Sweet 2016

Hello, hello!

I haven't posted here in such a long, long time, and I found last night that I was able to resurrect my blog!

The main reason why I had stopped posting was due to the crossover from Blogger to GoDaddy.
Originally, I purchased my domain name, hibkoko.com, from Blogger. When Blogger moved this service over to GoDaddy, I managed my domain through there, until GoDaddy decided to sell the URL on.... Fabulous!

I couldn't access my blog at all. And last night, I was finally able to access it, for the first time in at least a year and a half!

So here we have it. Whether I carry on blogging at hibkoko or change to a brand new name, I'll be sticking to this from now on. I used to have such passion for blogging, and I wanted to reignite that passion I once had.

So for now, let's have a bit of a catch up, as my life has changed quite a lot since I last posted.

Let's see...


So the last time I posted:
I was 23 years old.
I had been living at home with my parents again for a while.
I was working as an Assistant Manager for a Topshop store.
I had silver hair.
I had a few facial piercings.
I had one tattoo.

Although not huge topics, these are some main, and noticeable (visually especially) things in my life that have changed!

Roll on 2016 (even though I'm still going to be writing 2015 on everything for the next few months) and all of the above, has now become the below:

I'm 25 years old. 

How on earth did this happen?!! To be honest, I've had the attitude and mindset of a grandmother for many years now so it's not like it makes so much of a difference.

I live alone again.

Okay, so not totally alone. I live with Aimee! I'll have been living with her for two years in March.

I work in Head Office for Topshop Topman.

I work Monday to Friday again, woohoo! I enjoy my job so much more, and I have such a lovely team. (That's me on my last day in store above, and below, is me and some of my team now.)

I'm a blonde....again?

Yeah.... so I always end up going back to blonde. Long time followers of this blog will know that! I did go dark blue and mint green by mistake back in 2014 actually!

I only have three piercings now.

Okay, so not the most important thing, alongside not having silver hair, but it was a pretty big change! I now only have my right nostril, septum, and tongue piercing.

I now have a fair few tattoos...

That's some of them. 90% of the tattoos are on my legs, and it looks like they're the part of my body that will be most covered! 

I'm really looking forward to writing more entries and really getting to know everyone again, and hopefully, everyone can get to know me again too!

to drop on the world like its raining

HELLO HELLO HELLO

This is a rather...belated post I guess?! I can't believe I took a 4 month hiatus from my Blog and didn't say anything to you guys about it! (It was quite unintentional I promise you)

I guess, since August, my life has been moving pretty quickly! And how strange that the year seems to fly by - it's almost Christmas (that's if we survive the supposed Mayan Apocalypse), the last time we'll see a consecutive date EVER (12/12/12) and then it will be 2013! Didn't we once say that in 2013 we would have flying cars or some shit? I swear that's in one of those boy-films about space and future stuff that I'm not all too concerned with :)

WELL to tell you about my life, I obviously still have my other job, which is going really well! I really do love my team, they're wonderful and hilarious people with some of the best quotes I've ever heard in my life. Quote 1 from Kelsey; "I wrapped myself in gaffa tape the other day and tried to escape because I wanted to pretend like I was in Taken 2"

THIS my friends, is what fuels me each day.

Although I primarily work on TOPSHOP, I will be moving downstairs to TOPMAN over Christmas tomorrow, which I am really excited about as I'll be doing a lot more training - visual merchandising (more advanced than when I was just merching make-up each day I tell you) more reports and all the stuff that will make me super-human Eilish! On a VM note, our awesome team have made a pretty fabulous window at the moment;

Isn't that Galaxy drop just so gorgeous? So gorgeous that it HAD to go on my wall at home!

See?


Oh yes. I have PINK HAIR AGAIN!! I actually dyed it in October because October is Pink Month, aka Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And it feels pretty good to have pink hair again.

I hope you can forgive me for this long stretch away, and I will definitely continue to update more thoroughly from now on. I think in a way, I kind of got scared to write on my blog because I knew it had been such a long time?

