At 27 years old, most people perceive me as unapologetic, bold, a warrior fighting for what is right, fair, honest and inspirational. Which is kind of accurate [insert modesty here], but it’s important to note that I’m not all these things simultaneously.  Sometimes I’m just too busy overthinking myself to death, having meltdowns and self-sabotaging whilst still being a nice person [yes, I can multitask that way 😂]. To understand where I’m coming from and what “qualifies” me to tell you how to be your own person, here’s a glimpse into the worst parts of myself from ten years ago: 

I worked hard to improve and change, because I was sick and tired of all the unecessary unpleasantness I was allowing myself to live in. I do hope that you’re not imagining that I managed to achieve this by sheer will. On the contrary, it was more a mix of taking chances, trying things outside of my comfort zone and seeking to surround myself with people that see my value, respect me and support me without kissing my ass to obtain something from me 💅. Of course, I derailed from this “master plan” of becoming my own person on a few occasions because my auto pilot was strong - if I wouldn’t pay attention to something for a little while, I was instantly switching back to my old ways because it was easier and more comfortable. Right now I’d say I’ve come pretty far, and I’m proud of what I achieved, but I didn’t do it alone - it’s the result of many people giving me a hand, helping me in times of need or giving me a chance when no one else would.

I think becoming who you are and maintaining it is a lifelong process, and something we always need to pay attention to and work on it, because as I said - it doesn’t take much to revert to your unhealthy old ways. Here’s where I am now:

Most of the above ideals are not a 5 minute job, it takes years to get there and it won’t be easy - but it’s all worth it, I can promise you that. And just because I changed, it doesn’t mean that I don’t still doubt myself at times, or fall back a little into my old ways at times. It just means that I make a conscious effort daily to stay true to myself and not compromise my wellbeing for anyone.

Without further ado, here are my tips on how to be your own person:

Always have your own best interest at heart

If you’re like me, it’s difficult to constantly have your defences up and think of yourself 24/7. So having your own best interest at heart is also aided by building healthy relationships with those around you, choosing a work environment where you can be yourself and not having to walk all over your values often and reducing contact with toxic people that you can’t just remove from your life (such as family or old friends). Seeking what’s best for you is not always easy or obvious, but a way to do this could be reflecting on what you don’t want, that way it will get a little easier to follow what you want for yourself. In order to have your own best interest at heart, you’ll need to dig deep and be honest with yourself. Be selective of the people you surround yourself with, the situations you allow yourself to be part of, the environments where you spend your time. You won’t be able to count on family, friends, significant others and work colleagues to have your best interest at heart because most of them are too busy to chase their own interests. So it’s important for you to do the same.

Voice your opinions

It took me years, years I tell ya, to start voicing my opinions. This is because the environment I grew up in never empowered me to have an opinion in the first place. However, the first step for me was to start voicing my opinions in writing on my first blog back when I was a teenager - that’s where I said the things I didn’t have the courage to say out loud. A few years later, I was forced by University course assignments to start saying what I think. After a while, I managed to start saying what I think at work even if it wasn’t necessarily encouraged to do so. A beneficial factor for me starting to voice my opinion more and become even closer to being the most “my own person” that I’ve ever been - was having a significant other who has my best interest at heart, and empowered me to be my true self. You can find such support in other types of relationships, it doesn’t have to be a significant other. At some point I became tired of my own bullshit - by which means tired of the unsaid things that were imploding inside me and I couldn’t bear it anymore so I started to speak up more - with my family, with my friends, at work, and with friends of friends (I was already voicing my opinions at home, just not so much in public).

The key to voicing your opinions is to just start doing it. Take any little opportunity you get and practice, practice, practice. Lady at the bakery gave you the wrong type of bread? Say it! Your work colleague is a jackass? Say it! Don’t want to go out? Say it! Not being paid enough? Say it! Think of it like this: saying what you think might be uncomfortable for 10 mins, but it passes away. Sucking it up, however, can force you to take a commitment or be in a shitty position that you don’t want for hours, days, years! So 10 minutes of feeling like crap sounds good in hindsight, right?

Set Personal Boundaries

Boundaries are key for maintaining healthy relationships with people and set clear guidelines of how you want, and need, to be treated.

Most people will walk all over you no matter what relationship you have with them - that is, if you let them. It might take you some time to figure out what your boundaries are but rest assured, life experiences will highlight them for you, just pay attention. For example, back in the day I had no clue that when someone’s actions or words made me feel bad about myself and worthless, it actually meant that they crossed my personal boundaries. It won’t always be clear as day that someone is doing this to you, or they might not even realise it, but either way - if as a result you feel like shit it’s time to take action. In a sense, it’s like taking your power and self-worth back from those who are trying to take it away from you.

My personal boundaries, to name a few, resulted from being sick and tired of the following: not respecting me/my work/my time, taking me or my kindness for granted, toxic family ties, ageism, sexism, being unprofessional or unethical.  Now, when you feel like you need to set some boundaries with certain people, here are my top three ways of setting boundaries:

Reduce contact with family/old friends when: trying to reinforce inexistent boundaries might not be met with openness or the mental ability to comprehend what you are trying to communicate.

Cut people out of your life when they’re energy vampires/soul sucking friends/lovers: With a lovely touch of toxicity, these people might have been all lovely at first until you got to know them better and vice versa. Now, you just feel like a brainwashed puppet that allows them to suck the life out of you and walk all over you.

Ghosting (not ideal, but necessary sometimes) - when reducing contact or cutting people out of your life doesn’t work, the last option standing is ghosting them. To me, ghosting is not something aligned with my values and ethics. However, I do think it’s necessary for self preservation at times.

Accept your imperfections

There are many things you can change about yourself if you work hard enough. However, there are also many things you can’t change. A few of my imperfections include: taking things personal, being too nice, too obsessed with being professional and doing the right thing, too sensitive, an overthinker with high levels of anxiety. To you, most of these things might not seem like imperfections, but to me they are because these imperfections get my feelings hurt a lot and make me feel stupid and bad about myself. But the good thing is: once you accept and acknowledge your imperfections, it can get better. Not accepting these things about yourself and fighting your own self is just like lying to yourself. And when you lie to yourself, you’re lying to everyone around you - and let me tell you, people will see right through your bullshit. Are you a whiny bitch? Are you a pushover? A passive aggressive person?  Embrace it! When you get tired of your own bullshit, the motivation to do something will kick in. Of course, it’s not enough to embrace your imperfections, you have to also figure out how to change the outcome of the situation you dragged yourself into because of the way you are. Set boundaries, remove people from your life if they bring out the worst in you or make you feel bad about yourself. Extract yourself from environments and situations that are toxic for you and it will be easier to accept who you are without these distractions.

Bring out your fashion more

I’m a very visual person in the sense that what I see in the mirror influences my mood.  I’m also anxious and don’t exude self confidence 24/7. This is why makeup, the color of my hair, grooming and clothes are a way to express myself and a reminder of who I am (in case I forget, you know). All these serve like armor and war paint before I get out of the house and face the day. No matter how anxious or stressed out I get, on the verge of tears from bottled anger - I know that when I look at myself in a toilet mirror I’ll be reminded that I’m 100% that bitch. There are months when I’m so exhausted and burnt out that I can’t muster the energy to get all glammed up - but I still make sure I have something on me to bring me down to earth. No matter what gender you are, if you are into fashion, hairstyling, make-up or not - there must be something you can wear that makes you feel pretty damn awesome about yourself.  

