Diva-ish Behaviour

The things that I enjoy most about London:

Dishoom, Shoreditch. Definitely not your typical Friday night Indian.

This won't become a habit, but there is something so calming about opening a bottle of chilled white wine on a Friday evening after a jam-packed week at work.

Houses of Parliament. Best evening stroll after a long day at work.

L is for the way you look at me, O is for the only one I see, V is very very extraordinary and E is even more than anyone that you adore. London's very own tribute to Frank Sinatra (as I like to believe). Heron Tower, Bishopsgate.

View from Sushi Samba, Heron Tower. Beautiful.

Paramount Bar, Centre Point on Oxford Street. Best tasting cocktail I have had to date!

The Drift, Heron Tower. Reasonably priced, fab ambience and a must go. To be shared with the right people. <3

Ninetyeight Bar, Shoreditch. The magical world of Alice in Wonderland. Escapism at its best.

Yalla Yalla, Shoreditch. Beirut Street Food on London's street side. Dine on wooden boxes and feel the festival vibe with al fresco dining.

Meat Liquor, just off Oxford Street. The onion rings are the size of your fist! 

The Hummingbird Bakery. To satisfy a sweet tooth.

Byron, Shepherds Bush. The oreo milkshake is a small meal by itself, a fusion of sinful flavours.

Shaka Zulu, Camden. BRILLIANT

Starbucks on the way to work after working late evenings at client events.

Vertigo 42, Bishopsgate. The romantic side to London. 

The Tea House Theatre, Vauxhall. Real Afternoon Tea. Quaint and cosy. #sundayafternoon

Sushi Samba, Heron Tower. Sip on a cocktail and take in the view. Not a great menu for a veggie but who needs to eat when you can drink in style?!

Docklands Nail Bar. My treat that keeps me smiling.

The Shard.

Starbucks, working weekend. They spelt my name right!! Guess London is getting used to me :D x

Natural Beauty Scathed When Girl From The Midlands Takes On London Lifestyle Full Time

Hello World it has been awhile since you last heard from me for I have been enjoying work, chocolate and living!

I have a cause for concern however, and therefore writing this post as a means to seek advice so please feel free to offload any home remedies, tried and tested techniques or crazy and wonderful theories.

Since moving to London I have begun to notice that the skin on my face has started to deteriorate. Its by no means hideously horrid, but it has been playing on mind. I have been fortunate and blessed with good skin and have not found acne breakouts a problem. Only of late I have started to notice tiny pimples appearing on  my face and I am at a loss as to why, and what I can do differently to stop this.

I cleanse my face every morning with a daily facial wash, and close the pores by splashing cold water. I don't wear powder or foundation and haven't since the age of 16 and do not wear bronzer everyday. Most days I wear eyeliner and mascara and whack on a bright lipstick. Weekends is when I tend to indulge and splash out with a bit more imaginative makeup.

I don't touch my face throughout the day (or if I do, this is extremely limited - I'm more of a hair twizzler than face toucher) and wash my hands after travelling on the underground and throughout the day. What is going on then you hear me scream?!

My conclusion is that I strongly believe that it is the underground commute that is taking its toll on me and my fresh, hydrated Midlands skin. The underground is horridly unclean with dust balls blowing around, mice on the tracks and tonnes and tonnes of people coughing, sneezing and jabbering on. What concerns me even more is that the Londoners skin looks great!

There must be an agony aunt out there somewhere that can help me.

Yours truly from a disheveled Diwa x

The Dole & Me

                                                     Pondering life 02/03/13

Since leaving Sparkies in January I have been interning at Cancer Research as an Employee Benefits Marketing Intern. During these 7 weeks I have been supporting myself from the savings that I had accrued working the previous Christmas. The moment that every graduate dreads, I put an application in for Job Seekers Allowance as my financial bubble was on the brink of popping. All seemed fair and well, I attended my first JSA appointment and was told that my application was approved and that I would be receiving £52 per week. This money was much needed as it would allow me to continue interning in London.

A couple of weeks on it materialised that I was not eligible for JSA as I was interning 37 hours a week. As you can imagine I felt a vast mix of emotions. My first was worry. I was in over my head, I can't possibly sustain my lifestyle, I am never going to get the job that I want and now I am going to have to ring my parents and relay what a disappointment I was. I saw my life panning out before my eyes; I would have to move back home with a bruised sense of ambition.

To be told that there was a cloud of doubt over my application as there was no reasonable time that I could possibly apply for jobs whilst interning full time was crushing. The entire driving force behind interning is to gain experience within the industry that I wish to penetrate, building the blocks required to secure a paid job in this sector. My arguments for justifying that I was able to apply for jobs: I applied during evenings and weekends. I had a huge spreadsheet of jobs applied for to prove it - colour coded, dated and ongoing. It was after all, in my own interest to secure a job and begin climbing my career ladder. As I saw it, internships are the baby steps needed to make that leap.

As it happens there seemed to be a path paved for me and I had turned a corner. I was offered the position of Marketing & PR Assistant and have completed my first week in my new role. I needed to vent, so I have - London, don't punish the young for trying to find their way during this tricky time (job wise).

On another note, Happy Mothers Day.

Love to all x

Top 10 Valentine's Presents On A Budget...Or Not

By far, February is the best month of the year. The fun from Christmas has died down by now and we've all started to settle into the new year. Then February comes along, the healthy eating New Year's resolutions has gone out the window and there are better things to look forward to. Pancake Day is on the 12th, followed by Valentine's Day on the 14th and then my birthday on the 18th (which usually I try and drag out to a birthday week) - good times.

