Epsilonte keeps on surviving

[Epsilonte]

Hi all!

 

Since I really enjoyed my last challenge, I want to keep doing what I was doing there. Which is: surviving school.  I have three exams and three group projects (that I know of xD) to do/finish until the holidays, so I better keep slaying it.

 

So my main goals are:

1. Food: don't just eat chocolate, also eat something real from time to time. I'm doing rather good here since we introduced the "Tattoo jar", where we (that is: the mister = my boyfriend, and I) each day put the money we would have used to buy sweets but didn't. (So: if any sweets are bought - no money. If no sweets are bought: put something in there). In a year or so we want to take the jars (we each have our own :D) and get some new sweet tattoos with the money.  

2. Sleep: is essential, especially if the rest of the day consists of studying. My bedtime is 23:30 at the latest, and I get up at 6:15 at the earliest, so the goal is to sleep more than that.  

3. Relaxation: that means: taking a walk, doing some stretches or dancing, every single day. I'm taking part in another challenge right now (starting tomorrow), where we do one stretching video (different body parts) a day for 30 days, so that should be doable.  If I skip a day, I still can save it by taking a walk. Best case: doing both. Plus I have some dance classes (online) every Monday and every second Thursday.  

4. Bonus: Whatever the mystery challenge is, I hope I can do it...  

 

Now I'm off to take that walk of the day!! (already did one in the morning - had to run some errands and decided to to part of the way per pedes, but the mister needs his walkies too, so we are doing another round ) 

[Manarelle]

Following again! Do you get a break between semesters for school, or just go at it til you drop or graduate? 

[Mad Hatter]

Here!

[JuiceeTarget]

Following for your brand of positive energy

[juliebarkley]

11 hours ago, GoodDoug said:

Following for your brand of positive energy

What he said.

[WhiteGhost]

Here for all of the chocolate!

 

Wait, I mean here for none of the chocolate  

[Epsilonte]

Wheeee, so happy to have you here @Manarelle, @Mad Hatter, @GoodDoug, @juliebarkley, @WhiteGhost

 

20 hours ago, Manarelle said:

Following again! Do you get a break between semesters for school, or just go at it til you drop or graduate? 

 

Till we drop dead or are finished.  Nah, we do have some breaks, like 2 weeks for Christmas (that will be used to practice, since there will be another 5 exams in January... we have a lot of different subjects xD) and one week in February between the semesters (This will be two weeks if I manage to pass all exams on first try, but I think that should be doable. ) and one week for easter. Also we have 5 weeks in summer, but this (well next  2021) year three of those will be spent doing an internship in a hospital. As far as I know next (2022) year as well...  But it's only three years, will be doable.  

It is a lot more strict and a lot less holidays than "real" university was, that's why it's a "school", not a university, even though the title I get will still be a BSc (Bachelor of Science in Health Studies). (Though I am a bit confused now how to properly translate it... xD In German it's "FachhochSCHULE", so a "school", but in english on their website, they write "university of applied science"... But it's totally not a university in the traditional sense, since we don't get to choose subjects and do nothing all day. xD Hmmm college maybe?)

 

16 hours ago, GoodDoug said:

Following for your brand of positive energy

 

Awwww! That's my superpower. 😎 

 

11 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

Here for all of the chocolate!

 

Wait, I mean here for none of the chocolate  

 

You can have all the chocolate I don't eat, if you want.

 

 

 

 

Week 0, Days 1 and 2:

Monday: I think I might have overdone it a bit - two walks, one hour of stretching, three hours of bellydancing classes... Afterwards I took a bath and then collapsed on the bed. Slept heavenly.  

Since I only had a brief online class, I spent the rest of the day studying muscles and nerves. It's like learning a completely new language (well, latin. xD), nothing makes sense and it's all studying the vocabulary... But I need to really get behind this now, this will be a big part of the big anatomy exam on December 23rd, and it's just so much! I have flashcards (real life ones and anki cards), those help a lot. 