I'm going to add an instagram blog code into here too so you can check out all my new photos, as I tend to upload them more to there than I do anywhere else!

And finally, I'll leave you with a song:

QUIT IT

Hello! It's been well over a month I believe since I last posted, and yes I always say that I will write a big post soon, or something similar, but yes! It will get there...eventually!

I do have some news to share... So, I quit my job at Cyberdog. Yeppers.

It was time for me to move on, and while I don't really need to justify any reasons for me leaving to lots of people on the internet, I would say that my leaving was mostly happy, if maybe except for some issues, but hey - that always happens right?

So, yeah! (I say that way too much irl) And you may be wondering (or may not be) what my plans are next. The answer is simple! GET ANOTHER JOB SO I CAN STILL PAY RENT YAY! And I do have a new job! Yes, as of tomorrow, I will be working for Topshop!

It's a big change from what I've been so used to for almost 2 years of my life, but I think change is a good thing. Tomorrow I will be starting training for two days and on Wednesday I shall start in my new branch! I'll be going in at top level as a Supervisor, which could prove difficult, but that's one of the challenges I'll have to overcome if I want to go anywhere!

Last night was my leaving drinks from Cyberdog, and I must admit, come tomorrow morning it will be very strange not to get on a train and head for Camden Town :s Cyberdog has been a big part of my life, and so many awesome things happened while I was there, and genuinely, I will be sad that I have left. Some may say it's too early, while others may say the time is just right. Who knows? Me, I suppose, and for me, it's just the right time to get a new lease on life.

I will be sure to update you on my progress, and share how my life will be going!

So this entry isn't entirely boring (as mine seem to be as of late, which I apologise for!), here are some of my instagram photos from the past month-ish to keep you on track, just in case you forgot what I look like :D

Ingvild and me <3 td="td">

A purple day!

Heather and me at work 8D

"A kit to invoke Veronica" - A wonderful piece of jewellery made by my chica Sara

My hair is really silver at the moment, reminds me of when I first bleached my hair ;D

How my mornings usually start!

A "Bubblelicious" Sundae from Afters!

A drawing Anastasija made for me as a leaving gift. It's all make-up!  

Last night with my chica 

Yesterday with Nathaniel  

You can keep up to date with me on instagram by following/stalking me @hibkoko, and if you don't have the app, you can follow me online at webstagram

Talk soon!

life and times

Hi guys!

How are you all doing?
It's been a mad few weeks over here in Eilishland, that's for sure.

So, alongside me having to have Root Canal done, some pretty awesome things have happened too! I got to meet and have lunch with Tish from Manic Panic! (on the right, Snooky on the left)

image: nydailynews.com

It was awesome, and really exciting to be able to actually talk and meet with one of the creators of the brand! I guess working where I am gives me a lot of great opportunities like that :) And following on from there?

I got promoted!

Yep! I'm now a member of the management team as a Supervisor! It's so strange to think that I only started just under a year and a half ago and that I've come this far! I'm really happy, and it's great to start a new job role! Please wish me luck in my new position!

Next weekend is Hyper Japan 2012, and I'll be working at the Cyberdog stall! Please come by and say hi!

In some other cutesy news, me and Adam will have been together for one year tomorrow! (Saturday) I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by! But I feel that it's been a great year so far, and hopefully many more to come! Tonight, we're staying at a hotel and probably going to have a meal somewhere...aww, I can't wait!

And because you might have forgotten what I look like, here's a photo of me from yesterday, before I got ready to go out with Ryo!

We went for bubble tea in Camden, as she'd had it in Germany the other week and was absolutely craving for it >.

See you soon!

simples

Hi everyone! Monday, bloody Monday, the start of a new week. Can you believe that it's nearly the end of January?? This year is going to fly by so fast, I don't know what to make of it!

