January Round-Up: What Happened?

We've already reached the end of the first month! How crazy is that? That honestly flew by so quickly. I remember January feeling like 3 months long last year. but this year it came and went in a blink.

I thought I would do a post I have never done before. I want to put more time and thought into my blog this year. Although I work hard on my blog all the time, I want 2019 to be the best one yet for Chelle Belle. I'm hoping to see the community grow significantly, for my photography game to level up and for my posts to reach the engagement it never has before.

So, I have decided to start a new "series" called 'Round-up'. Being at university, having set academic goals for every month is very difficult. Unlike school doing a degree isn't as set in stone. You don't have assignments and homework every week like you may do in school or sixth form, making it very hard to make goals at the beginning of every month. I will still be making academic goals posts whenever I am able to, but I wanted something I could post every month, that would be continuous. That is when I landed on the idea of doing round-up. Essentially, at the end of every month I will share some of the things I got up to, achieved or struggled with during the month. Some may be personal and others to do with academia.

Hopefully you enjoy these posts as I go down memory lane every month. Of course this is the first of 12, that you can look forward to reading this year.
So, what did I get up to in January?

N E W  Y E A R S  D A Y

New years day was a little different for me this year, as it was my first time working on January 1st. I usually spend the day with my family at home or at my grandmother's house, however I decided to pick up a shift this year. The first reason (and main reason) was because the pay was good. As a student, you really have to take the opportunity when it jumps at you. University life is NOT cheap. The second reason is because I didn't have much time do as many shifts as I would have liked, before the Christmas season. I had my first big assignment deadline for mid-December, so everything else was pushed back. I only did one shift in November, so as you can imagine, funds were running low towards the end of the semester.
It wasn't a bad shift at all. Went fairly quickly despite it being just under 10 hours long.

P I E R C I N G

I got my ears pierced when I was in year 6, but they closed up fairly quickly because after the 6/8 weeks of healing, I didn't keep my earrings in enough. By the time I was 13 it had COMPLETELY closed up and honestly looked as if they had never been pierced before. I put it on my 2018 bucket list to get them re-done but I never did. I'm not sure why to be honest, but I woke up randomly one morning and asked Robyn (one of my best friend's for those of you who don't know), to come with me to get them done. So on January 4th 2019, I FINALLY got them re-done. I love them, they're so cute.

E X A M

I had my second exam for my linguistics module this month. My first exam was in November and I got a 2.1, which I was very happy about considering phonetics has never been my favourite. After turning in my assignments in December, my motivation to study shut down like an old windows computer and it was pretty hard to turn back on. I struggled to get any work done because all I wanted was to enjoy my well deserved break. Eventually my work ethic came back from her lunch break and some studying actually got done. I worked pretty hard in the last couple weeks leading up to the exam. The exam was on January 17th and was LONG to say the least. Three hours to be exact. As you can imagine, my hand cramped up a couple times but the module is now OVER.

F A S T I N G

I did a 21-day fast with my church this month. This is the first time that I have been able to successfully go all the way. It definitely wasn't easy but I truly believe the church will reap the benefits this year because of it. I spent more time learning the word and even managed to memorize the entire order of the Bible from front to back. One of my goals this year is to study the Bible in more depth, and that's a pretty good start.

I N T R O D U C I N G  G O O D  H A B I T S

I wrote a blog post last year called '4 Bad Habits I Want to Break Before 2019.'
Believe it or not, I was able to break half of them in that small amount. I thought I would make some good habits this month, to replace a couple of them, and just to have as part of my life in general. One good habit I introduced was drinking lemon water every morning. Honestly it is DISGUSTING and I dread it every day but it has made such a difference. It's helped my skin to stay clear, gives me energy and filled me up during my fast. I was able to go without breakfast super easily when I had my lemon water.

The second good habit I introduced this month was having a professional looking spreadsheet to help me plan my blog posts. This is something I didn't think to do, until I read Lauren Victoria's blog post. I had always just kept my ideas in a notebook and not really planned them specifically. Now I have 3 months worth of content completely sorted out. I refer back to it every other day and up date it whenever I want to make changes or something has been done. It has already made blogging so much easier and actually more fun too.


B A C K  T O  U N I

I started the second semester of first year a couple of days ago. LET ME TELL YOU, the workload has definitely doubled this semester. What a joy. I know I'll be fine though. I'm going to be praying everyday for my mind to stay at peace. I get super anxious and stressed when I receive this sort of workload usually, but one of my biggest goals of 2019 is to worry less. One of my favourite quotes is 'Do your best and let God do the rest'. When I first saw the assignments for the term, I freaked out but managed to switch my mindset and took the time to plan my time.

So that was my first monthly round-up! I would say it was a pretty productive month when it comes to reaching my annual goals. I was able to complete all of my academic goals too which is obviously pleasing. I already have some exciting plans for February so make sure to be following me HERE or through email to be notified when I post.

How was your January? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading,
Have a great day x