Mental Health Mondays – 10. Transitions

I had a headache every day of last week, from Saturday to last Friday. Every single day.

My formerly hypochondriac self would have probably panicked and immediately thought that it was probably a brain tumour and death was imminent, but years of self-exploration taught me better. I knew why and how.

I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for a few days now, I constantly felt tired and I was exhaustingly stressed. I’ve also been grinding my teeth in my sleep due to my anxiety, which gave me headaches.

The reason: I was about to quit my job and I’ll be soon starting a new one.

I’ve been thinking about my next stop for a while now.

I wasn’t happy in my job anymore, I was tired of the nature of it, the trips, the events and so on, there was no real progression, I wasn’t learning much anymore or developing professionally and a few things wore me down. I wanted to quit for a while but I was too scared to do it without getting another job first, which I finally did, last week.

Living in your 30s and having worked for a while it’s both a blessing and a curse. You are acutely aware of what you can put up with and what not and when it’s time to move on.

Some people are happy with what they have and they don’t mind if their job consumes them, affects their personal and/or social life or if doesn’t offer them any new skills or experience anymore. And that’s great for them. We all have different priorities. But I’m not like that. And although I know that this job might be ideal for someone else, for me that wasn’t the case anymore.

So, last Tuesday I quit my job.

‘But why did you keepg getting a headache and couldn’t sleep for the rest of the week?’ one might ask.

Transitions.

Quitting from a job, however frustated or exhausted you are doesn’t mean you won’t miss the good bits. The people I spent the last two years with, the banter, some of the work, some of the partners etc.

It’s sad and it’s OK.

I also feel anxious about the next chapter, whether everything is going to work out, whether I’ll adapt quickly, whether this is the best career step for me now (considering what I really want to work on is Mental Health, especially when it comes to the workplace, which might get to work on in my current job), whether my new colleagues will be as nice and cool as my old ones (It will be hard to beat!), whether I’ll finally have more time to do things that are important for me, like writing, being creative, volunteering , more time with friends and family, new experiences (and the list goes on).

It‘s OK to worry about it.

It’s been almost a week and I’ve been sleeping better and I haven’t had a headache in three days. I still feel sad and worried but I’m also excited about the new chapter and I’m open to whatever the universe brings.

A lovely friend of mine actually gave me great advice and without realising, reassured me that what I feel right now is normal. So I’ll leave you with that.

Namaste

Eleni

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Updates (back in action again!)

I haven’t made a video or written a blog or even just sat down with my own thoughts for a while and I’ve really missed it. So I started devoting time to myself again, in an effort to feel in charge and do things I love and not only work (although I do love my job!).

I made a short video and details and you can find details of what I mentioned below.

1. I’m planning to restart my Love to Learn English videos. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…​ Any requests/suggestions on what to cover are welcome!

2. I’ll create a short series of videos with useful expressions in the Cypriot dialect, as requested in a comment. In the meantime, if you need to learn Greek fast, you can use freely available material here: https://www.volutoring.eu/EN/

http://e-mploy-me.eu/log-in/

3. I will try to create more material on my Kopiaste social media https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtcl…

https://www.instagram.com/kopiaste_/

As always any recommendations, suggestions, comments are welcome!

Stay well and safe.

Namaste

Eleni

This is me

This post is for everyone who might be finding looking for a job amidst the pandemic even more painful, demotivating and soul destroying than it normally is.

Rejection after rejection can make you question yourself, your abilities, your self worth and that’s when you need to remind yourself of all your achievements and what you’ve done so far. I’m quite confident myself especially when it comes to my professional experience and knowledge and I still doubt myself when I can’t find a job. So…

This is me

I speak English and Greek fluently, I guess you can say I’m bilingual as after 11 years speaking mostly in English has caused my brain to think in English first. I also speak a bit of Italian and Spanish.

I have a LOT of qualifications (BA in Psychology, MSc Research Methods in Psychology, Qualification in Occupational Psychology, Occupational Testing, PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner, Online marketing fundamentals, CELTA) and during my 12 year work experience so far I accumulated a number of skills and knowledge in varied areas e.g. data analysis, reporting, event planning, research, promotional campaigns, teaching English etc.

