July, For Me

July has been my final full month of working full time, it’s also felt like the coldest month of the year so far (seriously, why is it so cold?!) and the month where I took a long hard look at how far I’ve come since last July (which was the worst month of my life; and let me tell you – LIFE GOT BETTER. In fact I’ve never been happier!)

Before jumping into August, let’s look back at how awesome July was:

MAIN HIGHLIGHTS

• 🏋Gymshark – I think I’ve over-shared how much I love Gymshark. Earlier this month, I went to their pop-up event in London where I bought more gym gear and met some of my favourite fitspos. You can read about the whole day here.
• 👯 After the Gymshark event, I went to see Chynna and Mutay again! Along with Hamdah (who is interning in London at the moment), we went to have an interesting ice-cream candy floss thing and Nandos. We’re literally all bffs now! #UKsquad
• 👽I attended the Bioinformatics Awareness Day with fellow CFG instructor, Tania which was useful because I’m taking a Bioinformatics module in my final year, this September.
• 🚂 Despite nearly missing the train to Bradford because I was telling my manager about the importance of cyber security in today’s modern world 😅, I had a great day exploring Bradford and networking with like-minded folks. Despite it being a work trip, I got to go to the Science and technology museum after I expressed an interest in it! It was really interesting, I’m definitley going back to explore more of it!
• 🎓 During Graduation week, I helped take photographs for multiple events because of photographers dropping out last minute. It was a little stressful because I’m nowhere near a professional, but it was a lot of fun. I also got to see my Biomed cohort who I started University with, graduate! I was really emotional.
• 🏆 …Because I helped out a lot during the week, I was awarded an Amazon voucher which let me buy ~stuffs~ on my wishlist for a while. Woop.
• 👭 I met up with Amy and Holly in Manchester last weekend where you voted us to go have Italian food (YOU’RE AWESOME), blog post coming up~
• 👪 Matt met the fam. The fam like him a lot. 🤗
• 📲 For my final placement year assessment, I created a cool AR poster. You can check it out here.
• 🎥 I did a few profiling/interview type things for Georgie’s HG, Julian, Jazmine and Ella’s CW this month. You can read all about it here!
• 👩🏻‍💻 Attended my first Sheffield-tech meet up at Google Garage which was an ‘interesting’ experience. It made me think a lot about what diversity and inclusion really means to people.
• 💪 Completed my first month of the Grace Fit Guide. I’ve been feeling it 🍑
• 📺 I created a summary video of mine and Matt’s trip to NY:

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3 Things I’m HAPPY about

1. Meeting incredible people

If you knew me last year, any sort of socialisation drained me. I didn’t enjoy them at all.

However since I started my placement, I’ve found myself in loads of situations where I’ve had to do a lot of interacting with others – networking gah. Over the last few months, I’ve become much more confident and really enjoy meet-ups/meetings/networking opportunities!

Shout out to awesome new people I’ve met up with this month: Joe, David, Chin, Holly, Amy, Bhupinder. And those friends I’ve had great catch-ups with Darren, Tania and Kisha.

2. Applying skills

I’ve had the chance to apply my coding and technical knowledge throughout my placement year. For instance, using my knowledge in WordPress to re-vamp research websites and re-developing external websites linked to the University. I also recently created a web-application for a conference at my home Department and applied some simple HTML magic to a Welcome Site for new students hosted by Open Education. I’ve learned a lot of new things from doing these little projects, I’m glad I’ve been making use of my coding knowledge!

I’ve also been playing around with editing videos recently and created an instruction video tutorial about handling an expensive VR kit. It was fun to create and improve my editing skills; one day I’ll be at Casey Neistat’s level.

3. The fam things

The day arrived. Matt met my family last weekend.

Matt met my family last weekend over good ol’ home made Filipino food. The meeting has been something I’ve been trying to actively avoid for a while (mainly because of previous failed relationships, I think!) But to my surprise, it was really positive and wasn’t awkward at all. Thanks for being incredible, Matt!

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July in pictures

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MONTHLY FAVOURITES

New lunch obsession

I’ve recently fallen in love with my new lunch of quinoa, kale, black beans, and chicken. It’s incredibly simple and easy to make and is SO filling – a new fave!

The Afete app and GFG

As I highlighted last June, I wanted to try a more challenging workout routine because my Fitness Blender ones felt like it was getting a lot easier. Also, I wanted to focus more on separate muscle groups rather than working multiple ones at once as FB tends to be (which is AMAZING for fat loss)

I started the Grace Fit Guide at the start of July and have been kicking my own butt every morning! I haven’t complained about sore muscles in a while but after that first week of training muscle groups separately, I’d go into the office after each day like, “Ow, my legs, arms, back, chest, shoulders, bum hurts SO BAD” It’s when you’re struggling to walk up a step that you know that the 🍑 got a kicking. 😆

I’ve seen a lot more toning of my body since I started – I have visible upper abs (before I have a whole day of eating the good food! 🍗) and my bum is a lot more shaped! I love the results and can’t wait to finish the guide so that I can try the second one or restart. I really enjoy the work outs too!

Gymshark Seamless

OK OK ONE MORE THING ABOUT GYMSHARK I PROMISE.

But gals, check this beautiful battle outfit:

Isn’t it gorgeous?! Super comfortable too!

Little Black Book by WomenWho founder, Otegha Uwagba

I’ve been tweeting about this a lot over the last week but it’s such a great no-bullshit, straight to the point guide about being a working woman. Packed with tons of career advice and life hacks – I definitely recommend! The paperback is only £4 or £1.99 on Kindle.

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Next month

Goals

• Organise all my work/personal digital clutter
• Declutter – inspired by Hiro
• Read more books – already on it! Currently reading the Brain Book by Phil Dobson.
• Establish an evening routine and stick to it.

Events

• I’m finishing my year placement next month then starting a new one. OK, maybe two.
• Holiday!!!!!!!! A whole week in the sun, by the beach and full on relaxation mode!
• Also, I have a whole week in August with no events – how crazy is that? I haven’t had one of those in such a long time! I’m excited to fill it up with events, but mainly will try and take it easy before I start my next placement.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

Happiness, not in another place but this place… not for another hour, but this hour.

– From the Daily Calm