How the Grinch made a Christmas Yule Log

Hello people reading my blog on Blogger. My name is Sarah and today I am going to give you the recipe I have been using every Christmas, since 2008, as promised on my video: the Yule Log or Bûche de Noël in French. The original recipe was in French so I did my best to translate it in English. If you have a doubt about any of the steps or ingredients, please don't hesitate to leave me your questions in the comments, I'll do my best to answer them.

Version en Français: Bûche de Noël

English Version: Christmas Yule Log

Obviously with the years I changed the recipe a bit to accommodate with the taste of everyone, and what I had at my disposal. Par exemple, au lieu d'utiliser du sucre en morceaux pour la crème, j'ai préféré utiliser du sucre en poudre puisqu'il n'y a pas de raisons que ça change quoi que ce soit au goût ou à la consistence du sirop. For the coffee extract, since I don't have that here in Morocco (or anywhere else where I've been actually), I use instant coffee. I make what I would call a "concentrate of instant coffee": a small quantity of hot water for at least the double (if not triple) in coffee powder. This year, I also added a pinch of cinnamon and orange blossom sugar (or water, whatever you have) into the cake. The first one because it brings up and enhances the taste of chocolate and the second one, because (don't ask me why) oranges make me think of Christmas. All in all, like every other recipes you will ever try, don't be afraid to experiment and adjust them to your taste and mood of the moment. 

And this, marks the end of this post. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ! See you on the other side.

THE Internship

Hello people reading my blog on Blogger, my name is Sarah and today dear readers, I have no words. Yep you read well. No words to describe how I feel right now, while I am writing this blog post. Amazing, ecstatic, glorious, would not even start to cover it. And for those of you who know me IRL (IRL = In Real Life, here you go with internet slang), you know this never happens.

In my previous post, I was telling you how hard it is to land an internship, let alone THE internship. But today, I am here to tell you that it happens. It is possible. It exists. And to my very surprise, I managed to find and get the holy grail (for me anyway): a 6 months internship at Total in Qatar as a Communication and Events trainee. I am not going to talk about how much I am going to be paid or what advantages I am going to get, but just so you know, it is unbelievable, it is like opening the cavern of Ali Baba, although I don't remember saying "Open, Sesame!", just sending my resume and cover letter, hopelessly. A bottle in the ocean if I may say. Anyway, this was at the beginning of August. 

This month, I received an e-mail on Sunday 6th, telling me that I had been shortlisted for this position and that if I still wanted to work with them, an interview would be conducted the same week via Skype. Btw, dear Skype people, thank you for making communication throughout the world so easy. I can honestly say here that I thought there had been a mistake. That they had mixed up resumes and that they were expecting to see someone else or something like that. It was all too good to be true. I went on with it, after thoroughly googling on the name of the HR executive who sent me that golden ticket, just to make sure it was not a scam or a joke of poor taste. I sent a short message back saying that yes of course I was still interested and that I would love to have that interview soon. The time and date were set pretty quickly, leaving me time to do some research on the company and the events I would have to organize if I got the job. Thursday, 11 a.m Doha time, so 10 a.m here in France. I spent two days not worrying too much about it, then came Wednesday.

Again, if you know me well, the fact that I tend to leave things to the last minute won't surprise you (but that is not something I like to tell recruiters though, for obvious reasons). So I didn't start researching before late in the afternoon. Then I had to Skype my mom to talk about what I was going to say regarding some aspects of my professional talent (ahem ... right). And this took me more time than I had expected. Way more time. So I ended up going to bed without rewriting my notes properly or blow-drying my hair. It was that or I would have been a complete zombie in the morning: not very advisable when you have an important interview.

So, the next morning, on Thursday 10th, I woke up at 8 a.m so I would have time to work on my "hairstyle". I didn't eat my breakfast, too nervous for that. I just prepared a cup of good ol' tea  that my grand parents brought me back from Ireland (Barry's tea please, I will be eternally grateful for that red box) and drank it while working on my curly head. Took me more time than expected, so I decided to not rewrite my notes, just read them and put make up on during my last 20 minutes, because the camera is never nice with you. You need to look damn good IRL to look good on the screen.

Freaking out two minutes before 10. Good at not showing it, am I not ?

I was on time as always. Ok, maybe not always, but for important things I am. They were 3 minutes late. Yeah I know, not a lot but when you're dying out of stress in front of your computer, three minutes seem like eternity. The whole thing went pretty smoothly I think. Well clearly, because at the end, the HR executive told me, without taking time to consult with the two other persons present, that he thought that unanimously they would agree to pick ME. They apparently interviewed a lot of people prior to me, but without taking too much time they just picked me. I could not believe it at first, still. I mean I have not studied in one of the top five business schools, same goes to the High School where I spent two years preparing for the competitive exam, it was not one of the best. So I hope you understand where I am coming from when I tell you that I could not wrap my head around what he just told me. Such a big company, for such a position, with such advantages. All of that for me.

When I finally closed my computer, I can shamelessly say that I had a tear rolling down my cheek because this school year was a shitty year by the end (not including Erasmus here obviously ;)). A lot of stress, a lot of struggles, again a lot of stress and finally this. So maybe, just maybe it wasn't all that bad after all. If it all ended happily (not ever after, yet), I guess I can try and forget what happened and just remember that I made it. I got out of this terrible situation and transformed it in an amazing one instead of a "meh I can do with that" one. Sending your resume like a bottle in the ocean can sometime pay off.