I also volunteered for charities and in my free time I write (on this very blog as well as my travel blog I recently started kopiastekopiaste.wordpress.com), I love photography, making videos and I know a bit about digital marketing.

It helps to remind myself how far I’ve come and noone and nothing can take away my skills, knowledge and achievements from me. Comparing myself to others can only make me feel worse, we don’t all have the same opportunities, financial support and flexibility. I did the best I could with what I had and I continue to do so.

I’d also like to think that the right job will come at the right time and everything will just work out. Whatever I end up doing next, it might not be what I’m looking for, but I’m sure I’ll learn from it as much as possible. I may have to wait a little longer than I thought though and that’s OK.

I’m still the same capable, confident, knowledgeable individual.

If anyone’s interested in hiring me I can conduct research, occupational testing, create content, write articles, translate, manage social media accounts, teach English and above all help others. I’d love to work for the UN one day!

If this post helps even one person who’s in a similar position, I’ll be over the moon. Feel free to share your ‘This is me’ story, I’d love to watch it.

I made a video with the longer version of the blog. If you make a video too, tag me in so I can watch and share 🙂

Stay safe and well, wear your mask and remember, it’s okay not to be okay.

Namaste

Eleni

What do I want to be now I grew up?

‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ everyone would ask when I was a child, a teenager, a young adult.

The answer differed as I grew up. A doctor, a singer, an actress, a teacher, a psychologist, a travel writer.

And when I grew up, I became none of these. I’m not even sure what I became.

A year ago I quit my office job, I left the UK, got a CELTA, taught English in Italy for a year and now I’m back home to Cyprus after 10 years and I have no clue what to do next. It’s exciting, in theory I can do anything but I’m mostly terrified and worried I’m too old, I’ll run out of money and end up nowhere.

We were brought up to believe that by the time we hit 30 we would have tried a few different jobs and settled on a career and be happy with that one dream job, or at least be happy enough to stay in a job indefinitely.

But a single career path is not for everyone and not always the case. A lot of successful people in pretty much every field changed careers when they were older and wiser or kept changing careers or juggled more than one jobs until they died.

What do I want to be now I grew up?

I’m one of those people. Not a successful one, not yet anyway but there’s so many paths I’d like to follow but it’s impossible to try them all and even harder to stick to one or two.

Some are technically, and by technically I mean financially, not possible. One of the occupations I always wanted to go into was counselling. But I can’t afford another qualification. I can’t even ask for a loan as I’m now back to Cyprus and all the excellent credit score I built up for years in the UK won’t help me much here. Do I even want to have a debt?

Should I continue with EFL teaching? I could but my first year though rewarding, was exhausting and had zero time for myself, my friends or to travel. And should I risk going to another country and end up locked inside teaching online because of this pandemic’s unpredictable course?

I could become a writer. The idea of writing a fantasy/crime novel always excited me or a raw honest non-fiction on how society, social status and let’s face it wealth (or perhaps lack of) can and has for generations embedded a deep fear of failure especially in women. It’s always tougher for a woman, let alone one with no savings or family money to have ambitions and not let disappointment take over.

I sadly not only realised that for myself (after years of deep self-exploration) but I see it in dear friends and family who are better in what they do than others who might have become famous or run their own business but they are too shy or lack the confidence to ask or go for more.

That’s why the majority of politicians, business owners, celebrities and so on come from wealthy or at least upper-middle class families with connections and financial support making it easier to succeed.

I should believe in myself more, but at the moment I am crippled by my own insecurities and fears.

So what do I know about myself when it comes to my next career step now that I’m on those crossroads?

I don’t want to be stuck in an office 9-5, I’d love to travel and most importantly I’d be over the moon if what I do for a living helps others in any way.

Unfortunately volunteering doesn’t pay and living with my parents after 10 years living on my own is tough. I need my own space to keep growing and figure out what to do next.

For now, I’ll keep pushing myself to do more, trust myself and try not to stress about money and work and in the meantime if you have any personal inspirational stories or any piece of advice, please do share!

