Goodbye 2015, hello 2016!
22:18To be honest, I find that new years eve and all those things are a bit overrated, however it is a wonderful time to spend it with family and also a good excuse to reflect on the year. Every year gets bigger and better, 2015 was definitely a year filled with new challenges and opportunities. There were many highlights and I would like to share snippets of what I have learnt and what I hope to do in 2016.
Blog & Instagram
To start with, I have posted much more regularly compared to the last year. This was the first year where I was blessed enough to be given many wonderful opportunities. Instagram has given me the ability to be exposed to brands and like-minded creative individuals and it has definitely been an amazing ride! I feel extremely blessed and would love to thank every company/brand that believed other people would care about my opinion of their products/food! Thank you for believing in me.
- Posting more regularly on the blog. Surprisingly in the past year, my life updates ended up being the most interesting ones for you all to read. It truly does show that your followers follow you because they are interested in YOUR life, so I hope to share more of that through blog and Instagram.
- Forget about the numbers, forget about the number of followers. This year I will try to stick to this, post what I want, when I want. I want Instagram to continue to be something that I enjoy.
Masters of teaching life
I was extremely nervous beginning my first year of teaching and it was much more challenging than I had thought. As naive as this sounds, I had no idea how much behind the scenes work a teacher has to do. People always say, 'Oh you're a teacher, that must be easy, you get so many holidays!' Yes while that is true, there is so much work required in our everyday lives. These are the things I have learnt most this year so far:
- Lessons never go to plan, be prepared to wing it on the spot or have a few back up ideas
- If your lessons are boring, students will lose focus, constantly have various ways to engage them, don't be afraid to get CREATIVE (for those that are teachers, always INTEGRATE different learning areas! :P)
- Kids remember every word you say, if you say that you will let them take the bank books up tomorrow morning, they will remind you the following morning
- Once you finish your day at school, you don't immediately shut off. Everywhere you look/go, you think about possible learning intentions
- Marking takes a hell lot of time
While it is tough and a lot of work, when you see your students doing the right thing and making constant improvements, you really do feel that it was worth every sweat (so cliche I know, but I truly do believe this). I experienced this in my first semester of teaching a 3/4 class. I had this one student who was hardly ever focused. To be honest, at times I ignore his behaviour just to make things a bit easier for me. One day, I saw him looking at a page in his workbook, it was one with a sticker and a comment saying how beautiful his handwriting looked. Immediately I took this as an opportunity to further encourage him. I told him that I had never seen his writing like that before and if he was able to show me that again today. At the end of the lesson, he came over to me, clutching his book in his hand and showed me his work for the day. That was the moment where I truly how rewarding it is to be a teacher.
Goals for 2016:
- Make every lesson count for every student (every student is at a different stage of learning, while they may not get to the end, as long as they've learnt something, you are doing something right)
- Be patient
- Always integrate different learning areas
Personal life
This year was one where I feel as though I grew much more as a person and appreciated more things in life. Through reading my Hello 2015 blogpost, I realised that like every other person, I generally stuck with some but did forget about a few on the way. Therefore, for 2016, I hope to continue with the goals I had for last year but to add a few more:
This year was one where I feel as though I grew much more as a person and appreciated more things in life. Through reading my Hello 2015 blogpost, I realised that like every other person, I generally stuck with some but did forget about a few on the way. Therefore, for 2016, I hope to continue with the goals I had for last year but to add a few more:
- Family: while I never had a bad relationship with my parents, I never appreciated them as much as I should have. As each year goes by, we become older and I feel as though, I sometimes forget that my parents are getting older too. This year I started spending more time with my family; whether it was going out for lunch or going swimming, watching movies, just little things. I hope to continue to have more weekly adventures with the family
- Love life: This was marked as one of the toughest years I've had with my boyfriend. It was a brand new chapter for us where we both began our Masters courses. While it was hard to begin with, I do believe that we've grown so much this year. The following years ahead won't get easier, with him beginning placements and me beginning to work in a year's time. However, I do know that we will be able to get through it together. I hope that this year we will be able to appreciate the little time we have together through travelling and trying more new things.
- Friends: I met so many new people this year through my course and boyfriend's course as well as through Instagram. It has been such an exciting time being able to spend time with people that are passionate about the things I am passionate about. For 2016 I hope to not only continue to build these relationships but also not forget the ones I've built previously. I also hope to meet more people, especially ones that I know through Instagram!
- Spiritually: This was one that I have lacked in the most. While I do pray and read once in a while, I know that I haven't connected with God as much as I could. I hope that this year I will stop making the excuses and try to go to church and continue my journey.
- Travel: It is my final year of being a 'student' and I hope to make the most of it. Seeing all the posts on Facebook from all my other friends have made me realise how little of the world I've seen. While travelling the entire world is slightly out of my reach at the moment, I do hope to travel two to three places this year.
- Financially: I have always been the type of person that saves almost all my money and feel extremely uncomfortable when I have to spend a bit more than usual. Therefore I hope in 2016, I will be a little bit more carefree, once in a while I should treat myself, friends and loved ones. No matter how much money I make now, it will not be enough for me to save for a house or anything really.
You can always make money, you can't always make memories
Sorry for the ramble. Hope that you enjoy procrastinating and reading my train of thoughts :)
I truly hope that you all have a wonderful year ahead!!
Pop by soon, as I have a few blogposts lined up!!
Much love
xx
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