Author

emilieweaving

Browsing
In Practical Lifestyle

Anti-Bullying Week 2020 – Remembering Sophie Lancaster

No Comments

This week it’s Anti-Bullying Week in the UK, which I think is a really important opportunity to stop and think about how you interact with those around you. Bullying can take so many forms, from “harmless” name-calling through to the type of hate crime I’m going to talk about in this article. I apologise because this isn’t an easy read, but then it isn’t a light subject so I hope you’ll bear with me…this is really important to me and I want to raise as much awareness as I can. This is an apt week for me to introduce my favourite charity, the Sophie Lancaster Foundation (https://www.sophielancasterfoundation.com/). For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story behind this charity, I definitely recommend watching the BBC Three documentary “Murdered for Being Different” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0559fd8), which tells Sophie’s sad story. Sophie Lancaster and her partner Rob were attacked by a mob of…

Continue Reading
By
In Practical Lifestyle

Introducing “The Female Engineer’s Guides To…”

No Comments

After a really enjoyable and positive first couple of months as a blogger, I am branching out to expand on an area which I hope will prove super useful for my readers. I am starting a series of “How To” guides on a range of topics, which I hope will provide help and guidance to my readers. Some of these will be technical and instructional to work through, but some will purely be me sharing my advice around a certain topic such as how to get into roller derby… I absolutely love travelling and exploring new places, but didn’t want to start a travel blog as there are so many out there. However, I am going to start incorporating travel into my blog as it is a huge passion of mine and I love sharing my advice and recommendations on destinations around the world. I’ve been fortunate enough to get…

Continue Reading
By
In Engineering & Careers

World Kindness Day

No Comments

Today marks World Kindness Day 2020, which I think is really important to take stock of given the crazy world we’re living in at the moment. With the ongoing pandemic, political turmoil and increasing levels of unemployment it’s more important than ever to be kind to each other. Just take a moment to think, have you been kind to someone today? Has someone been kind to you? Kindness is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate”. Being friendly is something that’s so simple for us to do, yet so often we’re so wrapped up in our own situation we don’t realise we aren’t being friendly. I always love the quote from Mari Gayatri Stein, “Better to be the one who smiled than the one who didn’t smile back”. Even just a simple smile at the bus driver, checkout cashier or waitress can really…

Continue Reading
By
In Practical Lifestyle

Lockdown 2.0 – Covid-19 isn’t done with us yet

No Comments

So here we are again…the first weekend of England’s second lockdown. I don’t know about you, but I was not expecting to be back in a nationwide lockdown again. I was hopeful that the local lockdowns and track and trace would have stepped up and meant we wouldn’t all be forced back into isolation. However, we’re in this situation and I just hope that we have a better exit strategy this time to avoid getting into a cycle of repeated lockdowns and really damaging people’s mental health. For me it’s going to be a little different this lockdown, as last time I was furloughed from work but this time I’m working (pretty much permanently from home). I actually got into a really good routine of trail running, yoga, daily French practice and reading plenty of books last time which meant I dealt with it all quite well. The weather was…

Continue Reading
By
In Engineering & Careers

Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers 2020

3 Comments
runner up at the eef engineering awards

There are now over 100,000 organisations in England who employ apprentices, which is an absolutely brilliant milestone for the country to have achieved. This does however mean that it can be a little overwhelming when it comes to choosing the right apprenticeship, which is where the new ‘league table’ for top employers comes into its own. The ‘Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers’ celebrates outstanding employers for their commitment to hiring apprentices, putting them through great training programmes and then offering career progression or further studies. The rankings have been developed by the National Apprenticeship Service in partnership with High Fliers Research, who have independently assessed the companies to produce this league table. Employers from all industries and sectors are eligible to apply to be ranked, which means this league table will offer a great overall comparison for people who are weighing up their options. The top three apprenticeship employers for 2020…

