Tag Archives: Life

the big move…

6 Aug

Starting a new job is like getting a haircut.

You may stick to what you like – getting a trim and some safe caramel highlights – or go completely different a la Katy Perry and take the plunge from black to blonde! When you undertake a big change like this (as all fellow hair-dyers will know!) you have to risk having unsightly orange ‘bosco the clown’ hair momentarily until you get to your perfect blonde shade.

Coming from a radio/PR/media background, the step into recruitment was a pretty big career change. I was happily working in radio for the last few years in Dublin having just left university. Things were going well – I got some great experience researching and reporting for some brilliant radio stations and even met Jedward! *tumble weed* But after a while I decided it was time to move on. I always wanted to live in London and the impending cut backs in my last office gave me the push I needed to move on.

One of my best friends from home had just started a new job in recruitment and after meeting her for dinner one evening it got me thinking about looking into recruitment roles in London. Certain aspects of recruitment sounded pretty similar to my previous jobs – and I loved the thoughts of being in a sociable role where I got paid to chat and meet great candidates and clients!

I knew coming from a creative, fun, working environment that I wanted similar and wouldn’t suit a strict, formal office.

One of the most important things for me in moving jobs was to work with nice people in a fun environment. I liked the look of Ecom’s site with their bright designs and little ‘cartoony egg’ people graphics (to use the…technical term!) – I’m like a magpie, shiny bright things catch my attention.

So that had me sold – I fired off my CV and cover letter. I flew over from Dublin for interviews at Ecom and quickly found out how expensive looking for another job is! I didn’t really want to hand in my notice without a solid offer of a job but knew if I didn’t get the job at Ecom that I would just have to come to London and hope for the best, as flying back and forth for interviews was not an option.

After meeting a few of the staff, the role at Ecom quickly became my first choice. At the second interview I was told that they’d let me know by the end of the day. I was flying back to Dublin at 5pm that day so knew it could go either way – either I would be very happy indeed… or I would be attempting to busk on the plane hoping to earn a few extra quid to fund my move to London as an unemployed person.

Luckily I didn’t have to subject the cabin crew to my fantastic singing and spoon playing.

After that, things happened really quickly – I finished up my radio job, said goodbye to my friends, family and lovely dogs and off to London I went…with three massive suitcases!

I was so excited to move, and slightly terrified. I was going from working in an area I had studied in university and had worked in for years, to something completely different! I had the fear of permanently being stuck in the orange ‘bosco the clown’ hair phase (see my hair analogy does make sense…I think!). Luckily after my first day I knew I’d love Ecom – the people were lovely and I was allowed to play Jedward and 5ive on Spotify (with only a few complaints!).

I’ve been here three months now and have had to get used to living in a new country as well as starting a new job.

As with any new job there’s a lot to take in, in the first month especially, and for a while I was even dreaming about Ecom! The most exciting thing so far was doing my first deal and placing a candidate in their dream job…and the work day out to Ascot was pretty amazing too – I won £23…then lost £18 of it on another bet! But hey that’s still a £5 profit!

I can honestly say that I look forward to going to work in the mornings – partly because breakfast is my favourite meal! – but also because I work with a great bunch of people in a fantastic city!

From: Ecom Blog

All pics from We Heart It

goodbye ireland!

2 May

I have been absent for the blog world lately… the reason being I am moving to London! Ra, ra, ra!

The whole job situe in Ireland is beyond crap (as we all know!) so like many others I decided to up and leave. I’m jumping on the emigration bandwagon!

Over the past few months I have been firing CVs off to places in London and after two interviews with one particular company (one involving a presentation – scary!) I got a job :)

The job is slightly different to what I’m used to – it’s in recruitment consultancy as opposed to radio – but deliraaaa to have job security at last!… and moving to London is a bonus too – after spending almost five years living in Dublin ending up somewhere besides Coppers at 3am will be nice!

Tho’ will any London club play Damo & Ivor‘s chooon?!?!

The funny thing is moving to London kind of feels like moving to Dublin five years ago… most people I know from college/school/previous work are now living there so it’s not as scary a move as upping and moving to a new city where I don’t know anybody. I would probably be way too chicken to do that! It even worked out that I am moving in with two Irish guys I met on my J1 to San Fran in 2008!

Of course it is still scary moving somewhere new… and starting a new job.

I fly over on Friday and start work Monday. I was so excited that I got the job in the first place that I kind of forgot what it’s like starting somewhere new…  what to wear on the first day?! what will the other people in there be like?! will my head implode with nerves?! … well if head implosion is avoided I will consider the first day a success. Hurrah.

Once that’s over with my main priority is to go to London zoo…!

So long Ireland!

K

x

me and my invisable mate

30 Oct

I’ve been working on the breakfast show (6.30am-1pm) and evening shift (4.30pm-7pm) in work for the last two weeks… safe to say the ol’ body clock doesn’t know what’s hit it! The hours themselves don’t really bother me (besides being sleepy some days!) cuz I genuinely love being in work and am delighted to be getting hours (I’m freelance so my hours can be anything really!)

Anyhoo my point is that my eating habits have gone a bit… funny.  I eat breakfast (porridge always!) in work at about 7am… then grab ‘lunch’ at about 10 or 11am. I always sleep between 1.30pm-4pm so don’t eat before my second shift (just grab a hot chocolate!)… by the time I leave work at 7pm I am ready to eat my arm!!!

