Reflections on 2010/11

I was about to start writing this blog then I got some hunger pangs and decided to have some Nutella on toast.

So now I'm eating Nutella on toast while typing this blog to you. It's good. I bet you want some now. I'll give you five minutes to go make some. Now go.....

Usually people who post blogs about the old/new year are all "I had a shitty fucking year so here's my resolutions for 2011". I am one of those people who stopped making Resolutions a long time ago. They were never realistic enough for me to even attempt to complete them and a friend once said, why wait for the new year to start something? Do it now, this very minute. That was on some idle Tuesday afternoon in the middle of the year.

So really, while the start of a new year gives you a good timing point to start something, with the new year in tow, if you really wanted to do it, you'd be doing it already. Ironically, I will be starting a project myself come 12:01 on January 1st. More about that in a moment.

To be honest, 2010 has been an alright year for me. I've had some mainly financial difficulties but I've gotten through it and I'm surviving, just about. I turned 21 in 2010 which to be honest, feels no different than being 18 but I did manage to complete quite a few of the things on my 21 list, not all of them on time of course and I'm still trying for the ones not ticked off. I've lost some friends along the way and made some new ones too and so all in all, like every blooming year, it's sometimes shitty and sometimes not.

Also, I know my blogging has been particularly shit this year but I have a life, I'm 21, remember. No, I'm kidding. I do intend to keep blogging through the new year and while my "i want to start a new blog" itch has resurfaced I can't be arsed to think up a new name or redesign for the layout and so I'm just going to stick it out on here. Of course, I don't have a frequent posting schedule and probably still won't because, this is my last semester before I graduate and that means its Dissertation time. I do hope to post more Future Husband letters which I have seemingly failed to keep up with.

One of the things that is scaring me the most about 2011 is the fact that I graduate. I have spent a lot of time recently looking into Postgraduate study and considering doing a Masters before the fees properly rise/the world ends in 2012. Yes, I'm joking about the world ending, what a load of bollocks. I just hope that I am able to make it through this semester without killing somebody, or throwing a computer out the window. I have been sitting the past few days doing coursework and attempting a bit of revision but I just am not feeling the whole study-mode. I think it's cause I'm at home and when I'm back here It's like a holiday for me cause I don't live here permanently anymore.

Anyway, as well as graduation in 2011, I don't really know what else to be expecting. Of course I have entered into a new relationship of the romantic-type variety and I'm hoping that keeps blossoming into something nice. I also hope to keep my friends alongside me so that when my dissertation is going horrible, I can be all FUCKING DISSERTATIONS, HALP. That's all I really need them for. Yes, I'm kidding again. I love my friends to pieces. Also, my family, who provide a warm, food-filled house and bed at the weekends. As well as some quality entertainment when they learn waxing and decided to do it on each other. It's a female household, what can I say. I also love my cats who have been teh inspiration behind many a blog this year when my brain was lacking fuel of any other kind. I also, sadly lost one of them this year in the throws of an angry dog. While that wasn't a very fun time, she was a very old cat and while she didn't die peacefully, she is at least in peace now.

Moving on, I do have several projects lined up this year alongside a disseration, graduation and general life-figuring outness because well, I'm insane pretty much. Basically, they involve me doing things either once per day, or once per month and are things I've been thinking about doing either since last year or since I discovered my love of them and now I've finally decided, what the hell, why not. I can't promise I'll be any good at it, or even keep the momentum going but I'm sure as hell going to try.

Anyway, I've kept you in suspense long enough. So I am going to tell you only about one of them for today.

I have decided to participate in project365. Project 365 is basically a photography project where you take a photo for every single day of the year. I have a camera that hasn't seen much use and I have always been interested in photography and want to attempt to make use of the camera much more and hopefully I will learn new things by doing so. This kinda stemmed from a conversation with my father nonetheless who when we were talking about how there are no jobs and I've no idea what I'm going to do when I gradute, he reminded me of my old love for the old photo taking/poserness and said if I tried hard enough I could probably easily find something to do with that as a back-up plan. So Project 365 is kind of a way for me to take a handle on that side of things as well as document my life for a year, and an important year it will be nonetheless.

I have already started a profile on flickr featuring some of my old photos that I thought were in some way half decent and will upload more there throughout the year as well as one my project365 profile. Both of which you can find here and here. There is nothing on the 365 profile yet as it's not yet January 1st and I haven't taken any.

I am not going to tell you about my other project just yet because it depends on certain circumstances which are currently out of my hands but may be fixed within the next few days. I will keep you informed, of course.

So anyway, I wanted to post this blog to inform you that you can find me in other places on the interwebs this year, as well as facebook and twitter, or you can email me at samiandthecity@gmail.com.

