This is my idea of taking a break from work – having this here.
It was always and forever will be – all about Chanel.
Audrey Hepburn
Coco Chanel Madmoiselle
There, for the love of books, perfumes, gorgeous jackets and pearls, and just about everything else that starts and ends with timeless style and chic – I shall go back to work 
xoxo,
Hilla Ohayon.
Yeah, I know, it’s been a while since I last wrote here. I’ve been so busy! It seems like it has been like a long and on-going tornado when I think about it.
A second before I turn 30 (this Friday if you’re really wondering), almost everything changed: I left my job at the law firm after 2.8 years, opened my own private business and started working at a part time job from home.
That’s a lot! I hope I didn’t go mad on this tornado. Its felt right, it felt like it was time, and it took me a long time to get there. I’m very happy.
So I work as a Director of Community at an internet company which makes work management software. It’s actually a very cool job: I do their SMO (Social Media Optimization), share their news, articles, blog posts, etc. on social networks and interact with the readers.
On the other part of the day I write for Haaretz about fashion and trends, and freelance for small and medium businesses as a new media consultant. I also write content, edit and translate.
I’m very happy with what I do now, and always trying to get more and better. I just need to learn how to manage my time better and I’m sure I’ll be on the go asap.
As for my fashion writing, I have a great idea that’s been building itself up for a couple of weeks now, and I’m meeting my editor tomorrow morning about it. I really hope she’ll like it, it’ll be great if I get to do it on the paper and here as well.
Tomorrow I’m being “kidnapped” by my boyfriend. He’s taking me somewhere for the weekend, and wouldn’t tell me where as a surprise for my birthday. I have no clue on where we’re going! I hope (and sure) I’ll like it. I wish I knew what to pack… I have so many guesses about the location, and neither is certain. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to wait till tomorrow then
Stay tuned,
xoxo,
Hilla Ohayon.
These last couple of weeks have been intense. I’ve met so many new people and have been having so many new ideas! If there wasn’t for me and my Moleskine journal (which I love so much and will die without), I’d probably lose track of all the insights this week has given me.
For once, I’ve been brainstorming a lot with myself and with my friends. Brainstorming is the most efficient way for me to get creative – by talking about it with people who can enrich me and nurture my ideas. It’s actually very easy to do, much easier than I have thought. All you need to do it tell someone you love and trust about your general idea and start a conversation about it. It doesn’t have to be a firm idea, it can be at a very premature stage. While talking about it, the idea will grow by itself and its execution will become easier and easier.
So I’ve been brainstorming with my friend Orit, which is doing Vetrinas.com with me. We started thinking about iPhone applications. It’s endless, and we are having so much fun bringing up ideas, imagining what it’ll look like and who would use it. The ideas are running out of us together so it’s really exciting and we can’t wait to make it happen.
Secondly, I’m officially in love with my new friend Romi Mikulinsky, who stormed in to my life and heart in a second – it’s unbelievable how much we have in common and the similarity of our ambitions and dreams for the future. We decided that we should start working together very quickly, and we’re now doing exactly what we love doing with pleasure as work – writing and marketing by using social media, and we even got a job in fashion, which is lately my favorite madness, so I just couldn’t be happier about it. Working with a good friend on a fun job is the best I could dream of, really
Thirdly, I’ve started to help my designer friend Aviva Zilberman brand herself on the web, where she had no presence up until now. All this might change one day, but for now combining fashion with web as a job is pure fun for me.
So today is the first day of my life (how dramatic, ha?) that I start working in doing things that I love. Isn’t it great?
Almost 30. What a strange thing of me to say. Or write. Or even think of. Hey, but it’s true. I can’t help it and look back at the last 10 years of my life. If only I had known what a crucial part they have in shaping my identity, personality, health, education, love, and everything else actually, everything else that really matters, that is.
I spent 7 years at the university. That’s a long time. I know for sure that those years are not over. My time at the world of academy (yes, it’s a different and a separate world from the one we know, it’s on a different planet and even the air is kind of thicker there than here) is not done, and one day I will go straight back. In a lot of ways, it’s where I came from, and in many ways, it’s where I feel at home. I guess I will always feel like I’m growing up there.
The many years of studying gave me skills to stand where I am standing today – at a turning point, with no directions or signs. I am almost choosing, I almost know what I want. I know for sure that I have learned a lot. I have learned the study of people – I know what they’re like, I know how to be one of them all when I need to, and I also know how to learn from them. Therefore, I have learned to recognize a true intellectual and to admire wisdom, to look up to people who know more about me and to share the joy of knowledge at the right surrounding, and most importantly in my opinion is to research into the depths of my curiosity, and then to write about it.
I owe the academy many of my shapes and angles, of my opinions and thoughts, ideas and goals.
I do.
