Woah, it’s been a while since I did one of these! According to my timeline, the last time was in August. Whoops! It’s not as if my life has been at a standstill in the mean time. I did write a few updates on my new job which I started in late August, but other than that it’s been crickets on the personal front. So starting December with a bit of a personal note, as it is the last month of the year, I think it’s a good idea to tell you what I’ve been up to and what I will be up to in the next few weeks.
So first of all, the month of November has been CRA-ZAY. My uni stuff has started back up full force, I had a bunch of grading to do and teaching started back up again after the exam period. Add a few social gatherings, like museum visits, movie watching and finally figuring out my gym routine and you get a pretty full schedule. Needless to say, I’ve been busy.
In September I mainly focused on getting used to my new job. I didn’t focus on uni stuff, because after that conference in August I felt I could put that on the backburner for a little while. Getting a new job meant I had to readjust my entire routine. From the times I go to bed/ get up, to when I go to the gym, to when & what I eat, how I travel etc. etc. It didn’t seem like a big deal to me at first, but I’ve started to notice the impact. I travel less, so I have time to do other things. I read a bunch of books in September and October for instance. I also got sick, which was unfortunate, but hey it happens.
October was already a nice start up for what was to come. I had a social engagement in every weekend, met up with my thesis supervisor and got started on my final two university classes ever. I made the first exams for my new job and had to set up everything for after my vacation. I spent half of my vacation feeling slightly under the weather. So I didn’t do much apart from reading and a bit of shopping with a friend. At the end of that vacation, I attended the vintage party thrown by my friend (you can see my outfit + look if you click here).
Last month however, was a whole new sort of crazy. I attended two study days for work, sat on an audit committee for my university, watched a few movies, True Blood season 5 and I now really had to produce assignments for university. On top of that I spent 2.5 weeks doing nothing but exams and grading, sometimes as late as midnight after a full day of teaching. To say I felt knackered was an understatement. I did however take time to do some fun things: I went to see Bon Iver live in concert and I went to see the Impressionist and Van Gogh exhibitions at the Hermitage in Amsterdam with some friends.
Then there were some other nagging little things that happened: I had a huge discussion with one of my colleagues of which I wasn’t sure I handled it correctly. Turns out I did. I had my appraisal interview on Monday and my boss is truly happy with me. So props for me! My housemate first flooded the kitchen floor because her fridge broke down and then the washing machine caused a flood as the drains got clogged majorly. Showering, washing dishes: anything that involved a bunch of water would go wrong. Fortunately, after 2.5 weeks of that misery it is now all fixed and I managed to do some massive loads of laundry earlier this weekend.
Which leads me to December: the festive season. Job wise, it simply means more teaching as we are nearing the end of our first semester (which is in January if you were wondering). But I have also been invited to a meeting for young professionals within my school. I have no idea what to expect, but we’ll see what that will bring. I will also be rounding up my final two university things and get those out of the way so that I can focus on my thesis after Christmas.
Social wise, December means lots of visits to friends and family. In fact, I am visiting my family as we speak. Yesterday I left to meet up with my best friend from back home at my parents’ and today I am at the Winter Efteling with my parents, brother and his girlfriend. Next week I am meeting friends for dinner and somewhere in between I will finally hit up a cinema to see Breaking Dawn Part 2. My work is throwing not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 Christmas parties so I’m also going to have to figure out what to do with those and of course there are Christmas and New Year’s themselves, which I will most likely spend with friends and family as per usual.
Wow what a story huh? I literally had to take out my agenda to write all of it down. Well I hope you are having a great time as well and I will try to do these things more regularly. Let me know what you have been up to in a comment below!