I've been getting confused with the days of the week as i've been at work so much, even though today really did feel like a weekday as it was so much quieter and less busy than any of our weekend days (Friday-Sunday). Today, nearly everyone found out if they had been promoted or not (that's the literal way of explaining things without sounding confusing!). I mean, obviously I haven't worked at Cyberdog for very long so I don't really know the whole "political" side of things, but to quickly break the situation down;

Each area has a specialist, kind of like the "boss" of that area (of course, the managers are the "boss" of everything but these are people specifically assigned to take over this area - i.e. specialist) and then you get a "2nd" which I guess is like a deputy? So when the "boss" is not working, the "2nd" will be working instead.

So, anyway, current specialists and those who are not specialists found out today if they would be taking over a new area, or being "upgraded" (if you like) to a 2nd, or indeed specialist! It was exciting to hear what everyone would be doing, and congratulations! I've never really been in a position where you could get some kind of "promotion". Sure, at the hospital I was given way more things to do and such because I was reliable and more trusted than the others but I didn't really see it as a promotion, more as a few extra things added to my list. It's all a bit confusing, but nevertheless, as long as everyone is still happy with what they're doing, then that's great!

I guess I wanted to mention something that some people may have been wondering for a little while...Since the end of Hib, I have tried to not really post in the Gal Communites (lj, ricoche etc), not because I don't want to or am not interested anymore, but because of all the stuff that went down, I just kind of wanted to distance myself from it. I can tell you, not being in a Gal Circle and having frequent meets and seeing your friends on a regular basis is so weird! I think it's been, what...maybe like 6 months or something since it ended? It's been a quick 6 months, and it's also been a really nice 6 months too. I think i'm now a more relaxed person than I used to be, and my attitude has definitely calmed down. Yes I have said things in the past that have caused outrage and so on, but the majority of the time while Hib was still active, I wasn't the "horrible person" people made me out to be. I think it's the pressure of being a "leader" or "in charge", and I guess that can kind of go to your head. I definitely wasn't abusing my "role", but I think that because of the facade that I had, I was definitely misunderstood.

I think this break from the Gal Community for the past half a year has been a welcome change. If anything, i'm so different now! If anything, i'm more shy lol! I work all the time, and I don't even get much time to see Dec, Floz, Caryn and Georgie anymore, let alone Emmie and Lucie and Kei, and all the old Hib members! This is what I mean about how weird it is not being in a Circle. It kind of feels like a break up haha! Writing this was kind of due to the Gal Secrets post about UK Gals, and that the Hib logo was used as the photo. To be honest, the most active UK Gals in the scene right now are Lhouraii, Delight and Majikko girls! I think the New Year will be a good change, as I want to be able to meet some of the UK Gals (we haven't all met, contrary to popular belief) and see what they're up to!

On a lighter note, thank you to the person who posted the secret about my blog! I'm glad you enjoy reading it, and i'm glad you like the photo too! I'll definitely keep making posts! :D

Here's a photo, so not to bore you!

A corner shop (convenience store) selling lots of American candy and cereals! The window was much bigger but this is the only snap I got. No longer to overpriced Cyber Candy!

I can't wait

Hello everyone! How are you all? It's the end of another week! Although I know some people class Sunday as the beginning of the week, as that's what they used to do in the olden days lol. My old, old Restaurant workplace used to do it :s

Today I had such a short and quick shift at work! Only 10am-2pm. Yeah, 4 hours isn't really anything but it feels even shorter when you finish at a time like 2pm! Everyone was like "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! NO FAIIIR" haha. We had Popi from the Brighton store come and help us today, although I didn't actually see her until I was going! I hope she did okay! Our Camden store is so much bigger, louder and generally much busier than the Brighton branch, but she's fabulous so i'm sure she did fine :D

I'm really hoping that I padd my probation at the end of February! So far I think i've been doing a good enough job, but I guess I just have to wait and see! It would kind of suck to be told that they didn't want to keep me on after i've gotten used to the surroundings and getting on so well with everyone :( I still need to go out for a drink or something with a few people, as I want to get to know them better! Because of the "no-talking" rule at work, everyone is always dying to chat and talk about so much stuff! It will be nice to have a get-together after work sometime! *hint to those of you at work that may read this :p*

