Well, well, well. Whilst we all spent our time talking about how 2016 was the worst year yet, little did we know what 2017 was about to throw at us.

It’s been a bit of a mixed bag for me. The month started with a lovely stay at Ox Pasture Hall (it was amazing, if you’re wondering) and me feeling entirely driven to accomplish my 2017 goals (which I am still determined to do), but I’m ending it in a trough rather than a peak. But we can come to that later.

After a nice, long 10 day break over Christmas and New Year, I returned to work at the beginning of January, and guess what? I didn’t mind going back. Because, yes. I love my job.

For those of you that don’t know, I graduated in July with pretty much no clue what to do with my life. I realised the path I intended on taking wasn’t for me, and so I picked up more hours at my part-time job to get me by whilst trying to figure out what I wanted.

That is, until I accidentally stumbled across my dream job: social media specialist at my former university. Despite not having any formal experience and after much encouragement from my family and friends, I applied and only went and got the bloody job. (Thank you blog and social media addiction – it’s all down to you!)

Anywaaaay, this month has been a whopper work-wise. Hull entered 2017 as the reigning City of Culture, and with the University of Hull being a principal partner, we got stuck straight in with celebrating the upcoming cultural events. Our university has also jumped up to 16th on the ranking table for social media and web this month – up 83 places from when myself and the other social media specialist started the job. *insert cool emoji here*

😎 Ah! There we go!

[column-group][column][/column][column][/column][/column-group]

I was able to go along and cover winter graduation ceremonies and had such a fun time taking candid shots of families together, as well as capturing a couple of nice little shots from the City Hall balcony. Can’t wait to get back up there again… I’ll be sure to take a wide angle lens!

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really take pride in my job. I love going to work (that’s not to say I like getting up early in a morning – I still don’t!) and it’s such a good feeling seeing results from what we do.

And I’m determined to start appreciating Hull more. We’re pretty awesome.

[column-group][column][/column][column][/column][/column-group]

I also really take pride in my little ol’ blog and have given it an awesome little makeover. Quite honestly, I’m in love. Thanks to some customisations from the amazing Pipdig, I have it looking exactly how I want it to. Now I just need more hours in the day to get some content written. If anyone figures out where I can find some, let me know!

Then come the low points.

I lost my uncle in January. He hadn’t been himself for a long while (Alzheimer’s is a terrible, terrible disease), and we said our final goodbye to him on Thursday afternoon at a small, intimate funeral. I hate funerals. They make me so anxious and I’ve been to way too many in the past few years. But it was a lovely service, followed by me and mum heading for grub at a Morrison’s café and meeting two little old ladies who were identical twins and wearing the exact same clothes, right down to their knitted hats and gloves. Too cute.

The final week of January has been particularly crappy on a whole for me, and for a lot of the world. For me, it’s just a tough time that I don’t really need to expand on; it’s just something I’ll get through. (Though I did tweet a little something about it and the amount of nice replies/messages I got from people seriously made my heart swell. 💜) As for the world, who knows what will happen. Death Eaters have full control of the Ministry, right? But I pray it gets better (ugh, please) and I hope that people aren’t afraid to keep talking about it. I would be clueless about most of the goings on if the people I follow on social media didn’t speak about it. So thank you to those of you speaking out and for saying the things I can’t always put into words.

As for me, I’m taking my upset and shitty times and moulding them into motivation. Come at me February. 👊