Namaste

Eleni

Blogmas Day 10- A different kind of Monday

I usually dread Mondays. It takes me a day or two after the weekend to get used to my 9 to 5, desk based job after a couple of days doing only what I enjoy, draw, play my guitar, write, read, go out, stay in, watch a film, enjoy delicious food at local restaurants.

But not today. I was only at work until noon, we made our first HESES successful submission and in the afternoon I joined the wonderful Touch team for their away day. 

It was by far the best Away Day I’ve ever taken part in. Fun, creative, positive with a great mixture of different people, experts and ideas, from interns, fresh out of university with innovative ideas,  Sam an experienced digital marketing expert, Hannah and Rachel who work for Touch and have inside knowledge and are both insightful and creative and Debs, the Touch founder, creative, thoughtful who has a clear vision on how she’d like to develop Touch.

By the end of the day, everyone contributed and we had a clear, detailed plan on how to expand our events across the country so as many people as possible can share their story and inspire each other. 

What made a difference for me was that we all felt comfortable sharing our ideas and knowing that everyone’s ideas were valued. I guess there were no corporate limitations or culture or disappointment that usually occurs on away days in large organisations.

On this away day I  felt that no matter how it all pans out is that we’ll try our best and what’s on paper will be materialised (with a lot of trial and error as with everything) because we all care. 

We did  all this  whilst enjoying lunch at the White Star on Oxford street. I haven’t been there for a while but I was delighted the quality of food had not changed since. I enjoyed their roast pumpkin, spinach and walnut gnocchi so much I actually finished it. I rarely manage to do so, but it was too scrumptious to resist. 

A creative, positive, fun, exciting Away Day with great food we all looked forward to. That rarely happens. 

No idea what tomorrow will bring but only two weeks to Christmas Eve!

Eleni

A refresh on Occupational Testing

About three years ago, after I passed my British Psychological Society (BPS) Occupational Psychology qualification exams, I naively thought I’d somehow manage to get a job as an Occupational Psychologist trainee (very few and rare opportunities in Southampton and at the time I so desperately tried to save my already failing relationship I rarely looked for jobs outside the city) so to increase my chances I decided to take the now called Assistant Test User and Test  User qualifications which would enable me to administer and interpret Ability and Personality/Motivation tests in an Occupational setting.

I found a consultancy in Brighton, KCP that offered a distance learning option (there were no local consultancies offering this which still baffles me) and they were recognised by the BPS and to cut a long story short after a month, some people take longer but I didn’t want to drag it out, I completed and got both qualifications. I was over the moon as I got great feedback from my trainers Andy and Cathy especially when I went through the Occupational Personality results with my two volunteers.  That was a little confidence boost that I needed more than I knew at the time.

Fast forward to today. My priorities changed, my life changed and unfortunately I haven’t yet given the chance to put my qualifications to good use. But every year around September I have to decide whether to pay to keep my name on the Register of Qualifications in Test Use (RQTU) and every time after contemplating for a month or so, I do. I guess I still hope one day I may get to do something with it. 

This year I decided to go a step further and refresh my knowledge and skills on Personality and Motivation/ Ability Occupational Testing so I posted on LinkedIn for recommendations of any free but high on reliability and validity tests I can administer to a couple of friends and then feed back the results to them. It’s not easy to find a good, robust, reliable, especially personality and motivation questionnaire that is readily available for free. Most of the free resources are generic and their validity and/or reliability is quite low.

Luckily my trainer Andy saw my post and as the sweet, lovely human he is he offered me a free MAPP questionnaire (the online version) the test I used for my qualification. I actually asked for a second one to administer to another friend with completely different ways of working compared to the first friend who filled it in, just to see how different the results and the feedback session may end up to be, and Cathy and Andy  agreed. 

I was at the time inspired by the Help me book I had recently read. For one of the self-help books, Marianne the author and protagonist, had to attempt to get rejected as much as possible and notion behind it was  to get used to the vulnerability and embarrassment which may come with rejection and that  it is actually not as scary as you thought it may be. So I thought I’d ask, I had nothing to lose and what was the worst it could happen? I wish I followed my own advice more often.

