The lovely Georgina over at She Might Be Loved has got an amazing competition up on her blog at the moment and with an incredible prize up for grabs, I thought I'd take one last look back at 2013 and the moments that mattered most to me:

2013 started, as with all my new years, in Cornwall. My time in Cornwall always matters most to me. I spend the holidays with my family, and being over 300 miles away when I'm up at university for three months at a time, makes the holidays back down in Cornwall even more special.

My 19th birthday was a memorable time for me (well almost, I was far too drunk towards the end of it, but that's student life aye). My best friend came all the way up from Cornwall and despite her hatred of people and leaving her bed, she trecked over 300 miles on an 11 hour journey, all to see little old me. For the past 10 years I haven't had a birthday without her, and since university started, I haven't been able to be there for her birthday (as it coincides with the start of the semester), so I'm really grateful she put in so much effort to come up for mine. 

My blog really took off in 2013, celebrating its first birthday in August, and reaching almost 8000 hits in September alone. I made a series of posts offering advice to freshers, and with all the hits I got, I was happy my blog was living up to its title of informing people on the life and times of a student. I made my blog a month before I started uni in 2012 because I wanted people to see beneath the surface of student life. Whilst it has been a very alcohol induced experience, throughout the latter of 2012 and the whole of 2013, I've experienced an insane amount of things that university has put me through, and entered 2014 with a little more insight into life than I entered 2013 with.

Moving into my first rented house without my parents was a crazy moment in my life. It may not seem that crazy, but it really made me realise how fast my life is moving. Thankfully, I still don't have to deal with bills and all that 'grown up' malarky (thank you bills-included contract), but moving in with a group of my closest friends from first year has been a really insightful experience. We've had some real ups and downs in this house, but we've been there for each other, just as we were in first year. 

And finally, I'd say the most memorable moment I had in 2013 was submitting my application to volunteer as a teaching assistant in Thailand with VESL. My application took me months to perfect, and I travelled down to London for the first time all on my own for a question and information session followed by an interview. I was inexplicably terrified. I'm not the most confident of people when it comes to interviews, or talking to people I don't really know, but I must have made a mark as a few weeks later I was offered a 6 week placement in a school in Chiang Rai, Thailand for summer 2014. It's probably the scariest yet most exciting thing I've ever committed to in my whole entire life, but 2013 was the year I decided to do something crazy, and in 2014, I'll actually have to do it! 

Thank you to Lloyds bank for providing the prize and get on over to Georgina's blog for a chance to win!