Show and Tell Competition Winners
We asked you to share your wonderful stories of how you spent this last year with our mascot pony Misty, or hype her up with what you're looking forward to.
Aquilla Hawkmoon
What I got Up To
Hi there Misty how's it been, its been a long time since we last spoke, so its only right i give you a little catch up of everything I've gotten up to over lockdown and what im excited for when it ends.
Now for me lockdown started for me earlier than most, since my nana is very vulnerable to any and chest and breathing issues i straight up ditched school and refused to come back until everything blew over, which never came lockdown was declared nationwide so i didn't need to go back.
Early lockdown is best described by the sheer amount of gaming i did, six months flew by as if they were weeks, i was either gaming, helping my nana with somthing or talking with all the new friends i had made at UKBP.
Now i joined the server before lockdown started but i really started forming bonds with everyone during the lockdown, Amethyst and Chaosi and later, Echo, Sweetpea, Gobirator, Beamy, Zephyr, Ialyrn, the list goes on and on.
Around September and October is when things really started happening, both in that i was going to college, initially online but later in person, and i started to seriously draw, i had drawn in the past but this time it was for real and i slowly got better and better and i keep improving with every single drawing i do.
The next few months had little that happened, i kept being with my amazing friends, i kept doing well in drawing and college, the usual.
Around February of this year is when somthing horrible happened, my nana was diagnosed with cancer and would need to go to the hospital for up to a fortnight to get surgery, to prepare me for living alone, she taught me everything in how to run the house, how to clean, how to cook, how to use the washing machine ect, i had always helped with these things but now i had to learn to do them alone.
Last March was when it happened and nanas teaching made me thrive alone i was able to cook all my meals almost as good as she could, i was able to keep the house clean i washed and managed all the cloths i was able to manage perfectly on my own for the week i was alone, nana was really proud of me when she came back home.
I suppose if we want to count the things i learnt at college as skills i learnt over lockdown, i learnt all about computers, their history, how they work and how to do certain things with them, and in general i learnt to do essays and coursework, how to use photoshop and illustrator, how to build a website, how to make a game and a lot of other things over my course.
When college broke up for summer i initially spent it similar to how i spent last years summer break, excessive amounts of gaming but i began doing other things also the major example being that i started swimming around 3 times a week to improve my health and the results have been amazing, i feel more energised, i feel great about myself and my mind feels like its improved leaps and bounds since i started.
I also built a few lego sets, began playing Tabletop Role playing Games with Echo, Fungi and Libralycan every second Tuesday and have begun streaming on twitch, where im pulling in a viewer everytime, who knows maybe ill get 5 viewers at once someday!
So that's about everything thats happened we're at present day, so its time i tell you what im really excited for.
Starting college again at level 3 where i get to learn how to build PCs, do basic programming, make game engines using Unity and Unreal, its gonna be fantastic!
The new My Little Pony movie is coming out soon in September and we're getting the trailer in the next few days!
And finally UK ponycon where i get to meet all my amazing friends in person and be with them and talk to them, and buy all kinds of amazing fan merch and tons more!
To conclude its been an amazing year and a half i owe a lot of it to the amazing people of UKBP i love all of them as my best friends, they gave me a place to talk and socialise, they've gamed with me, given me advice, helped me through a lot, i would be lost without them.
Anyway thats everything i did over lockdown and what im excited for when it ends.
Aquilla
Geodesic Dragon
What I'm Looking Forward To
With lockdown easing and the future looking somewhat brighter, I find myself wondering what - if anything - I am going to do, meet wise.
Living where I do, it’s not exactly easy for me to attend meets or conventions, as there is usually a lot of travel involved. I live in a village where the nearest town is five miles away and the nearest train station is either twenty or forty-five miles away, depending on whether you want to go north or south. The buses to town are sporadic at best, usually arriving every couple of hours, though the buses to the towns where the trains depart from are more frequent.
The main factor, though, is money; I never have enough of it, and I have extreme difficulty when it comes to even attempting to save up. Tickets, hotels, travel, general spending… it all adds up, and no amount of Twilight Sparkle-esque planning on my part can help me to escape that fact.
Then there are my own personal preferences that I need to take into account; for example, when it comes to accommodation, I have to have a hotel room. I know I could cut costs by using a hostel or even room sharing, but I like my privacy, so I wouldn’t do either of those. (Plus there’s the fact that every time I’ve tried looking for a single room in a hostel, they’ve either been fully booked or non-existent.)
I would love nothing more than to go to a meet and put faces to the names I’ve been speaking to on Discord for all this time, but I would need to get over my social anxiety; online, I come across as a friendly guy (well, I try to at least), but in the flesh I am a bag of nerves who can barely make eye contact, let alone formulate a coherent sentence. I am forever worrying about what people think of me, and soon get paranoid that the person I’m talking to is wishing that I would shut up and leave them alone, or that they are thinking less than flattering things about me. It’s something that has plagued me for the better part of twenty years, thanks to the bullying I endured in school, and my social confidence has been shattered.
But then I recall the times I went to BronyScot with other people; on both occasions, it was a good laugh and I had a lot of fun hanging out with my friends. That is the feeling I want to embrace again; the feeling of being with people who I know will accept me for who I am, and will tell me outright if I say or do anything wrong. If I ever want to enjoy that again, I need to jump the hurdles that are in my way - mainly the lack of money and my own doubts - and reach the finish line.
So, to get to the point, I am looking forward to conquering my demons and getting to the point where I can make some more memories with those I care about.
But first, I need to pay off my credit card…
Geodesic Dragon