MAPP (Managerial and Professional Profiler) is a personality and motivation questionnaire designed specifically for professionals. It’s a great test as it measures a wide range of personality dimensions clustered in three broader categories, People, Task and Feelings and also motivational and values dimensions and what makes it even greater is that the results are compared to a large group of professionals/managers, which contributes to its validity and reliability. If you’d like to know more, you can find all details here.

MAPP can be used for assessment, as a part of the recruitment process but also for development. And that’s how I chose to use it for my two lovely friends who completed it. 

What I love most about giving feedback on any test but particularly MAPP is interpreting the results with the ‘assessees’, exploring how self-aware they are of their own work preferences, leadership style, how they work in a team, on a task and my favourite part, making associations between their work style to their motivation and values and discussing these with them. For example both of my friends seem to enjoy working with others than competing and they care about the well-being of their team, which makes perfect sense as they highly value altruism. 

I can go further deeper on the many, many connections between personality traits, values and motivation using examples but this post will end up more like a book instead.

Both my friends enjoyed their feedback sessions and they both gave me great feedback, similar to Andy and Cathy’s a couple of years ago. Which made me really happy. I was concerned they may treat this as a right/wrong exercise, but of course it isn’t. There’s no right or wrong when it  comes to personality and motivation and values. But it all went well.

They found it useful and quite interesting. And it is. It makes you think and consider things you may haven’t thought about before. 

Before anyone else suggests it, as I have been asked before, I tried my workplace’s HR but no luck. Sometimes, after multiple rejections, although of course I know I shouldn’t take it personally and keep trying, one cannot but feel demoralised and question their own abilities. That’s why feedback is incredibly important. 

I have tried to offer this as a freelance service but as I work full-time in a completely different job, I don’t have the time or resources to promote it. 

If anyone would like to take MAPP or any other questionnaire and would like me to give them some feedback, you can purchase the test from Andy and I’d more than happy to do that for you. 

Special thanks to Andy and Cathy for offering me the test for free and my lovely friends Sophie and Chris who completed it for me.

Eleni

It’s never too late to chase your dreams…

Words cannot describe how happy I am it’s finally the weekend.

March has probably been the busiest month so far in 2018 personally, socially and professionally.

Staying late at work planning the AS Away morning, putting together the programme for the day, ensuring the catering arrived on time and other event related issues you can imagine whilst trying to stay on top of everything else, urgent requests, ongoing projects and the list goes on was fun, I love a challenge, but exhausting.

In the evenings and the weekends I caught up with friends and had one of the best nights out leaving me with no time to actually catch up with myself, do my yoga, spend time on my guitar or even write on my blog.

Now I have a week off to catch up with everything, do the things I love and try new things.

Last week I went on an interview at a job at the University. I wasn’t sure whether to apply, it was a much more interesting job compared to what I do (though most of the peeps working in that team applied for it, meaning my chances were slim) but most importantly, although I still don’t know what my dream job is, I know what it isn’t. And this wasn’t.

I was surprised I was invited for an interview but I did my best to prepare in the little free time I had and I made new friends along the way across the University. Thank you Dan for all your help and our chats, it was a pleasure meeting you. And thank you Meredith, Caroline and Phil for giving me the opportunity, I’ve learned something new about a great University service, I didn’t know before.

I didn’t get the job in the end. I wasn’t surprised I didn’t get it, but I was surprised I was not disappointed. I felt relieved. I may not love my current job, although I always do my best, but it allows me mentally, physically and practically to do more of the things I love outside work. And although I don’t believe in ‘meant to be’ I have a feeling that something bigger and better is coming my way.

Since a couple of bad experiences I had recently (a job I really wanted I applied for and didn’t get it, went on a date after two years and it went terribly bad) without consciously realising my life attitude has dramatically changed. I give things a go and if not working, I move on and after a day or two, I’m back enjoying life to the full. Because it is too damn short.

My friend Chris told me recently ‘If someone a year ago had said that you would be smashing PBs for leg presses you ‘d have never believe them. Odd how life changes!’

