Well, here I am with not quite the content I’d planned to come back with, but a bit of an October update for you. I’ve put off writing a new blog post for far too long, just because I didn’t have the mental capacity to write about something that I felt would be useful. I didn’t just want to do another general ‘this is what I’ve been up to’ type post, but I also figured that I’m well overdue a new post so here we are! I’m also in a better place now to start writing some more content, so I think this is a good way to get back into it and say hello to everyone again!
So, why the radio silence I hear you ask?
My new job at Ruroc is the dominant factor in my lack of writing…I will be open with you guys, sometimes opportunities aren’t quite what you think they’re going to be. However, you have to take these risks to progress yourself, and I do believe that long term this will have all been a good move for me. But right now, it’s difficult. I’m not really doing the job I was employed to do, and the flexibility isn’t exactly what I was promised…lots of people warned me about this when I told them about the ‘flexible culture’ attached to this job, and turns out you were right! I’m actually having to travel down to Gloucester three times a week, which is 1hr 45mins each way for me.
Loosing 10.5 hours every week to driving is one huge factor for me not having as much time to write as I did! I’m finding the days that I’m not commuting, I’m so tired from all the driving that I have no brain power in the mornings. When I was working from home with JCB, I would get up with Jack and get on with blogging, but I can barely read a book in the mornings at the moment.
I think a key part of this platform is to talk about the rough and the smooth, and for me it’s really important to be able to tell the truth. When people ask how the job is going, I am not too proud to say to people that actually I’m struggling with it. I’m hopeful things are going to change, and that’s why I’m going to stick it out and follow it through.
It’s definitely taught me that its very important to go to a place and ask more questions during the hiring process, I was far too chilled about this role I’ve moved to. In all honesty I wasn’t in a great place when I was being interviewed – I was actually off work with stress which is something I’ve never struggled with before. I had really bad physical symptoms which the doctors were convinced were all manner of illnesses, but they ruled everything out and realised that it was stress. So my brain wasn’t in a great place for decision making and question asking at the time I took this job, and I think honestly that has shown. But I am making the most of the opportunity and the best of the situation, and we’ll see what happens….but that’s sucking most of the life out of me at the moment, so apologies for not being as prominent as I wanted to be with my blog.
As I mentioned I’m absolutely exhausted and most certainly on the fringes of a burnout, with no spare mental capacity to do any form of writing or content creation. Jack and I haven’t had a week away since August last year, which I definitely don’t recommend…we’re both really struggling not having had a proper break for so long. Changing jobs midway through the year has curtailed my holiday allocation for this year, and I get a lot less at my new role than I used to.
We had been banking on being able to go to America for my 30th birthday this month, but the US travel ban isn’t being lifted until November so we aren’t able to go. We had tickets for Las Vegas Raiders vs Philadelphia Eagles (Jack’s team) that’s happening in Vegas on the day before my 30th…which was going to be incredible. As the date was getting closer and we hadn’t heard anything about the ban being lifted, we’d already prepared ourselves that we weren’t going to be able to go. But it’s been a real blow having yet another thing we’d been so looking forward to cancelled on us.
However, because it is my big birthday this month we are going to Disneyland Paris instead! It will be a very different trip to the planned Vegas holiday, but I’m really looking forward to having some time away. We figured going somewhere on the Eurotunnel and avoiding planes would be nice for the time being! Jack hasn’t been to Disneyland before, I haven’t been for a few years and it was my 15th birthday the last time I went for Halloween. They do Halloween properly, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to go as it’s such a good celebration of my favourite time of year!
We’re staying onsite for a few days over my birthday, then we’re stopping in a couple of mobile home campsite places which will be great to relax at. We’re going to have a mad few days at Disney but then just chill, recharge our batteries and hopefully feel much better for the rest of the year. We’re running on empty at the moment so our holiday can’t come soon enough! However, we still won’t believe it’s actually happening until we’re sat on the Eurotunnel…it still feels like everything could be cancelled on us at any moment.
The other thing that’s been keeping us super busy, is hopefully this month we should be getting the keys to our first house. So you can expect plenty of DIY project content coming up, because I’ve already got a long list of random things I want to build for the house! We’ve just bought a small house in Shropshire, with plenty of outdoor space to accommodate all of our vehicles and hobbies! It’s been really hard finding somewhere with a garage and a driveway, which confused a lot of the estate agents when we clearly described what we wanted outside the house but didn’t care too much about the inside!
Hopefully we’ll get the keys in a couple of weeks time, which will be a new adventure! Then we can empty the van of the IKEA flatpack furniture it’s filled with at the moment, and both of our respective houses which are drowning in boxes! This whole process has been taking a lot of time up, so it will be nice once we’ve got our keys and then it’s all in our hands.
One big positive over the last few months has been that I finally got to my first “post pandemic” gig last month! I went to see Black Stone Cherry with my Mum in Cardiff, which was absolutely incredible. I knew it was going to be so emotional, but we have a special connection with BSC anyway so it really amplified that feeling. It was the 10th time we’ve seen them live; they were loving being back in the UK and played such an awesome show. I already feel better for having had a fix of live music again, and it just validated for me why I place such high importance on live music.
I think if you know, you know, but for me it’s that feeling of the lights going down and knowing you will be fully absorbed by the music for the next couple of hours. You don’t think about anything else, you’re just totally in the moment enjoying the show you’re watching, singing at the top of your voice and having a great time without having any other distractions. It’s very good for the soul, and I have to say I feel a lot better having been back at a gig again. Fingers crossed things continue to happen now, instead of us having a little bit now and then things start getting cancelled again over winter…we’ve got some really cool gigs coming up that I really hope we can finally get to and enjoy!
I’ve also had the pleasure of spending some good time with friends over these last couple of months, which has also been very good for the soul. Never lose sight of the things that make you feel alive and a better human…that’s my message for today as that’s something I did lose sight of for a little while. I also haven’t dedicated enough time to getting outdoors and moving my body…two things which really energise me and make me feel a lot better both mentally and physically. So here’s to getting back outside, hopefully in a nice dry and crispy fall!
Hopefully we’ve done enough and we won’t have to go into another lockdown over winter, but I know I speak for a lot of people in saying that I would really struggle if that happened again. It’s been such a testing 18 months for everyone and I think we all just need to pull together, keep doing what we can to look after each other and just engage our brains. We can all be a little kinder to each other, no-one is having an easy time of it at the moment.
So that’s my rambling update for October, it’s been a hectic few months but exciting times are ahead. I’ve got some good plans for upcoming content, centring around a series on landing your dream job in engineering. I’m going to do a few articles on how to find your dream job, how to get your CV noticed, how to nail your interview, the importance of LinkedIn…all the good stuff! And not forgetting the random DIY and potential Disney content that may well come your way…
I’m going to try and be more constructive again, because I haven’t been doing what I wanted to do with this blog over the last few months. I really enjoy writing and have been getting great feedback so I definitely feel like it’s a worthwhile use of my time!
If you have anything you’d like me to cover in the coming months please get in touch and let me know! I appreciate you guys sticking around, your support means a lot and hopefully you will be hearing plenty from me once again.
Emilie
The Female Engineer
