Thursday 31 December 2015

goodbye twenty fifteen.


Well, it's the end of another year, another fast year and I'm not sure how I feel about the whole ordeal really. I'm not desperate for the year to end but I'm not desperate for it to continue past 365 days, it's been an average year, starting off pretty poor but picking up around the middle.

At the start of the year, I said I wanted to do more and I think overall I've succeeded...

Rest More 
I definitely didn't do less, but I made sure that if I needed a day off, I had one, or if my brain was telling me to stay in bed for a day (or in a couple of cases, a few days) I did. I still filled my time too much, but overall I think I did alright with that resolution.

Read More
I absolutely smashed this one in comparison to the past few years, and I'm pretty sure I reached my target of 12 books, and I've definitely rekindled my love for getting lost in a book as easily as I can get lost in music.

Do More
Well, 2015 was the year the adventures started... There were many day trips out and mini adventures with friends and family, including a couple of days away with a friend to Selsey, a trip with Kieron and Lai in Edinburgh (wow what an experience that was), a weekend trip to Bath and a week holiday in Weymouth with family. (However, the exercise part of that resolution was unsuccessful...)

Create More
A difficult one to measure... Because of my creative writing course at sixth form, yes I created more and Music In Time Blog's blog posts have gone up to three blog posts a week, so in that sense, yes I've created more this year, and I attempted VEDA on my YouTube channel, however, the rest of the year round there have been little gaps where I didn't upload on MIT Blog and this little corner of the internet was abandoned many times, so that one needs a little work in 2016 I think...

Enjoy More
Accepting my brain can be a little crap at times happened this year, granted after I finished sixth form and was able to never see a certain few people ever again, but that allowed me to make the most of the good days and really live in those moments. It would be fair to say the turning point was August 12th when I went to the middle of a field on a hill and watched a meteor shower with two of my best friends, with exam results the following day... I've managed to truly enjoy trips around the UK and make memories with friends and family that will stay with me for a very long time, so yeah I reckon I did a good job of that one.

The first half of 2015 wasn't particularly great, I smashed my phone screen twice in one month, fell out with a teacher over the partial solar eclipse and a couple of other random events, it started picking up when I passed another A Level and finally left sixth form...
The second half of 2015 have been a big six months, travelling to Edinburgh, Bath, Weymouth, Selsey and many other places in the UK; full of live music and evenings of music chilling playing FIFA, or Articulate (depending on which group of friends I'm with), I also got to see Billy Elliot with my Dad this year, which was an incredible show and is now in my Top 3 musicals...

2015 has also been another year for lots of live music, and I finally got to go to Barn on the Farm Festival (and I've got my ticket for next year too, so that's something I'm hyped about), we went to Wembley to see Doctor Who: Symphonic Spectacular (which was incredible), I saw Rae Morris live (at last), Meadowlark and Amber Run (a couple of times), Little Comets, experienced the end of Edinburgh Fringe, Ryan Keen, S Club 7 (well three of them), The Wombats, Martin Luke Brown, Wheatus (yes I got to sing along to Teenage Dirtbag live!) and The 1975 again.

On the penultimate note of music, here's a quick summary of Music In Time Blog's 365 days... I have been asked to review James Bay's debut album, The Ordinary Boys latest album, Little May's debut album and Billie Marten's latest EP. I've interviewed Little Comets, Stacey Solomon, Lucy Spraggan, Michael Malarkey, Fred Abbot and Jess & The Bandits. And with the help from a very good friend, Tom, Music In Time went live, we had our first showcase as Music In Time Presents... and it went pretty well, there may even be a couple more in the pipeline for 2016...

As always, the last thing to say is a massive thank you to everyone (well all the wonderful people), that have been a part of my 2015...
Gran, Mum, Misty, Dad, Dave, Dave and everyone else in the fab family, for supporting me, encouraging me, keeping me sane and winding me up too...
Billy, Kieron and Lai, for all the incredible adventures in the past few months in particular, the evenings spent in the car listening to music, playing Articulate and consuming however many calories.
TJ for motivating and inspiring me everyday since 19th August. I couldn't have asked for a better person to be going on this venture with and working alongside you has been fun and annoying at times, but always know I'll probably only sulk for 20 seconds...
Jack for the chilled evenings playing FIFA and listening to sad music.
And anyone else that has got me through 2015 in a better state than previous years, little moments, BBQs, gig nights, parties, Thursdays at Theo or Mahlia's, Football Tuesdays, and many many other highlights of the year.

Thank you 2015. It's been pretty good (y)