Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012!

With the start of 2012, we are again faced with the idea of new possibilities. A new year brings hope for a better start and the excitement of taking new chances. Nothing can beat that magical feeling as the clock strikes 12 and we all feel that bubble of excitement deep inside us. We think about what the new year will bring and we reflect about what we have experienced and learnt in the previous year. We hope the following year will be better, but we accept and appreciate what has happened in the last year.

2011 was a big year for me and brought many, many changes. I started 2011 by celebrating the countdown with my boyfriend at the time in an empty club, sober. I was living up north with my boyfriend and my landlord, attending university, working part time in a bar. I celebrated the end of 2011 and the start of 2012 in Paris with my sister, and I am now single, living at home again with my parents down south and I am a jobless graduate. A lot has changed!

There were a lot of highlights - and downsides - last year. Celebrating my two year anniversary with my ex boyfriend with a weekend away in York was amazing. Breaking up less than a month later was tough. Later. I took an internship at More! Magazine which is one of the top leading women's lifestyle magazines in the country - this was an amazing opportunity and will forever look great on my C.V!The first half of the year I was under a lot of pressure, constantly working on my dissertation and trying to work out my feelings as me and my ex continued to see each other whilst trying to move on from each other. July brought about the biggest highlight of the year with me graduating! I was extremely proud of myself and to this day I still can't believe I managed it. However becoming a graduate invited a lot of change which led me to saying goodbye to my life up north. I moved out of my shared house and out of the north east to back home again with my parents. I also said goodbye for good to my ex boyfriend and whatever relationship we had at the time. We both promised to make the effort to see each other again but now we are no longer a part of each others lives. I came home and signed up to job seekers, only to find a temporary job less then a week later. For the rest of the year I got my head down and concentrated on work. The last few months of 2011 flew by. Just before Christmas my temporary contract ended and I found myself jobless again. So, in total, 2011 was a year filled with ups and downs.

New Years Eve was a massive high point for me as I spent it in Paris with my sister! I had the most amazing time ever and celebrating the count down at the Champs-Élysées was the perfect way to see in 2012. The atmosphere was amazing and not only was it a far cry from my last new years celebrations, but it was the best new years eve I've had yet. It really got me optimistic for the following year.

So now is the time to look ahead. I know that every year I draw up lists of resolutions that I never keep and I vow to make the year amazing only for it to normally be average. I have made a few vague resolutions, but if anything I am being more optimistic. I know life has its ups and downs and that even the bad times mean something. It's impossible for 2012 to be perfect without something going wrong, but the important thing is to make the times that go right extra special. I'm definitely looking forward to what it may bring so I say bring it 2012!