Get to know yourself better

You don’t get up one morning and discover that you found out everything about yourself. Oh, no! This is a lifelong project. However, there are many ways you can find out the good and the bad things about yourself - introspection, analysing what you are good and bad at, hearing what people who see through your bullshit say, reviews of your work etc. Sure, it’s nice when people compliment you, and it hurts when they criticize you. But I think we are not 100% the way we see ourselves, nor how others see us. When people comment, there is always a little of them projecting their qualities or imperfections on you and subjectivity involved. In my opinion, the truth is somewhere in the middle. As long as you keep yourself grounded and not underestimate yourself or go full on hubris - you’ll get a pretty good sense of who you are at this point of your life.

Love and trust yourself

When I had zero self-confidence, I thought this idea was utter bullshit. Are you saying I am not a worthless piece of crap without talent like my step mother told me I am? Get outta here!

For years I had moments where I thought “that’s it! From this moment on, I love myself, I trust myself, I am confident” and bam! 2 hours later I still wasn’t any of these things. Because it’s not a decision you make on the spot, it’s a chain of actions, of setting boundaries and having experiences that teach you to stand up for yourself that get you to the level of wisdom that enables you to start loving, trusting, respecting and believing in yourself. For years, I let my power in the hands of others. I let others decide if I am worthy of respect, of trust, of being loved, of being trusted. But if you don’t feel or believe these things about yourself, why would others? In my case, I realised that I have to find my worth in other places. Not in the opinion of others, not in my skills and the results of my hard work - but in my own damn self.

After many failures and getting to the point where it affected my mental health and wellbeing, I realised that actually I do know my shit, I do have a lot of potential, I do deserve a good salary.  Actions speak louder than words - and it will take a long time for you to start feeling this way about yourself - so until then, you can just act and present yourself in a manner that shows that you know what you can do, you have an idea of who you are and what you can do. Yes, a little “fake it until you make it” attitude can help you.  Other people’s mean comments will still hurt - but deep inside, you will know the truth. When they go low, you go high. And slowly but surely, you will take your power back.

Learn to say NO

It might sound like it’s easy to say NO, but in reality, it can be a hard thing to do especially if you’re not used to it. Looking back, it’s astonishing to me on how many occasions I would have been better off if I would have been honest and said NO. This skill is detrimental for your survival and wellbeing, because sometimes you’ll have to put your foot down and say NO. Agreeing to every request might be easier in the moment, but you know you’ll hate yourself afterwards for juggling a million things with no time for yourself just because you couldn’t say one damn word - NO! In your head, this could come off as uncaring or selfish because it means letting some people down, causing them to dislike you for it or be criticized. There is however an upside to this: you’ll gain some respect for yourself and set some boundaries.  Just because you made a commitment in the heat of the moment, it doesn’t mean you need to actually follow it through. You can change your mind and graciously remove yourself from the commitment you made - if you also add a little heartfelt honesty in there most people will appreciate it. As I’m a recovering pushover and YES woman, I still don’t master saying NO but I work on it every chance I get. When I’m not caught off guard, I say “I’ll think about it and get back to you”. If however I am taken by surprise, I might agree on the spot and decline later when I realize that I actually don’t want to do something or I can’t because I have no time for it.

Sometimes I still go ahead with things I don’t want to do because I want to help others or get outside my comfort zone - but that is something that I am willing to take responsibility for. No matter why you decide to not say NO, make sure you are at peace with this compromise, for the right reasons.

Understand your values and stand by them

You see, I understand my values and I stand by them as much as possible. But the reality is, there will be times when you’ll need to compromise a little. I mostly experienced this on a professional level. Values are in essence rules of conduct you live by - but there will be situations with some people where you will never win. In your personal life it’s slightly easier because you can cut people out of your life, reduce contact with them or ghost them. But at work you might be forced to collaborate with people that make your life a living hell - passive aggressive, selfish, ego-centered assholes, “cult leaders”, people that do the bare minimum and don’t care how it affects others. So it’s important to stand by who you are whilst still being able to adapt to working with toxic people that won’t give a shit about your values and boundaries - yay! Welcome to adulthood.

Don’t be selfish and ego-centered

Newsflash! Not everything is about you! It’s ok to be selfish and ego-centered when it comes to your self-preservation and wellbeing, as long as you don’t shove this down everyone’s throat. These traits come off in a negative light when you can’t have a proper conversation with someone because they make any topic about themselves and their experiences 24/7. Don’t get me wrong, I too talk about myself with people but it’s one thing to share a story and another to not even listen to what people are saying and constantly wait for a cue to talk about yourself. I think this occurs when you have no life outside school or work - and I’ve been this person, not gonna lie. The funny thing is that I had zero confidence in myself but still came off as a selfish ego-centered bitch based on this behaviour. So try not to be selfish and ego-centered to the point where no one wants to ever talk to you again.

Conclusion

Artwork by Ben Giles

Growing up, American movies were the only ones encouraging me to follow my dreams.

‘You can do anything, just believe you can and you will!’

Naturally, this idea instilled in me shitloads of unrealistic expectations. For many years I blindly followed several dreams I had - the first was to be a painter, then a writer, a journalist, and finally a video producer & video editor.

I was trying really hard to ignore the fact that being poor, having no connections or street cred in any of these industries were factors that could potentially slow me down a lot or even terminate my dreams completely.  

After a few years, I learnt the hard way that being talented, creative, hard working and passionate about anything I do is not enough. All the strategies I tried failed miserably. A few people tried to help me along the way, but it all fell apart. Some filmmakers led me on for months to invest my time and money working for them for free, giving them my creative ideas with the prospect of maybe getting a job opportunities via them. That failed as well, because turns out it’s a dog eat dog world out there, and no one truly wants to mentor or help you in any way, because nobody helped them either so why should they help anyone else? Of course, there is also the problem that if they help you and you succeed, you become a threat and they don’t want you to steal their jobs and clients. 

It’s heartbreaking to experience these things, I’m not going to lie. Anyone who grew up poor dreams of overcoming poverty on their own, with hardwork and persistence, and become successful. So it sucks big time when you start from the bottom and then you discover that the bottom has so many fucking layers.

I wish someone would have told me more about the real world before I threw myself into working so many years for free because ‘that’s how you get a job in this industry’. You follow dream after dream, alone, and just when you start to be hopeful that there’s a chance you can ‘make it’, everything comes crumbling down.

But in a way, it’s ok. I failed hard, and I failed a lot. It made me stronger, better, wiser - and now I’m ready to try chasing a dream again.

Filmmaking has been in the back of my mind for many years. No matter how much I tried to break into that world, I didn’t manage to -  not in the UK, and not in Romania where I live now. Maybe it was bad timing, a bad strategy or the wrong places. 

