Monday 28th February

It has been a good week!

Yesterday I completed an embroidery piece I have been working on for a while! (goal #6) It's always nice to finish a creative project so I can then move onto the next one. I'm hoping to continue with an original design of mine that I started a while ago, using left over threads from the kit I just finished. It's a design I hope to share on my Etsy in future (goal #7). 

I did some reading (goal #9) last night too, I've got about 20 pages left of my big Brian Cox science book!

And for goal #1, I have been working hard collecting more participants for my experiment. I'm at a fairly decent number. I also began working on my next assignment so I don't fall behind and then I can get working on my final project report. It feels so strange that I only have a few more deadlines until I graduate! 

Monday 21st February

This week feels like it had a good balance of things I enjoyed and working (#goal 6). I took yesterday off as Sundays are designated as study free days, so I did the things I enjoy all day. Today hasn't been so productive though as I had a headache and didn't feel all too great.

However, I'm finding that focusing on this balance has been helpful to keep my stress levels down. I can get stressed quite fast, especially with uni, and it can kind of consume me. When I take time out for myself, it's a bit of self care whilst reminding myself that there's more to my life than just working and studying. There are artistic ambitions I'd like to achieve, there are other things I enjoy doing and there's just more outside of uni! So it's helpful to remember that when sometimes it feels like I'm drowning in work and uni assignments. I think it's always good to take a step away from all of our commitments and work to just forget about the world consumed in something stress free and enjoyable.

I still haven't gotten started with much reading! Maybe I will try to read tonight before I go to sleep.

Here's to hoping that next week stays balanced, whilst also productive and stress free!

Monday 14th February

No valentine for me this year! Not that I'm complaining, so here I am doing another blog post. 

This week has been not much different, more working and more uni work. I've not made enough time to do things I enjoy such as my hobbies, though I did make the effort to go out with a friend yesterday so it was nice getting out. But yeah, I might try and get some gaming in today later on because I never got to do that yesterday which was my day off. I did work that morning as well so yeah, less time and energy to do things yesterday! At least I'm recognising what I'm doing right now, which is falling back into that habit of all work and very little play.

I guess continuing my uni work is working towards goal #1 though!  All the more interesting stuff is yet to come later on in the year (I hope!), so I hope I can keep to goal #10 and keep this updated for you guys to follow! I definitely need to get reading when possible too, that's been on my mind.

Sorry to say my weeks aren't always that eventful! 

Saturday 5th February

I've had a somewhat lazy week. I had two deadlines due on Wednesday which both got submitted early and I did well on one of them (I'll post about that in my study blog). 

I was looking at Ghost of Tsushima videos last week, and I kept saying to myself that I'll wait until my birthday to get it. But as I looked more and more into it, I started getting pretty excited for it and I thought, why am I waiting months before I treat myself?! I am so bad at treating myself, I almost never spend money on myself, so I thought, for a change, I'll actually treat myself! So I bought the game on Saturday last week and it arrived the next day.

The last RPG game I completed was RDR2, since then I've not had a good RPG game to invest in. I've only completed the RDR games and GTA5, as well as Watch Dogs 2. I'm very picky with video games I play and I will quit a game and sell it on if it doesn't draw me in or I just don't like it. Well this game encapsulates what I love which is Japan, their culture and history, as well as an awesome Samurai character. The game is a work of art and I really appreciate that side of it.

I played the game all day Sunday, then did some assignment work on the Monday and submitted it on Tuesday, then played the game all day Wednesday and Thursday after work! I felt like I deserved a couple of days to do something I'm enjoying and excited about as I had done my uni work in time for the deadline, I thought a few extra days off wouldn't hurt.

Today I plan on working on building my experiment, but I have work tomorrow and this year I've set Sundays as my day off from studying, so I'll likely play some more GOT tomorrow.  I would say at the moment, I have a good balance of uni and leisure time (goal #6), I even did some cross stitching last night and did about 100 stitches. 

I haven't managed to get much reading in yet (goal #9)! I did finish that introvert book which I think I mentioned but haven't finished my other ongoing book or started reading a new one yet, but I'm sure I'll get to that eventually this year.

And so far, I am updating this regularly so I'm doing well for goal #10!