It is once again time for my annual wrap up blog post of the year! These are always interesting because it gives me time to reflect on all the things I have accomplished this year and remember all the good times I’ve had. I actually just read through last year’s post and I can’t believe all those things happened only a year ago, they already feel like a lifetime away.

And I think things will probably feel that way when I reflect on this year. Especially because I really don’t remember much at all from the first half of it. And unlike previous year’s, I sadly do not have all my tweets to remind me – so I’m gonna have to use all other social media to figure it out. But we will talk about what happened to my Twitter a bit later.

I started out the year celebrating with my boyfriend again. We have now been together coming up to 3 years, and here’s hoping there are many more years to celebrate together after that.

I also started the year with a full-time job as I was still on placement as part of my university degree. This is probably the hardest thing for me to remember, working a real job. It feels like it almost didn’t happen at all. Even though I worked there for 11 months. I won’t go into full detail about my placement year as I have made several blog posts about it so if you want to know more then you can check them out.

Overall I did enjoy my placement though, I think I learnt a lot and it was a valuable experience for me to have. So I am glad I had the opportunity to do it as part of my degree.

So, to briefly sum up the first half of the year, I was working Monday – Friday, 9 – 5. Not much else to report about that.

Though I did have a lot of fun things that I did outside of work. For example, in January I was eager for my next annual leave bout after coming back from Christmas because I was going to London with my boyfriend for his birthday.

Back in November of 2017, I impulsively bought tickets to Hamilton for me and my boyfriend for his birthday. We hadn’t even booked flights or anything but all that was important was that we were going to see Hamilton.

And while we were going to be in London I also thought it would be a fun idea to get tickets to the Harry Potter Studios for Christmas for my boyfriend as well.

It was safe to say the first couple of weeks back at work after Christmas was torture because I was just dying to go away for my next holiday haha.

London was amazing. I won’t go into too much detail about it here because I’ve already made a video talking about it which you can check out, but I will share some of the highlights.

First off, Hamilton was amazing. It was our first ever West End show and so I wanted to get good seats, and we got the best. I was blown away by the musical when I first listened to the Broadway cast but nothing really compares to seeing it in person. When you’re there you feel those emotions and you experience it completely. It’s incredible. And I highly recommend going to see it if you haven’t already.

On top of that, we also had the pleasure of meeting Jamie Dornan while we were there seeing Hamilton. My fangirl heart literally exploded when I saw him walk into the room. Like what were the odds? It was even crazier because the night before we had been watching him on TV and then he was just there. I was starstruck and obviously had to say hi. I would have kicked myself if I hadn’t. He was lovely and even though our exchange was a small one I’ll still always remember.

Then, of course, there was the Harry Potter Studios! Okay, I’ll admit, I’d never seen any of the Harry Potter movies until right before I left for London. This was more for my boyfriend because he was a big Harry Potter fan, but I felt I needed to at least watch the movies to have some idea of what was going on. The Studios were stunning and I was blown away. I had never gotten into Harry Potter and I guess I never really understood but being there, where they filmed and seeing everything in person, I understood. It was magical and I really enjoyed the visit.

Other things that happened on our trip to London included a visit to the Sherlock museum, a look at Buckingham Palace, and some shopping. We wanted to go to the London Eye but I think it was closed when we were visiting, so I guess that’s something I will have to do when I go back.

Another thing that I did in January was start pole dancing lessons, this is something that I never thought I would do. But my friend Victoria and I decided to go at the start of the year, and I’ve been going ever since. Not going to lie, it was definitely a bit scary going at first, you know there’s a whole stigma around it and you think people might judge you, but honestly? It’s super fun and the community that I have found in NI around it are so wonderful and supportive.

I’m really glad I decided to take the chance and take pole classes, I have made new friends from it and it is also a fun way to keep fit. It’s definitely helped me get stronger and I love sharing my spins and tricks with my friends.

In February and March, I honestly am not sure what I was doing. I guess nothing eventful if I don’t remember haha. I feel so lost without my tweets to guide me in some sort of direction. I didn’t make any YouTube videos in those months either…so I’m guessing these months were just spent working. Obviously not all working, but nothing significant either.