Continue Reading
By
In Practical Lifestyle

How to Build a Hedgehog House – Conservation Project

No Comments
hedgehog house in a wild corner of the garden

In July this year, the hedgehog species was classified as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List for British Mammals (Source: https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/british-hedgehog-now-officially-classified-as-vulnerable-to-extinction/). This was a really sad reality check which makes us all realise that our natural wildlife in the UK is becoming more threatened as the days go by. Just take a moment to think about the last time you saw a hedgehog in the wild? We used to frequently get hedgehogs in the garden when I was a kid, but that’s something that hadn’t happened for a long time….until now! We were approached by the Shropshire Wildlife Trust who were carrying out a hedgehog population survey led by their Hedgehog Officer Kathryn Jones in our village. She visited us back in July with a motion-sensor camera which we were skeptical would catch more than the neighbour’s cats, but amazingly we…

Continue Reading
By
In Engineering & Careers

World Mental Health Day – Let’s Break the Taboo

No Comments

Today is World Mental Health Day, which is a super important day to raise awareness and general understanding of mental health. Even with all of the available resources and high-profile figures spearheading campaigns to get people talking about their mental health, this still continues to be a taboo topic and something that many people shy away from discussing. Personally I am a huge advocate for people’s mental health being one of the most important things to take care of, as I have experienced struggles myself but I’ve also seen the devastating impact that poor mental health can have on sufferers and the people around them. I think too often it is overlooked and physical health is prioritised, but actually mental health issues can have a much greater impact on your life than physical ailments. There are so many things you can add into your day to really make a difference…

Continue Reading
By
In Practical Lifestyle

September Round Up of The Female Engineer Blog

No Comments

September has seen the launch of my blog, which I have been really overwhelmed by the responses from everyone…so if you’ve reached out, shared my blog or even become a subscriber – THANK YOU! I had good old imposter syndrome working away at me which almost made me give up on launching as I didn’t think anyone would be interested in what I have to say. But I’ve been proven wrong, so I’m going to keep writing and hopefully keep improving as I go! This last month I’ve introduced myself and my motivation behind starting this blog, and introduced my main subjects of the daily life as a female engineer, mental health in engineering and becoming a professional engineer. I’ve also touched on hydrogen powered vehicles and changing brakes on my 17 year old van! What was your favourite article from last month? As we head into another new month…

Continue Reading
By
In Engineering & Careers

Renewable Hydrogen – An Alternative Green Future to Save our Planet

No Comments

Today is a super exciting day in terms of British Engineering news, as the first commercial-scale hydrogen-powered aircraft has successfully completed a 20 minute flight. ZeroAvia are the company behind this venture which has resulted in a six-seater M-class plane flying in the Bedfordshire skies, and they have ambitious aims to make hydrogen planes available in three years. This plane uses renewable hydrogen, which means that it is truly carbon-zero and its only emission is water. Read more about ZeroAvia’s successful flight here: https://news.sky.com/story/worlds-first-hydrogen-powered-commercial-aircraft-takes-to-the-skies-above-bedfordshire-12080886 Hydrogen is produced via electrolysis which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Electricity is needed for this process, so when we talk about ‘renewable hydrogen’ this means that it uses renewable energy as opposed to electricity generated by fossil fuels. This hydrogen is then used as a fuel within a fuel cell of a vehicle, where it is run over a catalyst and combines with oxygen…

Continue Reading
By
In Engineering & Careers

World Gratitude Day – What are you Grateful for Today?

No Comments

Today is World Gratitude Day! Take a minute to think about what you are grateful for right now. It could be anything from having a lovely cup of coffee to being given a promotion at work. It doesn’t matter the scale of what you are grateful for, but it is really important to take the time to think about and appreciate whatever that is. For me, today I am grateful for the beautiful Autumn blue skies that we’ve had in England today; this is my favourite time of year when we have cool, crisp and sunny days. The definition of gratitude is “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness”. Studies over recent years have found multiple benefits to practising gratitude, from reducing materialism among adolescents to employees feeling motivated to work harder. Personally I have found this practice stress reducing and feel like it…

Continue Reading
By
Pin It