Twentysthing: Raiders of the Lost Application

Hello people reading my blog on Blogger ! My name is Sarah and today I am going to tell you that you are not alone in your struggle to land an internship or a job. Nope, you are not alone. Actually, it might be one of the reasons you are struggling to land the internship/job of your dreams.

I have been really stressed out lately. I am currently working at an amusement park. My summer job contract will be over at the end of August. In September I am supposed to start an internship, the first one of my gap year. It is important that I start in September, otherwise I won't be able to do two internships of six months each, the end goal of this year. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to answer too many offers because of my work schedule which does not leave me time to write proper cover letters, the most important part of any application in my opinion. This "lack" of applications is what is stressing me out, because a lot of people have told me that the more I apply, the more chances I have to get picked for the holy grail: the interview during which I can finally sell myself, prostitute myself if I may say, in order to leave every other candidate stuck on the starting blocks. What people say seems logical at first sight. But I have come to believe that a resume and a cover letter I really worked on might bring me more than a hundred empty applications.

And it paid off at first ! I got an interview at IKEA. It didn't work out in the end because apparently they went for someone with more experience in the field of PR (don't get me started on the experience topic, it is an endless loop that pisses me off). My point is, I worked really hard on my cover letter, did a lot of research and didn't put too much "bullshit" (the expression "brown-nosing" comes to mind here) in it, and it succeeded ! So now that I have told you my miracle recipe for success at not getting an internship, we can go back to the actual subject of this post. Don't get me wrong, the hard work on the cover letter is required, necessary, essential. But the thing to keep in mind here, is that someone who applied to the same offer got picked over me because of their experience. But what if I didn't apply to an offer? What if I just made a spontaneous application ? Being the only one applying to a position of my own choosing ?

I found the idea even more appealing after reading articles on a website for professional women. They were giving advice and detailing how to be sure to reach the person who is the most likely to take a look at your resume and cover letter: the hiring manager. So from now on, I will answer offers, but I will surely try the spontaneous application method. In these hard times, I do not need any competition, especially when I am barely starting to build up the experience section on my short resume.

Lost in transition

Being lost is one of the scariest feeling I've had to face in my short 23 years of life. The image coming to mind is a crossroads. A windy, cold, dark crossroads and you have no idea which path to follow. So many possibilities leading to so many different outcomes. Eventually though, a choice will have to be made.

It all started two months ago when I learned that someone made a decision impacting on MY future, putting everything I had planned in jeopardy. Bye bye double diploma in London, bye bye international career because none of the solutions offered could allow me to do any of those things anymore. And I got mad, real mad because it took me so much time to finally figure out what I wanted to do with my life for the next five years. I think that is what made it so hard for me to move on. I realised that I had followed a steep yellow brick road that eventually led me to an Emerald City ! And I ended up abruptly taking off my green glasses.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we have all been lost at some point and we will probably be many other times. And well, there is no manual that comes with the unknown, explaining  to you how to safely overcome it. Although I would be really grateful if someone took the time to write one. I could see something like "The Unknown: how to get yourself out of there in 5 easy steps".

All you and I can do is suck it up, hold on tight and do our best until the sky gets blue again, because eventually the storm will pass and it will get better. At least, that is what I like to tell myself. Because in the end, what else can you do, wait and see ? Yeah, well, thank you but no thank you. That will be without me.

PS: For those interested, I ended up changing school. I now still have the opportunity to take a gap year and try and get in a double diploma program in International Marketing in Aberdeen next year.

Dead Freedom of Expression Society

I have my own opinion regarding the recent attack on the French satirical newspaper. My very own opinion. It results from my ethnic background, my childhood, my gender, my age, my education, my beliefs etc. But I can't express it. Although it would feel really good to write it down to purge, because I am currently feeling anger and incomprehension. I would like to share the reasons behind these feelings and ideas with other people, to get a better grip on this terrible event. 

But I won't.

The demonstrations following the tragedy of the 7th of January were advocating freedom of expression. The Internet allows us today to share our thoughts with the world more easily and really fast (this blog would be a really good example of that). In most western countries, freedom of expression is accepted and an established core value of the society. Hence when it is challenged, people stand strongly against the disputer(s).

I believe then, that as an adult citizen, I have the right to express myself as well. Unfortunately, I practice self-censorship and there is a good reason for that. I am a student. But I am not just any kind of student. I am a student about to look for internships.Crucial moment of my student career if it is, because it will hopefully open the gates of the so-hard-to-get-into-nowadays WoW (not World of Warcraft you nerd, World of Work or World of Wonders, depends on your perspective on things I guess).

As I stated earlier, I am an adult now, which means that I am held accountable for my actions, what I say, and more important here, for what I share online. Even though the Internet feels like an entirely different world, what happens here has consequences on the "real world". This means that I will probably never talk here, on this blog, about really controversial subjects, or at least not tell you what I think about them. Just in case what I have to say does not please someone that would not be against the idea of hiring me. 

It is going to be really hard in fact, since as a student in my twenties, I am in a phase where I question a lot of things and I build my opinions. I believe that this last thing is better done with others' views added to my own, in order to moderate the thinking and not pick a side without considering every facts and options.

But I will restrain myself, and wait until I am at least seventy to display my deepest thoughts to the public eye. I am denying myself my very own freedom of expression. Because Dear recruiter, I actually need and want to be recruited.