2012: THE END

Helllooo - Happy New Year to all! What a strange year 2012 has been - definitely not my favourite to be honest. However the important thing is, did I keep to my resolutions? Here's the original post.

Diet

Aha, I did diet - (although I’m always dieting) - I managed to lose half a stone over the summer but alas, I still haven’t met my ideal goal. The challenge continues...

Photo Diary

I can proudly announce I completed my photo challenge! To those who are not sure what I’m talking about, last year I decided to take an Instagram photo and post it to Tumblr every day for 2012 to illustrate my day. Although it was sometimes an inconvenience and something I was very close to give up on, I’m pleased to have stuck it out to the end! Behold, here it is.

Don’t Complain

This one started out really well, surprisingly. I became really aware of others around me complaining and instead of joining in with them, it made me really thankful of how easy my life was!

However, after everything that happened during the summer, I began to feel down and kinda miserable - and after returning to university everyone’s negativity around me made me feel even worse. Even then, I didn’t complain - although everyone was driving me absolutely insane and everything in my life appeared to be going wrong. It certainly was testing times for me, and I didn’t handle it very well. 

Work Hard

Second semester of first year was great - I created a really cool Motion Graphics piece and got a brilliant grade in it, so I’m really proud of that. Overall, I was really proud of my first year marks so I guess that’s proof that I did work hard!

However I was shocked to see how much of a step up my course was from first year to second year. In first semester I was working so hard and for so long that I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing, it made me sad. I’m hoping this upcoming semester will be better!

Save Money

WOO I actually kept a book of my finances so that’s really impressive for me. I also opened another bank account to save money because to quote Claudia’s Blog 9/1/12 “If SM or YG decide to put a show on in London, I will use it then!” which THEY DID, as you all know, BIGBANG stopped there during their tour in December - success!

No Stressing

Believe it or not, since making this resolution I don’t stress as much as I used to. My whole attitude towards everything has changed. Although I wouldn’t call myself laid back, I definitely have chilled out much more more since 2011.

Get a Boyfriend

LOL - neither Rachel or myself successfully completed this resolution, maybe next year! (I did see T.O.P though...from a distance anyway!)

Much love,

- Claudia

TIMING

Right, it’s time for another catch-up post. 

Fused:

Team Adventurers!

I was reading old posts of mine and saw how I was unsure if I was going to do Fused, the Summer Bible Club which runs for two weeks at the end of July in Newcastle. Now, I am SO GLAD I did! It was absolutely marvelous! I met lots of cool people on the team and felt I fitted in so much better than last year. I even used my talents to help Jo to make t-shirts for our team, the Adventurers. (left) They look so class, is it weird I feel proud? Also the fortnight helped my walk with God; which I was worried about before I left because I felt I wouldn’t be able to teach others if I was neglecting my own faith.
The kids were little sweethearts, we helped with the Primary 4-7s, so they were old enough to listen and behave but still were young and easy to talk to. The girls loved my jewelry and wanted to try on my rings - it was so cute. I had my own Small Group this year - a group of round 7 or 8 girls. This really boosted my confidence because I usually turn into a big, nervous mess when I have to lead anything. By the end of the two weeks, three of the girls gave their life to Christ, two of them which I prayed with. I was so emotional when I came home I sobbed - it’s such an extraordinary thing to witness and share in someone’s life. Other kids made professions too, please keep these kids in your prayers.

With some of my Small Group

If that wasn’t enough for my brain to handle - I SPOKE at the front during the two Josh’s talk...VOLUNTARILY. If you know me at all, there’s no flipping way I would want to speak in front of a crowd unless I had to - but I just felt the timing was right, or else I was losing my mind.
Jeremy, Jo and myself were asked to speak about how God transformed our lives.
Even as I was standing up, I was still unsure what I was going to say, and as I look back on it, I hardly remember what I DID say - basically I spoke about settling into university - having to make new friends and rely on God when alone. I couldn’t have possibly constructed all those sentences in my head logically and articulate them clearly without the power of the Holy Spirit. God is so good. 

So glad I filled in that form back in May time - or else I wouldn’t have be involved in two of the most wonderful weeks of my summer! Time well spent!