In my filmmaking journey, I had many dead ends, disappointments but also tiny rewarding experiences that kept showing me that I have what it takes, I just need to put it more work and get more experience. 

From what I gathered, it’s a male dominated industry, at least locally (in Cluj-Napoca) - so this means I really need to go above and beyond to prove myself in order to be taken seriously. There aren't any internship opportunities for video production (that I know of), there are only a few established freelance filmmakers around and tight knit video production companies that you can’t get into without strong connections, street cred and most importantly, lots of experience. 

For me, it’s a very lonely professional existence. I’m not part of this tight knit underground filmmaking community, I have no way to get in, and no way to network. I don’t personally know other female filmmakers either (I only know of them). That would definitely inspire me to believe that my dream is achievable and realistic.  

My only option right now is to start doing as much video production work as possible, show people what I can do and hopefully, that would get me closer to where I want to be.

So far following my dreams sucks big time.

  ‘Dreams don’t work unless you do’

There’s one thing that helps me keep going: I know my passion for video is real. I know my creativity is real. Whenever I think about making videos, my heart jumps with joy. When I film something and edit it, I don’t care how tired I am, I can sit there and work for hours because I love it so much. Seeing filmmakers and cameramen on the street carrying their gear to a shooting location brings me joy, and I always stare at their equipment and marvel at how awesome it is (of course I wish I would have it, too). When I walk on a film set, I feel like I’m walking through paradise and I imagine all the amazing productions you could do in there.

‘The time is now’

Lately I’ve been dealing with a new stage of my anxiety: anger. I go from 0 to 100 in the split of a second, no matter how small or big the issue at hand is. The good thing is I don’t lash out, I just bottle up my anger and put it aside for later because it’s my responsibility to deal with my anger and the issues that cause it. The bad thing is my pulse is going through the roof about 5 times a day (when I get angry). So I probably gathered the equivalent of a fully stacked bar filled with anger bottles by now - but that’s a juicy story for another time.

The latest thing that annoys me is hearing people judging my sense of humour, and trying to guess why I’m funny. “You know you don’t have to smile or be jolly all the time, right? Be the real you.” Or stuff on the lines of “humour is just a coping mechanism for you. Have you ever tried not adding humour to your stories?”. Sure, I can empathise with the logic behind these judgements. I did my fair share of research when it comes to the psychology of using humor as a coping mechanism and I know it’s a real thing.

Indeed, I have also used humour as a coping mechanism in the past, particularly when I was growing up. The thing is I always loved grammar, words, languages and laughter. So I thought, why not combine all the above? This love has evolved into a passion for writing. I knew I was creative, smart with words and I also loved comedy and jokes a lot. Whilst I fell into the thrill making others laugh, and using humour as a coping mechanism, this transcended into a real passion for comedy.

From stupid things I said as a child, I moved on to writing funny vulgar poetry. To do so, I was using words I couldn’t comprehend (at that time) just because they rhymed, and it made people laugh. I used to memorize whole books of jokes on different topics, just so that I had a joke for any moment, any subject. 

After I finally had an internet connection of my own, around 2010, I started to consume a lot of mainstream humour every day - from memes, to funny gifs, to shows with comedians, sketches, and all sorts of comedy. In the past 9 years, I never went 24h without watching something funny and learning how to level up my jokes from it.

In adolescence I developed a dark, twisted and vulgar sense of humour because it was very easy to make people laugh using these type of jokes. Nowadays, my humour is more like improv - I just listen to what people say and put a funny twist on it. Sometimes I still go for dark or vulgar, but only after people from a new group know me a little bit, because I don’t want to be creepy or come off as inappropriate. 

I also had a go at writing and filming a comedy sketch, and made quite a few memes over the years based on my real life experiences. I know now that I’m a natural when it comes to humour, and I don’t do it for the instant gratification. Firstly, I do it for me - because it brings me tremendous joy to twist words and create a new context where a joke can be born.

Secondly, I do it because laughing connects me to other people. And my jokes can make someone's day better. I can’t save you from the hardships of your life, I can’t take your pain away, I can’t make you feel less stressed. But I can tell you a joke and help you forget about all the bad things you’re going through for a few minutes (does this sound like a prostitute’s paper ad?).

  So yes, when you tell me to “be the real me”, “stop smiling”, “don’t make jokes” you are actually diminishing all the work I have done over the years to become the funny person I am today. Humour is a craft, it’s not just a coping mechanism. 

The real me is hilarious, honest and polite. Being nice doesn’t mean I’m not “the real me”, it means I see a lot of shit and awful behaviour around me, but I prefer to be professional rather than act like the cast of Mob wives, flipping tables, insulting people and getting into cat fights. 

And what the hell is wrong with smiling a lot? I often smile on my own like a crazy person because I have inside jokes going on in my head. Sue me!

I don’t know about you, but if I wake up to pee in the middle of the night, the chances are I will not be able to get back to sleep. When I sleep, my mind turns into a vortex where dozens of thoughts spin simultaneously - positive things and anxiety inducing things. If I become aware for a few minutes, the thought I might land upon when gaining consciousness might be soothing - which helps me return to a sweet comforting sleep afterwards. Or it might just be the latest anxiety inducing thought or thing that makes me angry - and in that case, my brain is like “hell no, you’re not going back to sleep. You’re awake now and I’ll give you enough energy to ruminate for hours about a stupid illogical thing”. So yeah, I woke up at 3:30am, it’s 5:47 am and I couldn’t fall back asleep so I guess this is the perfect time to tell you the story of my wisdom teeth removal.

Money anxiety has been deeply rooted in me since I was a child, and for this reason I didn’t go to a dentist for more than 10 years, because somehow I preferred to hang on to the idea that not spending money is more important than my oral health. I finally gave in (no need for applause, really) and I went to the dentist, fixed what needed to be fixed and scheduled the most dreadful thing (in my mind) - a wisdom teeth extraction.

Pre-Extraction

I postponed and delayed the surgical removal of my teeth for as long as I could. After I finally managed to schedule it, I asked everyone that I knew had a surgery done at any point in their life, things like “How did you prepare for your surgery?!, Were you afraid? How did you cope with fear? Did it hurt?”. The answers I received varied from “I knew I had to do it eventually so why stress about it?”, “You just do it and get it over with” or “Oh, you won’t feel a thing, I haven’t felt a thing it’s so fast and easy”. I don’t know what answer I was looking for, but none of these were “it”. So I tried to motivate and encourage myself by changing my thought pattern - I would think things like “my friends went through painful C-sections, uterus removal, cancerous tumour removal - and you’re shitting your pants for this?”. I also watched dramatic youtubers exaggerate their teeth removal story for ad money but that only stressed me out more. Don’t worry, all my efforts to calm myself didn’t work - so I succumbed to desperation, anxiety and playing torture scenes from movies over and over again in my head until the day of my surgery.

