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Now, facing one and a half months of exams, it suddenly struck me that I’ve never been as calm, cool and collected before despite the fact that I’m way behind the syllabus. Another self-proclamation here: Queen of procrastination. Yet I’m totally embracing this state of mind as I finally have a few days to catch up on reading at my own pace.

Just finished my first, and somewhat unplanned, semester of school. I’ve never undergone such an intense semester before and I think it’s the ideal warm-up for university down the road. In retrospect, I didn’t really study that much on my own. All the lessons, study groups and traveling back and forth to school were quite time-consuming, so in the end I didn’t really have the time or energy for the labor-intensive workload of mine. So… I probably have to retake some of the exams, but whatever, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Most importantly, this semester got me thinking of how I want my next semesters to be like: I’ll be opting for quality over quantity. As with anything else in life, it takes a bit of trial and error to get things adjusted accordingly. I’m still young, and I just realized that I ought to stop comparing myself to my peers, who are finishing their bachelors next year, if I want to be one step closer to my goals – even though it sometimes feels as if I’m moving backwards, not forwards. Sure, it will take a few years till I’ve attained the score I need for med school or clinical nutrition, but if I take things slowly I’ll get there faster. As cliché as it sounds, I still have my entire life before me and this is only the beginning. So I’m not rushing into anything. And one’s age isn’t an indication of success. Cutting down on the amount of classes and study groups so that I can seize all the prospective opportunities, beside studying science, sounds like a stellar plan to me. Because I’m a freaking restless person. On top of that, giving up on writing and contributing to magazines is not an option though I’ve basically put my life on hold since January. I’ve always loved writing, albeit I cannot see myself doing journalism for a living, simply as there are so many other things I want to do.

And speaking of restlessness… I have an incredibly amazing summer to look forward to while also being productive, thanks to the sometimes inconvenient restlessness. It’s downright my kind of motivation to stay the course. Totally unplanned, it was just on the spur of the moment that I decided to journey this summer. Well, I already had tickets for Paris but I was supposed to make money this summer, not spend them. But what the heck, I want to have fun! So I sat down, drew a quasi-map of all the likely destinations, and booked the cheapest flight tickets available a couple of days after that sudden, yet brilliant idea popped in my head.

So right after my last exam, the worst one, I’ll be traveling to Barcelona for the Sonar festival with some friends from France. I’m looking forward to late summer nights on the patio accompanied by magnificent music, friends, food, and wine – just picture all the lovely scenes from Kinfolk magazine. Then I’ll be heading to the south of Norway for the Hove festival (watch out for a giveaway soon). It was awesome last year, so there’s no doubt I’m going back. Following the festival, I’ll be travelling for three weeks in a row. First I’ll spend a couple of days in Copenhagen, then a week in Berlin, and after I’ll go to the Côte d’Azur, mainly Nice. Can’t wait to take the train from Nice to Monte Carlo, Grasse, Antibes, and Cannes, which I’m dying to explore. Then I’ll be visiting my beloved family and friends in Paris before going back to school. And although my summer looks a bit packed now, I’m trying to fit in a trip to Pisa and Forte Dei Marmi in Tuscany where I’ll be visiting Leen Hilde and surfing on the waves.

Needless to say, it’s going to be one of these holidays where you practically do nothing aside from living in the moment while wearing no-nonsense, yet pretty clothes, as epitomized by the girl in the picture above and in this post by Hannah-Rose. And hopefully, I’ll find the inspiration to write more and fine-tune some of my potential write-ups. Anyway, I can deal with my summer fantasies later. In the meantime, I’ll study hard. Best of luck to all of you who are in the same boat. And please let me know if any of you are renting out flats/private rooms or host travelers in Barcelona, Berlin, or Pisa.