Life changes, amazing holidays, great new friends and plenty of obsessions (c'mon, this is me we're talking about) -- a look back on my 2018

*Jumps into view amid a shower of confetti* Greetings, fellow Earthlings!!

I know I'm pretty late, but I just wanted to say I hope you all had an amazing Christmas!! And if you don't celebrate Christmas, then I hope you're having an awesome holiday season!! *throws more confetti*

So because the year is coming to a close (2019 is two days away HELP HELP ABORT MISSION ABORT ABORT I'M SORRY BUT WHO AUTHORISED THIS THIS ISN'T FAIR) I'm going to be looking back on the highlights of the year! 2018 was pretty crazy for me, with a LOT of change going on in my life, but it was actually a pretty good year for me now I look back on it, and I want to share the most significant moments of it with you guys!

Some of these are huge, important things that happened in my life; others may seem pretty insignificant to anyone who's not me, but that still impacted my life in meaningful ways. So anyway, let's get going!

In chronological order: 

- I turned sixteen! My birthday... kinda sucked because I was sick, but I went to see the View from the Shard with my parents, which was AMAZING, so I still had fun in the end

- I had a bowling party with three of my best friends the weekend after my birthday, which was just so much fun 😂

- I went to my friend's birthday party in February, which was awesome 😂 it was a mall scavenger hunt party, I remember laughing non-stop the whole time and we had ice cream afterwards, which was great👌

- It snowed!! The last week of February!! Which was great!! It was the first time it had snowed that much in years, and I loved looking out of the window and seeing everything covered in white and snowflakes drifting down, I LOVE SNOW SO MUCH 😍

- But then... it snowed again in mid-March?? It never snows that late?? Like what is going on with the weather pls 😭😭 It was a bit annoying because by then I was sick of the cold and was wishing spring would come 😐

- I read Six of Crows around this time and became completely obsessed with it 👍

- I got my yellow belt in karate! Woohoo

- I was revising a LOT because my exams were coming back, oh the good old days when I'd have to study maths, I don't miss it one bit

- It got really hot in mid-April? It was like 28C one day, kinda crazy considering it was snowing just a month earlier

- I made friends with this girl from my karate club who was here in London finishing her studies, and we'd hang out on weekends after I finished revising in the mornings (she went back home in May though *sob*)

- She didn't know the area very well so we invited her to come with us on a few days out to Greenwich Park and this other park near where we live, which was fun

- I was still obsessed with Six of Crows, I'm pretty certain

- My first two exams were in early May and I was kind of sick on one of them but it still went fine (I mean I got a B)

- Pretty much all of May was just revision revision revision URGH

- I had one week in late May where I had three exams one after the other 🙄 I was so done with life by that point

- But while I was doing my exams I met a girl who would become one of my closest friends!! She's homeschooled like I was and she loves writing just as much as I do, I REPEAT: SHE IS A WRITER. 😮😮 I was shook when I found out, like what are the odds that I'd meet someone so similar to me while doing our exams?? We still meet up every other week to chat about writing and memes and social issues, she's one of my best friends, it's crazy that we have so many interests in common 😂

- I spent about two weeks sleeping in the spare room, because our next-door neighbours had to have their house dried out because it had been flooded (it's a long story) and the machines they had to use to get everything dry made so much noise in my own bedroom that it wouldn't let me sleep, so that was fun (the spare room is roughly the size of a closet, I could close the door while lying in bed (which I guess is handy?))


- My last exam was in mid-June and when I came out of the exam centre I was so happy that I was DONE with exams, and then my mum gave me a book she'd bought for me as a gift, which is the best thing ever for me, and I honestly got so emotional I almost burst into tears right there on the street?? Like wow... is this what it feels like to be a human being with actual emotions 😮

- To celebrate the end of my exams I used a Waterstone's gift card from the previous Christmas that I hadn't used up yet to buy A Thousand Perfect Notes, which I LOVED and which honestly impacted my own writing style so much??😍

- And then we flew to Paris!! I won't ramble too much about my holidays because I already wrote a massive-length blog post about it at the time, but it was AMAZING. I mean it was tiring, largely because I didn't sleep very well half the days we were there (literally any tiny noise keeps me awake at night, it's ridiculous) and we walked a LOT, but I couldn't believe I was finally visiting Paris after wanting to for so long!! One of the highlights was seeing the Eiffel Tower, I mean it doesn't get more iconic than that 👌

- I had the first inspiration for my current WIP while in Paris!! I developed it a LOT afterwards and it ended up being pretty different to my original idea, but it laid the foundations for what I'm currently working on 🤗