Though at the end of March I did get a second tattoo. I decided to get one because my boyfriend was also getting one. We didn’t get matching ones but I thought it would be fun. Ever since I got my first tattoo I have definitely always toyed with getting another one. And so I ended up getting a small one on my arm which says xo xo. And if you’re thinking xo xo Gossip Girl then I can confirm yeah I definitely also thought that. But I love it, like I love Gossip Girl and also gossip in general so I guess there was a meaning behind it, other than I just wanted another cute tattoo.

In April I decided to start my YouTube channel up again properly and try vlogging every day in April…I didn’t vlog every day but I did keep it up for a while. I suppose the reason I didn’t end up vlogging every day in April because I wasn’t always doing something worth vlogging, which is the YouTube vlogger struggle. But that’s okay, I don’t put too much pressure on myself to do YouTube because it’s just a hobby, as long as I’m still posting every so often I feel accomplished.

I also got to see the Nashville Farewell Tour in April which I enjoyed a lot. I originally was not going to go, but then the day of the concert I decided to buy a last minute ticket. The reason being that I worked across the road from the arena where they were performing and I was on Twitter and saw people meeting the Nashville cast around the area and I was jealous and wanted to see them perform. It was also going to be the last time I would be able to see them perform as Nashville the TV show was ending.

And I’m really glad I went. I’ve been watching Nashville since I think 2014/2015? And I love the music on the show, so I guess it naturally made sense that I enjoyed the concert. It was a great show and if you’ve never seen it, now is a perfect time because you can binge watch it. 🙂

May was another one of those months where I don’t really remember what was going on. It was the month before I left placement so I know things were starting to wind down there and the weather was beginning to pick up for the summer. I think May was also the month when I lost my Twitter account.

I have already made a blog post about what happened to my Twitter account so I won’t bore you with the details but long story short, I made my Twitter account when I was 12 and so they locked me out. I still have not been given access back to my account and it’s really annoying. I’ve had that Twitter account for 9 years and now it’s just…gone.

So I started a new one. It’s definitely not the same as it used to be. But because I use Twitter so much and it’s a big part of my life I couldn’t be without it. I had friends there that I didn’t have anywhere else and to try and find them again without remembering their Twitter handle was a struggle. It was also hard because I couldn’t really explain to anyone what happened.

But with the way things are going, I think this is the Twitter account that I’m going to have from now on. It’s just annoying that I can’t at least get my username back…

June started with a drag show which is how you know June was a good month for me. As you know I love RuPaul’s Drag Race and going to drag shows has become a new hobby of mine. The first big show I saw in 2018 was Werq the World. This is one of those shows where a bunch of queens from past seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race come together to perform and I love them.

June was also a big month because it’s my birth month. It also happened to be the month that I finished work placement. So it was a time for celebration, this year I turned 21 and celebrated going out with my friends. I never really feel older when I celebrate a birthday but I suppose no one really does. Either way, I still end up getting ID’d when I go out so it’s not like I’m looking any older haha.

Also for my birthday, I got to see Taylor Swift in Dublin! Taylor was amazing and I have wanted to see her perform for the last couple of years now so I’m really glad I got to do that. And she recently released her concert on Netflix, so if you missed it you can check it out there.

At the end of June my boyfriend graduated from university, so all his hard work and sleepless nights had paid off. I am so proud of him for making it through uni and getting his graduate job. It was great to see him get his degree, and hopefully next year it will be me getting mine. 🙂

As far as I remember July was spent chilling and enjoying my time off work. I also started this new blog and I plan to keep it. So far I think it’s going well, though I am still trying to find a good layout. I want something simple and clean but at the same time, all the blog layouts I’ve found have not been right. The one I am currently using is the one I liked the most out of my choices but I am hoping to find something better soon.

Aside from that, I feel like I spent a lot of July playing video games, watching TV and sleeping. Which is a great month in my opinion when you’d spent the last few working a lot.