Eliana sent me her photos from the Art Exhibiton! And here are some for you to see:

L-R: Claudia, Me, Ryo

Claudia



Ryo

Not loads of photos but at least a few more to save to my computer! Of course, I still really want to see Ryo's photos! :p This week has also seen the arrival of my mail! At bloody last! Some stuff I ordered way before Christmas and just aftert has started to show up, which is great. I ordered some jeans from a Japanese store on Rakuten and they came really quickly! Here's a stock photo as I haven't taken a decent enough photo of my own just yet:


Mine are the ones on the right. My friend is actually coming over tonight to order the ones on the left because she saw this photo on my Facebook wall and loved them!

 They're so comfortable! And look really nice too :D They came with a thin brown belt that you can see in the left picture, but I probably won't use it...so I stored it at the back of my drawer haha. The only other thing to do with mail that I hate besides delayed post due to weather or random stuff, is the the "attempted delivery" notes they leave you! Grr! They are such liars sometimes! I've been home and waiting for things to turn up and they don't even bother to ring the doorbell! Some mailmen don't even both to put the date or time on the note so i have no clue when they "tried" to deliver anything so I don't know if they'll still have it at the depot or not! Grrrrr grumpy Eilish lol. I went to pick up something from the Post Office on Saturday morning and got back home to find ANOTHER note because noone was home...so i'm going to pick it up tomorrow before work. I *hope* it's a d.i.a. top that I ordered online, or some nail stuff that I ordered!

Here is what I picked up on Saturday:


A d.i.a. grab-bag from Lily! Thank you so much!


This makes up for me not being able to get my hands on a 2011 d.i.a. lucky bag! And what do we have?
- Cream t-shirt
-Red long sleeve top with open back
-Gold studded bra
-Black & white print top with black sash and gold hoop detail
-Black sweatpants with pink string, border and print
-Olive onepiece with black bow and gold hoop and chain detail
-d.i.a. eco bag

I'm so happy! I looked and bidded on the 2011 bags online but they're so difficult to get hold of! People have bought 10+ bags and even though one bag retails at Y10,500, they're selling them off for Y20,000 each! I saw a bag online for Y40,000 AND Y70,000!!!! WTF. I won a 2010 lucky bag..bag haha. I didn't realise it was just the bag until i'd bidded but never mind, it's quite a nice bag (even if it does say "NEW YEARS BAG" on it haha)

I also met Caryn, Dec and Kazu (Dec's bf) briefly the other night to pick up the things that Caryn brought back for me from Japan! They were going to Karaoke but I couldn't stay as my funds are low right now (all this shopping I know...) and I was staaaaaarving!




d.i.a. top, egg Feburary and x2 Candy Doll face powder

 It's been quite a d.i.a. week I guess! Oh! And a package came in the mail from Laura! She sent it on December 20th and it's taken nearly a month to get here! I haven't taken any photos but inside came two nail varnishes from HEMA (looove), some fake eyelashes, caramel waffles (yuuuummy!) and a kit to make my own king of sweet stuff! It's a Christmas thing really but I don't care! Still going to make them and post them here! In some other news, i'm going to Oslo, Norway in February to see Monica and Ingvild! I was going to go in the first weekend of March but I had already booked a mini holiday away with my friends in October so I couldn't go :( But i'm going for 2 days or so at the beginning of Feb! It will be cold, but so so lovely to see them both! So, yeah! How has everyone's week been?

rough ride

Hi guys, please excuse me for this rubbish excuse of not posting. I haven't had the best week as it were, well, since I posted my last blog i've been feeling really run down and out of touch. This has had an effect on my body as i've lost nearly 2 stone in the past 3 weeks....what the hell.