The Day of the Surgery

I imagine this is never a fun day for anyone, especially for those like me who never had any type of surgery in their lives. All those hours before my appointment, I kept thinking that I would do anything in the world not to have to go through this. After feeling sorry for myself, I kept trying to think how awesome it will be, and how relieved I will feel when I’ll walk the fuck out the dentist’s door. But then I would return to the torture scenes, playing those in my head over and over again, and then back to the image of me walking out of the dentist’s door. As I was getting closer and closer to the dentist, I kept thinking “You don’t have to do this. You can postpone it forever, cancel the appointment last minute, walk away.”  It would have been easy to chicken out, but I knew I have to keep walking no matter how much I dreaded what was going to happen.

The Surgery

I walked in the dentist’s office, feeling as if I knowingly agreed to be tortured *self pity intensifies*.

My teeth surgeon is a very successful and skilled doctor - she went to Med School twice (so that’s 12 years of University) and also has a very long CV full of accomplishments. In theory, I knew I was on great hands - but that’s not why I was scared and stressed. I was scared because I had to go into unknown territory and feel things I never experienced - teeth extraction, sewing the holes left by my teeth and strange uncomfortable sensations in my mouth in the following  2 weeks. The first wisdom tooth was out in less than 10 minutes  - which was awesome! I had anaesthetic injections so I didn’t feel a thing. The second one? Let’s do an imagination exercise. Close your eyes and picture yourself in a Tom & Jerry episode. Now picture Tom pulling a door with his hands and feet, frustrated, trying to get it open to catch Jerry. No matter how hard he tries, he’s barely budging the door. He tries to cut the door open with chainsaws and tools, for 2 hours. Finally, after working hard for so long, he manages to open the door. Now, come back to reality - Tom was the dental surgeon, the door was my wisdom tooth. This whole experience wasn’t horrible, it was more unpleasant and tiring - it’s not fun to feel like someone could potentially dislocate your jaw, nor to keep your mouth open for 2h. But hey, I had so many anaesthetic injections, I  didn’t feel how she was cutting into my jaw bone.

The Aftermath

I can’t tell you how happy I was to fuck off as soon as the surgery was done. I was given an ice pack, mouth care instructions, a drug prescription and the recommendation to return in two weeks for the surgery thread removal. I kept icing my face for the next days, take the prescription drugs and trying to ignore the unpleasant tingling of the long ass thread the doctor had to leave in after sewing the hole in my mouth. My face didn’t swell too much, so that was nice. I only ate on one side of my mouth for 14 days and panicked whenever any food wanted to make its natural way to the other side. Eating took me much more time than usual, because my jaw was a little clenched from the trauma it suffered (cutting into the bone) so chewing was painful for a while. After two weeks, I went back, they took out the tread and sent me on my merry way.

Conclusion

I survived! And you will too!

Everyone’s experience is different, so reading/listening to other people’s wisdom tooth removal experience won’t actually provide you with much information to work with.

Not knowing exactly everything that happens is a plus! You would just worry for things that are not actually that unbearable or painful.

If you’re going to hell, keep going! Try to be as optimistic and calm as you can. Maybe you won’t be able to do so at all, but the most important thing is to go through with it even if it’s scary, even if it makes you wanna chicken out really bad.

Practice what you preach! I kept preaching to everyone “you should see a doctor for that”, “you should never postpone a medical check/ procedure”  - so I knew that chickening out is not an option. You need to lead by example, and encourage others to do so if you want to see people improve and live a better, healthy life.

I remember a NYE from a few years ago, it was 2013 I think. I was visiting my friends in Worcester, England and when the countdown started at midnight, I thought about all the resolutions that I wanted to come true for me. At that time, I naively believed that resolutions are like magical wishes that come true without me having to lift a finger. Hilarious, I know.

Turns out resolutions are actually a list of realistic goals you set for yourself to be accomplished within a set amount of time - weeks/days/years.. You don’t just make the resolutions list, you also develop an action plan for each goal and break steps down into achievable chunks for each week. All of this sounds great, and I would really love to discipline myself and get off my ass and actually achieve my dreams rather than being anxious, overthinking and crying about what I want to do but can’t because I constantly put too much pressure on myself.

I know everyone has big plans for 2019, but I don’t. Whenever I think too big, I tend to lose myself in the details. There is nothing wrong with aiming high, but it just doesn’t work for me - I need to take it step by step and not think about the higher goals all the time.

If I get excited and talk to others about my creative ideas, I feed on their positive reactions to my ideas and end up being content with that, without actually making those projects. Yikes! My goals for 2019 are pretty realistic and small, because in some aspects, I have to learn how to walk before I run. Without further ado, let’s jump into it:

1) Break my digital hoarding habit

Hoarding tendencies run in my family, and this affects not only the hoarders but the people around them. It’s difficult and heartbreaking to live with or visit a hoarder when you know how beautiful and good their life would be with be if they wouldn’t hoard. Hoarding is a mental health issue, so it’s important to understand what the hoarder is going through before forcing your help on them.

Right, back to my own hoarding. I am a new type of hoarder - the digital hoarder. I don’t have my own house, so moving from one rented apartment to another doesn’t allow me to collect many items. But you know what I can collect? Digital trash. Ever since I had my first internet connection, I started to collect memes, gifs, music, films, every photograph I've ever taken, every video I ever filmed, every project I ever made. For this reason, the storage on my computer, hard drive and phone is full of folders, files, photographs and clips that are just thrown randomly everywhere. Most of my files/folders/pics/clips have idiotic names that have no connection to the content of the file. Whenever I need to search for anything, it can take me hours to find anything - and that’s if I even find it. This hoarding is not only on my devices, it’s also in my dozens of Youtube playlists (that I don’t watch/listen to) and in my saved items on Facebook, Instagram and my Internet browser. It’s time to sort out my digital hoarding, because this is no way to live.

2) Create Digital Family Archive

Most of us don’t care that much about our family tree, ancestors and all that jazz until we are much older. Why do I care about this at the age of 26 years old? Well, I care because most of the people from my family are dead - like, 75% of them. Some have died of old age, others of cancer. I am also doing this because of regret - I was too young to think about this when key members of my family were still alive and would have been able to provide more accurate information about our family history - some of is pretty tragic. I know this regret is created by my own mind, because maybe preserving our family history should have been more important to previous generations.

As I am the only one with advanced digital manipulation skills in my family, I somehow feel like it’s my duty to try to salvage and archive all photographs, documents, notes and other relevant items that I have access to at this time. Of course, I will do this in collaboration with other members of the family. The ultimate goal is to create a well structured family archive and a huge family tree, as well as personalized family trees for each family member. This process will probably take years, but I’m excited to embark on this journey and learn more about my roots and heritage.

3) Create content

Last year I created so much content... in my head. I want to bring that content to life and write, film, talk about everything that matters to me. I want to help and inspire people through my work. I just need to get off my ass and out of my head. Bare with me, I’m getting there!

The truth is, not making enough money and not finding much work has cock blocked me hard and I just spent all my free time researching, coming up with creative projects, being anxious, crying and overthinking. However, dreams don’t work unless I do. I don’t want to jinx my motivation and discipline skills, so for now I won’t say more on this topic.

