Long Time No Sea

It's been a while since I wrote a proper blog post but now that I'm back in Falmouth I'm ready to get back into my routinely Sunday posts.

As we are nearly already through the first month of 2019, I thought I'd do a little re-cap on my 2018 and some of my hopes for the next year.

2018 was a bit of a mixed bag for me, as most of you know from my previous posts, it didn't get off to the best start what with homesickness and how I was feeling about university life in my first year. Fortunately for me, the year only seemed to get better from there on. After finishing first year, I was back home for a month or so before returning to Falmouth where I went on a few day trips around the South Coast with my flatmates, followed by a visit from friends from home in June.

Shortly after moving out of halls in June I was off to Lake Como with my good pal Martha, a trip we had spontaneously booked earlier that year in February whilst we complained about the cold weather (true Brits). Six days of exploring, mountain hiking, boat tripping, Italian food and multiple scoops of vegan ice-cream. I think something about staying in a hostel, meeting other travellers and hearing about where they were off to next really made me want to continue travelling from there on - especially when our response to "So where are you to travelling next?" was "Luton Airport."

After Como I returned home for a month of recuperation; cooking family meals, visiting friends at their universities and doing a bit of filming work for the company my Dad works for. It was a really nice month of spending time with family and friends, especially after missing home so much earlier on that year.

August rolled around and I was travelling back down south but this time to Newquay for Boardmasters festival with my flatmates. A very wet and mud filled weekend but a very enjoyable one too, finally getting to see Everything Everything live, along with other artists like Lily Allen and George Ezra.

My final trip of summer was a family holiday to Croatia with my parents. A trip I was incredibly grateful for (especially as my parents definitely could have chosen to go without me). Despite feeling like I was third wheeling a romantic getaway for my parents, I had a really lovely time, it was such a beautiful place to visit and any time spent away with my parents is guaranteed to be a good one.

Once the family holiday was over I returned to Falmouth and moved into our current house, a house that's only three minutes walk away from the beach... It became obvious how much the environment I was living in had impacted my first year university experience when I started living in this house as straight away it felt like a home away from home. My first term of second year went well, for my modules I took Documentary, Film Genre and British Cinema - all areas that interested me and I enjoyed studying. What I love most about my course is how flexible it is and how much you can alter it to suit your own interests. For two of my essays I wrote about homosexuality in films, masculine representations within the western genre and for my documentary module I edited a documentary following the intergenerational perspectives of social media. This term I've picked Gender and Sexuality, Editing and Post Production and Film and Philosophy. Once again, really excited to start these modules and see what I come out with. Officially half way through my university degree now and have already got the dissertation on the brain...

Ended my 2018 with a lovely quiet Christmas at home - although one night in particular not being a quiet one as it was our first ever Christmas party where I was cooking curries for 20+ people. Really happy I managed to turn my year around and end it positively, especially when the year didn't get off to a great start. I always enjoy reflecting on my year when it comes to a close and thinking about what I want to achieve in the next. My plans for 2019 are to possibly continue this urge to keep exploring Italy, hopefully achieving my level 1 in British Sign Language (after completing an introductory course late last year) and to learn to handstand (?). I'm looking forward to this year, I think I learnt a lot about myself last year and what works best for me so I'm excited to see what this year brings.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas break and from here on in the Sunday blog posts are back! Let me know if there is anything in particular people want me to write about or share my experience with.

Thanks again for your support with this blog and I'll see you next Sunday,

Emily x

p.s here are some of my favourite photos from 2018: