Reflecting over 2016

Happy new year guys,
I know it has been months, so if you don't know who I am, my name is Rachel Burman, I am a small blogger/Youtuber and I turned 17 today! Happy birthday to me!

One year ago - give or take a few days - I wrote my first blog post on this blog, (you can find the link here!) In that post I came up with 10 resolutions I wanted to complete over 2016, so, how well did I do?

1. The 50 book challenge.
Hahahaha, yeah, no. I read 20 books over the course of 2016, 8 of which were repeats. Over 2017 I am going to aim for 20 or higher!

2. Make sure I am healthy mentally and physically
Let's repress this one and pretend it never happened.
On a serious note, this is the reason why I was MIA most of 2016, my mental health dropped so much and I couldn't find the inspiration to turn on the camera, the past few months I have been feeling slightly better, I have a job, I made new friends, I started my A-levels, but I still am not in a very good place. This year I am not going to pretend that I am fine and repress my problems, but I am going to put myself first.

3. Upload a video and blog post once a week
I don't know how I was going to do this with my GCSEs, also read above.

4. One glass of water and piece of fruit per day
Yeah, right.

5. Talk to more people
Actually, I managed to do this one. I mean I am still incredibly socially anxious, but over the past year, I have made so many more friends, and I also work at LUSH, so that speaks for itself!

6. Try stand-up/improv
This one I didn't complete, mainly because my interests changed and I just didn't have time. I still love stand-up comedy but I don't think I want to go into it!

7. Laugh more
Yeah, I suppose. I don't really laugh, it's more of a sharp exhale from my nose. I have laughed quite a bit over the past few months. Not really something I kept track of. The most memorable time was when I was coming home from the Globe theatre with a friend, you can read about it here.

8. Stop complaining
Thinking back, I have stopped doing this so much. If I have an issue with something, I did deal with it, rather than constantly complaining. There is a difference between mentioning something once or twice, to consistently complaining and being a pain in everyone's butt.

9. Get up in the morning
Most of the time, but over the holidays I may have slipped up!

10. Live in the moment
Last year, this point combined to smaller points, but I didn't realise it at the time.
So to split up the two points:

1. I am always going to wish it was the weekend, I am always going to count down the days, that isn't going to stop. 
2. My second point was suggesting I should take control of my life. From January to September I didn't lift a finger. From September to now... well now I am a term into my A-levels, I know what I want to do at university, I know what university I want to go to, and I have a job.