4) Dress-up again     

When I was single, I spent so much time on my looks - I wanted to to express myself through fashion and hair and make-up and I did it. I was still unhappy with my life, but I looked fabulous. Now I’m very lucky to have the most wonderful person on Earth next to me, and I couldn’t be happier. I work from home and I don’t earn a lot - so the fact that I don’t need to exit the house much and I can’t splurge on things like I used to kind of turned off my inner desire to dress up and feel empowered and fabulous. I’m not sure what the root of this is and why my auto-pilot goes into “your worth is in how much money you make”.  When I don’t make enough money I feel like I don’t deserve to look and feel great, and to express myself. It probably has something to do with my impoverished upbringing. Anyway, this goal is about ignoring the voices in my head that try to cock-block me from dressing up - will keep you updated on how this goes.

5) Focus more on my mental health

This goal is very important to me. Last year I went to therapy for about 6 months and it changed my life - not only it worked for me, but somehow it was the cherry on the cake I have been building up for many years. It was so wonderful to discover that all the psychology research I did over the years, all the time I dedicated to introspection and to trying to understand thought patterns was not in vain. It actually helped me to be better prepared for taking in all the challenges I had to complete in therapy.

Having a really good therapist who was straight up my alley played also a huge part in my therapy sessions.

I have anxiety issues, depression tendencies and probably many other issues. I am very good at coming off as a “well balanced person”, which is amusing to me when I hear it. I am lucky to have an inner fire that constantly pushes me to dust myself off and try again. But living with these mental issues is hard work and work that has to be done daily for the rest of my life. I have seen how bad these issues can become if you ignore them in my own family, so I am determined to do the best work that I can to not pass on all this mental baggage to the next generation, if we ever decide to have a child. Last year I received the training on how to deal with my mental health issues, this year I have to try harder to implement what I learned. Being captive into your own mind, in this cage built out of  overthinking and anxiety is not fun, and I just want to get the hell out of there and enjoy life.

It took me many years to acknowledge the fact that I have major anxiety issues. I think it's very important to talk about our mental health, especially in a culture that is dismissive towards the concept of mental health, such as the Romanian culture.

                                                  Artwork by Eugenia Loli

Everybody experiences stress. It is a normal part of life and the way your body communicates to you that you need to react quickly and effectively to a high-pressure situation. You can feel stress when you worry about your future, your job, finances, relationships, the illness or wellbeing of a loved one. It is also triggered by having too many things to do or you when you just haven’t slept well.

However, experiencing often an emotion characterized by the feeling of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes such as increased blood pressure without making adjustments to counter these effects, it can threaten your health and well-being. This constant state of stress starts to affect your day to day life, and simple tasks you need to do become overly complicated.

Going from healthy self-preservation caused stress to anxiety issues is often just a step. For me personally, anxiety started kicking in many years ago. I was indeed living in very stressful conditions at that time, so I wasn’t acknowledging my high levels of stress as something that is not normal. It was so normal to me, that it became part of my identity.

As life went by, I continued to live with my anxiety without ever occurring to me that these feelings are not normal in such a high capacity. Healthy day to day stress became entangled with older issues from my past, merging together into a filter that would be automatically applied to any stressful situation I would encounter in my life.

I became a master of hiding my anxiety over the years - you would only see my bubbly personality, hear my blunt jokes, see my polished glamorous appearance. Using all of these distracted most of the people from seeing what was underneath - I managed to hide major episodes of depression, desperation, heartbreak, high level of anxiety simply by becoming such a good actress - I created a wonderful facade that made others aspire to be like me. Not even the people I was honest and close to did not fully understand me because they never experienced what I was hiding under the rug and couldn’t relate.

Whenever I would feel anxiety - which was and still is almost daily, I would put on my facade and go about my day. I did not function like a normal person for over a decade - you would never see how I avoided food, drank a lot of coffee and smoked my lungs out. You would never see how little things made me hear my heart in my ears, made my hands shake, made my feet tremble - all of these whether it was a little mistake I did, a phone call I needed to make, a meeting I needed to have, a project I had to present in front of my colleagues.

On my days off from work, I would sit with in a pitch black room curled in my bed for the entire day feeling anxious about text messages, phone calls, emails that I did not wanted to reply. I would only have some food when I felt like collapsing.

When I stopped working for a while to focus on getting my dream job, I continued to work myself up even though there was no one in particular stressing me out. I had a lot of time on my hands to spend with my negative thoughts that ran in circles in my mind. My anxiety levels reached such a high point that getting out of the bed, washing the dishes and going to the closest supermarket took me all day. It became harder and harder for me to fight back the feelings of uselessness when out of hundreds of job applications, no one would e-mail or call back.

When you reach that state of desperation and anxiety, you would take any job that you can get your hands on. Side note: just like you should not shop when you’re hungry, you should never take a job out of desperation (if you have a choice).

I had a choice of not doing this, of not taking a job out of desperation - all I was seeing from the start were red flags, but I ignored them. Because my anxiety was causing me to have all these catastrophical thoughts in my head of what would happen if I didn’t take the only job offer I had under my nose.

I took it and it was a great job title to have in the industry, especially at my age.  It turned out to be the most stressful and emotionally abusive place I ever experienced in my life. Those conditions triggered all the skeletons from my closet, all my insecurities and my anxiety went off through the roof and reached the nearest galaxy.

Even writing about this is causing me a bit of anxiety. But there are many good things that come out of situations like this. Yes, it sucks really bad to knowingly put yourself through hell. To feel daily so anxious that your heart might burst at any point. However, this was a wake up call for me. I was finally able to acknowledge to myself that I have a problem and its name is anxiety.

Sometimes we imagine how we will react in the most awful scenarios: the death of a loved one, breaking up with the love of your life or being fired from your job.

The truth is, you can’t predict how you are going to react in a nasty situation. Reality is usually either much worse, or much better than we can picture it in our heads.

For a long time, I kept thinking: how will I actually react when my terminally ill aunt will pass away? When she died a few months ago, I still felt shock. And sadness. But I had to take things as they were and still function as a normal human being. If you are able to handle death, you will be able to handle pretty much anything else.

Today I don’t want to talk about death. I just want to talk about how it feels to be fired, when you are someone who would never imagine anyone possibly having any reason to fire you.

The point of this post is not to play the blame game, or the shoulda/coulda/ woulda game.

So, let’s go back to the “Nobody fires ME!”/ “Nobody will ever fire me” mentality. It is quite similar with “Nobody dumps ME/Nobody will ever dump me, I will dump them”, isn’t it? Whilst these affirmations are a soothing thought for your ego, the truth is, you don’t have control over the situation. You control your actions at work, your feelings, and how productive you are in certain situations. In life and in work, things don’t go as planned and things don’t always work in your favour. Shit happens, and you just have to deal with it. Sometimes there is nothing you could have done differently - because for some people, everything will never be enough.

So how does it feel to be fired?

I used to imagine how awful it must be to be fired. I saw it in movies, overheard stories about fired people and I thought to myself that you can only be fired if you suck at what you do and you are bringing down the company or if they have to cut down on staff and your position is not crucial to the company. I always thought that it will be very difficult for me psychologically  to handle being fired, especially because I am a hard worker and I give my all at work. So how could I possibly get into a situation that would get me fired?

                                                          …….