On Wednesday  I thought ‘feck it I’m too hungry to even wait for a takeaway’ so plonked myself in Eddie Rockets! Now ya know what they say – never shop on an empty stomach. Well they should extend that to ordering food by yourself! So I ordered an amazo Orea milkshake to keep me going before the grub arrived (!) … and I also ordered a veggie burger, sweet potato fries, onion rings and Cajun sauce. A lot for a little person. But it gets worse…

Now my friend Becky has given my… er… condition a name – Kelly Belly… whereby I order a ridiculous amount of food convinced I’m gonna eat it all, but take a few nibbles and am full! Said food is then put in the fridge to be eaten at a later date… but never sees the light of day!

So I walk up to the counter in Eddies and hand over my order slip.

“Would you like to pay separately?” asks the girl.

I just stare at her a little stunned before I realise she thinks there was more than me at my table due to my ridiculous order.

“Em… no… it’s just me” *girl looks embarrassed for me* then of course I feel the need to explain myself, “yeah… eh ya see… I work funny hours… eh… my eyes are bigger than my belly…em…yeah” *nervous laugh from me*… blank stare from the girl.

Oh dear.

the taste of your honey is so sweet when you give me the hummingbird heartbeat

2 Sep

inky ink the octopus

1 Sep

So I got my *new* tattoo today!

Took just over two hours in total. Actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be at all – got my last tattoo two years ago so had kind of built this one up thinking it’d hurt but it was grand! The worst part was lying down staring up at spotlights for two hours! Aaaah my eyes!

I got it done by Ian Flynn in JMD’s Tattoos in Waterford- they’re great there, definitely recommend them.

Will I get another? Hmm, who knows! Not for the moment – happy with three for now!

I actually have shorts on – just rolled up for the pic, looks like I’m trying to pass my t-short for a dress! Gah!

The tattoo looks a bit shiny as I’ve put healing cream on it – I am literally hopping around the house and trying to make sure CoCo doesn’t jump up on me (ouch!).

Have been off work sick the last few days but since I had already paid €100 non-refundable deposit for the ol’ tat I figured I better try get it done – surprisingly felt so much better after it (maybe all the adrenaline?!)…

K

x

style icon:whitney port

9 Aug

I am a little bit in love with Whitney Port at the minute.

I remember when I was thirteen or fourteen I got a Bobbi Brown make-up book (to this day it’s my favourite make-up brand) that said every one should have a style icon they can relate to in some sense.  I think it came up in the context of Bobbi never having anyone she could really relate to growing up – she was surrounded by pictures of blonde, pale skined, blue-eyed models while she had strong features, brown eyes, dark hair and dark, tanned skin.

Anyhoo it’s a really good point if you think about it.

It’s nice to pick a style icon that you can relate to in some ways, of course I don’t mean find someone who’s a carbon copy of you – that could be hard (or impossible for non-professional lookalikes!) but even try find someone like you in terms of style, weight, face shape etc.

I love Katy Perry but I look nothing (and I mean nothing!) like her. She has amazing curves (I have none), pale skin (I’m sallow to the point of yellow!). I think she is so fab tho’ that I decided a while back I would dye my hair like her… disaster. I looked washed out and dead, and thank God I didn’t go for the fringe too.

I felt kinda bad after it tho’ – how come she looked so nice with dark hair and I looked completely shit??

Bobbi’s point was that if we can find a beauty/style icon we can relate to it can make us feel better about ourselves – we’re not comparing ourselves to something completely unobtainable, i.e. if you’re a pale skin, red-haired Irish girl someone like the fabulous Karen Gillen.

Whitney has a long face shape more like mine, brown eyes, middle parting/long hair (same ish colour and style), similar colourings in terms of skin tone etc. When I went to the hairdressers to get a Whitney-esque colour it came out nice and I didn’t look dead a la Katy Perry. Phew. We’re about the same ish build – she’s obvo waaaay taller.

(On a side note – why is it that it seems quite hard to say ‘I’m not fat’ or  ‘I’m slim’… Is it just me? Maybe it’s an Irish thing but I hate saying anything about my size. It almost seems if anyone says ‘oh you’re so skinny’ the proper answer is ‘go awaaay out of that I am not, look how big my *insert random body part* is).

Now obviously I don’t look like Whitney (*dreams*) but I think it is quite nice to have a style icon who you can at least feel like you can try emulate in some shape or form. We all have our own style and quirks but it’s nice to look to others for  inspiration. I personally love Whitney’s laid back style – I am a big blazer fan, esp. boyfriend blazers which Whitney wears a lot. She actually has a fab one HERE from her own line… tho’ a bit on the pricey side!

Of course it’s great to have a variety of style icons but it is nice to have at least one whose photos don’t make you feel crappy about yourself (ahem Katy Perry and her fab curves!)

What do you guys think?

K

x

unemployed

11 Jul

I need a job!

<3

living in a dreamworld

8 Jul

I want to see the world!

I love all these photos!

mountain or mole hill

5 Jul

My head is going to explode.

I have so much stuff to get ready for Canada in the next few days: visa forms, police certificates, book flights, rob a bank…

Heeeelllllppppp.

hay is for horses

3 Jul

Image by Jo Bradford

Naaaay Nay!

This summer I’ve started to take horse riding lessons – really fun but way harder than it looks! I thought you’d just pop up on the horse and off you go… hmm apparently not!

I always wanted to go for lessons but I guess I just felt like I was too late (considering most of my friends have been doing it since they were 9!). Well, I think that was more of my mentality as a teenager – now it’s pretty obvious that you don’t have to be a pro at everything by 22!

Next… surfing!

<3

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