New Year, New Theme

As the end of yet another year rolls around, it's time for some evaluations and forecasts.

Looking Back

Obviously the biggest things that happened this year were graduating high school and going to college. In the interim summer, I worked with my wonderful speech and debate coach to teach two elementary speech workshops, and in college I joined a mentorship program to continue working with elementary school students. I definitely want to continue my path working in education, so I declared the Education Minor at Berkeley. I wrote about every memorable event (and some of the things in between) on this blog, so there's no need to go over everything again (I'm so glad I decided to continue blogging). I would say that the big theme this year was change and transitions. Turning 18 meant becoming an adult, and with that came college and freedom. I've been so incredibly happy this year, but I've still been struggling with mental health problems. I can't possibly go over all the things that are now different, so I truly mean it when I say everything has changed and I've had to change too to keep up.

Looking Forward

I am so very excited for second semester. After all the lessons I learned about time management and whatnot first semester, I am ready for another round. As for goals next year, I think it's more effective for me to think about what not to focus on rather than a single goal.

Last year my goal was "Mindful Body Wellness." Apparently, it was a pretty complicated concept, but it boiled down to three actions: skin care, eating right, and exercise. Skin care I definitely succeeded in, with the Lush lotions and Clarisonic cleansers and whatnot. My skin still isn't perfect, but it is improving. Eating right started out ok, but then I went to college and had a meal plan in the dining halls. Still, I tried my best to go grocery shopping for celery and smoothie ingredients, so I'd say this is still a success. As for exercise, I tried, I really did, but after two Zumba classes and a series of yoga classes, not much happened. However, being on the Berkeley campus should really qualify as exercise, with the hills and walking. I don't know what to make of that goal. I guess it was a partial success, but there's still plenty of room to improve.

"Mindful Body Wellness" actually isn't too bad of a goal, so I will definitely continue to strive for it as best as possible, but additionally, I want to revisit a concept that has been very important to me: identity. 2016 will be the year to work on something I will call "Core Self." Less worry about what other people think of me and what they want me to be, and more focus on what I think of who I am and what I want to be. Cut out the extras, build a stronger sense of my own person. Become comfortable with who I am. Everything is clean, fresh, and pure. Let life come to me instead of me chasing after life.

A part of starting fresh is a haircut!

Also, as much as I love this pretty purple theme, it does look a little high-school-y. It's way past time for me to update it into something clean, minimalistic, and mature. To live is to change is to improve. What better time to do that than the transition into the new year? Sadly, as soon as I've caught onto one web design trend, everyone else has already moved on to the next big thing (for now that would be paneled posts; I'm not a huge fan, I'd rather just see everything on one page without pop-ups). I can't decide if I want to change the blog title into something a little more simple as well, but I think I'll be keeping the URL the same. Hopefully nothing gets too messed up when I tinker with the code, because I've already forgotten to save a backup of this old one. Some of the old posts are still wonky because of the image resizing, but oh well. Happy New Year! ◊