My biggest critic

Recently I have been spending quite a substantial amount of time thinking about what I want to achieve and how I want to do it. At the tender age of 24 (is it still tender?Its not that old, right?) I am already feeling entirely conflicted between the pressure to progress in my career at the same time as fulfilling my life's ambition - a world tour.

Don't get me wrong, the pressure is entirely self inflicted. I am not a woman who stays at home cooking and you better believe it when I say I don't just want to be at the top of the tree, I want to be at the top of every tree. So while I am not yet on my world tour (watch out world I'm coming to get you in errr...December 2011!) I have set my heart, mind and life focus on creating the beginnings of a substantially successful journalistic/PR career. In Birmingham.

Now I don't want to rattle on about the economic climate and mass unemployment but at the same time, as a reasonably recent graduate who is massively ambitious, its fair to say that I'm furiously frustrated by looking up at the tree from a twig somewhere high enough that I'm on the tree, but still low enough to jump back down if necessary. To me, every unanswered email, unsuccessful application and forgotten phone call is another acorn hitting me clean between the eyes as I try to claw my way through the branches, biting my lip in an attempt to stop myself from screaming WHEN AM I GOING TO GET A BREAK!? No one said it would be easy, and yes the best things that come to you in life are the ones you've really worked for but to me those acorns are failures and "you'll never amount to anythings". I lie awake at night taunting myself into insanity, I think its fair to say I have something to prove. To myself.

This is my mother.

Yep, shes as barmy as she looks. Whilst my dad is highly successful - enough so that he is retiring next year at 50, a fact I am both proud and and enviable of as I will more than likely work 20 years past this, my mom (and I use the American spelling because that's how I say it, ok?) to me, has a different kind of success. Whereas my dad has been in the same career for the past 30 years, my mom gave up hers in order to support the family from home and in turn lavished attention, paint and mud on my brother and I. At the same time, while we were in bed she went to night school to keep her qualifications up to date and later worked nights - taking us to school at the end of her shift. Over the years as we have grown up she has had to carve herself another career, and has done a blooming marvelous job. In fact during a period of time off a couple of years ago her workplace was forced to employ two extra staff to cover her workload!

So perhaps I do know where this ambition and soul destroying perseverance comes from after all. Just maybe not the dress sense...

Aimée L’amour x

www.twitter.com/aimeelamour

Nationwide in November...

London, Brighton, Lewes, Brighton, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham.


In September a winter tour of the country without a break sounded like a great idea, what more could you ask for? Well, sleep, mainly. The non stop go go go amalgamation of work and pleasure has been both great fun and thoroughly exhausting and now, halfway through the itinerary, I have the tell tale Rudolph nose and a bin of used tissues to prove it!


All is not doom and gloom however, it has been a fabulous opportunity for me to see old friends and introduce newer characters (namely the live in bf) to old haunts - prompting extended trade-offs of embarrassing Aimée stories...


The month started with a weekend in the big smoke for the London Freeze Festival. As my partner and I met in a ski resort, skiing and snowboarding is a great shared passion and proves a nice reminder of those early days.


The event was held at the usual venue of Battersea Power Station (which is much further from the tube than you would think!) and the imposing structure provided a dramatic backdrop for the near vertical big-air ramp the pros launched themselves from (backwards).

Unfortunately my camera died so my photos aren't the best, but you get the idea - its pretty high!

After a few hours of ooohing, ahhhing and lusting over double back flips and expensive equipment we decided to head back to Kensington to visit Harrods for the first time. However due to GPS malfunction/male stubbornness we ended up going in completely the wrong direction and instead happily stumbled upon The Ritz and the designer boutiques of Old Bond St, happy days!

Sunday presented us with a dilemma: rain. The idea of standing outside in wet clothes all day and evening didn't really appeal so instead we took a trip to the Natural History Museum to take in the new Darwin pod.  



                     

The pod looked great, but I couldn't help but be disappointed by the lack of content inside. Maybe as the pod allows visitors to watch environmental scientists at work and we visited on a Sunday there was less to do, but I couldn't help but feel deflated.

We finished the day off with a flying visit to Camden to take in the stalls, Chinese food and overpriced beer before heading back to Freeze festival for the grand finale of Great Britain vs The World and Skindred who, quite simply, make me dance my pants off.

We were originally staying with a family member in London until he had to cancel and instead we found this great hostel at the last minute. 2 mins from Kings Cross Station and opposite the Scala, the hostel was quiet, clean and the staff were friendly, We managed to get a private room for a great price and I highly recommend it.

Next Stop....Brighton.

Aimée L’amour x

www.twitter.com/aimeelamour