Last week, I lost my job....My hair and my nails were originally somewhat of a "problem", but I complied with their "rules" and wore a theatre hat (a pink one to be precise) and this Tuesday I got my fabulous nails taken off (I really wanted to keep them for Helsinki and I guess I could have done really...) and they turned round to me and basically said they didn't want me there anyway. My dad told me not to write any of the situation on Facebook or other sites but I think that the Trust and the department involved has had enough time to "settle" as it were, so im going to spill all and I hope someone comes across this and feels crap after reading it. I.E someone from the department or Trust.

I've mentioned a little bit before on my blog about their plot to try and get rid of me. I've always been the youngest member of staff there, and everyone else is a good 20, 30 or more years older than me. A lot of the older sisters are stuck in their ways of when they started working in theatres and so see nothing wrong with good old fashioned discipline and ways of working, but a select few have joined us in the modern world and are actually ncie and good to work with. I found myself getting on with everyone there, obviously after a little bit of time, and I felt like I was the one people could count on to get stuff done. One sister would only ask me to do things for her as she knew I could do it, no problems. And that feels nice! It means there are a few people who think im alright!

I think my problems started when I went away to Japan, my little "boss" who was in charge of me and my other group of workers got it into his head that I "wasn't coming back" and refused to give me any work, even when I returned, made up excuses not to give me work. Ultimate FAIL. He screwed up so much that the department "manager" (there are 4 people that sit in a little office and do jack so we have no idea who our "manager" is supposed to be) had a right go at him. When I came back the other week though, thats when things just went downhill. I managed to keep my nails hidden from the right people for a whole week, but then the woman who had become in charge of my group (it changed constantly because apparently we're difficult to handle) really gave it to me. I ended up being sent home twice and being asked to wear a hat so that my hair "is not visible to anyone at all", that or I was asked to wear a HEADSCARF which I declined as I don't have a religion and definitely, if I started to wear one, i'd get it in the ear from a lot of people around the hospital.

The sisters and other people started enquiring as to why I was wearing a hat and that I didn't need to as it wasn't affecting me or the people I work with, or even how I work, and I had actually had so many compliments from patients all over the hospital and from other department workers which was great. Everyone really loved my nails too, even though I shouldn't have had them, but whatever...lol. But then, I guess complying with people's rules just isn't enough, and apparently, my hair was "sticking out" of my hat, so they told me not to come back until my hair was an "appropriate colour"....wtf. So I bought a wig, considering that a girl in my department wears one and so do others around the hospital, like OBVIOUS wigs. The one I bought is the same length as my own hair, and as I usually have a front fringe, it had one too. Noone would have been able to tell! Its actually a really good wig, i was surprised at the quality. BUT its one rule for one, and one for another, and I was told that I would not be allowed to work in theatres again because my dad works there. This is the latest excuse they've come up with, and apparently its a Trust and Staffbank policy (an agency that provides healthcare workers to the NHS, and what im employed on) that family members cannot work in the same department.

There are a few things wrong with this excuse of theirs:
1) Staffbank got me the job BECAUSE my dad works there. They knew he was related to me and had no problems
2) Everyone i've asked have never heard of this "policy"
3) There are two sets of sisters working in the department, as well as 2 married couples, soon to be 3. Each of them are Staffbank and Trust employees, so if this "rule" covers both these employers, why haven't they been asked to move yet?

Its pretty much fail, but I guess I am pretty bummed about it. Even though I complained about it so much, I am already missing the people I actually got on with, especially Angela, the other receptionist. I actually can feel tears welling up as I write this blog post....that sucks.

BUT ANYWAY I had a job interview the day after I heard this pathetic excuse and it must of gone well as I have a second interview tomorrow! Really its only for Christmas staff but im hoping that if I do a good job I can always ask to stay on! Its for Cyberdog in Camden, and if I get the job *fingers crossed for tomorrow* I can dress however I want to. They state in the application "oh, and you have to look amazing!" so, :D!

My laptop has gone away for repair and i've lost everything! Thankfully I still have all my Japan photos on my memory card and the ones I uploaded online, so I will bring you the rest of the photos in the next post, and also the giveaway when im finished purchasing for it! It hard to buy stuff for a random person as you want them to be happy with it lol! I might as well get my nails done again actually...