I would apologise and say that I’m sorry I’ve been posting very sporadically on here – but I doubt anyone is really expecting anything from me at this point…

Recently though, I’ve actually wanted to restart this blog for many reasons, but I’ll elaborate in my next post about my reasons to continue blogging. For now, I’ll just update you on what I’ve been up to for the past few years!

University – Pretty Much Sums It Up

So as many of you will know from a few of my previous posts (like this one from 2019), I go to uni in Oxford. It’s a lot of work, as I expected; some of it I’ve enjoyed, some of it not so much. I’d say that is probably true for everyone though! But thanks to the workload and my tendency to fill up my time with all the opportunities available here, I’ve had no time to blog.

As I also wrote in that post from 2019, I’ve found some truly amazing friends who I can talk to about anything. It helps that my best girl friends and I have lived in the same building as each other since 1st year, so they are never very far away. I spent a lot of time with them, instead of writing for this blog.

This will change next year though, when they graduate and I’m still in Oxford for my integrated Master’s. I have so many thoughts about this – but I’ll cover this in a future post. For the time being, I’m maximising the time I can spend with them, before they head off to their jobs after uni.

As well as all the work, there are so many other opportunities at uni that I’ve taken advantage of. I’ve continued my violin-playing as part of an orchestra, but I’ve not found many opportunities to play the piano. Last year, I started a string quartet at my college, but I’ve not found the time this year to continue.

I have also picked up table tennis again after a break of 7 years, and I’ve found that I really enjoy it. I still play a bit of football, but less so this year because the matches always clashed with table tennis – and I also go to Strength and Conditioning gym sessions as part of the table tennis team training.

Last term I went back to chess after not playing for 5 years – I went to China to represent Oxford! That deserves a whole blog post to itself. Since then, I’ve picked up badminton this term – lots of my friends also play, and they’re always a laugh!

Life

As I’m coming towards the later years of my degree, I’ve had to give more thought towards what is coming for me in the ‘real world’. What will I do when I graduate? Where will I live? What kind of company do I want to work for? What skills do I want to develop? How much will I earn? What strengths do I have? All of these questions haunt me every time I’m looking for an internship or a work experience, but they loom over me when I think about what career I want to go into.

I’ve put a lot of thought and research into different careers and companies – going to careers fairs, work experiences, internships – as well as developing other useful skills like CV writing, giving presentations, practising psychometric tests, building other transferable skills like leadership and teamwork. Of course, all of these take time, so again my blog has fallen to the wayside.

Then I have all the other things I have to worry about as an almost-independent adult – doing my laundry, making sure I know where my next meal is coming from, being responsible for my strength and health. Many days I just come back to my room, shower, collapse in my bed and sleep.

I don’t regret anything I’ve done over the past 3 years: it’s all helped to develop me into who I am now and helped me realise what I want out of life.

At this stage in my personal development, I think that returning to this blog will help me. It’s also nearing a transitional period in my life – just like when I first started this blog, I was doing IB and thinking about uni – so it feels right to come back now.

This definitely won’t be the last you’ll hear from me! Look forward to my post next week where I’ll go more into detail about why exactly I’m coming back to blogging.

Until then!

Jess