Hey everyone! It’s been forever since I’ve done a life update post, especially since I started doing “The Sunday Post” where I just talked about the past week’s events.

Warning: this post will probably be highly unstructured and is simply like a sit down talk. I’m really in the mood for something casual right now, and don’t feel like drafting it and revising it etc., so yeah.

First, what’s up with my blogging schedule?

I was keeping to my blogging schedule of posting blog posts three times a week for quite a long time. Probably months.

And then fifth semester of college hit me like a truck.

I kid you not, I have no clue what I did this semester and I have no idea why my time management SUCKED SO BAD. I didn’t even really use my bullet journal this time.

I’m so behind on my actual planning that I haven’t even set up my December set up yet. And my setup consists of two spreads only! The carefully curated schedule that I had which managed college, blogging and Instagram crumbled after a mere month into 5th sem.

Now I also really want to rant about this semester

To be honest, 5th sem started off wonky. I was doing an internship which overlapped the first 10 days of college. Hence I missed the first 10 days of classes in August, which immediately put me behind in basics of the subjects.

Then started the chaos of mini projects. I will tell you this, this semester has given so much BT. We did a mini project last semester and the problem statement was our choice. We had to do the same this time as well so all of us tried to pick good ones, especially since we needed to log in at least 20 days of work.

I went a little bit ambitious and took a project that uses Machine Learning. I took it because I started an online course on ML so I figured I can learn and apply it immediately.

And then. We got the news that we had to pick ANOTHER project. By this point we lost our shit.

Turns out the second mini project is actually required by the university as part of syllabus, and we weren’t explained to properly, so all of us boycotted and didn’t choose projects for it.

Only after we realized that it’s the one that’s important did we register with our problem statements and took it seriously. Of course, it also meant that a lot of people did not give a shit about the other mini project then.

It’s hard enough managing assignments, classes, extra-curriculars along with one mini project. We wouldn’t get any sleep if we did two.

But guESS WHAT. I ended up doing both. Which is why my schedule went into shambles.

Side note: this post is taking way too long to write because I’m on discord with my friends jamming to music and this is so nice (: 

Okay yeah so, back to the point, I WAS STRESSED ALL SEMESTER. I have no clue how I managed all my subjects plus everything but I did. Which is why my blogging and Instagram slipped, blogging more than Instagram.

This hectic schedule pushed me to finally go themeless on my Instagram and I have to say, I’m having fun with it. I’m posting pictures taken outside, playing around with filters and scenes etc., so at least that’s a good turn.

My reading took a big hit as well so that’s sad. I got into a book slump which honestly didn’t make me upset because I didn’t have time to read/try to read? Yeah well anyway I had to lower my reading challenge of the year to 125 from 150 because I didn’t think I’d make it. 

But on the good side..

This semester went pretty well too!

In terms of me socializing I was MUCH BETTER. I went to a book fair with two people whom I don’t really talk to in real life, I got along better with new people in group settings AND I managed to stay for over 24 hours in an event without losing my shit.

It doesn’t mean that I was completely fine in all settings, but I was better. And that’s good.

I also went to Burn The Stage and managed to not be overwhelmed by all the ARMYs there who had gathered to do events pre-screening.

While I don’t feel that I accomplished much overall in this semester, I did do small things every single week. Enough to make me feel busy. It’s never been this way before so this busy feeling is new, and I welcome it up to a point. If I didn’t feel like going to any more outings, I had no qualms about declining even though I might sound rude so that’s worked out well. I made sure to take breaks when I felt way too overloaded with work as well.

I took so many mental health days, it shows how my semester was this time.

I also had MULTIPLE DAYS where I spent around 10 hours on my laptop, doing my projects, and it put a lot of strain on my eyes. Even with glasses to help with the strain, my eyes, which are already weak as it is, turned completely red for two days after the work.

This is going to be my life later if I get into a programming job, which I’m hoping for, so might as well get used to it. Sigh.

My sleep schedule doesn’t exist anymore

Like, seriously.

I used to have a problem with sleeping in the afternoon until last year. If I slept in the afternoon, I got a headache, so I never did.

But last sem I started sleeping in the afternoons, only very few times, and I needed it so much then that I didn’t get a headache later.

This semester, I’ve been sleeping in the afternoons SO MUCH. Naps are my life right now.

My sleep schedule is: I sleep when I want to.

I have huge dark circles now. They’re ever present. I need to learn to do make up but I’m also scared to try because I have a lot of skin allergies and who knows what will set off a bad reaction. #sadlife

It’s not only me who’s got their sleep schedule messed up though. All my friends have no such thing called sleep schedule anymore. Right now three others and I are listening to music and recommending GREAT songs to each other on Discord, and one of them has a final tomorrow. But this feels so good so he hasn’t slept yet lol, and it’s 12:45am. We’re just listening to music, sometimes talking and sometimes not.

One of the friends, who has the exam tomorrow, said that things like this will be what he’ll miss once we leave college. And I agree. Another told that we can still do this but realistically, all of us will be busy and will mostly not be able to do this. Not only that, we might also not be in the mood for the same music. In fact this is the first time we’re doing this.

Right now we’re in sync and this is GREAT. I don’t mind staying up all night and listening to music like this, blogging or reading a book with it. Things like this make me grateful that I found really good friends. I was so worried when I joined college, about whether I’d get friends I’ll get along with well. And in first year, I didn’t. I kept drifting between friends and groups. I had lost expectations to find good friends to stick with but in third sem, I made a few and then I made a few more.

Right now, I’m in a really good place where I actually text first and seek out conversation with them. And I feel lucky for this every day because I know what it’s like to not have friends and feel alone.

I have a feeling quite a few of the songs we’re listening to will make it into my “songs on repeat” post at end of this month. We’re listening to SO MANY GREAT SONGS. And I love that they’re loving the songs I’m recommending. It’s a great feeling when others love the things you recommend whether it’s books, movies, songs or anything else.

Speaking of me recommending..

I’ve got TWO people who don’t really read books to read this semester! One of them asked for a recommendation and I lent her Girl Against The Universe by Paula Stokes and she really liked it! I’ve given her The Hating Game by Sally Thorne now, which is one of my favourites of this year. Hopefully she finishes reading it soon before I find time to sell back books.

The other person is a friend I’m more close to than the previous person. She has borrowed a book from me before but she’s too busy in her life and doesn’t find the time to read. She gave the book back without reading a word. This was MONTHS back.

Recently, now that I’ve gotten into BTS as well, we’ve had many conversations about fans, influence, stardom etc. And for the first time it went really deep and we spoke for HOURS recently. Funnily enough it happened when we skipped the last of our labs because no one felt like attending.

So we were talking and I was drawing parallels between ARMYs and the fans of “The Arc” in the book I Was Born For This by Alice Osman. I had read the book when she and another friend first got into BTS and were totally obsessed with them, and I wasn’t. So I was telling her about all the similarities and she wanted to hear more so I ended up telling her the summary of the book.

She liked it so much that she asked me for the book because she wants to read it, and she’s hooked. She’s been loving the book so far and she’s less than 1/4th in because of her busy life. But I’ve seen a few of her annotations (and she has MANY) where she just marks things similar in real life with BTS and ARMY. I’m so proud seeing her reading a book finally.

Okay I think I’ll stop here.

It’s 1:13am, all of us are still on Discord and the songs have gone into ones with more chorus and raw emotion instead of the hard and fast beats that we started with. We might transition into sad and nostalgic songs if we don’t stop soon lol.

I’ve written 1.7k words wow. Too long. Better stop.

What’s new in your life? Are you stressing out or having fun with friends? Let me know in the comments!