- We then went to Amsterdam to spend a few days there, and listen, I never believed in love at first sight, but now I do because I definitely fell in love with Amsterdam at first sight 😍😍 I love that city so much, I NEED to go back

- After we got back from our holidays, I basically turned into a hermit crab for two months 😂 I spent all summer reading and watching TV shows and writing and it was AWESOME, BEST SUMMER EVERRR 🎉

- It was so hot though?? You couldn't really go anywhere or do anything because it was wayy too hot

- In early July I ditched my previous writing project because I honestly wasn't enjoying the process of writing it anymore; it was a hard decision to make after working on that story on and off for over six months, but it ended up being the best choice I could have made. I started writing the story I'm still working on now, and I'm so glad I did because nearly six months later I still love it so much and I'm still so passionate about it and I'm enjoying the writing process so much (most of the time anyway), and I honestly believe that with a whole load of re-writes, edits and polishing up, it might actually go somewhere?? #exciting

- In August I went on a day trip to Bournemouth with my parents, which was great

- I read Caraval and it became my newest obsession, yay

- I visited the Jane Austen House Museum with my mum! Which was pretty cool, though honestly the best part of the day was walking through the countryside and following the trail that Jane Austen would have walked when she was alive 😍

- My braces came off YAHOOOO, FREEEEEDOOOOMMMMM

- I started wearing retainers.... freedom over *sigh*.

- I got back my GCSE results and they were so much better than I anticipated ahjksdhjsk SO HAPPY🤗

- I started sixth form! Which was an interesting experience 😂 I met so many awesome people, and I was kinda shook because, like, I have a social life now?? WHAT IS THIS WHAT'S HAPPENING

- September honestly went by so fast, like what even 😐 I guess it's because I was still settling into school

- October flew by too, I guess I was just really caught up in this new school thing and school life

- I started getting a lot more into social media? I made my Instagram account public and gained a lot of followers and started posting on my feed and my story a lot more frequently, I guess I enjoy it more than blogging now 🤷‍♀️

- I also got way more into photography, I guess because of Instagram and wanting to post cool aesthetic pictures

- I went to a circus for the first time during the October half term holidays (I was doing "research" for a story I might start writing when I finish my current WIP 😏) and I wasn't expecting to enjoy it that much but I really did?? The music was too loud and the clown guy was honestly completely unnecessary but on the whole I loved it, most of it was acrobatics and stuff and I'm just 😍😍

- Halloween was something of a disappointment, I usually go all out for it but this year I just had no motivation to do anything? I wore a little Halloween-y badge thing to school and that was it, that's all I did. 😐

- I went to a fireworks display and it was freezing cold but the fireworks were actually pretty good

- I... grew a lot during these months? Mentally, I mean. Emotionally. I guess going to school and having more of a social life and interacting with others more made me realise a lot of things about myself that I hadn't realised before

- I watched The Greatest Showman and I fell completely in love with it and I bought the entire soundtrack and I didn't listen to anything else but that for like two entire freaking months 😂😂 I'm fine I swear

- But seriously The Greatest Showman soundtrack is SO GOOD and so many of the songs just mean so much to me?? I just !!! 😍😍 love it !!!! 😍😍

- I started getting more artsy and designed and made a few canvas bags! Which made me realise I actually really love art and I want to do so much more of it 🤗

- December was basically just me looking forward to the Christmas holidays, not gonna lie

- Still obsessed with The Greatest Showman😂

- I got my green belt in karate 👍 FINALLY (I'd been wanting to grade for ages)

- This happened during the last week of school:

... Yeah. I think school might be rotting my brain. 

- On the last day of school my friends and I went to Costa to have a hot chocolate to celebrate our freedom 😂 which was so much fun

- On Christmas Eve I went to the cinema with my parents to watch Ralph Breaks the Internet, it was actually so good 👌 not as good as the original (which is one of my favourite movies ever don't @ me) but still so funny! The only problem was that I ate so much popcorn I almost made myself sick, well done me 🙈😂 We also went for a walk around Greenwich, which was great.

Ahem. So.... this was meant to be just a short list 😂 and it ended up being huge... oops. I guess this year had a lot more highlights than I originally realised 🤷‍♀️

So now it's your turn! Tell me some of the highlights of this year? And what are you looking forward to in 2019?

I hope you all have an AMAZING start to the new year 🤗🎉💖 and that it's awesome from start to finish!

See you in 2019,


> > > A n d r e a < < <


*disappears in a puff of sparkles*