Author: Liljumper

Yesterday I arrived in Munich at 7:20am. I had been up for over 24 hours, getting up before 7 the day before. I slept maybe an hour, rounding up, on the plane. I promptly came home and and slept from 9am to 2pm. I wanted to only take one REM sleep nap, but when I woke up I, almost, immediately went back to sleep. After getting up and unpacking and eating some pizza, I was tired again around 8 and went to sleep at 9pm. I woke up today around 11am, maybe a bit earlier, to shower and work.

I can’t even believe how much sleep I got, it just blows my mind and convinced me, until about an hour ago, that today is Sunday. It doesn’t help that today is also a holiday so it sounds/feels the same today as yesterday. Or that I spent most of the day sleeping…

I know I promised a post today, so here it is today! It definitely is not the best, nor deepest. I’m on sleep hangover basically. Between the jet lag and stress my body is just totally confused.

We’re hanging in there folks!

Hi everyone!

I haven’t been keeping up with my posts. I feel very sad about it, because I pride myself on the posts frequency, but I have been trying to enjoy my time here before I go off again! I will catch up on posts next week and schedule them for the next month! So don’t worry!

Expect a new, better, post from me next Monday!

Hope you’ve all been enjoying your time too!

I know I missed the post from Monday but I truly just didn’t have time to write one. I had only planned posts until the ceremony, thinking I would have time to write one Sunday. I was wrong. I thought I would have a lot more time to do things, but I didn’t. I don’t regret it, but it’s just the way things worked out.

On the actual day everything was fantastic and worked better than I even thought. It went without a hitch and it was electric to be surrounded by so many people. The turn out was fantastic and just being with everyone was a gift enough. It was even more beautiful to be able to share such a special moment with our loved ones.

I cannot even begin to thank everyone who came and helped. There were a huge amount of people who helped before and after and were crucial to the success. I’ve tried to express my thanks, and am still doing so!

Anyway, I think that’s it for now, now I’m dealing with all the things I must do now that it is post-ceremony!

I have officially defended my thesis! The process was nerve wracking, but more or less what I expected. I felt confident, I wrote the thesis and I know best what it contains. There is no one who is a better expert in it than I am.

I didn’t anticipate the questions (but I knew that would happen). They were questions he had about the thesis, but also ‘open issues’ that he had. These open issues were basically things he felt I could have put into the thesis and wondered my thoughts on them.

I had to resist the temptation to be too nervous and go crazy, by feeling confident in myself, my research, and my ability.

I am overall very pleased with the defense. Everything in relative terms my friends.

I’ve been trying to do some meditating each night before bed. I usually lie in bed at night before I sleep. This isn’t just to help me sleep, it is at these moments my brain is desperately telling me things I didn’t do and have to do. These are the fullest moments of my day and it is during this time I need to calm down and sort my thoughts out. These are the moments I need to help myself get to sleep by calming down my mind.

This article helped me so much and I’m finding it much easier already! Day 1 is when the meditation kicked in. I tried this technique and found it a lot easier to reach that moment of calm and still even if it is just for a second. Day 4 was so alien to me, I can get caught in my bad moments, but It is so important to remain positive and tell yourself you can still have a good day. The Day 14 concept of visualization is a cool thing I want to try, I haven’t yet. But I want to see how it goes and if it helps me.

Hopefully you read the article and see if any of this helps you!

I was reading a post on Upworthy and it detailed a list of things a woman learned on her wedding day (which is why I even clicked on the article). But I wanted to share it because I thought it was a great article.

• Cut people some slack. You never know what is going on in their lives and while it can be easy to pass judgement or be snappy. The important thing is to, when you can, cut them some slack.
• True compassion is suspending judgement. This is very similar to the first where it is important to give people some slack and help.
• Little acts of kindness are important. It’s not only to discount these small moments, but I choose to see it as give out these small moments of kindness. Be the person who helps someone pick their groceries up, or lets them into a lane.

And after that the article talks about things that are specially related to grief after someone’s passing. But these first three points were so poignant that I felt I had to share. Being a ‘better’ person isn’t about the big things, the money you donate, it’s about the everyday small gestures you make and the people’s lives you change.

