Did you know that Alice (our marketing manager) plays in a band in her free time and has a fake front tooth? Or that Salwa (our junior graphic designer) has the cutest dog name Milo (and a cute cat as well)? Or that our own Melanie was a lawyer in her past life? (Ok, you probably did know that!) We love getting to know you through our social media channels and various events,and we want you to know us better as well!

With this in mind, we've created a special Summer Series to bring some more fun to the blog and introduce our ENTIRE TEAM to you, one by one! Each week through the end of August we’re going to feature one (or two) team members answering the same set of 15 questions. Guaranteed you’ll learn some fun and interesting new things about your favorite Haute Hijab peeps and get to know our newest team members! Let’s get started with our first HH family member - Marketing Manager Alice Millard!

Garden! This year I finally have a bit of outdoor space to call my own, and I used it to create a small city-garden. I never would have suspected how much I LOVE tending to my sweetie little plants! It brings me so much joy to cultivate something that’s growing and green amidst all this cement.

Music! I’m in a band with some of my best friends and though we don’t all live in the same city, we manage to get together for shows every few months. And, we even recorded a full album this past fall! The new album hasn't been released yet, but stay tuned - soon, hopefully, it will be. We’re called The Oshy Annas - check us out on Spotify and Facebook! :)

Taking out the garbage. Yuck.

PIZZA!

Spending time with family and friends. I’m a total extrovert, so I really get filled energetically by spending time with those I love.

My grandma! I’m really lucky in that I’ve had the chance to get to know deeply and love my paternal grandmother. When I was young, I lived in the same town as her and the rest of my cousins/extended family, so we all spent a lot of time together growing up. My grandma is such a powerhouse of a human being. She’s incredibly smart - though she didn’t have the chance to go to college, she’s read basically every book on the planet and is wiser and sharper than almost anyone else I know. And on top of that, she’s super hard-working and unendingly thoughtful and selfless.

She constantly inspires me to be a better version of myself - to make delicious soups, to save money when I can, to laugh openly and easily and to care for those around me with every ounce of my heart.

Honestly, I don’t really believe in regret. I think that everything happens as it’s meant to and that looking backward and wishing things were different only leads to negativity. It’s important to learn the lessons you can from life and then just move on and keep walking forward.

Hmm. If you had asked what “was” your biggest challenge, I’d probably talk about losing my parents as a kid. But since you’re using present tense, “is” - that’s harder. Spiders? (Haha - kidding, I guess? But honestly not really - they’re horrifying.) Something I’m currently working on is admitting when I’m wrong and apologizing for it. One of my biggest personal flaws is my need to be right, so I’m trying to combat that by making myself apologize and admit when I’m wrong.

I lived in Amman for 6 months and studied Arabic! I’m not good, but I love the language. Also, one of my front teeth is fake. That’s always fun.

I want to start a company or organization that provides employment opportunities to refugees. Whether that’s actually providing direct jobs or providing funding to entrepreneurs that will provide jobs, I’m not sure yet. But I believe social entrepreneurship is one of the most potent tools we can use to shape a better world with more opportunity for all.

That NO ONE eats pork! Like, at all. It surprised me that within the spectrum of religiousness, you’ll find people who pray and those who don’t - some who drink alcohol and others who abstain, but when it comes to pork there seems to be a near universal consensus of “don’t touch it, gross.”

On a more serious note, I love working for a Muslim company. I love that I have the opportunity to learn so much about Islam - it’s a beautiful religion and our HH Fam is such a unique and wonderful community. It’s a rare privilege to be able to bear witness to something so intimate and important and to be able to talk so openly about life’s important questions. I’ve talked more about philosophy, religion, God, the afterlife, ethics and the meaning of life with my co-workers than with most of my friends. I love that we have a culture where we can talk about these things - the meat and potatoes topics - even across different faiths and backgrounds. It’s really darn cool.

Honestly, I feel like lately every Friday night is different because I’m so darn busy! But in a more regular season, you’d be likely to just find me at home with my girlfriend (also named Melanie!) making dinner, eating on our roof if it’s nice out, and maybe watching a tv show. Fridays are for resting.

We do this extremely odd thing where all of my siblings and I smother Lily with love (our second youngest sister, who by the way, also works at HH!). It’s called “Love Forever,” and it involves the five of us clustering around her and basically giving her a big group hug and telling her how much we love her. We only do it to Lily because (1) she’s SO CUTE! And (2) she gets super squirmy and hates all the attention and cuddling, so it’s the perfect kind of sister torture. :)

CAT

It’s only the beginning of the adventure.