Woohoo, a week without posts again. Sorry about the wait, but unfortunately the past two weeks were just too busy. Who am I kidding: the past 2 months were insanely busy for me. Here’s what I’ve been up to and I’ll also say a thing or two on posts to come.
It’s been roughly two months since I last posted an update, in early March, after finally being able to pick up regular blogging again. These past two weeks I failed posting much for some very important reasons: I wrote my thesis and I was on a study trip. The trip was fun, but let me tell you: spending 5 days with students and colleagues is quite exhausting and when your hayfever hits you like a sledgehammer, it does take its toll on you. The last week of April I spent in the UK, in Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester to be exact. It wasn’t a vacation as it was a work thing, but I did get to do some shopping, see a friend and we visited Old Trafford (The Manchester United football club) as part of the program. So there was a lot of fun to be had as well.
When I got back, I went to the Beautygloss party with Karin from Meerbeauty.nl and Sunday I finally had time to relax. I say finally, because every weekend in March & April I had social gatherings to attend and work and school was busy in between as well. Especially half way through April I felt like I didn’t have a single minute to myself. I went to visit my parents for both their birthdays and Easter. I visited friends to see their newborn daughter, went out to dinner and/ or lunch a few times, saw more friends, attended more birthdays, had drinks with colleagues and somehow in between I managed to grade over 150 exams and essays and prepped my thesis work so I could finally start writing that up.
Like I said, work was insanely busy and that was mainly because I was going on the trip. The two weeks after Easter were exam weeks with each week having a day which was completely filled up with day long meetings. This meant I had to give up my day off on which I could have worked on my studies, two weeks in a row. On top of that, as I already mentioned, there was a bunch of grading to be done again and I had to finish that all, because the week after classes would start back up and the week after that was the trip. It was like a race against the clock and having all of my weekends filled up, didn’t exactly help.
Last week was another busy week, despite the fact that I had a vacation. I only had Queen’s Day off, as I new I wouldn’t be able to get much work done and I did want to join the party. So I did :-). The rest of the week, I worked on my thesis. The day before Queen’s Day I gathered all my materials into a cohesive 27 page document that would serve as an outline for everything that had to go into my thesis. May 1st till May 3rd I embarked on what I would call a thesis writing marathon. I wrote up 15000 words in three days. I am giving the text one more look today and then I’m going to sent it off to my supervisor. She will then give me feedback and I will be able to work on a new version based off of that. I’m hoping it’s good enough so it won’t need too much work.
And then on Friday afternoon, I fell into this huge gap: now what?! Because finished that thesis, means finishing up something I’ve been working towards for almost 3 years. And so I felt a bit lost. I got a headache, became really tired and didn’t feel too good. Now though I can only say how happy I am that it’s all coming to an end. Plus I have hardly any plans yet for May. I’m hoping I use this month to recharge, rework my thesis a bit more and hopefully have that done before exams start again in June. Because I only have 2.5 months left of work before summer vacation and there are many fun things coming up then and before that!
I bought tickets to Rock Werchter and Pukkelpop so my summer will be filled with music and I’ll be able to make up for the lack of concerts in the first half of the year. I’ve only been to one concert so far (EEK!!). In contrast I have been buying more CDs so I still get my music intake. My friend Ali is coming over from England (she booked the flight!) and other than that I’m just going to chill. I have no plans for traveling. Instead, I’m thinking of keeping it closer to home. I’m planning on going hiking in and around my city, go to the beach and explore places that are near to me but that I simply never took the time to discover. I’m looking forward to that.
I also wanted to give a quick heads up on the poll I put up a little over a week ago. Thanks to everyone who provided their input. The two items that came up on top are makeup & beauty and personal things, followed by shopping hauls and food, fitness & health. Fashion came in on the third spot, followed by music. For most of these topics I will have no problems providing posts and I have plenty of material to work with, but I’m a bit surprised that so many of you want to read more about my personal life. That, to me, was unexpected.
Unfortunately, much more than what I’m giving you right now, on the personal front, is not feasible. I already put quite a bit of my life online (mainly through Twitter and Facebook) but I can’t expose more of myself. The reason for that is my job: I’m a teacher. It’s simply not so very smart to post your entire life on the web if you’re a teacher. Plus writing about my job, also comes with ethical issues. So if you were hoping that I could do a ‘week in pictures’, ‘throwback Thursdays’, talk about relationships, or show you what it is I do exactly: that is not going to happen. I will still give you a somewhat regular update on what I’ve been doing and what I’ll be up to, and I can make a few posts about topics such as work and studies, but especially the latter, I can only do from a distant and professional stand point. Moreover, I am not willing to post pictures of my friends and family on here, because I feel I cannot include people simply because they are my friends. This is my blog and it is my choice to write these posts, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who is part of my life, suddenly becomes part of my blog as well.
I hope you understand and I will see what I can do and if you have any ideas on how I can balance a more personal approach on this blog without losing my moral integrity than please leave a comment below. For now though, I’m going to enjoy my well-deserved free time and hopefully write some daily posts again.