I'm feeling the love this Valentine's Day. The freezing cold air where my lips feel so sore and numb, shivering immediately from stepping out of the Angel Building. The cold is running up into my coat cursing that tiny gap of exposed skin between where your gloves end and your cardigan begins. Brrr i'm getting cold just thinking about it! But the funny thing is, is that I LOVE it! I like walking past shop windows seeing the Valentine's displays, walking into card shops and seeing people spend time pouring over the Valentine's Day card selection, searching for the perfect one. Maybe it is because I have got that little bit older that I appreciate the warmth and fun of it all. Since I am feeling the love this Valentine's I thought I would spread it, and relay a Top 10 guide of the perfect gifts for this romantic time of year. I feel like Cupid, call me Cupi(n)der if you will.

Valentine Do's
1. Customise M&M's and make them into your very own: www.mymms.co.uk/config/#/customization

2. A weekend break to Paris. It's cliche but who cares, nothing screams more romantic than a smooch under the Eiffel Tower.

3. Roses. Every girl melts over beautiful roses. I despise the colour red (besides red lipstick obviously) but red roses, ah they take me to a dreamy place.

4. Walk into M&S, they have such a cute display of Valentine's things from pink champagne to Valentine crackers. You can't go wrong there.

5. Get down on one knee and propose (in a public place preferably so other people can coo over how cute you both are)

6. Breakfast in bed. You can buy heart shaped pans for fried eggs, cut the toast into hearts too. No qualms.

7. An experience day. There is nothing more fun, especially if you're new in the relationship than a day out wine tasting, or a cooking class.

8. If you can't be together for Valentines, deliver a dozen roses.

9. Sing her/him a love song over skype. "It's all about youuuuu, its all about you baby" - McFly is a winner

10. Asking the person you fancy out for a drink on Valentine's Day.

Valentine Faux Pas
1. Forgetting

2. Spending Valentine's with the boyfers AND his parents

3. Breaking up on Valentine's or just before :(

4. Drunk texting/ drunk dialing your ex. Cringe

5. Being alone on Valentine's Day. Don't be a douche, hate on it together with your girls over a tub of Haagen Daz. Go to a traffic light party with your boys and get with the drunk girl dressed in amber.

6. Taking your girlfriend to McDonald's because you think you're so dope. No you're not, you're an idiot, for many reasons!

7. Sending a smoochy woochy text to your girlfriend's mum by mistake

8. Cooking dinner when neither of you can actually cook

9. Getting drunk on Valentine's Day, work will be painful the day after

10. Dressing your naked body in sushi like Samantha from Sex & the City - no one can pull that off in the real world!!

Wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day. Cuddles x

Interning: The Devil Wears Prada

                                          Snowy London, 18/01/13
                                           
I can only apologise for my mysterious dissapearance, a lame excuse but I have simply been busy. Busy travelling the length of the country on a weekly basis since the end of October, working my part-time job at Sparkies and gaining valuable career experience in the week. Now that I no longer work at Sparkies and therefore do not need to travel back home to Derby from London every Friday evening, I have regained somewhat of a life. I have missed offloading in written prose so here we go...

Internships is something that I knew very little of, I associated the behaviour with our American friends. Something that Lauren Conrad from The Hills did whilst she juggled her priviledged lifestyle with her quest for true love. Something that Annie did on 90210 which led her to a bottomless inheritence left to her from her belated boss who happened to be a famous, billionaire actress. Basically, interning was something that I thought rich people did for fun that allowed them to fill their time and keep Mummy and Daddy happy as they felt their child was making something of their lives. How wrong I was.

The British budding graduate interns, and I have now become a serial intern. I live a nomad lifestyle living out of my suitcase which I drag with me from one family member to another in efforts to gain valuable industry experience. They say a dog is man's best friend, mine is my suitcase. When I am without it I have random spasms where I feel I have forgotten something valuable, my handbag alone is not enough!

Anyway, interning is what you make it. My internships were fantastic!! I enjoyed reading different newspapers and magazines in the morning on the quest for client coverage, I liked having to step out after lunch to buy the new copy of Vogue and habitually holding onto my receipts. I loved the thrill of deadlines and office pressure where at one point I was shoved into the back of a black cab with a HUMONGOUS brown box and told to travel to the other side of London in half an hour, otherwise the client's product would not be used in the photoshoot! I also welcomed the dress code of wearing heels to work, drinking white wine in the afternoons, and office banter which included laughing at London tumblr tweets. London is where I want to be, and PR is where I want to work.

On a more serious note, interning does have it lows. Whilst enjoying the responsibility that one has, you can quite easily be bogged down with admin type roles which have included taking the office post everyday to the post office at 5pm. I couldn't help but question, is this normal? Do graduates do this? Well, I have concluded yes and no. Yes, of course with any type of job there will be aspects of admin that needs to be covered however, I think its up to you to decide when enough is enough. If by the end of the internship you reflect and realise that all you actually did was sorting out the company's database then what have you taken from the experience? Some advice. In the forefront of your mind you must keep revising your goals and if they are not being met then flag this up with your manager, otherwise the industry has effectively swallowed you up and spat you out. Translated this means, they have got what they want out of you for no financial cost to them. Whilst you have left without broadened skills, when your entire aim was to be one step closer to securing a paid job in this sector.

aka, know your worth.

Enjoy the snow!
xxx