Saturday 17 July 2021

down the rabbit hole


Dear friends,

It's good to see you again! I have been very absent from bloggertown. My focus shifted to finishing my bachelor at university after you last saw me appear on bloglovin', or in your comment sections. Now that I am nearing the end of this period, I wanted to reflect as well as look forward. Giving you another glance into my life. Hopefully, an interesting one. 

Honestly, looking back on the past half year is difficult. It feels like a big blur of events. It helps to focus on an aspect of my life, to clearly see what happened. There was so much of nothing, but also a lot of everything at once. That's the best way of describing it. I feel like I've been running and at the same time I've been standing still. Of not knowing where to go and finding out how to listen to my gut. 

For now, I will center around the big part of my life that is school, a part that influences me and my days the most. After I finished my bachelor thesis back in February, I got in a whirlwind of arranging my future. In that last semester at Utrecht University, I studied at the University of East Anglia. 'How?' you might ask. Yes, it was very much in covid-times. I didn't actually go there. I wasn't allowed to travel abroad and physically study there, so I followed my classes online. My laptop functioning as a window to the ~magical~ land across the sea. 

It was both amazing and terrible. It was everything it shouldn't have been, nothing like I imagined. Still, in the state the world was and is in, it was pretty amazing that I got to do these courses, albeit from home. I learned about Jane Austen and the Brönte sisters, and about scriptwriting. I enjoyed it and was lucky enough to also follow courses at my home university in Utrecht as well. We even had some in-person classes and moments together with group mates because it was a very hands-on and practical course. We learned how to prepare for and carry out a short film and documentary, which was really cool. 

In the second half of the last semester I followed Creative Writing and the courses in England came to an end quite quickly in those weeks. I loved Creative Writing. I love writing. And I think part of me coming back here is due to this course. I want to keep writing and keep sharing what I write. I might even show you some more fictional pieces of writing. For some reason I was really into Sirens and Greek mythology during the course, so that's what the writing is about. 

Learning to listen to my gut has also been a pretty big part of the past year. Especially with making choices about my future. My idea was always to take a gap year in-between my bachelor and master, but in the way things turned out this wasn't the ideal option anymore. I had to shift my pretty steadfast expectations. 

In the time I had, I looked up my new options. They were also very exciting ones and I have the privilege of still having so many options before me. Ultimately I wanted to choose between a master in Amsterdam and one in Groningen. Choosing Groningen would mean I had to move away from my parental home. A few years ago, maybe even a year ago, I would've been frightened by this idea. But there was this itch, this longing for something new. Something different. A new scenery, one where I could discover more about life and about me in it. It felt like an opportunity to be active, play an active role in a life that felt so passive during this crisis. To go down the rabbit hole and discover my Wonderland.

And so, you might've guessed it, I chose to study at the University of Groningen. I wanted to be Alice and follow this white rabbit, this feeling in my stomach. 

And I want to take you with me where I can. 

Love, Eva


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