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<\/u>Settling back in has sucked some of the life out of me. Is is the weather? Is it the studying? Or it just me? The last two weeks have mostly involved eight to ten hours of studying per day and \u2018life maintenance\u2019, otherwise known as a consistent and concerted attempt to understand why customer service is somehow even worse here in Europe. Combine that with the bleak grey of a Danish winter and I think resettlement has taken its toll on my mental well-being. I\u2019ve been more homesick in my first week back than I was all last semester, which is, of course, odd given that I was just home.<\/p>\n
Finishing the term, I\u2019m left with less certainty about what I want to do with my life and more certainty about areas of my academic life I could improve in. I\u2019m more certain that development is a field I\u2019m interested in, but I\u2019m less certain about what part of that field I would like to go into. I\u2019m more certain that I know what some of the most pressing issues are, but less certain what my direction will be and what contributions of worth I could make. I know I don\u2019t want to do a PhD, but that I can be capable as I writer, and that I still need to work better on writing with concision and communicating specific ideas. Exams made that clear to me. I am by no means the smartest one in the room, so I will need to find the thing that makes me feel like I am.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still not sure if I like the European system of exams more or less. Sure, you have a Christmas break followed by an entire month to read and prepare, but what\u2019s the use? In some ways, it\u2019s valuable, but after going through it I kind of just wished I had the opportunity to kill myself studying at the end of the semester and be done with it. I liked the extra time for the essays, but the time allocated to preparing for my sit-down and oral exams just psyched me out. I probably would have been equally prepared had I taken the exams at the end of the semester. In any regard, the disappointment of getting an exam that focuses on about a tenth of the material you learned the entire semester is a universal feeling everyone can relate to.<\/p>\n
At least it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n
On top of this exam anxiety, I think I\u2019ve been touched by a bit of the seasonal affective depression. To be fair, though, I have given the malaise a fertile breeding ground: I messed up my sleep schedule; I\u2019ve been studying many hours a day; I haven\u2019t been given myself the time to be especially social; I haven’t been exercising much. There\u2019s been a lot of down time and waiting, so much so that I even got to the point of questioning the entire point of being abroad based on one bad day. Instead of taking personal responsibility, though, I’m going to blame it on the weather.\u00a0It sounds silly, but for someone who never thinks in apocalyptic terms when it comes to their emotions, the connection to the weather seems like it might be true.\u00a0Here, there\u2019s none of the romance of the snow or the occasional sunny but cold day. It\u2019s consistently a little bit dreary and it\u2019s certainly not helping my mental state. Perhaps I also need a new apartment, something that\u2019s not just an unwelcoming room adjacent to a dark kitchen and an odd roommate to come home to. I think that would make me feel more at home.<\/span><\/p>\n I had my last exam this morning, though, and now I’m free and can feel myself rising from the muck. The time off until my next term will give me time to reevaluate, take a break, be a tourist and get the rhythm of my life back on track after a little post-holiday malaise. I managed to book myself a free trip to Krakow with travel credit, and I think the rejuvenation of travel will be a much-needed salve. Until next semester, UCPH.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Settling back in has sucked some of the life out of me. Is is the weather? Is it the studying? Or it just me? The last two weeks have mostly involved eight to ten hours of studying per day and … Continue reading