And I will forever be thankful for all that.
I hope that now, at the crossroad of Growing-Up street with Deciding What I Want To Do street, I will find my way easy, remembering all that I have learned, facing all that I can’t wait to learn, and step forward unhesitatingly towards that oh so scary place called ‘my future’.
Hilla.
Oh, it’s a long one.
I started writing as I learned how to. I have always had a personal diary. Ever since I can remember myself. Always.
(The bad part is that I threw them all away)
That was me. The writing girl. When I didn’t have my diary with me, I wrote on everything I could: pieces of paper, school books, school notebooks, post-its, you name it. I used to save all the written pieces and save them till I get home, and then post them to my diary, so I won’t miss a single word.
As I got older, I started writing only when I was sad or having a bad time. Those were the times I wrote most. I sometimes couldn’t stop writing and did it for hours. I used to wake up at nights and hurry to get a piece of paper because some random thought or a sentence crossed my mind while I was asleep and woke me up.
Some people say I don’t talk enough. That I might be too quiet. I guess it’s true. If only they could hear how loud and clear the words are inside my mind, they would probably think differently. I talk to them all, all the time, inside my head. As far as I’m concerned, I’d write them all emails, letters, messages or whatever they’d like as a conversation tool, as long as I don’t have to actually use my voice. I’d much rather write instead.
And then came my thesis, which I made the main theme for it up myself, and it’s mine, and I’m creating it from scratch, and I love it. At the beginning it was surprising and so different. I wasn’t used to write despite my emotions. It’s research, it’s based on facts, it’s a big pile of notes, documents, tables, pictures, memoirs, and more that I have been collecting for two years now. I love writing it, yet it has nothing to do with my writing-out-of-emotions kind of writing.
Writing is endless. It’s another world, parallel to this one, and only those who write can grasp its wonder. I’m so happy I can understand the value of writing. I do feel privileged.
After all this came this brand new year with its world shaking changes. One of them was trying to write about favorite topics. As a career. So this is basically what I do here – I write here about anything I want.
So now I basically write in four different favorite places:
1. My thesis;
2. http://blog.vetrinas.com/ – My blog about http://www.vetrinas.com, which is such a lovely website that I love (oh, and work for );
3. http://www.bamoda.co.il/ – A fashion designers index in Hebrew I also just started writing for (in Hebrew);
4. And here. My home. Where I can lay my hat on
It took me a little more than 20 years to finally write freely without locking my diary and placing the key back in my key chain. Growing up can be sometimes nice. Writing about it is another topic I try to handle by writing about with
טוב, לא באמת מאוחר אבל בהחלט מאוחר להכריח את עצמי לעבוד עוד היום. יומיים שאני בחופשה, ואל התזה עוד לא הגעתי. ביום ראשון אני מגישה סופית את האפליקיישן לאוניברסיטת ניו יורק, והעבודה על האפליקיישן הזה פשוט לא נגמרת. שוב ושוב אני עוברת על חיבורים שכתבתי ומתקנת, מורידה ומשנה, על הטפסים הלא נגמרים, על תאריכים, מספרים ומה לא. זה לא נגמר. אבל ביום ראשון זה יהיה חייב להיגמר, כי זה הדדליין. אני מקווה שאז אוכל להתרכז בכתיבה עצמה.
אתמול פגשתי מכרה שכבר סיימה את הפוסט דוקטוראט שלה באוניברסיטה אליה אני מנסה להתקבל. שוב קיבלתי input ומיני חידודים קטנים לכל מיני ניסוחים שלי, ועכשיו אני יושבת ומשפצת שוב.
מעניין איך ארגיש אחרי שאשלח את טופס ההרשמה סופית. האם תהיה זו הקלה או שהמתח רק יתחיל? תשובות סופיות יגיעו רק לקראת סוף מרץ. אני עובדת על הטופס הזה כבר שלושה חודשים. ועכשיו עוד שלושה לחכות…
עם כל הקיטורים והלחץ אני לא יכולה להתעלם מהתחושה, שסוף-סוף אני עושה משהו שקשור רק בי והכי בי שרק אפשר, אני דואגת להגשמת החלומות שלי כמו שמעולם לא עשיתי, אני מתרכזת במה שחשוב לי באמת.
יש בזה מן הגאווה והאושר בדיוק כשם שיש בזה מן הפחד הגדול. אני מקווה להרגיש בקרוב את הידיעה שאני עושה את המעשה הנכון ביותר ושאין נכון מזה עבורי.
כמעט הרגשה של התבגרות, או אולי התפתחות. זה הרי מטופש, אי אפשר עד כדי כך להסתכל על עצמי מבחוץ ולראות צמיחה. זאת רק מן הרגשה קטנה.
אבל שמחה.
בינתיים.
