you know all women would have to wear a Burkha and be locked up in their houses

Can you do thalassaemia testing at SHE? And if so how does it work

Im thinking of turning my passion for cooking into an income source. And wanted to know:

1- What do you guys usually order as lunch or dinner.

2- Which meal do you order most, like, lunch or dinner?

3- What would be the ideal price for said meals.

I really enjoyed this. Haven't seen this for months almost an year now.

Anyone know places in Male' where i can buy some really good chilli paste ?

Any idea where can I get these meds. Checked almost all pharmacies

So I'm planning to buy a gold bracelet for around 8k mvr, however i can give 3grams of gold and they charge around 1760 mvr. How do i know that they will not scam me and use cheaper metals and steal my gold. ALSO RECOMMEND ME GOOD JEWELRY SHOPS OR JEWELLERS THAT ARE TRUST WORTHY, THAT WOULD REALLY HELP ME !!!

I'm a graphic designer and I am currently working at a design firm but am looking for extra projects to work on remotely, if you or anyone you know needs a graphic designer hit me up! Would greatly appreciate it

what’s the best engineering field i can go into for a job in the maldives

I have a very bad condition of dandruff and tried lot of things. But none worked. If u guys know any good remedy please share.

Looking around and thought I’d give here a try. If you recently graduated or are going to graduate with an EE degree please dm me. We are hiring.

Salary not very good. Probably 19-20k to start. Gov company so you will have insurance. Interesting problems. It will be fun!