I received the news through a text message. Yes, I was shocked and a bit sad. Yes, it did hurt my feelings and my ego, considering I did have the “Nobody fires ME” mentality. But you know what I did not have? Regrets. I know I did my best and I also desperately tried to adapt to a world that was rejecting me like a failed kidney transplant.

But you know what? It’s ok. Not every relationship works, and not every workplace or job is suitable for me. I am not a perfect human being, and for sure I am not a robot - but I am, and will always be human. And failure is a big part of being human, and a big part of learning and improving yourself.

    I still leave this nasty situation a winner. I learnt a lot of new things, improved my technical skills, met great people, made a few good memories. My life and ethical principles came to the surface stronger than ever and I realised that one big issue with me being in the environment that I was in is the fact that my life and ethical principles were clashing with the medium, not merging.

Just like water and oil don’t mix, you will not mix well with any medium. That’s ok! Being fired is not always a tragedy, or the end of the world. It’s a new beginning - both for the employer, and for you.

As it’s been a few months since the firing happened, I am ready to share with the world the fact that I used my last pay from the job I was fired from to make the video below. It wasn’t a large sum of money, just small bills. This experience was cathartic and fun, I definitely recommend it if you ever get fired!

There are many people that come and go in our lives. Some leave because they want to, others leave because you make them, and a few might mutually agree there is nothing beneficial in staying in each other’s lives.

A friendship is by definition a relationship between friends, a state of mutual trust, support and attachment. Throughout my life, the predominant gender among my diverse groups of friends was female. I will talk about my male friends as well, but that’s for another time.

Today I want to focus on what female friendship means to me, the effect it has on my existence and on my lifestyle and how much friendship resembles a relationship with a partner, with a few exceptions of course.

                                   © Illustration by Mariah Llanes ©

Friendship vs relationship - the inception, development, torment (in some cases) and the heartbreak that comes whenever one of the two ends is pretty similar. One important thing I learnt from my friendships is that, unfortunately, they don’t always last forever. I have lost many girlfriends over the years, and others lost me, and I’m sure all of us will continue to lose and discover friendships until the day we die.

Close friends, acquaintances, friends of friends - I used to know so many, to hang out with them at numerous parties and social events. Friendships that lasted a night, friendships that lasted a summer, friendships that lasted years - I’m sure we all experienced these types of connections.

Looking back, it is clear as day why I lost certain female friends, or why they lost me - of course, there are also the situations where I don’t know what the fuck happened. In terms of the ghosts of my girlfriends past, I can only speak for myself and say that in highschool I was too clingy and territorial with them. I was loyal to them to the point of my destruction and their suffocation. Basically, just like a super annoying golden retriever.

I know I was looking at my girlfriends as someone to hold the place of many things missing from my childhood: a loving family, affection, understanding, to be accepted and liked by my peers, someone to keep me company. I had no idea what boundaries were back then, and why I should back off a little and not compete and compare how much time they had for me and how much time they had for their boyfriends.  

As I transitioned into womanhood, some of my longest friendships started to disintegrate  because we had grown apart, each of us flourishing in different directions. But growing apart takes a very long time, and sometimes the damage is so big that it cannot be undone - sometimes it’s just too little, too late.  

Losing girlfriends is painful, it’s sad, it’s heartbreaking. But there are many things to learn from losing these people that were once so important to you. If I were to name a few things that we can find in the ideal friend, such as: trust, empathy, support, attachment, respect, loyalty - I think we can agree that this list overlaps a bit with the list of qualities we look for in a life partner.

Today, I strongly believe that “less (friends) is more”. I no longer look for absurd or unrealistic things in my girlfriends, and the list of my expectations is short and sweet. The expectations are to receive back the same amount of respect, consideration, honesty, empathy and moral support that I offer. To me, the beauty in all of this lies in the fact that when a friendship is mutual and real, everything comes naturally. I don’t have to force anything, I don’t have to chase anyone, I don’t have to beg or demand anything - it’s already there.  This is why I don’t invest in toxic, manipulative, unreliable, time and energy draining friendships anymore - to be fond of a person and nostalgic of who you both were at some point in life is not enough to sustain the longevity of a friendship.

As you go further in life and gain more and more knowledge, you realise that actually you don’t have so much free time anymore - you barely have any time left after work, responsibilities and domestic chores. And all you are left you are with is a few hours once in a few weeks to have a coffee with your girlfriend.

Adulthood comes with a strong need of prioritisation: who and what you are spending your free time on. Don’t get me wrong, I still reminisce at times about my long lost girlfriends. I still smile when I find something that reminds me of them. I am still happy for them if I hear they are now happy, and went further in life than the point where I left them when we stopped being friends. I am still happy to hear they changed for the better and I am still saddened if I hear they are not doing well and a lot of bad shit is going on in their lives.

Life does, however, go on. Whilst it’s not always in our power to make a friendship work and resist the test of time, we can still do what we possibly can to make our friendships worth our time and energy, to support our friends and let them know we appreciate their time and appreciate them as a person. We can respect the boundaries of our friendships, be honest, understand and accept what the other person is going through. Accept the fact that sometimes we won’t be able to see each other or talk to each other often. At the same time, it’s important to let them know that we’ll still be here at the end of the day.

I wish I could honestly say that I didn’t have time anymore for the past 5 years to write a blog. It is partially true - I stopped writing for a little while because I entered yet another dark phase in my life - except this particular one was more difficult for me to handle than the others.

I was studying abroad and juggled two intense cleaning jobs on top of my University work in order to support myself financially. I was waking up every morning thinking how much I hated that situation. Don’t get me wrong, I was not hating the opportunity to study abroad, to have better chances in life, to live in a culture more diverse and more open than my own. I was just frustrated because all my prior studies and hard work in my field were irrlelevant in this new country that I was living in. Scrubbing toilets for a living made me feel humiliated - not because of the job itself, but because I knew I am capable of so much more. During that period of time, I was constantly exhausted, often crying over the toilets I had to scrub every day to make the ends meet. As you can imagine, it was very easy to use my difficulties as the main excuse to postpone writing and publishing my articles. When you feel worthless and trapped, you can’t work up the motivation to do the things you enjoy anymore. So I started to postpone writing for a few days at first. Days turned into months, months turned into years.

Writing was everything to me: the highest form of expression, the easiest way to communicate and help others through sharing my own experiences. Funny how you can take something that is “everything to you” and throw it out the window in an instant, right? Postponing writing and publishing my articles just made me feed an endless list of negative thoughts that I constantly used to talk myself out of doing it.

Back in my “journalistic prime”, I was publishing  3-4 articles/week in print/online, whilst studying and working part time.  A few years after that, I was unemployed for 1.5 years because I was looking for a entry job as an immigrant and a rookie, and the competition was very strong. Still, with all that free time I had whilst being unemployed, I was still unable to find enough motivation to write and publish again.

I still indulge sometimes in the memories I made back when I had my own little community of readers, fans and haters. When unknown people wrote me messages about my articles, or came up to me at parties to tell me how much they love what I write, how raw and real my blog was to them and how I tackled topics that they wish they had the courage to talk about out loud.

