I’m back! I wrote my last post over a year ago when I first arrived in London and I’ve been silent ever since. I hadn’t originally intended on abandoning the blog but it was pointed out to me that my posts were pretty negative and, as such, I shouldn’t write more unless I had something nicer to say. Unfortunately, the global pandemic that we’ve all been dealing with pretty much ensured that I didn’t have anything positive to say.
I will admit that it hit me hard. We had several seemingly endless lockdowns here and there’s no way to sugarcoat it except to say that it really, really sucked. I was pretty moody and depressed for most of it and in no mood to write, nor did I really have anything to say.
So now I’m playing catch-up. I guess this post will act as sort of a reflection piece on my entire Master’s degree. I’m posting this on what would be my graduation day. I should be getting ready to walk across the stage and spend time with my family. Instead, I’m sitting on the couch stuffing my face with biscuits. Fun, but not the dream. So I suppose publishing this post at this time will be a bit of closure for me, at least until my graduation ceremony finally occurs.
So, how do I even sum up a year in a blog post? It seems an insurmountable task, especially this pandemic year. So I’ll do my best to be all-encompassing without being too dry or dreary. Mainly, I think I’ll focus on the bigger picture of things. I hope these rambling thoughts might be a bit coherent but even if not, they’ll at least be cathartic.
Overall, my grad school year has been pretty subpar. All of my classes and seminars were online, which made things extra difficult. Since my degree was only a year it meant that I spent the entire thing in my tiny dorm room, basically watching Youtube videos for school. It was disheartening and disappointing. Personally, I find online classes less engaging as they were very impersonal and it seemed like lots of time was wasted dealing with the eccentricities of technology.
I also had a hard time creating connections with my coursemates. “Meeting” people online isn’t the same as meeting them in person and I still don’t know what most of them look like because so many didn’t turn their cameras on during class. So it was very isolating and lonely.
To put it bluntly, I don’t really feel like I’ve done a whole master’s degree nor do I feel like I’ve accomplished much. It’s not a great feeling but I suppose that’s just the new pandemic reality, for better or for worse. I did write a dissertation that was pretty okay to finish off my degree, so I’ll take that accomplishment.
With that being said, it wasn’t all bad. In fact, there were quite a few bright spots that I am so so thankful for. I live in London, which is still amazing to me. During the infinite pandemic lockdowns I spent so much time going for long walks so I really got to explore and see (the outside of) some really great things. It snowed and I built a tiny snowman. When things were open I got to see some really good shows and some good to mediocre art. I also met a wonderful boy and am currently employed. Things are definitely looking up.
Now that I’m “graduated” what does that mean for this blog? Since I did an awful job keeping up with it during my course, I think it has just about outlived its usefulness as a study abroad blog. I do still have a few articles on the topic up my sleeve so I will finish those. After, I would like to start focusing almost exclusively on my travels, which may be a bold assumption given things, but I do have a backlog of weekends and day trips to write about. Depending on how things go, my posting will (still) be sporadic, but I’m hoping to post every week until I can catch up with everything. After that, I’ll only post after trips and excursions.
Thank you to the handful of people who have been reading this so far! Hopefully I’ve been entertaining at least. And hopefully I’ll write more about happier things very soon!
