August, For Me

And just like that, we’ve hit the end of the August! Where is this year going?

August is the month of many anniversaries for things in my life such as my blog’s birthday, positive habits, starting the healing process and for these monthly blog posts!

I’ve enjoyed writing them at the end of each month and being the super-reflective person that I am, I’ve looked back at them often throughout the year to ensure that I continue this 🔥 momentum: goal hitting, going above and beyond everything and overall killing the game 😉

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Main highlights

Blog

• 🎂 Pawlean turned 3 years old on the 19th of August! I’m glad I’ve been able to reconnect with blogging and the community 😁

Health

• 💪🏼 I hit 1 year of my commitment to a healthier, happier, more mindful and deliberate lifestyle. You can read all about my “results” after a year of meditation, exercise, clean eating, and gratitude here.
• 🏋🏻‍♀️ Completed Grace Fit’s Guide 1. 8 weeks of really pushing my body to the limit. Bring on Guide 2!

Professional

• 💼 I completed my placement year at the University of Sheffield earlier in the month. I learned a lot and developed both personally and professionally throughout the year.
• 🎉 Celebrated the completion of my placement year with Italian food and was spoilt by my wonderful colleagues with gifts including a map of New York printed beautifully on a scarf. Yep, I cried a lot that week.
• 📰 I’ve been pretty loud on social media with some posts I wrote/was featured on including…
  • Profiling Pauline Narvas, former Communications, and External Engagement Assistant
  • From building a website to promote organ donation to teaching female students how to code
  • What is the impact of enterprise in your degree?
  • Why academics/staff should think about embedding enterprise to the curriculum
• 👩🏻‍💻 Started my first placement (of two) in tech! Update: I wrote a little reflective piece here.

Personal

• 💏 Continued being cute with Matt. 😉

So I copied @_mattburman‘s black minimal style today. Diggin’ it.🕴🏻 pic.twitter.com/7Rp8iqa8n0

— Pauline P. Narvas (@paulienuh) August 28, 2017

• ☕ Caught up with a couple of old friends including Tues who was the one who welcomed me to Sheffield 16 years ago. Forever thankful. 💕
• 💇🏻 I finally got my roots done with my hairdresser, Jing. I naturally have curly hair. I don’t like how it’s such high maintenance so I get it chemically straightened (i.e. rebonded every 6-12 months!) I can just wake up without having to think about it too much which is always a plus ➕

• 🌴 I went on a restful family holiday to Fuerteventura and burned tanned a lot 💖 To summarise, I created a video below:

• 🌳 My family and I also took a trip to Castleton, located away from the city and more into nature ❤ a few days ago. It was incredibly refreshing! My main highlights were doing a walking meditation in the open green space, spending quality time with the fam and calling over a horse to take a selfie with me (this seriously happened, I was shaken. 😆)

• 📸 I organised my Instagram posts, check out specific posts using the hashtags:
  • Explaw🐾
  • Mattline🌎
  • Pawdahtravelz
  • pawgainz

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3 Things I’m happy about

1) Completing my placement year

When I was walking into my placement on my first day last year, I was terrified.

I started doubting if it was the right choice – taking a year out to work, leaving my friends behind and “missing out”. I persisted through it and can happily say that it was the best year of my life so far.

So much positive growth – I recommend students in their first or second years at University to dedicate some time to focusing on securing a placement year (or work experience in general), it’s one of the best things you can do for yourself in the present moment and in the future 🚀

2) My health

I’m feeling the fittest and healthiest I’ve ever been – mentally and physically. Friends I’ve met up with this month have said that I’m happier and seem more at peace with myself. Prioritising my health this year has had such a massive impact on every aspect of my life, for example, I feel like I’m confidently building and maintaining better relationships with people. Yes – the effects of exercise isn’t JUST losing a couple of pounds 😉

3) Motivating others

On a related note, after publishing this blog post. I’ve had the biggest number of visitors on my blog along with a number of sweet messages, here are a few of them:

Why do I share constantly on social media? Because of this. Because I know that it can help someone, somewhere going through a tough time. I know that it always helps me when I’m having a hard time, to listen to others stories, others experiences and know that yes, time heals and things improve.

I’m happy knowing that this is what some of you feel about my posts. I’ll keep doing it! This goes beyond just health and fitness but even careers and learning how to code. Thank you so much 💖

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August in pictures

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Monthly favourites

🎧 AirPods – I’ve mentioned before that I dislike my headphones because it always rips my hair off my head when I take it off! I finally bought AirPods and not only do I no longer have this problem but I also look super futuristic. 😆

🎶 Dua Lipa – New Rules – I can’t stop watching the video and listening to the song. 100% recommend!

✏ Bear – a note-taking/writing app.

I’ve been using Evernote, Google docs and other random writing applications – having my notes and other stuff all over the place.

I found Bear when I was on holiday and was on another app-browsing spree. It’s got a super clean, minimalist interface (unlike others which sort of overwhelm me!)

I’ve been using it to write up draft blog posts and just general notes.

🔥 Making-Instagram-content-fire apps:

• VSCO – Photo editor; some awesome filters!
• Mosaico – Instagram-planning feed (my organisational obsession has reached new heights 😅)
• Lumyer – allows you to make cinematic videos to make your feed more interesting.

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Next month

Goals

• Improve some front-end knowledge and apply, apply, apply it! Make GitHub greener ❇
• Get better at an evening routine!!
• Clean up digital clutter (didn’t have time to commit to this last month but would like to get this done before the end of September!)
• Focus on lifting heavier 💪🏼
• Keep killin’ the game 😏

Events

• Attending an enterprise conference/training for my part-time job in the next academic year!
• Attending HackCon EU in Birmingham with Matt. I’m really excited; this will be my first hackathon focused event; preparing for HackMed 2018 😉 ✨
• Starting my second tech placement, focused more on app development.
• Instructing at CodeUp Sheffield – where I’ll be teaching people how to code!
• Returning to University for my final year … yikes! 😱

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Quote of the month

At anytime, you can make a change for the better. Just start where you are.

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I hope you’ve had a great month and wish you all an awesome September! It’s nearly the end of the year (we can finally start saying the C word again), let’s make the most of the months ahead together. 💪🏼