The New Year

Hello y'all!

 2016 is literally tomorrow and I really can't believe it.

2015 has been a crazy year for me and I would like to reflect on the past year before I get to all the 2016 resolutions. 

In 2015, a lot happened in my life. I transferred to the University of Houston for a semester thinking that I was going to go to business school, but ended up changing my major to communications and coming back to the University of Texas at Arlington. This was huge for me because business was always my plan; I never thought I would major in anything but business. However, as I got older I started to realize that business was definitely not for me and I wanted to work in a more open environment where I could interact with people and be more myself. I also started to live a different life style, health wise. I started to go to the gym and exercise very often in the past year and I am so happy that I did. I feel much better and I'm able to fit into my mom's old clothes now (yay for shopping your mom's closet). I guess I shouldn't forget to mention that I met my best friend (aka the boyfriend) this year. It is still crazy to think of how we met. If I hadn't transferred back to UTA, we probably never would have met and I would have missed out on meeting one of the best humans I know today. Oh and how could I forget that I also spent half of 2015 in a foreign country! I packed my bags and left for South Korea in June of 2015 and I'm still sitting here, making this post from Seoul. I will be returning to Texas on January 5th, 2016! The time that I have spent here can never be replaced by anything in the world. I have learned so much about Korea and about myself. I have learned so much about the Korean culture and the life style here, but more importantly, I really learned a lot about who Jackie is. Being in a foreign country, where you don't really know the language or the people, can make you feel lonely at times. However, I was lucky enough to have my boyfriend, his family, and my small handful of friends to keep me company. Even with their help, I still had to face many hardships on my own. I know that I cannot rely on them for every single situation that I needed help with so I had to learn to do things on my own too. For example, one of the most notable things that I have down on my own is go to the doctors and getting a shot by myself. If you personally know me, you probably would know that getting shots is one of my biggest fears in life. Even at the age of 21, I had never gone to get a shot by myself (and yes, I use to cry even as a university student). Although in the past couple of months I have gotten a little better with the 'not crying thing,' I still needed someone to go with me and ... hold my hand. However, this time, I had to go alone. I was quite sick and I really needed a shot to help me get over my illness; I had no choice but to go alone. Although this is a trivial task that many people already do on their own, for me it was a big step in facing my fears by myself. I feel like I have changed in the 6 months that I have been in Seoul. I feel like this study abroad experience have helped me matured in a way (not saying that I'm a full blown adult, because I'm still a child at heart). These are just a few of the most memorable events that happened in my life during 2015. I'm sure there are many more crazy things that happened to me in the past year, but to list them all would make this post extremely long and tiring to read. 

Now, let's get into the good stuff, 2016 New Years resolutions! 

1. Study Hard 

Summer 2016 was originally supposed to be my gradating time, but changing my major and transferring schools pushed my graduating date back a bit. Although I use to feel embarrassed and honestly a little down about it, I have now accepted the fact that I'm not going to be graduating on time. I'm perfectly fine with it now and all I want to do in 2016 is study really hard and get out ASAP. I wanna end my college experience with awesome grades and walk across that stage like freakin' Beyonce. 

2. Be Healthy

I do not want to just lose weight & work out; I want to be healthy. I want to eat delicious foods that are good for my body and that will energize me. I want to eat until I'm full and not feel bad about if I'm eating too little or eating too much. I want to follow my own plan and not worry about what others are saying about my eating because it's my body and I know how to keep it healthy. I also want to get stronger and run more often. 

3. Be Patient 

My boyfriend just started his 21 month military service in South Korea and so I will be waiting for his return. He will not be returning to the States until the year 2017 and so I have quite a bit of time left to wait for him. However, I know that good things come to those who wait and so being patient is going to be very important for me this year. I know I can be patient, but I just thought I'd put it in here anyways as a reminder to myself to always keep looking towards the future & wait patiently.

In previous years, I would list many more resolutions, but this year I think I'll stop at three. I don't want to list out a bunch of things and then end up not sticking to half of them. Having three makes it more manageable and that way I can make sure I focus on accomplishing the resolutions that are really important to me. I have faith in myself that I'm going to stick to these resolutions and I'm super excited about what 2016 is going to bring! COME GET ME 2016, I'M READY FOR YOU. 

(no picture here because I couldn't choose my favorite 2015 photo)

from Jackie