Being able to share my struggles, my pain and my triumphs, to start a conversation about delicate/tabu topics and say what I really wanted to say is what made me feel alive when I used to write often.

We all know that being a vintage fashion aficionado is not easy.  Yes, you can recycle your family's vintage clothes that have not seen the light for at least 20 years and tailor them to fit your body. You can also tour all the charity shops/ second hand shops/thrift stores and hope you'll find a vintage treasure at a very small price because, you know, charity shops do not have the eye to recognize an expensive vintage item.  However, the two sources of vintage mentioned above are not great for when you need specific items to build up your vintage style wardrobe - you just cannot know what's waiting for you in there.

It's hard to find cheap vintage reproduction stores/ websites, but not impossible - I'll tell you more about that another time. So if you have a tiny budget and some time on your hands, you should definitely keep an eye on flea markets, vintage fairs that sell proper vintage or vintage reproduction items that you can style into looking vintage. Now when I say vintage, I think about 40s-60s inspired looks. But vintage can mean many things to many people, and therefore, keep in mind that shops/ fairs/ markets that promote themselves as vintage/retro can have items from/inspired by any era, not only the 50s. I discovered this the hard way, by walking a lot and visiting loads of shops/events/markets in the Bristol and Bath area in order to find what I wanted.

Ordering online is cosy and takes less time, but I just don't like to go through the hassle of returning items that are my size in theory but actually do not fit. Especially if it's an international order, that can really bite you in the ass - you can lose time, pay yourself for the return of the item if it doesn't fit and be left just with disappointment. So without further ado, let me tell you about 3 vintage fairs that travel all over the UK during the year, have small entry fees and allow you to enter a magic world that usually exists only in your head.

My countdown will start with the 3rd place - but I am ordering them according to the level of enthusiasm that I felt being there.  Each of these fairs are unique in their way and I don't think it would be fair to compare them. But it would be fair to compare the experience of being there as a customer and as a videographer. I will mainly talk about my experience as a customer and just describe my experience as a videographer because my video editing is guided by how a project makes me feel (when it comes to personal projects). Please note I am not paid to advertise these fairs and was not paid to film them - I did it because I love these events, I love vintage and last but not least, I love filming & editing.

3) The (Bristol) Vintage Clothing Kilo Sale

Remember I told you that vintage can cover many eras?  Well, this event is the perfect example. If you like a fair that's properly advertised, this is the place to be. The vintage clothes you find in there are from many time periods but at this particular event it looked to me like they were more focused on the fashion from 80s-00's, but you could also find a few bits and pieces that could be styled in a 40s-60s look. The great part about this kind of fair is that you go in, choose a bunch of clothes you like, weigh them and pay for them and then move on with your day. So if you can endure a crowded small place with fabulous clothes and a quick payment system, then this fair is for you. Take a look at my footage from The Bristol Clothing Kilo Sale (2016)

2) The (Bristol) Mid Century Market

A cosy fair with an intimate atmosphere located in the Trinity Centre (which is actually a former church). Now, this is an event where you don't just go, grab clothes and rush to pay them. Inside, even if it's crowded, you won't care too much about that - because it feels like you found your people.  Most of the merchants and customers that came in there looked like they just walked out of a movie set and brought lots of glamour and joy to the shopping experience. Now, whilst no 3 and no 1 are fairs that are still active all over the UK,  The Mid Century Market is currently on a break and has not yet released new event dates. However, I must insist you follow them on Facebook and hope it will return this fall. In the meantime, you can check out the footage I took on my last visit to the fair: 

1) Lou Lou's (Bristol) Vintage Fair

In my tiny list of vintage fair experiences, this is the best I ever had. I mean I am such a huge sucker for being at an event where everyone is dressed 40s-60s, where it’s cosy and you feel like you’re the ugly duckling after she found out she’s a swan and discovered her crowd of swans. But the reason this fair made me feel this way is that aside from what the other fairs offer, they somehow managed to take it to the next level - you can listen to live vintage/ modern vintage music, whilst shopping, whilst people get their hair styled vintage in a corner, whilst professional swing dancers demonstrate their skill next to you and regular people join them, and you just wish someone would pinch you to make sure it’s real. Because it’s located in the Passengers Shed (Bristol Train Station), in a massive hall, the chances you have to find items from wider range of categories in just one place are higher. Have a taste of what’s happening at such a fair here:

                                         BRISTOL SHOPS

We all know you have to hustle hard to find clothing that fits your style and personality.  As I said before, I prefer shops where I can physically go and take a look at things, try them on and see if it's a bargain for me to make the purchase. So, after I moved to Bristol, before finding out about the vintage fairs that come to Bristol with 40s-60s inspired merchandise, I was very keen to find out if there are any shops I could go to and find some treasures. I asked a few people from the vintage community, but everyone said there is no physical shop specialising specifically on this type of fashion left in Bristol. Sadly, they were right! But I didn't want to let go of the idea of finding little bits and bobs that would help me step up my vintage game. So I set myself on a quest of finding the needle in the haystack.

I wanted to make a post about my findings because I feel this information might benefit other vintage aficionados and maybe save them some time. Before going on this quest, I asked a few people and also did some research online. I wanted  to gather as much info as possible and avoid ending up at some shop that has gone out of business or has a weird work schedule. I also wanted to find places I can reach by foot and not spend too much on bus fares.

Please note this is not a sponsored post and everything I write in here is my personal opinion as a customer.

Our hunting process starts with the Bristol shops - after wandering in at least 20 vintage and charity shops, I discovered as previously stated that not all vintage shops refer to the 40s-60s and many of them focus on 70s/80s/90s/00s etc. The shops that I will tell you about have merchandise that is proper vintage/ reproduction or items that could be easily styled into a vintage look.       In addition, I will point out particular charity shops where I found goodies for myself - and a charity shop rarely comes alone, so near the ones I point out you will find many more charity shops you could visit as well.   

1) Blue Banana

This shop is centrally located, 3 min away from Cabot Circus. They sell goth/rockabilly/emo stuff, but if you have a bit of patience you can really find a sweater, a dress or some shoes that would still get away as glamorous vintage and not rockabilly (hair & make-up help the direction of your look a lot). I think it's definitely worth a look when you're in Bristol, you never know what bargain you can find in there. Due to items being new, prices are medium to a bit on the higher end in here - but if it's something that you will use often it's worth it.

2) Sue Ryder (61 Park St, Bristol BS1 5NU)

A few minutes away from the city central bus station and also close to the Bristol museum/ university area, this is one of the best places to find vintage items. They usually have vintage dresses, hats, gloves and earrings, all of them pre-owned of course.   Prices are quite low in this place and you can really find little gems & great bargains sometimes.

3) Oxfam Shop (11 Regent Street, Bristol, Bristol BS8 4HW)

This charity shop is roughly 15 mins away from Sue Ryder, just a little bit up the hill but it's totally worth it. It usually has a good stock of fabulous dresses & pre-owned jewellery.  Another advantage would be that on the same street you will find at least 3 more charity shops. As this shop is located in a fairly posh area, the prices are set accordingly. However, the prices are not exaggerated so it's very likely you can find a bargain in there.