Also, I failed at wishing you a Happy Christmas - I hope Santa was good to you - he was certainly good to me. So instead, I am here to wish you A Very Happy New Year. And I'll see you on the other side of midnight.

Love as always,
Sami
xo

NaNoWriMo and Other Non Important Stuff

Helllllo blogosphere.

I am not even going to bother explaining where I've been to be honest, you don't want to hear it and I don't want to type it. So on to the exciting stuff.

I've posted before about NaNoWriMo which stands for National Novel Writing Month for you newbs. The aim is to write 50 000 words in 30 days. No editing. Just write, write, write! Once you get the words down then you are good to go. It's insane and everyone who does it is a crazy fool, so since you're reading my blog, go go go: www.nanowrimo.org

Also, my own wordcount for Nano at the end of day one is 48. Lmao. I am in the process of writing still but I am having to work on coursework these first two weeks and its really important as it's my 3rd and final year. I know Nano will be on the backburner til I do that so unfortunately my count wont be as great for a while.

As for the other non important stuff. I hate coursework. I ticked off another one on my 21 list, but Ill let you guess what one that was. It is freaking colllllld. I like fireworks and I had an amazing Halloween weekend which I shall give you an update about eventually.

So yes. I just wanted to post about Nano really.

See yeeeee.

21 by 21: The Final

So I am now officially 21. I had a party at the weekend to celebrate and had a great time being surrounded by people I love and having a jolly old time together. Since my actual birthday was on a Monday, I had uni lectures but I spent the evening having a laugh and a few quieter drinks with more of my best friends. A lot of people have asked me why I didn't go out to celebrate but to be honest, I'd rather spend the time with my friends talking and laughing rather than screaming over loud music and trying to push past strangers all night.

Anyway, as you know it was my aim to complete a full set of 21 things by the time I turned 21. It is unforunate that I didn't get to complete the list in its entirety due to life constraints but I do feel like I accomplished things that I set out to do and so for your pleasure, here is the list. If the action is scored out it means I have completed that task. If I haven't, then there will be an explaination beside it as to why not.

1. Learn to Drive - This is due to the fact that I didn't have any money this summer to try and learn. However, I did purchase my provisional license and plan to start lessons soon.
   
2. Get a Job - Dear god, you all heard me rant and complain about the lack of employment over here so this one is no part of mine, i sent in at least 20 application forms and had 2 interviews and no one wants to hire me.
   
3. Be able to play Expert on Guitar Hero - Well, I was playing Guitar hero in my uni house then realised I wouldnt have it for the summer so never got to complete the game. I can play a healthy medium though. Stupid orange button.
   
4. Write something publishable - For me, writing takes time and effort and inspiration and I didn't have much of any of those, however, I do have a big story idea in research stages so hopefully something comes of that! :)
   
5. Make a new friend
6. Reconnect with an old friend
7. Read 50 Books (and subsequently, post the finished list here)
8. Make a photo album containing photos of friends and fun times.
9. Keep a notebook of quotes that I like that I have heard/read throughout the year.
10. Get another tattoo
11. Save £1000 - Again due to the lack of job and saving skills I have.
    
12. Visit another country
13. Get an O2 number
14. Master one recipe to perfection and post it as a blog!
15. Buy something from a designer label (Prada? Jimmy Choo?)
16. Go to a concert of a band I enjoy listening to.
17. Learn to speak a different language or how to play an instrument. - I think you should all let me away with this one considering I posted an Italian phrase of the day everyday for a month :P I do know a lot more italian than I did before. La bella donna!
    
18. Go on a proper date (like, for dinner, with a boy I like and whom likes me :P)- I just haven't found someone to complete this one with yet. I did actually have a date planned for last week but the guy postponed as he had something else to do but here's hoping I can complete this one soon!
    
19. Have a spa day with someone.- This was again due to the lack of funds. But I do want to got to the spa with a friend and have a massage and stuff!
    
20. Try and have a successful blog with readers that comment (who are more than just my personal friends and family).
21. Fall in Love (Here's hoping!) - Well, I knew this one was unrealistic when I wrote down. I can't just put a time limit on love and expect it to happen. However, while I may not have found a lover to love, I found and made plenty of friends and family whom I love dearly and wouldn't be able to survive without. So this is for them.

So there you have it. I did just about half of my intended things to do but as you can see life got in the way a lot of the time and I was just unable to compelte them unfortunately. But here's hoping I can complete them in due course. By christmas maybe? Hmm, should I give myself a "10 Things by the 10th day of christmas?" Or something? What do you think?

Thanks for sticking around and keep coming back for more future husband letters and general sami-rants about life.