Of course I wouldn’t. Who would have thought! A year ago I was struggling with depression. I didn’t want to leave the house. I felt lost and alone.

Life changes because I changed it.

A year later, I’m stronger and healthier, I’ve met incredible humans who I now call my friends, I’ve made beautiful memories, I tried new things and I’m now going on my first ever solo trip in two days!

And I couldn’t be more excited, albeit a bit scared. Which makes me feel even more excited.

On Thursday I had the chance to visit the beautiful, colourful, vibrant Below Bar studios again as a BA (Hons) Fine art student invited me for a chat and a browse around the Fine Art studio. A post on that coming soon but what inspired me most about Andy was his love of Art and what he does. It may have taken him 30 odd years, since life is never easy and he had to work from a young age providing for his family, but he is finally now chasing his dream of becoming an artist.

A shining, bright example that is never late to chase your dreams. Just remember to live life to the full and enjoy every moment you can in the meantime…

I may not know what I really want to do with my life yet, since I love more than one things, writing, food, mental health, events management, staff development, marketing, drawing, anything to do with people, music although If I could make a living writing about food whilst travelling I’d go right now, but I know it will never be late to chase my dreams.

Namaste

Eleni

You are very much on time

Today I’m not reflecting back on last week.

I weirdly can’t remember much of it. It’s all a blur.  I remember walking home after my hairdresser’s appointment on Monday evening, only to find out the next day that a girl was raped at the very same park I walked through, roughly at the same time I passed by.

I didn’t hear a thing. It was only 6:30pm in the evening. It shouldn’t be dangerous walking through a park with so many people around early in the evening.

I no longer walk through the park at night, most days. Some days I’m angry that women in this day and age are advised not to walk through a park in the afternoon, just to be on the safe side, so I walk through it and I’m ready to fight whoever tries to even touch me.

I remember Mike’s birthday lunch and the fire at Waterstone’s whilst we were at Turtle Bay. How sad to see all the books, all the beautiful books with amazing stories on their pages, all the philosophy, science, literature, fiction books that open up our minds and teach us valuable lessons burnt.

Waterstones

And I remember having delicious pies for lunch on Thursday. This is it. The rest is nonsensical in my brain.

What I vividly remember is waking up one day during the week in tears. I was terrified, panicking. Panicking this year is going so fast, too fast. I cannot believe it’s already March.

I went through a whirlwind of emotions, thoughts. I’ve been contemplating about life a lot this week.

‘Am I good enough?’

‘What should I do next?’

‘What do I really want to do next?’

‘What if I die right now?’

‘What have I achieved in my life so far?’

‘I am running out of time. I’m almost 32, what should I do?’

Excruciatingly painful questions with no simple answers.

And then I remembered. I remembered a video my lovely Lou sent me.

A simple, minute and a half long video going through examples on how people achieve different things at different times. One might have become a CEO when they were 22 and then died a year later whereas someone else became a CEO when they were 50 and lived until their 90. Just an example to show that we all work on our own time zones, some might seem ahead and some might seem behind you, we shouldn’t mock them or envy them. Because we are all running our own race, in our own time, our own time zone.

So simple, yet so powerful. I’m in my own time zone, as you are in yours.

It’s incredibly tough to not compare yourself to others. Society norms dictate and often measure your success on others. But that’s not the case.

I recently finished reading one of the best books I’ve ever read and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone, Emotional Intelligence, why it can matter more than IQ by Daniel Goleman.

I’ve learned a lot from this one book, from the neuroscience behind it to what Emotional Intelligence is to how developing it can benefit yourself, others, the society, the world, but I won’t go into much detail, one must read it to get the full picture.

Emotional Intelligence, recognising your own emotions and managing them effectively, motivating yourself, recognising emotions in others and handling relationships is what can make or break you. Emotional Intelligence in contrast to the highly regarded by many IQ can be cultivated and improved at any age. And it should. It’s vital and essential. It all starts from a very young age. The way your parents raise you up even since you are a toddler affects your whole life but you have the power to change it. It should be taught at school, it should be taught from a young age.

