I usually hate resolutions but...

I have made some resolutions. These are things I've been thinking about doing for a while and things I had started incorporating into my life towards the end of 2015, but I haven't really voiced them and I feel like if I do I'll be more likely to stick to them.

I know this photo is blurry but it's kinda cute and candid if you feel me, plus it was taken on New Years Eve so I feel it's appropriate for a New Years Resolutions post..

MAKE THE CONTENT I WANT TO MAKE - I said in my last post that I created a new channel on YouTube so I could start fresh and make the sort of content I really enjoy, but I want to apply that to my blog as well. I've become really b(l)ogged down with the sort of content I do and I feel like my content has become quite contrived, so for this reason, taking effect immediately, I'm stopping any 'series' I have on my blog until I feel like I want to do them again because it's making me feel forced to post content that I don't care about, which in turn is making me care less about my blog. So, I'm just gonna post when and what I feel like posting.

READ MORE BOOKS - If you remember, in this post I said I wanted to read 50 books in 2015 and follow a very challenging regime, which killed my love of reading. I'm serious, like I've been a bookworm since I learned to read but this year I just didn't feel like reading according to this schedule, so I'm setting my reading challenge to 15 books and I'm going to read the books I like.

GET BACK INTO MUSIC - This is quite specific in terms of singing. I have kept up with playing guitar and ukulele since being at University, and the times I've visited home I've had a whack at the piano, but in terms of singing I've completely let go. I had vocal lessons for 4 years, and I feel like since then my voice and slowly deteriorated and I've only realised how dramatically it has recently (my range has decreased significantly) so I'm going to try and work on it everyday to try and get it back to where it was. I used to be able to hit an A5 and I was really proud of that but I can't really do it anymore which is sucky. Plus, I want to do music on my new YouTube channel (which will be properly up in February) so I feel like I should do some sort of preparation for that..

GET A JOB - This isn't a goal I'm expecting to fulfil until the summer, but I have never had a proper job. I've had about 4 days of work experience before, but other than that, zilch. I would really like to get a job for the summer so I can stay down in Brighton for a bit and get a bit of job experience, failing getting a job in Brighton, I might try and get one in London and stay there for the summer. Part of the reason I want to get a job, of course, is so I can sing 'I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and heaven knows I'm miserable now' and have it be somewhat relatable.

Have you set yourself any resolutions?

A review of 2015

2015 has, by far, been one of the biggest years of my life so far. I feel like a lot of things changed for me, and after reading and taking inspiration from Maddie's post, I thought I would do an extremely similar thing and do a lil summary of the past year.

COMPLETED GRADE 8 PIANO - I started playing piano when I was 4 years old and I did my Grade 1 in about 2005, and doing Grade 8 was one of my goals for quite a long time so to do it was one of the most surreal things because I no longer had anything to work for. It also felt like quite an accomplishment for myself and my teacher who took me from grade 3 onwards because she had said since about Grade 5 that she couldn't teach me any further but we kept tackling the next grade up, and I became her first student to ever do Grade 8 which is pretty rad.

GOT OUT OF A TOXIC FRIENDSHIP (frigging finally, lemme tell you) - This is something I had been trying to do for years and years, essentially the entirety of my high school life. Without going into too much detail, I was 'friends' with a very manipulative girl and I had had issues with this friendship for a long time but was always manipulated into maintaining the friendship, and then other people had a similar situation but we didn't manage to sort it out until this year, and it was possibly the most drama our sixth form has ever seen, but I'm glad that me and my friends got out of it and we became closer than ever as a result of it.

FINISHED MY A LEVELS - A Levels were probably the most stressful exams of my life, it was such a relief to have them over and done with. I do miss my sixth form though, we were so close and then all of a sudden we went our separate ways, but that's life I s'pose.

PLANNED AND PARTOOK IN A HOLIDAY - I used to find travelling quite anxiety-inducing if it hadn't been planned for me or I didn't know the area or if I thought I might be late, but when me and my friends decided we wanted to do something to celebrate the end of sixth form, and after we failed to plan a trip to Alton Towers, I suggested renting out a cottage/holiday home for a week, and it seemed to be a perfect idea. After losing a couple of houses, we managed to find one that could cater such a big group and one that was close to the beach, as well as being in our budget. It felt like such a massive accomplishment because we planned it all ourselves with a limited budget and so it fit in with all of our schedules (believe me, it was frigging hard as we only really had one week where everyone was free and our group was massive). It was such an awesome holiday and I have really fond memories of those 5 days in Lytham (probably not the biggest tourist area, but the weather was amazing and we had the beach to ourselves for most of the days).

BECAME A TREE HUGGING HIPPY (a.k.a I became vegan) - I went vegan for a month in the summer just to give it a go and I absolutely loved it, I felt so much healthier and energised and happier, and it was pretty awesome. Then I went back to being a meat-eater (for the Lytham holiday really) for a few weeks and was really unhappy, so eventually I went vegan again and I've been vegan since about mid-August, and it's been one of the best decisions I've ever made. I've tried hard not to be a preachy, militant vegan, but it feels good to have my ethics aligned with my nutritional lifestyle. Plus, being a vegan gave me a fun fact to say at those goddamn awful University icebreakers.

GOT INTO UNIVERSITY - This is a pretty big'un for me as well. The first University I looked at in Year 12 was Brighton and I immediately knew it would be a great area for me, outside of London so I'd get some independence and grow up a bit, but also close enough to home that I could visit pretty easily. It was my first choice when I sent off my UCAS form in Year 13 and I got a conditional offer. Although, me being pessimistic as always, after my exam results I was convinced I wouldn't get in and I had already looked at a bunch of Universities and different courses to apply to on Results Day. Then, interestingly enough, I actually got into Brighton onto the course I wanted (Psychology, if you're interested) and it's been one of the best things to happen to me this year. I adore my house mates, I love the big activist presence in Brighton, I love the town centre, and I love how popular veganism is there too!

STARTED FRESH ON YOUTUBE - This is the most recent one, yup my YouTube channel is no longer. All of my videos are unlisted (I left them unlisted as I didn't want to leave the vlogs I made and I didn't want to abandon a channel I worked hard on) but this isn't the end of YouTube for me, but rather a new beginning (ew, cringe). I've made a new channel, and I'm planning to upload the sorts of videos I really want to make. So there will still be beauty videos, but I want to do music and talk about the sorts of things that I'm really interested in. I know I'm going to have to start again subscriber wise because rebranding and all that jazz, but I'm really excited.

How was 2015 for you guys?