2015: How you doin'?

Can you believe how fast this year is going? I know, I know, it's such a cliche to complain about how fast time flies as you grow older - but my GOODNESS it's true. It's 2011, and I'm excited to be starting university, I blink.... And BAM, it's 2015, my time has a student has finished and I'm in the adult world scrabbling around trying to figure out where the time has gone!

As we're a quarter of the way through the year, I thought now would be a great time to reflect on the year so far, what's happened, what I've learned (too little), how many Oreos I have eaten (too many).

So reflect I shall.

January

First and foremost, in the company of my wonderful friends, 2015 was welcomed with serious style. We all piled over to Lolz's house, each of us bringing a homemade dish, and kicked off the evening with an absolute FEAST. My contribution was Potato Dauphinoise, which went down a treat (mainly thanks to the 1cm of crispy, bubbling cheddar cheese on top...damn there's nothing better than grilled cheese.....anyway, I digress) as part of a buffet of salmon, gammon, giant couscous and grilled vegetables, chicken and chorizo skewers and macaroni and cheese. We followed dinner with drinking and general festivities, and had a great time that left me feeling really happy to have such a wonderful bunch of friends.

February

The highlight of the year so far has of course been Bryan's visit to the UK last month. We certainly had a busy three weeks! Starting at St Pancras Station, we met at the perfectly named statue "The Meeting Place" and promptly zoomed off to Paris on the Eurostar. What followed was four days filled with tourist trips to the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame (and discussions about the purpose of those terrifying gargoyles), drinking and laughing with my wicked older brother, and generally enjoying the novelty of actually being able to hug and kiss each other without a Skype call in sight. We also visited the Dessins Du Studio Ghibli exhibition, and it was wonderful to see sketches that were used in the creation of two of my favourite films, My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away.

After Paris, we headed northwards to stay in a little cottage near Shrewsbury. We basically spent the week in our pyjamas (well, that was mostly me) with Bryan in "man mode" looking after the woodburner, making food, hanging out and taking the occasional wander around the surrounding fields to say 'hi' to the sheep. Bliss.

As always, it was difficult to say goodbye. But our plans for the future are in full swing, and we can both look forward to the coming months because it's looking like our lives as a long distance couple will be coming to an end later in 2015.

March

Last week, at the ripe old age of 21 I passed my driving test! Though I'm a few years late with this achievement, I'm still beyond stoked that I've now got my full driving license. It's a basic life skill that I've "checked the box" in, and I'm relieved to have that stressful experience out of the way.

I had a great weekend in London this week, visiting Amelia to celebrate her 22nd birthday. Now that we're finishing with Uni and that stage of our lives, and moving on into The Real World, it's great to see my friends doing well and living happy and fulfilling lives. Seeing each other less often may suck, but it means that when we do get to catch up we appreciate it all the more.

Misc

Since finishing Uni last year I've realised how much I enjoy and miss learning. Until now I was too busy complaining about my deadlines and workload to realise how fulfilling it is to expand your knowledge and obtain skills you aren't being forced to learn. Years ago, when Neopets, Freewebs and Piczo were all the rage, I was so into designing websites and webpages. I'd spend my evenings after school getting to grips with Photoshop and tweaking the tables on my Neopet's pet page to make it look just right. Somewhere along the way, as I became busier with school and friends and boyfriends I forgot about that interest, and a recent conversation with Bryan made me realise this could be something I'd enjoy and be good at. I'm working at a 9-5 job at the moment which leaves my evenings mostly free during the week. I've been making use of this time by starting to learn and teach myself web design - HTML, CSS and the like. So far it's going well, and I'm looking forward to carrying this on and flexing my creative muscles!

So there you have it: My year so far. With a couple of other plans in the works, I'm really excited to see how the rest of the year pans out - maybe I'll get writing a Half Year Update in June!