I’m done! For now…

Hello there everyone, I hope you are well. As the title of this blog would indicate, I have finished all my term one assignments! I haven’t received any grades back for the work I’ve submitted, but I did have my dissertation ethics form approved, so I can go ahead and conduct my research for my dissertation once my literature feedback has been returned. Speaking of which, I don’t think I’ve discussed what my dissertation topic is.

As you may or may not know, my degree is human resource management, and my dissertation will be looking into praise and reward relating to motivation in the workplace. It may not sound like the most interesting of topics, but it is important for managers to know the most effective ways of motivating their employees, and someone needs to do the research!

Steering the topic away from university for a while, it doesn’t feel like it is Christmas next week! I have found that the older I have gotten, the less I enjoy Christmas. As most of you will probably know, as a student you often do not have a lot of spare money, and as soon as December rolls around, I just sigh knowing that I have to buy presents. This year I have only gotten presents for the important people, and I’ve tried to spend under £10 per person, and it seems to have worked.

To the people I didn’t buy presents for, I sent them a personalised card. This brings me onto my next topic of post delivery. I don’t know about anyone else, but the post seems to be really slow recently. I don’t know if it’s the time of the year, but I sent a card to one of my friends who lives in the south of Germany, and at the same time sent a card to someone in Manchester. The card sent to Germany took 2 days to arrive, and the card to Manchester took 5… both sent first class.

This will most likely be the last entry of 2013, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, and I hope you all have a pleasant entry into 2014. Until next year everyone, and the best of luck with any work you may have remaining!

The year so far and plans for 2014

Hello again everyone, I hope you are all well and keeping your stress levels low, I can’t believe that it’s December already, there aren’t many days left now until it’s 2014! I’ve decided that things are going to be much better in 2014, and I will have a think about what resolutions I can make and aim to stick to them. 

So how has 2013 been for me. Well, as I’m sure every person at some point in the year, 2013 had its ups and downs. I managed to travel to two different places, Amsterdam in The Netherlands back in April, and California in the USA in June. Hopefully in 2014 I can expand upon my travel map which I wrote a blog about in August. I hope next year that I can do the inter-railing thing I spoke about and get to see more of Europe, and I would like to go to Canada at some point. This is all dependent on how my finances look for next year of course…

2013 is also the year that I passed the second year of my degree, and could continue into my final year. Hopefully I should be able to do the same this year to achieve my undergraduate degree in Human Resource Management. I’m hoping that I will be able to find a job upon completion of my degree so that I can have some money to do some travelling, but who knows what the future holds really.

The low points of 2013 include losing some important people in my life simply through drifting apart, which is an inevitable part of life, and as with the majority of students, there have also been points where I have had nearly no money and worried about how I would manage. Just because I don’t want to put a massive downer on this entry, I have also met some amazing new people this year who I hope will remain a part of my life for a long time, I have also become closer with some people who were at one point mere acquaintances. I hope they remain good friends with them into 2014. I also work as much as I can to make a bit of extra cash, and in 2014, I will be extra strict on my financial outgoings.

All in all, 2013 has not been a bad year, but I aim to make 2014 an even better one. I hope that you all have had a pleasant 2013, and if not, 2014 is a time for change. And as that saying goes, if you believe in yourself, you can achieve anything.