I am leaving for my home today! I am leaving for my home today!

Is twice enough? Probably. There’s a whole bundle of things that go with this, wedding stress and what not. But it will be good to be home.

Getting married, celebrating, the white dress, everything is becoming more real now. Bring it on.

I have decided I am a type A person in no uncertain terms. I’ve thought that for a while ever since I was younger. I recently was reading an article by the Huffington Post about things that bother type A people. This only further confirmed my self-diagnosis. If you don’t want to read the article, I’ll summarize it here.

1. (Others) Being Late: I enjoy punctuality and if people ask to meet me somewhere at some time, I will be there and probably early. Case in point, I had to meet my friend at university to help print her thesis. She was going to be there at 8:50 which I deemed difficult before, but got myself up and there before then! She wasn’t there, but she was half an hour later, so around 9:20.
2. Losing Gracefully: It’s extremely hard for me to just take things ‘as a game’. It’s partly why I don’t enjoy playing high risk games or games which people take seriously. I can’t. So I’ve developed a mentality where I can play games and enjoy them. It’s not only with games, also races or competitions.
3. Go With the Flow: this is extremely hard for me. I have been trying more and more since I’ve grown older and it’s harder and harder. I find myself having less patience, more things I want to do. Sometimes I wonder, why try to make myself do this?
4. Untidy/Unruly Inbox: My inbox cannot have more than 50 emails in it. The less emails the better I feel and I have a strict filing system and process for going through emails.
5. Enjoying the Journey: This just compares being goal oriented and having the mentality of enjoying the journey. I have many goals, and my lack of goals now is particularly stressful. But I’ve been trying to enjoy the journey and the moment.
6. Leaving the Office Before the Work is Completed: I don’t work in an office, but I do resent it when people ‘check out’ for the day and I am left cleaning the kitchen or picking laundry up off the floor in my apartment. So I can only imagine what it would be like in an office.
7. A Mental To Do List: I have so many, it’s pretty stressful, but I can’t turn them off.
8. Messy Desks: Dislike them, but there can be organized chaos and that is okay.
9. Sitting Still: I can sit still, that’s fine.
10. Unorganized Closet: Again, can be organize chaos, but at some point it needs to be fixed. I also think my definition of organized chaos is very different than others.
11. “free time”: even in my non university now time I have to do lists everyday for normal things, like writing this blog post
12. Clearing the Mind: incredibly hard but I am working on this slowly
13. And another one that says you should embrace the type A

In short, it can be very anxiety prone and stressful to be the type A person I am. But also trying to ‘fix’ it is also very stressful and hard to do. I’ve tried to find a balance where I except the things I am and can’t change, and work on the things I can, when I can.

There are so many things to be stressed out about. And now me and the fiance have made a pact. If we’ve already talked about the stress, what is bothering us, we don’t want to bring it up. If it is something that comes up again we will just both say, I am stressed about this. And that’s it. It’s not healthy to dwell on the stress and sticks us both in a stress cycle of unhappiness and anxiety. So we’ve decided to just take the healthy road and emphasize with each other’s stress and be supportive. To move forwards, to do Yoga, to laugh some, to smile. To be able to focus together in a positive loop of positivity and helpfullness. That is the only way we will be able to get through this and life.

I know this is a small blog post, but when we came up with this idea, we were both so pleased with ourselves for thinking of this.

So you thought this thesis was over? Nope. There is the last part, the defense. I only get an email to have this once I have passed for certain. When this happens then I get an appointment to defend my work.

So is this mini ordeal over? nope, the public defense has just begun.

How do I feel about this? Am I stressed? As of now? No. I just want to defend it and be over with it, the sooner the better. I want to focus on the other things in my life that have taken the side burner now. I want to be able to move forwards with my life, to the weddings, to the rest of my life.

I feel resolutely finished with it. I want to defend my work, because I think it’s good and bring it on, but then I want it to be done. I need to know this so I can feel completed, resolved.