This year I had a whole load of things that I wanted to achieve by December 31st. There were a couple of items not ticked off the list, but writing this post has reminded me of all the wonderful things that I’ve achieved this year and proved to myself that I have a lot to be proud of. Have a gander.
I like to see progress, so we’ll start with the things that I didn’t quite manage to achieve and then go from there. A major thing that I was unable to do was a big summer road trip across a few countries in Europe with Jonty. The plans were in place, but relatively last-minute we realised that it wouldn’t have worked out, so it never happened. I thought about if I could do a trip on my own, going to Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Berlin and France. There was also the idea of going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and doing the 24hr three peaks challenge or doing a skiing trip in the winter. Now instead of those, I decided to just go for it and spend a brilliant 3 days in London (where I spent time taking pictures of and interviewing strangers) and go to a Tash Sultana gig at the end of the summer. Plus, I did manage to do a surprise visit for a couple of days to see my grandma in Berlin (she thought she was going crazy when she first saw me) and go to Marrakech with my family in October.
Next up are a couple things that I’ve got (kind of) in progress. The first is donating blood – I attempted it twice and both times they missed my veins (I have very prominent veins, so that did my nut), so I haven’t managed it, but I’ll give it another go in the new year. There was also the 31 days of yoga that I attempted twice, but each time I stopped around 2/3 of the way through. Keeping on the sport topic, I was hoping to hit the 150kg 5x5 Deadlift this year, got up to 125kg, stopped because I was lazy and I’ve only just started doing leg exercises again because I hurt my ankle and hip (I’m getting old) and I’m taking prescription drugs so I can keep going (I’m on 105 at the moment). I also have the surprise for many of you which is that I did attempt to get my motorbike license, but I made a silly mistake in the first of the two practical tests. I have my CBT and theory license under my belt, so I might see if I want to try again in 2019.
I even started writing a book! The book was going to be about the journey of a fictional asylum seeker from an unnamed location trying to make his way to the UK. I would have used the true stories of people to reveal how much of a struggle being an asylum seeker is and then donated any profits to an asylum seeker/refugee organisation. I was also going to use more ‘Westernised’ names (e.g. Mo instead of Mohammed) and try to throw in some life lessons so that the book was more relatable/accessible to people of different backgrounds. As much as I still love the concept of the book, I don’t think that I have the time or drive to carry it all the way through and really do it justice. Instead, I think I’ll use some of the small segments about some life lessons that I have already written, come up with some more and use those as a blog post in the future.
To write something like this, however, needs inspiration. At the start of the year, I planned on reading a book on average once a month. So far, I’ve read six (in order): To Kill a Mockingbird, This Is Going To Hurt: The Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor, Lord of the Flies, Deep Black, Forest Dark and I'm currently part-way through Milkman. That’s half of my end target, but I’ve bought the other six books already, so I’ll aim to read those next year. Now I feel the need to share some things about a couple of these books. This Is Going To Hurt was one of the most emotional books I've read, using humour to highlight the extreme pain. It was so good that I even Facebook messaged the author (and I got a reply) about it. Forest Dark, on the other hand, is the most powerful book I have ever read. Its introspective nature, the at-times-difficulty to understand it, the number of interpretations that can be made of it, turn it into a book of endless learning that seems to have sat itself perfectly into my life. This being a book that I accidentally knocked off a table at a bookstore in London whilst on a trip I had no plans on taking... make of that what you will. I've never thought of reading a book twice, but I will read this one in a few years’ time to see what I can gain from it that next time.
Now we can move onto what I have achieved in full, starting off with uni-related things! I had wanted to become a project leader at NEST and also to take random day trips in and around Newcastle. Amazingly, I managed to become the project lead for the Explore section of NEST, so it became my job to take those day trips and I’ve been done over 10 this year (check out the video of our trip to Bamburgh). Then there was the time I went vegetarian for a month whilst at uni and I have since become what is called “Flexitarian”, i.e. I eat much less meat and dairy than I used to. Speaking of food, I bought a homeless person some lunch a couple of times and I have since chosen to start making monthly donations to Shelter. I also managed to learn Ocean by John Ocean during my first year, which is something that I am extremely proud of and you can listen to here. Oh, and I passed first year first time with a 2:1! That was unexpected, so I decided to work hard in second year and so far, I’ve had one assignment returned to me and I received a first! Let’s hope that continues!
Now for the bits and bobs. I wanted to work for NCS and I ended up being a Senior Mentor twice in the summer (I’ve even been asked to apply to be a Programme Leader for 2019, which I am super proud of). One of the times that I worked on NCS, I went out in London with my colleagues and managed to have a proper chat with a homeless person. That had been a goal of mine for the year, but I was pretty pissed. I found it so interesting (whatever we spoke about), that I didn’t want to leave, but my colleagues eventually dragged me to the club - not before I’d handed the guy a fiver and probably weirded him out. There was a Spartan Race that I completed with my brother and I’ve started listening to podcasts – anything and everything, even including Late Night Women’s Hour because I’m a modern man.
And the penultimate paragraph of this post: mental health. When I first started the year, I had no plans on focusing on mental health because I had no idea that I needed to. I wanted to write a post when I was sad so that I could show that not everything is always great – that’s really important to me because I don’t want people to only receive my highlights and I want them (i.e. you) to know that it’s, not only okay, but good to ask for help. I did share that post and it included the fact that I did 31 days of meditation in a row, as well as the same for my gratitude and recognition diaries, which are all things that I’m carrying on (I've done 22 hours of meditation since July). There is still a lot of work to be done and I am determined to work hard to continue improving my mental health. It’s really difficult having to battle your own brain and I almost feel like I've had a midlife crisis before I've even hit a quarter of the way through my life, but I'm glad I have because it means that I'm learning early. It pains me to say the phrase, but I think 2019 will be a #NewYearNewMe.
And that’s 2018 for me! I don’t think I’ll have a set list to focus on like I did this year because I would like to give myself less to do and more time to breathe. Having said that, I’ll keep going to the gym and I might start running some more again (so maybe I’ll do another Spartan Race or even train for a marathon). Instead of travelling, I’d like to go to more gigs and go to my first festival. I’d also love to go to my first Pride event. Maybe I’ll get my motorbike license, maybe not, but I will work for NCS (assuming they give me the job) and I’ll probably share some of those book entries I’d talked about. I’ll work hard at uni with the hope of achieving a first, continue to volunteer at NEST in one way or another and I’ll spend time with my friends and family.
That’s all from me for 2018, guys – thank you for sticking around. Congratulate yourself by getting smashed (or not, for any of my non-drinking readers) at the celebrations tonight.
Happy voluntravelling and happy new year,
The Voluntraveller