DANCINGINTHERAIN23: A Quarter Of The Year

Welcome to a new post!

Can you believe that we are already 3 months into 2017? Wasn't Christmas like yesterday, and weren't we running around in shorts last month (yeah, okay in Australia and other hot countries you probably were, but you get my point 😃)?

To be honest with you, this blogpost is mainly happening because I didn't have any idea for a quick blogpost until like two hours ago because I was stressing over my maths exam that is happening on Tuesday. I nearly threw a fun quiz at you, but I had to realize that that can actually be slightly time consuming as well, so here we are. Let's do a life update, since I haven't done one of these in a while, because I have somehow stopped doing a monthly chat about what happened that month. Would you like me to start doing them again or would you rather just get a life update post every few months? Let me know. This blog is yours just as much as it is mine.

Writing

Writing wise, you could say it's been going pretty well. Some of you might remember that I have been working on a new novel since NaNoWriMo in November last year, and I can finally tell you that I finished the first draft! I finished it just a day after Valentine's Day, and I am so happy about it. It was a long process, but I am still not even close to the end. I managed to write way more than my 5,000 words each week, but now it's time to edit. To be honest, I have written about 7 or 8 proper novels in my life, but I have never edited one of them. Not that I didn't want to, but to me changing things about this beautiful (well kind of) piece of art just hurts and I keep putting it off. I already have some notes on things I want to change, but it took me until last night that I finally sat down and wrote something of the second draft. Let's hope I'll actually get my shit together and polish this beauty until it's perfect.

School

After having a slightly less school loaded time since the end of January we are now back to exam season, meaning that there's pretty much no week except for the Easter break that I am not going to spend studying for exams. That's annoying, but I know that in the end it'll be worth it. I will be more than glad when Maths is over until May once Tuesday is over. I'm going to fight through it, because I am looking forward to June so much, and I cannot wait to get out of there and do something different.

We're actually doing an internship during that time to have one last chance to get a feeling for what we want to do after our A-levels whilst we're still in school. Mine is actually a very exiting type of internship, and I am already so exited to finally tell you about it once we're a little bit closer to it, because you will definitely see a lot of and about it on my blog when it's happening. 😊

Exiting events in the future

Apart from that internship, I've got a whole other load of exiting events happening this year, which I am definitely going to share with you on my blog, because why not? Next month my internet bestie is visiting me and we are definitely going to have a lot of fun, I am sure of that. I'm also going to a Shawn Mendes concert with another friend, and I am sooo exited for that! It's going to be such a fun day, even if he'll just be a very tiny figure at the other end of the room. In the end the whole experience counts, not in how much detail I was able to see his hair. 😃 Me and my fam have also treated us to a Greece trip in the Summer break, and I am sooo ready to go there! I've always wanted to go to Greece, and somehow I actually managed to persuade them to go there - yaaaas!

Reading

I gave myself the goal to read 40 books this year, even though I know it's going to be busy as hell, especially towards the second half. So far it's going really well. I've read 11 books so far, and currently working on adding a 12th one to the list, with another one on my shelf waiting to be read. I'm also focusing on trying to do some wider reading right now, in case I somehow have a chance to actually apply and get into my dream uni, studying my dream course in Glasgow, and it's actually kind of exiting me in some way. I really want to spend so much more time reading this year, so if you have any suggestions, make sure to let me know, because I often get stuck on deciding what to read next! 😊

Future Plans

Talking about wider reading, it was also one of my New Year's Resolutions to finally figure out what I want to do after my A-levels. Well, that train actually started rolling a lot quicker than I thought, but I spend a lot of time googling and thinking, especially in January. I had been very indecisive the months before that between the areas I would like to work in, but for the past three months I feel like I might actually finally have found a plan. On the other hand, googling also made me throw the hole plan of the future around. I had actually been planning on doing a gap year as an Au-Pair in England for a few years, but now, I am considering different things.

I have actually found my dream uni course at the University of Strathclyde, pretty much the one I have always been joking about being the perfect one if that ever existed, never coming to mind that it actually might be an actual thing. The course is called 'English & Journalism & Creative Writing' and pretty much combines everything that I want from my dream course.

The only problem with that is that the Uni is in Glasgow, and both finances and Brexit might crash all of my dreams of ever going there. Winning around 6,000€ in the lottery would actually be very helpful with that haha. Not going to happen though, is it.. I'm still trying to find a scholarship for it that would offer me at least a small amount of money for all of the fours years of studying it, instead of just one of them. Otherwise, I don't know how I can make it possible before Brexit rises the yearly course price from 1,800 to 14,000₤ per year. The smallest problem for me right now is actually the application process, which is a lot more time consuming

and difficult than in Germany.

Pray for me that I can somehow make this happen. I would absolutely give up my gap year for my dream course, that's how much I want it. If it won't happen, I am now actually considering maybe doing just half a year of Au-Pair and another half doing Work&Travel or something similar. I might do a longer chat about this whole situation in the future, if you were interested in that? Also, what are your plans for the future if you're still in school? Do you know exactly what you want to do yet, or are you still trying to figure it out?

Fitness & Health

I've had my ups and downs with fitness so far, as I am pretty bored of all the free programs and videos I have tried, but for now I think I have found my current go-to workout. I'm doing a 12 week plan in the Nike + Training app, and so far I am quite enjoying it, although I am sometimes struggling to find the time for it before exams. Eating wise, it could be worse but it could also be better. I am cutting out chocolate until Easter unless I am able to get my hands on a piece of nice cake from time to time, which is a way of stopping me from eating so much of my favourite muesli, which is not only filled with chocolate, but also a huge amount of sugar. I don't really feel like I am seeing many results right now, but that's okay. I ate a lot of shit when I was ill a few weeks ago, but sometimes you just need to let go of the whole health ban and treat yourself.

To end this blogpost, here are some other impressions from the first three months of the year.