The Dark Knight Rises:
Haha I’m very late with this one! I am a massive fan of great GREAT films - like blockbuster films - I guess most people are but it seems to be that most of my favourite films are legendary ones (the other genres would include Classics, Disney or Asian cinema) So naturally The Dark Knight trilogy is included in this legendary list. (Other films include Inception, The Social Network, Slumdog Millionaire and Harry Potter.)
I was very, very excited about this one from geeking out so much in 2008 after seeing the second of the series. It was later I also realised that Batman Begins was the first of the trilogy - not sure how I didn’t realise that before, whoops! 

It was outstanding as expected - it was like a big yummy sandwich with all my favourite actors - Christian Bale (with his amazing sexy mouth) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine. Then to top it all off with a small cameo of the wonderful Cillian Murphy as Dr. Crane. (I actually love that man - he’s very charismatic and so striking, could watch him for hours.) So yeah, amazing. I hope to see it again before I go back to university - so if anybody wants to go... hit me up.


The Amazing Andrew Garfield:
Let’s put it this way - it was a mistake seeing The Dark Knight Rises before The Amazing Spiderman. I was very excited because I am a long time Andrew Garfield fan and have waited two years after hearing he was cast as the lead. I really did enjoy this though, it was better than I was expecting... but maybe I’m just being biased. No seriously, it’s worth a watch.

Granny Gordon:
Unfortunately I have even more bad news since my last update. My Great Granny, Ethel (also known as The Granulator!) passed away at the grand age of 93 on the 11th August 2012. The pain was pretty raw since Granny Green’s death so it was horrible that we had to go through it all again. She had fell and broke her hip a few days before, but wasn’t well enough for an operation so she was in hospital. She also suffered from dementia and other health issues, so it appeared she was getting worse each day.
Thankfully I took up the opportunity of visiting her in hospital the day before she died. Even though her condition was deteriorating, I wanted to see her, I was kinda scared though. Astonishing to us all, she was her usual witty, humourous and slightly forgetful self! It was a joy to see her like that, and being able to remember her that way is something I’m incredibly thankful for. She will be sorely missed. 

Family:
Despite losing two members of my family this summer, I feel like I’ve built many new relationships with other family members. Here the impact of death has brought the Green family/McCullough family closer. To be honest, before I wouldn’t really have called my relatives family - because I never saw them and they knew very little about me, same vice-versa. Poor Granny Green would have done anything for the four of us to socialise with the others, but it was only through her death did that become possible. Same with the McCullough family - it was through Granny Gordon’s death brought us altogether as one. Hopefully these relationships will last. It was God’s perfect timing that Charles (my cousin), his wife Kate and 1 year old Stanley arrived from England and were able to see Granny Gordon for the last time, the weekend before she died. It was also my first time meeting Stanley, this was exciting because we haven’t had a baby in the family since Jared was born. My other cousins Gregor and Gareth and their ladies, Sharon and Kirsty also arrived down that weekend too so it was a big get-together for all of us. Above is a photo of us all that weekend, hoorah.

Titanic:

I visited the Titanic Belfast last week with my Parents and Jared. This is a new building opened this year to mark the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the world’s biggest ship. This is situated in the Titanic Quarter, beside where the Titanic’s was built. The building has 6 floors of galleries containing a variety of interactive media including CGI, film, audio, artifacts and replicas. This was interesting for me. Each gallery was well designed and used varied ways to display the historical details of the ship’s construction, launch, maiden voyage and tragic end.
It certainly was a visitor experience - the whole place was packed too. It was a great day out, but wouldn’t be something you’d return to for a few years at least. I think if you’re really interested in history it’ll be very enjoyable to read everything (like my dad), otherwise it’s a great day out - recommended!

Yay,

- Claudia

PAUSE

Hello! Short break from the meme thing to update y’all on my happenings in my pathetic little life. Okay not really, life has been alright.

University and Summer

In the middle of May I finished my exams and handed in my final pieces of coursework, which meant I was free for the summer. Hooray! Yes it’s nice to have a break however I was worried I wouldn’t have anything to do because I have 132 days off until I’m back again! (That’s quite a lot, compared to the 60/90ish days we had in school.) Therefore I devised a list of people I need to meet, places I need to go and things I need to do. So far these lists are flourishing, with a few things crossed off already - including baking, painting and sunbathing! Good stuff.