A few fun things that happened in July were that my friend Jasmine came over for a while with her boyfriend Chris, it was his first time in Northern Ireland so we had to show him around, I also started my scrapbook which I’ve had sitting around for ages and I also started selling things on eBay for my mum. I’d never sold anything online before but I’d always thought about it because I have a lot of stuff I wanted to get rid of and I thought selling online would be a good way, though so far mostly my mum’s stuff has sold compared to mine lol.

August in comparison to July seemed to be a very busy month for me, I spent half of it with my boyfriend as I stayed with him while his parents were in Florida, I also decided to vlog/make a video every day and played a lot of Sims and Stardew Valley. Not to mention went to pride and all the drag shows as well.

After the less successful attempt at vlogging every day in April, I decided to try again in August. Only this time, it wasn’t just vlogging, I also made videos for my Sims YouTube channel. August was definitely more successful than April as I was able to create 22 videos in August, 11 for my Sims channel and 11 for my main channel. So it’s safe to say August was pretty well documented on my YouTube channel.

At the end of August, I was also super busy with moving house and preparing for my final year of university. It feels weird that I have been moving so often, and I can’t wait to finally move one last time after graduation and be settled for a little while. But for now, I’m back in student accommodation and ready for the next semester.

September I spent settling into my new flat and enjoying my last remaining weeks of freedom before university. As in, I spent a lot of time playing Sims and Stardew Valley because I knew once university started I wouldn’t be able to play as much.

September was also an exciting month because after waiting years we FINALLY got confirmation for Animal Crossing Switch. It should be coming in 2019 and I’m going to be waiting every single day waiting for some news. We haven’t heard anything since the first announcement but I’d like to think we’d be hearing something very soon. In case you didn’t know, I’m a big fan of Animal Crossing and it’s been 5 years since we got a new main series game and I can not wait until it comes out. I already know it’s going to be amazing.

Also in September my friends and I went over to England to surprise Jasmine for her birthday. This was a really fun trip as it was a good time for all of us to spend together before we started university again. It was also the first time we’d ever organised a surprise and it was super fun. Though a bit stressful, especially when Jasmine almost saw Megan the day we arrived to surprise her but it all worked out and she was really surprised.

October was when I really started to get into university life again, classes started and things quickly settled back into a routine of student life. This year of university has been the busiest one I’ve ever had. We have so much more work to do this year than we did in previous ones so it’s been hard to adjust to the workload.

That being said, I still had a lot of fun things to do to take my mind off of university, and by that, I mean I went to 4 drag shows and a metal concert haha. They announced these drag shows over summer so I bought tickets at the time not knowing how busy I would be university wise, but I made it work.

The concert I went to was Okilly Dokilly, I had heard of the band through the internet and I couldn’t believe they were coming to Belfast. My boyfriend and I went to see what it would be like because you never really know what to expect when you go to see a heavy metal band that is all about Ned Flanders. But they were actually really good and I enjoyed it. I wouldn’t say I am their biggest fan by any means, but they do put on a good show.

November was mostly spent working hard at university, I didn’t have any drag queen shows to go to that month and so things were definitely a lot less busy than they had been the previous month. However, I did take some time out in November to play some Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee.

And finally, December was a pretty chill month. I started it off by going to Christmas Queens, which was the first drag queen show I ever went to by myself. It’s so weird to think that was a year ago, especially when I’ve been to plenty of shows this past year by myself now. I’m really glad I decided to start going on my own though, because it’s true what they say, if you wait around for other people to do things with you, then you’ll probably never do them.

Aside from that, I spent the first half of December working hard to finish the university semester on a high. And then have been spending Christmas break having a long and much-needed break.

Which brings us to now! The end of the year. Well actually, into the new year as I’m writing this. Overall 2018 was a very busy year, whether that’s because I was keeping myself busy or because I’ve had obligations. But it’s been a great year, I’ve said this many times already but I think my main plans for this new year are to continue to work to get my degree, enjoy Animal Crossing when it comes out and we will see where we go from there.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope this year is a good one for everyone!

~ Courtney x