Why? Because when we finally become adults we can cope better in life. We learned how to be good, loving caring humans. We are aware when and why we are happy, upset, angry.  We recognise how others behaviours affect us and how to change that, we know how to treat people truly respectfully without letting prejudices affect us. We are more resilient to social pressure and all of the social rules dictating our lives. We won’t feel the need to measure our success by comparing our lives to others, because we have the emotional intelligence to recognise that’s just emotions and feelings imposed by others. 

What is success anyway? Money, fame, reaching the top of your career ladder?

No, not really. Many have done that and if you ask them years later they all say the same thing. They’d rather have spent more time doing things they love, with the people they love, making memories.

Of course it’s important to love what you do. And I respect people who love their work. But work is not everything and it shouldn’t define us. And not all of us are lucky to be doing what we love for a living.

In one of the first Derren Brown books I read, Derren whilst explaining how he memorises and recalls people’s names, mentions that when he meets people he never asks them what most would ask, what they do for a living, because some might hate their job and what they do doesn’t define who they are, but he instead asks them what they do in their spare time, what their hobbies are, what they love doing, and then associates their name with some of their favourite things. What a great way to remember people’s names!

I’ve met many ‘successful’ people in my life. Most could only talk about their job and their career, understandably because they love it but they couldn’t discuss about anything else. They rarely read any book, they rarely had time, or made time, to go on a holiday or explore another culture, they haven’t listened to music or went to the theatre for months. They couldn’t remember the last time they’ve seen a film, they had no knowledge or experience in anything else other than their work.

If that’s success, then I do not want it.

What I loved about my lunch with Charlie yesterday is that we could chat about films, life, society, Higher Education, music to travelling and life. Because we both love learning, trying new things and our life doesn’t revolve around work. What we do for a living does not define us and it shouldn’t.

What the world needs is more well-rounded people like Charlie. Well-rounded, emotionally intelligent, loving, caring humans.  People who have what the Japanese called Ikigai, ‘a reason for being’.

Some of them might have reached success in the conventional sense, some might not. But it doesn’t matter.

I don’t know if anyone in years to come would even remember who I was, I don’t know if I leave a big mark on this crazy world, but we all leave our mark, big or small.

What I’ll leave for others is what I learned from my life through my blog, I’ll leave thousands of photos of delicious food and beautiful places and stories of amazing humans.

The feature image I used for this post today is an example of what I’ll leave for others. A gorgeous moment I captured whilst walking to work. I stopped walking for a second because I wanted to take in the beauty of this world. The sun coming out of the clouds, shining gloriously, brightening the beautiful park. Every time I stare at the sun I think of all my friends and family who live far away but at that moment standing there, the same sun is shining where they are. At that moment they don’t feel that far.

We are on our own time zones, literally and metaphorically but we are part of each other’s life, we are part of each other’s time line, in the most beautiful way. Because we love and care about each other. And I smile. 

It’s all about the little things, it’s all about enjoying every single moment, trying new things and for me right now, doing more things I want to but I’m scared of. And everything will fall into place. Just like that.

There is no better way to end this post with a poignant quote by my favourite lady, Leslie Knope.

—kflagrega

Namaste

Eleni

Why I #loveSolent

For me, Solent is all about the people.

Six years ago, on a rainy November morning, I woke up terrified. My alarm didn’t go off and I was going to be late for my interview. It was the first role I got an interview for that I really really wanted.

I got ready as fast as I could, I didn’t have any coffee, I didn’t even have time to do my hair and had to fashion a quick high bun. By the time I arrived at the reception, the same reception I pass by every day for the last six years, all the worries and stress I had for a week were just gone and I walked in with a ‘nothing else can go wrong now, f**k it’ attitude.

That was the first time I’ve met my then boss and now an amazing friend Chris (who yesterday put together my TV stand as my DIY skills are laughable, nicest man I know) and Caroline, our lovely manager.

In the four years I worked in the Research and Information Unit I’ve learned a lot, I’ve grown and I felt loved and appreciated. Most significantly I made friends for life.

I met my bestie, the most amazing person I’ve ever known Sheba, my Jaba, who gives the best hugs in the world and Mark, Jamie, Sally, Helen, Lou, Emma and all the choir people and of course one of my favourite humans, our choir leader Dan.