Granny

Despite my fun expectations for the summer, sadness crept it’s way into the Green family household this week. My Granny Green was battling with cancer for over three years, and alas, the condition was triumphant where on Sunday 10th June, she peacefully passed away in hospital. Although it was expected, it was still an upsetting and shocking occurrence for all of us, especially Dad. Being one of the eldest of the grandchildren, I was invited to read a few verses from Proverbs 3 at the funeral. Not an easy thing to do, but she chose the verses herself so I knew I had to make her proud. It gave me great comfort because it was some of my favourite verses. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Wise words to live by methinks. Granny was a very special lady - greatly missed, but now in the arms of Jesus. 

Mural

A few weeks ago, the community’s two Primary schools got involved in painting a mural which will be placed on one of the ugly walls within the village. It’s part of a scheme to make our area more attractive. (Unsure how successful this scheme will be, but supporting Mourne none-the less) The team required volunteers so they invited me to assist the kids. I LOVED it! I forgot how wonderful it was just to sit down and paint. Surprisingly, the picture only took 4 days to create and in my opinion it looks pretty sweet. The mural will have it’s big unveiling on Wednesday this week at 1:45pm, so you are all invited to see the masterpiece!

Olympic Torch

As you all may be aware, the Olympics are being held by London this year! Although I’m not a big fan of sports, I think it’s pretty awesome that the country has this opportunity to host such a big event. The big gold Olympic torch is currently traveling round the U.K, which included Northern Ireland. One of these stops were in Newcastle, so we had the chance to travel down at 6:50am on Wednesday 6th June to see it run by! It was a really lovely atmosphere and worth getting up so early to see. 

London

Woooah, I think I’m transforming into a different person lately because Emma and I have booked a weekend away to London! If you know me at all, this isn’t something I would even THINK about never-mind carry out. (Although Emma threatened to get my sedated when going through the airports, man I hate airports...) However!! I have turned my life around - I’m making the most of my opportunities when I am young and have the chance to do something fun, yada, yada, yada...

OH yeah, so the reason we have decided to undertake this mission is because Korean pop groups called EXO and 4MINUTE are doing a concert in the O2 arena. Heck, it was cheap so we booked it - plus we organised tickets a broadway show! We shall also shop and sight-see. So we’ve made a mini-holiday out of it. I’m VERY excited! 

It’s also stroking “See a K-Pop concert” off my bucket list. Oh, and I’ll have to learn Exo’s names before I go, just incase we run into them there - I only recognise Kai! 

Look here we all are in Piccadilly Circus. These babies aren't anything compared to my presh presh BIGBANG but it’ll be fuuuunnnn!

OUR HAPPY ENDING...

End of school. End of my education as a High School student.

Gosh I’ve changed so much this past 7 years, it’s really weird. I’m sad and cannot express my feelings here.

But I’ll miss you all, honestly I will.

LOL.

NEWS

To inform you all,

Bad News

I did not get into my Viscom course.

I’m completely gutted to be honest, despite knowing well that it’s a tough course to get into on top of it being over subscribed.

It’s hard to understand why a goal feels so so close of reaching but completely fails. Gosh I’ve never worked so hard on something before! It’s really depressing.

I’m guessing God has a much better plan for my future, it’s so scary not knowing what this may be though. :-/

University wise, I’m depending on my last choice which I still haven’t heard from yet: Foundation Art in Belfast UU. Highly unlikely i’ll get into that because it’s so competitive, but I also have the option of this course in Newry tech or Belfast Metropolitan.

Blah who knows, thinking about this hurts my head too much.

Good News

K-POP IS COMING TO EUROPE.

TVXQ.

Super Junior.

Girls Generation.

SHINee

F(x)

Are touring Paris on the 10th of June!!!

SM Town are doing their first tour of Europe (AKA, one city in Paris) with their biggest groups, including ones I adore. My exams finish in the middle of May and I don’t have any holidays booked so I feel the need to GO TO PARIS.

After I sobbed for a good 20 minutes about Viscom rejection, I asked Mum could I go to Paris instead of University. (Who needs a future anyway)

“Nice try.”