4) The Salvation Army (110 Cheltenham Rd, Bristol BS6 5RW)

This is fairly close to the Bear Pit, and away from city noise. This area is full of graffiti, which I really loved, but it also feels like a very mixed environment. In some areas you feel like a hipster, and in other areas you feel like you should hold your purse more tightly. But this shop is near a nice hipster-ish coffee place and closer to loads of street art. I think this is the shop with the lowest prices I found in Bristol, and they also have really good deals. Although you have to walk a bit to get there, I think it's totally worth it.

                                            BATH SHOPS

If you feel adventurous, it's definitely worth paying a visit to the vintage stores in Bath. Bare in mind that  they don't have many charity shops so I couldn't give you specifics on that note.  I can definitely tell you about the shops I found whilst doing research online (because nobody I knew could recommend a vintage shop in Bath).

1) Jack & Danny's (3 London Street Bath BA1 5BU)

Visiting this shop was definitely an unforgettable experience.  From outside  you can immediately see loads of vintage clothes hanging in front of the shop. As you enter, a strong smell of vintage clothes hits you immediately - so I if you don't have a strong stomach I would not recommend going in. The place is packed with interesting/ beautiful/ weird clothes, but you can find anything you can imagine in there. You only need a strong stomach, patience and strong hands (due to the place being packed you need to work a little to dig out your bargain). It's definitely not a low price shop, but I think it's the perfect place for finding unique clothing that you can tailor to fit your body. The cherry on top was the back room which reminded me a bit of the film Jumanji due to the plants that grew out of the humidity and darkness that surrounds certain corners of the ceiling.

2) The Yellow Shop ( 72 Walcot St, Bath BA1 5BD)

Down the road from Jack & Danny's, this shop has many items that could be styled easily for a vintage look.  You can find a bit of every era in there, and the prices range from very low to very high, but if you have patience to look properly at everything you can easily find a bargain. Merchandise is nicely organised so it's easy to browse through it. Not everything screams vintage, but there is a lot of styling potential with what you find in there.

3) Vintage to Vogue (28 Milsom St, Bath BA1 1DG)

There are many articles, books, TV shows, movies and documentaries portraying successful individuals from the creative industry, one more inspirational than another. For many years, I watched and read thousands of life stories on how certain people rose from the dust and became world renowned artists, actors, philanthropists, designers, dancers, you name it. Deep down I was hoping for a miracle, for that spark that would come out of the blue whilst watching/reading someone's bio and boom I would know what to do next in my career. After applying to hundreds of entry level jobs in the creative field, most of them on TV/film/commercial sets and never hearing anything back, I was feeling pretty low. And by low, I mean as low as a petrol source under the ocean.

Out of desperation, I began researching online courses which would help my CV stand out and lead to obtaining a runner job or a video production internship.

The cherry on top was me paying $100 to an online master class course to "study" with one of the greatest documentary film makers of all time. And by study they meant listening to multiple   pre-recorded videos with him and having to fill in a digital exercise notebook. After a few lessons, I finally had the epiphany I was looking for: that guy was never a 25 years old female immigrant from Dracula's land, broke and trying to break into a glamorous & supersaturated industry. I guess deep down I knew all along that the answer is not in all those beautiful inspirational stories that I was desperately picking up. Cutting to the chase, I will ahead and tell you a few tips and tricks to start putting yourself out there, in the networking game. As I was targeting a specific industry when learning to network in the UK, most of the examples will be video production oriented, but the ideas can be applied to any industry that you are looking to get into. Also, the location I will be speaking of is in the UK, but you should be able find the equivalent in your country if you are willing to put in a little elbow grease into doing  your research.

1) Niche Websites

When you are looking for a job in film/tv/media in the UK, you will not find it on the websites where regular people go to find theirs. You need to search on niche websites that focus on a particular industry. Otherwise you will find all sorts of dodgy job roles when type in niche key words (trust me, you type production assistant and instead of a film set it's a butchery).   The first website that's worth checking out is Shooting People. It's an excellent place to find freelancer jobs or seek collaborators. In my experience, it's also a great place to ask a question - be it about gear, the industry or asking for specific advice with a project. There is an annual fee involved, but it's totally worth it because you get a lot out of it. The second website is called Production Base and it's a good place for internships, long term jobs or just freelance collaborations.  The good part is they have a free trial for a month. The bad part is that it's very difficult to find anything entry level in there - and for the occasional 1 job opportunity a week that you may or may not find in there, I would suggest you not to throw your money out the window. However, if you have a few years of experience this website might be good for you.

2)  Facebook

Aside from memes, cat videos and the occasional cringey photos posted by people that you don't talk to anymore, Facebook is a goldmine of professional opportunities. To start off your networking venture on this social media platform, start searching for groups of professionals from tv/film/media located near you. This will help you be hands on with this task and not wait for the cool people from the industry that you've been stalking for months to post a job opportunity on Facebook/ Instagram (because that doesn't happen often, and if it does, most likely you'll be competing with hundreds of people that are  equally qualified or better than you are at this stage). Of course you will find many groups and once you read their group descriptions, you might end up joining only one or two. But hey, better to have fewer groups that you can gain from rather than receive notifications from 20 groups that you joined and never use.

My top picks for the Bristol area are the groups Bristol Film and Bristol TV/ Film Crew. Here you can find loads of opportunities for professionals but also for rookies. Let's also not forget the Facebook pages. After many searches, I found a very cool and well curated page that posts awesome opportunities and jobs - it's called Bristol Arts Jobs & Opportunities. There is also a possibility for the city that you live in to have a little guild of people that share your craft/ your interest in a particular craft. Luckily for me, I found another page in there called Bristol Filmmakers. This is a monthly event (usually depending on how many people are interested in going) and you can go in and have a drink with loads of talented people that have been working in the industry for many years. You can also bring a friend with you (not necessarily a filmmaker) to help you tone done the anxiety of meeting new people. Bristol Film and Video Society is also worth checking out on Facebook-  they meet twice a month and hold workshops, do small productions and have guest speakers from the industry. There is a very small yearly fee (£35) to be part of this club. I haven't personally tried this one, because after reading their feed I was left with the impression that this is more of a hobby for the people involved and not necessarily a place that would nurture young talent. However, after reading their updates for a few months I came to the conclusion that it would be worth giving it a try - they seem more serious about it than other groups of filmmakers from Bristol. Unfortunately my realisation came after it was geographically impossible to attend their events as had already Ieft the UK.

3) Networking Apps

In this day and age there is an app for anything you can imagine - an app that saves my menstrual cycle dates, another one that shows me how much sugar my food contains,  an app for this, an app for that, so why shouldn't there be one for networking?! Well, let me tell you: I found two already! Meetup and Eventbrite are two little apps that help you find groups and events for professionals (or aspiring professionals) to network and expand their list of contacts. And whilst you browse for the events that would benefit you professionally, you will also find fun workshops and activities to attend on the way. Both these apps are free, but require you to create a login so that you can save your interests and hit attend or book a place at an event. Cancelling is also super easy and fuss free, and there are many cool events that you can attend with free entrance.

4) Vimeo/ Youtube