A new year

2015 arrived already and it's simply mindblowing how fast time can pass by. This year I have no concrete resolutions, I really want to spend time with my loved ones and let life surprise me. I happened to start this blog with 2014 resolutions, so I wanted to take the time to review them and see how far I've come.

Learn how to save money. I think I'm getting way better on this one. Ever since I started working, I realized how much money is worth and have been saving at least half of my pay (I still go shopping way too much!)

Be organized and keep it. Big change, the best I've ever had so far! I'm so impressed by how organized I can be. You know that feeling when you have way too many things to do and you do them all and on time? It's like a fresh summer breeze in my face, a huge load off my shoulders. Those are the times I feel like I have a grip on life, and not the other way around.

Eat healthy. I haven't been eating as healthy as I want to, but just eating more fruits has changed my body so much. A few months ago I started drinking 1,5 liters of water every day and i just feel. so. good.

Discover more of who you are and stay true to who you are. I believe I'm on my way to really understanding who I am, what I think, say and do. It's not an easy road, but last year was a major eye-opener as of the things I like in me and in the people that surround me. I'm a firm believer that you have to choose your friends and choose the people that influence you- build relationships of inspiration and not of deprivation. That was my focus last year and will continue to be for a very long time.

Serve others and be humble about it. As much as I'm divided on this subject, I still believe in the goodness in people and I always have a need to see everyone around me on their best shape-- intelectually, emotionally, physically and spiritually. But as much as I love helping others, I can't make enough time for everyone. For this year, I'd like to be there for the people I love, make them my priority and of course, give myself some time out.

Work hard to be able to play hard. This one is more than accomplished. I cannot fathom how hard I work and how much stress I feel about my work, but at the end of the months I can see the results, mostly in my closet!

Read a lot. Do Syllabi and technical books count? I haven't read as much as I want, so as of now I've set my Goodreads Reading Challenge of 24 books for 2015, that is, 2 books per month which I should be able to complete. And the props of having a kindle is having the world literature at a black-and-white click!

Ged rid of bad habits. Which included drinking, partying, lying and biting my lower lip in the most savage way. It's all gone! I still need to work on my cellphone and shopping addiction, but we still have more years to come for those ones ;)

As you noticed, I didn't include writing more often in the blog because I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up ;) Uni and work are tough, and this girl has barely time for herself.

New beginnings

I can't find the words to describe how quick summer flew by. I barely remember enjoying my vacations, maybe because of the fact that I had almost none (maybe two weeks), but then I'm so happy that I worked during the summer break and I'm already finishing up two subjects before the beginning of class. As October slowly approaches and the leaves turn yellow and make a carpet out of roads, I can't help thinking about the things I want to accomplish this semester.

When it comes to projects and lists, I'm on top of it all: there's nothing I love more than planning and setting out goals. Be it books to read or activities to fulfill or restaurants to try out, I list them all in my beloved Ikea notepad and revise them from time to time to remember where I'm going and how I'm to get there.

Leave old habits

I want to stop doing the things that I know are wrong for my body and for my mind. Right know I'm going through a phase in which I'm discovering who I am and what I like, and it's all in vain if I do not take action. And I've taken some steps since I drew out a list a couple of weeks ago. For example, I no longer have the Facebook application in my cellphone to avoid being attached to it anymore. And I love not having the need to check my phone every ten minutes! Instead I focus on my inbox: I love reading everything from Brain Pickings.

Enforce the current habits

One thing I love about the Early Bird Course is that I've developed a daily learning habit, and I no longer feel frustrated or stressed out if I'm staying in campus until 17:00 because I do enjoy what I'm doing and I see the importance in it, and this is something I want to carry with me this semester. Another one of the most important aspects is organization: not only spacial organization but also time management. So far I'm able to keep track of everything I do and even squeeze half a dozen errands in one day. Like the meme, "If I could keep doing the same this semester, that'd be great"

Try new things

Ever since I moved to Berlin I've seem my activity spectrum broaden so much. The capital has unlimited possibilities to offer, I want to try them all! Some of the things I want to try out are sailing, falconry, hiking and ping-pong to name a few. I don't know if I can do them all with my university schedule + working on the weekends, but I do hope to at least give them a try! One thing that's non-negotiable is my will to train more. Recently, and persuaded by my roomie, I tried running and I love it. I hope I have the same kind of reaction with my upcoming little projects.

What do you still want to accomplish before this year is over?

Be free

For the past couple of days I've been thinking about the changes I want to make in my life. I'm starting a new chapter in October in which I definitely want to live life at its fullest: go out to university parties, meet people from around the world and learn all I can to be a great professional. But I also want to get to know myself better in the way and make changes to be my better self, or what I think my better self would be. Sometimes I think about the personality traits I'd like to see in others. How I don't like it when one person does this or another person does the other, but then I realize I do the exact same things. And that's precisely the point of it. How do I want to see this change in the world, when I don't change myself first? This reminds me of a quote painted on the Berlin Wall in the East Side Gallery. "Many small people who in many small places do many small things can alter the face of the world."

