Hi everyone, it's me! Yes I am back again from a long period of reckless abandonment (9 months to be exact.. oops). If anyone is reading this, which I doubt they are, I'd like to apologise for my absence for such a long time - if I have to admit, I was totally uninspired to write anything and had what they call 'a writer's block', leading me to forget about blogging completely.
I'm not saying that I'm back for good and going to write regularly, but I thought I would give an updated version of my Introduction post which I published over a year ago (it's incredibly scary how time flies!); I read through all (or most) of my older posts and realised that heck, I am good at writing - despite how vain that sounds, I'd like to accept it to myself as true. It's indefinite that a lot of things have changed, therefore I have no choice but to re-write my introduction and hopefully you can get to know me as the updated Asia of 2016.
Now, I am undoubtedly older - 15 years old, and counting. I'm now in Year 11 of my secondary education, and fast approaching the dreaded GCSE's (gasp). I completed my mock exams earlier this month and I have to say, I coped with them a lot better than I thought I ever would or could - let's just hope it's the same when the real thing comes around. This leads onto the first part of me: I am a work in progress. Like many of teenagers in society, we like to be people pleasers; there is an enormous pressure to be standardised in society through both the media and social media of what we are expected to look like, how we are expected to behave, dress, etc etc. And I, like many teenagers, begin to find it difficult to understand if I am thinking my own thoughts, or thinking thoughts that society want me to think. It can be hard to rationalise certain things, (which sounds silly, I know), but when you are in constant battle with society, you start to lose a sense of yourself and the world around you, too fixated on the image that we hold within the screen of a mobile phone or a computer monitor.
Linking back to my mock exams, I felt a pressure to maintain what others would view as an 'excellent reputation' - the one who achieves good grades, the one who seems to always know what they are doing, the one who completes their homework, the one who all the teachers like.... as you can imagine, it's quite glorifying, but there is an underlying fear of being unable to attain what is expected of you. You fear letting others down or to begin feeding a less reputable perception of yourself - and that's not what you want, especially when you're a perfectionist like me. But you know what? I revised, except not overly, taking it a bit at a time - what some would view as 'balanced' - I started around 2 months before they happened, which some people may think is a long time, but actually, it made me less stressed and allowed me to spread out my revision in short chunks over a long period of time, which helped my well-being and ability to engage in other activities, too. I panicked and I cried, but I got over it - something I would never have been able to do before. I walked into those exams, tried my best (DIDN'T CRY!!!!) and knew that it was the best I could give, so heck what the results are - I know I tried my best, which is ultimately more gratifying than any high grade.
In addition to this, I had to balance my school work/revision with gymnastics too. My gymnastics competition was dated the weekend before the mocks started, which of course, would make anyone stressed, but I fought and kept on going, even when I thought I couldn't - I thought I'd had enough, wasn't good enough for gymnastics -having had struggled with the tumbling aspect of it- and was ready to quit; but then I remembered, hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. I may not be especially gifted in tumbling as I am in say, flexibility or academically, but if I work hard and don't give up, it will give me a result that I will be pleased with, and that's exactly what happened! My trio came 4th in the competition, a mere 0.27 points stood between us and 3rd place, which was annoying, BUT I worked hard to get to the place that I was, and in that moment, it's all that mattered. This proves a huge advance in my mental state throughout the year, when I was unable to cope with what I viewed as 'failure', and therefore shows that I'm not the same person I am now than I was earlier in 2016, nevermind 2015!
I'm unsure whether this post has turned into a ramble to not (you decide) but I can't really remember what happened in earlier 2016 if I'm being honest, so, like last time, I will leave a short/brief fact file for you, but updated of course:
Favourite book: (gosh, I've read soooo many this year, it's hard to pick! But a few of them are) 'I was here', 'Beautiful Broken Things', and 'Frozen Charlotte'.
Favourite film: LOL (a film I always go back to; there are so many films it's hard to choose just one, but this does the job just nicely)
Favourite Christmas film: ELF and Home Alone
Favourite series: Stranger Things (my new obsession)
Favourite season: Autumn, then Spring.
Favourite food: Roasted potatoes/sweet potato (but it's so hard to choose!)
Guilty pleasure: Banana slathered in peanut butter (or by the spoon!)
Favourite shop: LUSH
Favourite body part: My eyes or my ears (purely because they are pierced - just to clarify, my ears are pierced, not my eyes)
Favourite feeling: Strength, or laughter/happiness
That's it for today, I hope you enjoyed reading about me as much as I loved writing it - damn, it feels good to get things off your chest, even if they're not really on your chest. I hope you, if anyone is there, have a fantastic new year and a year filled with happiness, health, family and friends.
Until next time,
Asia xox