Sami

A Month In Reflection

Today blog readers marks the end of Blog Everyday August (BEDA) and though it hasn't been a very exciting month, blogging gave me something to do with my day when things got boring.

I don't know if you've enjoyed reading this, but there have been comments here and there and from the Statistics I presume that you have but you're too lazy to comment. Regardless of your laziness I just want to thank you for even taking the time to read my blog and the inane ramblings I put out from day to day, it does mean something to me that people take the time to read it, so thanks and I hope that you will continue to follow me throughout the next while as more future husband letters are due and September is sure to be more exciting and I'll be around in November during NaNoWriMo.

This month you've learnt 10 rules for being human, amusing things about cats, things I have done and regret doing, you've learnt about books I enjoy reading and read a short story I wrote (Which has now become a fully fledged novel in my head, writing to be done when my laptop charger arrives as my research is on there). You've read a future husband letter and learnt about the statistics that you make up. And you also received a post that probably didn't make sense to any of you, but was more for my own benefit of getting how I felt out there. You've heard about my hardships of trying to find a job and clicked on links when I was too lazy myself to write blogs.

So in reflection, it hasn't been a bad month, just not very exciting. Tomorrow is September 1st, I have plans to enroll for my 3rd year of Uni and to see a friend who has been on holiday. Following that my temporary employment on 6th September as a tour guide will take place and then I fly out to England for my lovely friend Becca's Wedding and back again on the 12th where I have a family dinner for my birthday. The weekend after that I have my birthday party with friends to attend and then University starts. So it seems that I should have BEDS (Blogged Everyday September) instead as September holds way more plans than August ever did.

But, well it's a bit late now, August is done and over with and this is my last post for a while. So I'm going to leave you with a quote that has been relevant to this past month and will continue to be in the future so take heed and I hope to see you in September! Here's the quote:

"Everyday may not be good, but there's something good in everyday."

Carp.

So It's a bank holiday Monday and really bank holidays I think are kind of pointless, everything shuts down (well some of it) and you just laze about, its like an extra sunday for no reason.

Today I slept, ate, hung out with some friends, bought a mens leather belt for £1 as I apparantley dont fit into any jeans in existence without them falling down, had a BBQ and thats about it.

When I asked people for blog topic suggestions I got one crude attempt, one about how I should talk about the end of summer, one about how the bird is the word (no it really isnt and family guy sucks) and another about things that annoy me. So I decided I'd blog about all of htem in one of those random bullet point posts that make no sense. So here we go.

1. For me, Summer doesnt really end until mid-September around my birthday and appropriately, this year actually on my birthday is when classes start again, which is sucky but life goes on. So to be honest, while the weather might die down a bit now (who am I kidding, it never picked up, it's Northern Ireland), it technically isnt the end of summer.
2. The bird is not the word. The bird is a bird. It has wings and flies and will eat you for calling it a word, kthanxbye.
3. If I were to list everything that annoyed me here, the list would go on forever, so in order to shorten it here are a few things that annoy my life: the words 'hehe', when people stick their nose in your business when it isnt wanted, when people think they are funny but really arent, people who use and abuse your hospitality and kindness, people who blame other people for quite clearly, their mistakes.

So yeah, Im off now to do stuff like sleep and abuse facebook some more. Since this post was crap, go read this amazing graduation speech from JK Rowling, she's awesome.

Until tomorrow,
Sami

One Confession.

So today is the last day of stuff as I so aptly named it, 10 days ago. I can't quite believe 10 days have passed already but I'm glad that they have. So now I have to confess one thing and I have absolutely no idea right now what to tell you. But here is what I have managed to come up with.

1. My confession is that I hate confessions. Seriously. I've spent a day and a half trying to come up with something interesting to confess to you all and fail. This is probably due to the fact that I am also exhausted because I havent slept in 3 days. Thats a confession too. So there you go. Confessions suck. Now go read something else!

Until tomorrow
Sami

Amusingthingsjessedoes = misses a step on the stair and nearly falls down on top of me.

Two Smileys.

Today's thing of stuff is two smileys that describe my life right now, so here we go:

1. :) - I am happy today as I have a form of employment, I have my house back and I've plenty of things to look forward too. Including travelling to England, my 21st birthday and my laptop in perfect working order and the start up of Uni again.

2. :S - I am gonna go ahead and say this is the worried face. I am worried because I am always worried. Haha. But general worries like, can I afford this, will I be good at that, travelling alone and what it will be like and hoping everything works out okay for the rest of the people in my life too.

So there you go, tomorrow is the last day of stuff so blogging shall return to normal as BEDA approaches its unfortunate end.

Until tomorrow,
Sami

Italian = fuck it, I cba anymore, I know, I fail.