Upcoming celebrations and belated birthday lessons | LIFE

Hi there!

In between my assessment throughout November and mid December I didn't really have a chance to celebrate my birthday. I honestly didn't have the brain capacity to think about it or planning anything for it. With my birthday being a few weeks away from Christmas, it's really easy for time to just run away from you if you're not on it, and that's what happened this year.

My youngest sister did bake me one of my favourite cakes, Nigella Lawson's Old Fashioned Chocolate cake, so we got a little bit into the birthday spirit! If you've never really baked before and wanted to try something easy, start with this recipe! My sister likes to call it a one bowl cake. Everything goes into one bowl and the finished product tastes amazing!

I actually have a lot of celebrations that are coming up, so it's probably good that I spend this time taking it easy. We have Christmas in a couple of days, then my family and I are attending two weddings in India really soon! One in the South of India (Kerala) in later this month and another one in January in the North (Jaipur). I'm so excited! I also haven't visited either place before, so that will be fun and we'll be travelling all around India in between the weddings.

Although I don't have any birthday photos for this year, I do have some from my first trip to Japan that was inadvertently a birthday trip, that I haven't shared yet on here.

At the lookout at Yamadera Risshakuji in Tohoku (also known as the 1000 step Shrine). We were lucky and it snowed in early on our trip. It was so beautiful seeing the town and mountains covered in snow.

One of my favourite places to visit in Tokyo, Yoyogi Park! 

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During that trip, to celebrate my birthday we stayed at the most amazing ryokan/onsen in the mountains of the Akita Prefecture, called Taenoyu. It was so pretty and relaxing, I definitely recommend staying there! We were having such a great time during our visit I didn't really take photos, but here's a photo of the ryokan from their website. It looked a lot like this during our visit, we were lucky and it snowed early that year!

Photocredit: http://travel-akita.com/taenoyu-eng/

Birthday lessons: Nine things I learned in 2019

To continue from my birthday post from last year, I tried to think (with the few remaining brain cells I have left post-exams) of the main lessons I learned from this year. I feel like 2019 almost felt like two years in one, if that makes sense? So much happened and I learned a lot from my experiences, as well as, from the people around me. I'll try not to waffle too much (lolol); here are the nine things I learned in 2019:

1. Trust your instincts/intuition. You know yourself and your circumstances best. As much as the people around you care, they aren't in your position; only you can decide/ truly know what's best for you. Sometimes what looks like a solid decision on paper/ what everyone else thinks is a great idea, doesn't work in reality. If something doesn't feel right, don't ignore it. Like what Gibbs from NCIS always says, Trust your gut.

2. Always wear SPF. Always, always. Not so much a lesson I learned this year, but reminder for anyone who needs it. Wear SPF daily, even if it's cloudy. UV rays don't mess around, rain or shine. 

3. We make time for what's important. If you're not making the time, it's clearly not a priority. 

4. Look at people's actions as closely as their words. It's great if someone's saying all things you want to hear, but also double check on whether they're following through and see if it's matching up with everything you've been told.

5. How you wake up sets the tone of your day. I loved waking up early and having early starts this year. It was so quiet and peaceful with not many people being up and about. You could literally hear the birds and watch the day grow brighter on my way into work. Magic.

6. It's okay to not accept every opportunity that appears in your path. Sometimes saying no is the best thing that you can do. It doesn't need to make sense to everyone. Also refer back to #1. I know there's a big push to say 'yes' to new things and try to do things outside your comfort zone, and I agree with that generally. But if you're like me and you tend to say 'yes' to maybe one too many things, take a moment to review and reflect on all your commitments. Check in with yourself regularly and see what's serving you and aligns with your purpose and values, and see what's not. I usually have the issue of signing up for one too many projects, and then getting overworked and burning out. I'm trying to get to a point where I notice the early signs of burn out, so I can avoid it. 

7. Make an attempt. Even if you're terrified and think you'll fail, do it anyway. You'll probably surprise yourself. There were so many times this year that I thought I couldn't achieve a certain task or goal and ended up not only achieving what I needed to, but surpassing it. You're capable of more that you know, but sometimes it takes challenges/obstacles being put in your path for you to see that.

8. Be gentle with yourself. It's so easy to have compassion for the people around us, but we don't always do the same for ourselves. 

9. Remember to have fun! This year was incredibly busy for me with my career. I was essentially working full-time and had a full-time study/ course load. It felt like I was on a hamster wheel, or experiencing Ground Hog Day. It meant that I had to prioritise my study and work deadlines above everything else in my life. It helped knowing that I had an end goal in sight and that this wasn't going to be forever, but what helped the most was taking breaks to decompress and switch my brain off for while. I found a zine-making workshop that was held over a few weekends, and that continued into regular catch ups. I can't describe how much fun it was to actually create something with my hands and taking the time to use my creativity to make something tangible. It's something I've been neglected for too long, and it was so good to remember how much joy it brought me. Zine sessions make me feel nostalgic for my high school art classes, they were so much fun.

Thanks for dropping by, see you in my next post!

x E

Photo credit: me and my sisters, except for the photo of the ryokan!

Cameras: 
Lumix
Canon EOS 1000D