Happy New Year!

So it is now officially 2011... two thousand and eleven, twenty eleven, eleven, I'll decide on a way to say it by the end of the year I'm sure. Today is the 1st of January (well, unless you're not reading it today) and I believe it is tradition to spend this day doing a mixture of looking back on the past year and looking forwards to the coming one. To help do this, my friend Matt proposed the idea of "First 11 for '11". His proposal went as follows:

Re: blogs, the recent Silence of the Sheep hasn’t gone unnoticed.  To help you get back into the swing of things in the blogosphere, I have a suggestion: how about I race you to write a “First 11 for ’11”?  (‘11’ as in ‘2011’, not as in ‘Matt Smith’, although posts about Matt Smith would theoretically be permissible.)  The challenge is very simple: it starts with a blank sheet of paper (or a blank ‘new post’ screen) at one second past midnight on Saturday 1 January, and the first blogger to write and publish 11 substantial and meaningful posts will be the winner.  ‘Substantial and meaningful’ basically meaning that Twitter-esque micro-posts don’t count, and neither do blogs that consist solely of moaning about not knowing what to blog about.  We could possibly also make things more interesting by making a rule that each ’11 for 11’ post must be commented on by the rival blogger.  So… *waves Narsil dramatically at the undead horde* what say you?

So, I have taken him up on this challenge (even if I fail to get the Narsil reference) so, on your marks... get set... go!

Let us begin by looking back over the past year. A year of ups and downs. A year of hard times but also a year where I met a whole new group of friends at Roothill, a year where I went to a gig full of Nerdfighters and got John Green, Alex Day, Tom Milsom and EddPlant all to sign my scrapbook. A year which has turned my scrapbook from a present to a book of memories and a year which has seen the end of Terrie's challenge and BEDESO on my blog. A year of new Doctor Who, passing my driving test, and much more which escapes my memory at the moment in the way things do when you're specifically trying to remember them. I think, when looking back on things, while you shouldn't forget the hard times you should instead focus on what you learnt from those times and also make sure you hold on as tightly as possible to the new memories created. So much has happened in the past year and it's weird to think what was happening this time last year.

It seems a bit pathetic to sum up 2010 in a little paragraph but then again, I have tried to blog about the awesome things and keep records of the memories in places apart from my brain's memory banks. Thank you for sticking with me through my ups and downs, my frequent blogging and my not so frequent blogging, and hope you'll stick with me through '11!

2011 is a daunting year for me. So many big changes ahead and so many unknowns. At the moment I'm still waiting for replies from the universities I have applied to and in September/October time I could either be heading off to Uni or starting a gap year full of things to make sure I get in the next time and have enough money to survive the higher university fees! In the summer I will be sitting my final A level exams before leaving school forever and then spending the rest of the time trying not to think about results day as it arrives in the painfully slow way it does. Basically, I have no idea where I will be this time next year. I could have already spent a few months at uni and have a ton of new friends to celebrate the new year with or I could still be at home, having a gap year. If I'm at uni I could be studying veterinary medicine like I hope or something might have happened that means I went through UCAS extra and I'm instead studying something totally different. I think this is the first year where I literally have no idea where I will be this time next year, where the plans are totally outside my control and the first year where next January will not be spent thinking about going back to school in a day or so.

Usually, people now go on to make new year's resolutions. I made a few last year and promptly forgot what they even were despite writing them on my blog so I'm not going to even bother this year. However, I will tell you a few aims. I aim to continue blogging, hopefully with a few more blog challenges coming up and no long hiatus. I am to survive and enjoy my last year of school and try and get the grades I need. I aim to put God in an even more central position in my life and I aim to remember what he's taught me over the past year, not just promptly forget it.

So here's for '11, a year of uncertainties, a year of massive change but I hope, despite that, it will be a good year.

DFTBA

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

·         Latest book read: Still reading "Friends Like These" I should really finish it.

·         Latest film/TV/ watched:

The midnight countdown on BBC1 last night.

·         Latest music listened to:

Chocolate by Snow Patrol

·         Latest food/sweets/whatever eaten:

A banana ("Always take a banana to a party, Rose. Bananas are good")

·         Programs and web pages currently open:

Alien President, Snails: Brothers in shells, Cylinder and Miserable, Fort Paradox, The application page for a Doctor Who exhibition pilot, Blogger in draft: new post, Matt's Blog, Windows Live Mail