My goals for 2012

So, as promised from yesterday, (p.s thank you for your lovely comments considering I'm still finding my feet in the blogging world!) here is a list of my goals for 2012. I will cross things off as I do them and most probably add things throughout the year that I've currently forgotten about.

1. Blog more often, at the very least twice a week! (I've got a mind brimming with ideas, it's just my usual problem of putting them into action! Oh and the fact I don't have a decent camera...)
2. Read 25 new books (including The Hunger Games triology and The Lord of the Rings series)
3. Watch 25 new films (I'll document both films and books in either this post or a separate one)
4. Treat myself more often! I'm way too harsh on myself... (clothes, beauty products, magazines etc)
5. Make more time for my family and stay in touch with all my friends in general
6. Work out what I truly want out of my career (the fact I'm currently doing a degree in Biology, which my heart is most definitely not in proves a slight problem...more about my failures in another post)
7. Keep up to date with music and attend gigs/festivals, sometimes I forgot how much I adore it and how there is always something to compliment my mood
8. Expand my culinary repertoire, which is currently lacking incredibly
9. Keep experimenting with my style (and make more of an effort on a daily basis, lazy!)
10. Organise lots of things well in advance so I have things to look forward to!

I think that will be all for now, I can think of plenty more but I really don't want to overwhelm myself because that's always when I become disheartened and give up! (No.11 stop giving up so easily?!) What are some of your goals for 2012? Emily xo

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a wonderful new year and I hope that 2012 brings you all that you wish for! I'm currently writing this from the comfort of my own bed, accompanied by my first cup of tea of the day and the beautiful sounds of Bon Iver. It's really blustery and miserable out, so I took this opportunity to return back to the warmth of my duvet and write my first post of 2012. This year, with regards to resolutions, I have established a more 'baby steps' approach to changing my life. Usually I'm straight in there being Mrs Boot Camp with my life, involving strict detox regimes amongst other unachievable goals. I've started by setting up a personal diary in which I record the positive and negative things I do each day. For example 'positive things' are things like going to bed early, eating fairly healthily, doing some exercise. 'Negative things' are things such as eating chocolate, drinking alcohol and dwelling too much on the past (probably my biggest problem). And so day by day, I aim to make the good list by far outweigh the bad list. Just one step at a time. I still haven't properly thought about my other goals for 2012 (am I behind?) but once I have a more clear image of what I want to happen in the year ahead I will share everything with you. What are your resolutions for this year? x

I miss you, like everyday

Last night was a long night. I know I'm super excited to leave for New York tonight but there was a lot of other things on my mind that were keeping me from sleeping last night. Namely, regret. I've heard so many times that everything happens for a reason in our lives and we should have no regrets. But last night, laid alone in the darkness of my own bed, I was overwhelmed with regret. The realisation that I had ruined my chances at the one thing that made me most happy dawned on me. I've felt this before in the past three months, but never to the extent I did last night. I made things no easier for myself by letting myself be consumed by happy memories with him, and reminiscing the days where my life was blissful. People told me that maybe I just wasn't ready for a relationship and I managed to convince myself they were right. After all, I was having fun, I'd made new friends who took my mind of him. But last night I came to the clichéd conclusion that I would give it all up to have him back.

In the past, a long period of time without contact usually helped me to forget someone (or at least forget my feelings for someone) fairly easily. Not this time. I think now I'm back home where I'm alone with my thoughts a whole lot more hasn't helped in the slightest. I'm back home where I first met him. Being in my bedroom reminds me of spending hours on the phone to him. Walking down the road reminds me of being on the phone to him when I walked back from the taxi at a silly time of night, not wanting to go into my house but just wanting to carry on talking to him. Does this all sound pathetic? I don't know but it's the truth...

On a much lighter note, I'm heading to the airport in a few short hours to have the week of a lifetime in the Big Apple with my family. Where he will not cross my mind. See you guys in a week when I will return with lots of photos from my trip! Eek, I'm so excited! X

Kiss me, beneath the milky twilight

Hello dears, hope you're well! So I returned home yesterday lunch time and already I'm feeling much healthier and refreshed. Immersing myself in the festive spirit has really lifted my mood and gotten me a whole lot more excited to visit New York. I still can't really believe I'll be there a week today! Today I had a beautiful lazy breakfast in bed and enjoyed being cosy whilst in poured with rain out. I then (eventually) got up and finished unpacking, which is always a chore! I then decorated the Christmas tree and put some of the remaining decorations up whilst watching Nigella Christmas, which always inspires me and gets me feeling super festive! I then decided to bare it and go for a walk after lunch considering the rain had stopped. It was still really windy but I enjoyed the fresh air, it cleared my head a little and made me feel better. I've now just had an early bath and am laid on the sofa watching yet more Christmas cooking programmes (my life is always exciting when I'm at home). Going to get an early night and catch up on the massive lack of sleep I've been coping with during my first term at university! Emily x

Things I've learnt at university

So first off, uni is not easy by any means. There is so much more you need to deal with that you never ever had to worry about at home. Never forget your family is always there for you no matter what and they will try and support you as best as they can in whatever situation. They love you, that's what they do. Making new friends is exciting and revitalises you, you learn new things from them and they find out things about you too. At university you can grow into the person you wanted to be, nobody judges you. You are your own person.

Next thing: if you don't wash up, you don't have clean plates. It's hard, but you get used to it. Tidying up and staying organised is also hard. But the most important thing is to try and stay healthy. Everyone drinks a lot, doesn't sleep enough and doesn't eat healthily. And that can't be helped in your first term. But every little helps, so just try and eat some fruit and veg, work out a little every now and then and stay positive.

I leave my halls next Wednesday and I'm so excited to return home for the Christmas holidays and spend time with my family. I can't wait to put the tree up and feel like a child once again! Catching up on sleep, staying in watching films and being cosy sounds like the perfect treat. But the biggest gift of all will be my trip to New York, only two weeks to go! I'm really going to miss my friends and my new independent way of life as a student, but I'm ready to go home and return to being a child, if only for a month. Happy December dears!

New York, New York

Just a short post to share with you my massive excitement at the fact I go to New York in just over a month. I'm going to write a detailed diary of my week there which I am equally excited about sharing with you! Being in New York the week before Christmas is going to turn me into an eager 8-year-old child once again. I know I haven't been writing all that much lately but I'm currently working on essay I need to do for university, but I just wanted to let you know how inspired I'm feeling about writing again. But yeah that will be all for now, I'll speak soon, hope you're well!

Haven for the weekend

I made a last minute decision to go home this weekend. To spend time with family, catch up on sleep, work and life other than the bubble that is university. I realised that I wasn't keeping in touch with daily life, I wasn't speaking to friends from home, I didn't know what was going on in the world. All I've known, and quite frankly, all I've selfishly cared about over the past seven weeks is university. My main priorities have been making friends and going out and having fun. And yesterday it suddenly hit me...I needed to ground myself again, I needed to break that cycle, because it's simply not possible to live your life like that.

Coming home helps me to find myself again. My mum always says 'you can't burn the candle at both ends' and now, I'm beginning to fully understand what she really means. People say that university is all about finding out who your true self is and starting your real life, but I think it's important to remember to hold on to parts of your life before university. Otherwise you're not really your true self, you're just a different person altogether. And I don't think that's right. To move away to university, and make new friends and see new places is a once in a lifetime experience, but without old friends and family to share that with it's not quite the same. The initial move to university is hard. Nobody knows you as well as your family. And to not have them there is lonely. So when you do become closer to new people, you shouldn't ever forget the others.