Hey, what’s up? It’s been a while…

Well, been a while since I’ve done an actual life update. A lot has happened this year and it’s only April, but I feel like it’s been such a big change that I had to document it and tell any readers who are interested in me as a whole.

So, good news. After 18 months of writing for Maximum POP! voluntarily, I’ve been offered a paid position! I have been working so hard for this and it’s finally happened. I honestly thought I would never achieve it because for three quarters of the time I was writing for the site, my dad had fallen ill and it became a living nightmare. It meant a lot of letting the staff down at last minute and there wasn’t a single moment where I didn’t feel guilty because these were commitments that I was so passionate to keeping, but sometimes life is a bitch and you have to deal with it. But I guess that they saw some sort of potential in me as they decided to wipe a clean slate after my dad passed away and I was able to continue working again. My dad was almost as passionate about me writing for that website than I was. On days he wasn’t so bad, he’d encourage me to stay home to write instead of visiting him. In his final days, I promised him that I would work so hard to get a job with the site and to have actually kept that promise is so overwhelming.

The work itself is amazing. It can definitely be challenging on times, but you should never expect it to be a breeze. Within three weeks of working for the site as a paid writer, I had been promoted to full time, which was a shock but you’ll bet your backside I was thankful. And I can tell you one thing – it beats any school or uni work I’ve ever had to do. Interviewing pop stars, organising album listening parties, running the company’s Facebook? I’ll choose that over algebra any day. By the way, Mr Donovan, I’ve still yet to use algebra in my day-to-day life like you insisted. I told you I didn’t want to be a maths teacher.

If you read this blog regularly or follow me on social media, you’ll know I’ve taken up vlogging. Not a huge commitment for now as there’s not much going on in my life that’s vlog worthy. But I do go to some amazing concerts from time to time and I love the idea of sharing with fellow fans my experience. I’m also hoping that whenever I get an opportunity with MP, I can vlog behind the scenes. That’d be amazing. I have a handful of followers who are interested in getting into the field of work I’m in and to be able to show my career from a young person’s POV would be exciting. Next week I’ll be seeing 5 Seconds of Summer on both of their Cardiff tour dates, so I’ll vlogging the entire weekend to share with other fans. Keep an eye out for the videos!

Onto my mental health. I’ve been keeping kind of steady. I do have my ups and downs and that’s expected with cyclothymia. I was alerted by my doctor that it can definitely shake up following such a big loss in the family and I feel like I suffer the most at nights. I feel like as though I could have insomnia and that’s when my anxiety thinks it’s a splendid idea to overthink absolutely everything. If you haven’t noticed the publishing time of this post, it’s around midnight. I’ve just finished my last shift of the week as I’m expected to work one day a weekend as well as my weekly hours. My mother and I thought that working late may be something that could help me keep my mind busy until the end of the shift where I can just fall asleep. I’ve decided to blog because it was on my mind, but we’ll see if working nights helps me have a better sleep. I’ve also been suffering with nightmares which wake me up to a cold sweat. Of course, they all relate to last year, but it’s totally expected. I just wish there was a cure to make them stop.

Despite talking a lot about my dad in this post, I’m getting better. I found that talking definitely helps and since he was such a huge part of my life and partner in crime (and travel), we had a very close father-daughter relationship in comparison to a lot of my friends. Everything I work for, I think of it as a way that I’m keeping him proud of everything I’m doing. It’s going to be a long journey, but I’m on my way.

Hope everything is great with you and wishing you a lovely Spring!

Jazz

Jazz is a Disney, tea and pop culture enthusiast with a passion for blogging. Also a proud introvert.