So I've drawn up a list of the things I want to change in myself to be my better self. It was not an easy thing to do because you have to face being something you hate, or disliking yourself in some way, nonetheless the first step to change an aspect of any thing is to acknowledge its existance.

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Cellphone addiction 

It's nerve-racking. I hate the fact that I'm tied to a machine and I can't have a full day without having to answer Whatapp and feeling the need to check the social networks. You'll find this ironic since I run a blog, but I don't blog because I want to reach a kind of "blogger fame", instead I want to share my thoughts and finds with people. And I'm really thrillled about the fact that actual people read me as I imagine other bloggers feel when they see their audience grow. But there's another part of me that rejects the need to network and finds amusement in talking to real people in real life. On the other hand, I need Whatsapp to comunicate with my family on the other side of the globe. So there's the duality on the usage of social networks: you need them but at the same time you don't really need them. Instagram? Snapchat? Twittter? Facebook? Google Plus? What should go and what should stay?

Short attention span

When I find myself surfing the internet, I can't read a whole article without skipping parts and trying to get to the point of it, but then I bore myself and go onto another website. I can't hold my attention for much longer anymore. Same goes while reading a book. There are times in which I can't read a page without making a pause to check my cellphone or do something else, and this interrupts my reading and learning process. Somewhere (I owe you the source) I read that an arts teacher at an american university did the experiment to make his studentss stare at two paintings for three hours. I know for sure I would lose my concentration after five minutes. But the results of that experiment were a longer attention span and an eye to details that improved their performance and their perspicacy while analysing paintings. It makes you think about how now we find so many sources of distraction that we cannot concentrate on one, and we multitask so much to the  point of not being able to accomplish everything completely or to a high standard of quality.

Overworrying, Overanalysing

When it comes to people, I try to analyse them in order to find their traits and determine their characteristics. For some reason I'm amused in that, and sometimes that doesn't go as bad as other times does go. From time to time I find myself obsessing about psychological analysis and I start seeing things that are not there, things I want to see but that are not. Then comes the nervousness. I start biting my lips too much so that I end up with pretty horrible scars, I start being overly anxious and my heart skips too many beats for my health being. I think I'm experiencing something like that right now and I need to stop doing that.

Makeup and hair routine

As much as I like the girly routine of doing your makeup and hair, I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, showing my natural locks and wearing no makeup for the sake of a healthy and chemical-free skin. But I haven't reached that point (yet.) I really admire people that do not wear makeup and that feel comfortable just as they are, and I have it in my bucket list to reach that point sometime in my life.

Consumerism

Ideally, I'm an advocate of living life as naturally and peacefully as one can, thanking for the given things and not envying the things of others. I also reject consumerism, greed and the actual state of capitalism, which widens each year the gap between the rich and the poor, and almost doesn't allow poor people a chance of well-being. Sadly, as much as I hate to admit, I'm a follower of the consumer trend. I almost faint when entering a stationery shop, or going through all the clothing stores, buying innecesary things. That's something I want to change, but it'll be a difficult and slow change, for sure.

Be the change you want to see in the world

A literary quest

Some of the people that know me declare that I have a temporary obsession disorder and I do. From time to time I take a particular interest on something and obsess with it for months until I've sucked the life out of it and it out of me allI let it go. It doesn't bore me at all to have this little obsessions, I do enjoy having them and learning from them. I now have a flow of several topics of interest, but as I'm reading the A Song of Ice and Fire sequel (praise George R. R. Martin) I decided to polish my literature basics.

Academic Earth is the place to quench your short obsession's thrist. I mean, you can learn from every subject you want and from the best universities. If you also take interest in Literature, here you go!

Lifegoals and projects

Every teenager has been asked the same question at least a thousand times: What do you want to do with your life? This is the question that keeps me awake at night, brainstorming possible plans and shaping an actually uncertain future. The fact is, I have too many things I want to do and too many projects and when the time comes I'm going to have to choose one of the several paths I've mentally drawn.

I came to Germany with the intent to study Environmental Engineering, which I was 100% sure of, but sometime in the past months after being more than obsessed with to-die-for real state I'm starting to consider Civil Engineering because it gives me a broader job opportunity than to study something too specific. So far, I'm quite excited about this change, which is no change at all because I'm planning to specialize later on an enviromental area.

Parallel to my studies I also want to pursue other fields of study like Literature, Architecture, Philosophy, Astrophysics (ok that one's more like a star-gazing hobby) and Politics. Now the question is, how the hell am I going to fit all of that in a lifetime?

To be honest, I have no idea, but I'm sure gonna have fun (and not so much fun) figuring it out.

xo

Andy