About two years ago I left Solent to try something different. I was bored of doing the same thing for four years and I was desperate for a change. I’m not gonna go through everything in detail but after three months I quit, the following day I flew home to say my goodbyes to my dying aunt but I was 10 minutes late and the day I came back home, in Southampton, my boyfriend broke up with me.

I was a mess. Absolutely and utterly devastated. The worst part was that I didn’t have a job. I temped for a while but the money wasn’t enough. Until a job came up at Solent, a fixed term, well paid job I could actually do, so I didn’t have to start from scratch, I wouldn’t have been able to handle it with everything else that was going on in my life that period. I had hit rock bottom, the lowest I’ve ever been.

When I walked through the doors again after four months it immediately felt like home.

I’ll be eternally grateful to my colleagues and especially my manager Suzanne for the support and the love I felt the first couple of months in particular, when I was in such a bad state I’d burst into crying at my desk. She has been more than just a boss to me, even though she won’t admit it!

The last two years have been incredible. I ‘ve made great friends,my favourite Northerner mamma Donna, Miss Holiday and ray of sunshine Linda, my brother Andi, Suzanne and Matt, Sati, Andy, Mike, Syed, Sarah, Denise (love you Denise!), Jo, Lorna, Alex, Rob, Osama and many many others, it will take a whole post to list everyone.

Some of my most precious memories were made at Solent or with Solent people.

The best bunch of people I’ve ever met. A great big family who care for each other. It sounds cheesy but it’s true.

And not just at personal level. Not many realise how important work support staff do. There is this notion that Universities are all about teaching. Of course it is important but teaching alone is not enough.

We get frustrated and disappointed from time to time but we do our best for the University because we really care. We keep the systems going, we make sure the students have their timetable on time, we offer the best support we can when it comes to Finance, assessments, IT, personal problems and the list goes on.

Over the last six years I watched the University grow, our new building the Spark being built and now in full use, I spent many lunch breaks enjoying the delicious food at the Deli and the Dock, I’ve seen films for £4 thanks to Sonar film, I helped with graduation, I volunteered for the Open day, I worked overtime at weekends, I had a laugh with my team of students calling graduates in the evenings, I danced until my feet hurt at the legendary Staff Scene Christmas parties and until this day, even at the worst of times we have a laugh every single day.

I may leave Solent at some point but it will always feel like home.

And this is why I #loveSolent.

Namaste

Eleni

Blogmas day 5- Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree

Day 5…

I have no idea how it’s  9pm  already…

Have you ever had one of those days you don’t know what’s happening, what time it is and your mind keeps getting lost in random thoughts? It’s been a while since the last time that happened.

Morning went really fast, it’s been busy at work. I finally managed to finish off and publish the fee regulations and fees table (for now). Rob, we made it!

At lunchtime it was singing time with some of my favourite people at work and of course the gorgeous Dan, who always smells amazing and gives the best hugs.

We finally started Christmas songs. I’m still humming along to Santa Claus is Coming To Town!

In the afternoon, a group of colleagues got together to take a festive photo around our Christmas tree, you’ll find out why soon! For now, look how cheery and happy we all look like! Thank you Peter for the lovely photo.

AS christmas photo

The afternoon flew by and after my yoga ( I missed a couple of sessions and I felt guilty as hell) it was time for Sheba and I to decorate my little Christmas tree!

We had chocolates, pop corn, Christmas songs, Santa hats, the whole lot.

We couldn’t get the Christmas lights to work to begin with, and as the amateur electricians we are, we managed to change the fuse (for the first time ever!). But, that was not the issue. So we started checking all the bulbs and one of them was missing. The joy in our faces after we replaced it and the lights suddenly lit up was priceless! A little Christmas miracle.

We laughed, we danced, we sang. I love this girl so much, whatever we do, even at our worst times we always have a laugh.

Christmas tree 2017

Now time for a Christmas movie. It’s been a bizarre day again. I wonder what tomorrow will bring. A special thank you to Denise for reminding me to chase my dreams. Love you!

Namaste

Eleni