 

Tuesday: Since I went to bed early and slept well, I got up at 6:20, did my stretches in the morning and was still early to real life class at 8:45. 😎 I even managed to do most of my daily Anki cards during my commute. Feels good!!  (Mind you, I'm not a morning person usually xD)

Today's class was one of my favourites, "Posture and movement analysis". I'm always very happy when we can do this one live instead of online, since it's soooo much better live.  Now I can't stop looking at the posture of people I see outside... ^^

The next four hours will be spent learning pathology (exam this Friday, but I'm pretty confident about this one, I just want to re-read everything again to be sure ) and more muscles... And then we will take a walk. ❤️ And then... I'll totally watch at least one episode of Assassins Creed Valhalla.  

[Mad Hatter]

Vocational college perhaps?

[Epsilonte]

Hmmmm good idea, but not quite. I think the biggest difference there is that for a vocational college here you don't need "A levels", since it's part of the normal school system (so: most people there are around 15-19 years old). For the FH you need to already have finished "normal" school, so most people are 19+ (in my peer group I'm the oldest with 32, but we do have a lot of people in their mid to late twenties who already have a whole different degree done ). I tried to find a better translation with my good old friend Wikipedia (always good for such special translations), but it's not much help in this case. xD So vocational colleges in Austria are secondary education, Fachhochschule is tertiary education (thanks wikipedia).

So it's kinda like university, but feels a lot different.  

[Mad Hatter]

Ah ok, I'd probably call it vocational university then but it's not a common term, the naming seems to be very specific to each country.  But I guess it doesn't really matter as long as you're enjoying it and you get your paper in the end!  

[MezzotheLefty]

I'm glad to see you're still here! 😀 Following along and wishing you success with school. Sounds like a lot in a short time.

[Epsilonte]

16 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Ah ok, I'd probably call it vocational university then but it's not a common term, the naming seems to be very specific to each country.  But I guess it doesn't really matter as long as you're enjoying it and you get your paper in the end!  

 

Vocational university makes a lot of sense.  

Oh yes, I'm loving it, even though some parts are a bit more cumbersome than others... xD (All those group projects... aaaah! xD)

 

5 hours ago, MezzotheLefty said:

I'm glad to see you're still here! 😀 Following along and wishing you success with school. Sounds like a lot in a short time.

 

Oh Mezzo, nice to see you here!!  Thank you!!  How are you doing?

 

 

 

Not much news since yesterday, since not much time passed.  

I didn't sleep too well this night, barely got out of bed over an hour later than planned (doesn't matter too much, I only have classes in the afternoon today) and amost forced myself to do today's stretching video. Now I feel a bit better and more awake, moving always helps.  

Totally not procrastinating by reading the forums...  

[Manarelle]

10 hours ago, Epsilonte said:

Totally not procrastinating by reading the forums...  

 

Totally not. Just being... thorough. Because, ya know, so many new people to check out. 

[PaulG]

Here for the positive energy! (And sleep-related moral support.)

[Epsilonte]

19 hours ago, Manarelle said:

Totally not. Just being... thorough. Because, ya know, so many new people to check out. 

 

Yess! That's it.  

 

11 hours ago, PaulG said:

Here for the positive energy! (And sleep-related moral support.)

 

Welcome and... good night?  

 

Week 0, Days 3 and 4:

Wednesday: After the wonky morning (with not sleeping to well and stuff) I had a great afternoon at school. Usually when we have real life classes, we have only one subject for 3-4 hours at a time (with a little break in between and quite a few minibreaks for opening the windows), which can be tiring at times. Yesterday it somehow wasn't, I greatly enjoyed myself and had a lot more energy afterwards in the evening.  So I stayed up a bit past my bedtime and watched... not youtube. Not netflix. My good night story was a lecture in pathology. xD 

 

Thursday: Got up at a reasonable time to be at school for morning classes. First thing I see in the morning? Fresh snow.   First snow of this season. Which is always great in the city, since most people forget how to drive when it snows... Even my beloved train had some trouble (mind you, there are mayyyybe 1-2 inches of snow, not more xD), but I was lucky, I still got to school on time (only 10 minutes later than planned, and since I like to err on the side of being too early it was fine   ). Today we did medical massage, one of my favourite subjects.

On my way home I wasn't so lucky, since the train still had trouble I had to take an alternate route. Which took of course some more time... But on the upside, with this route I had to walk the last bit, so I did my daily walk in the fresh snow, that was nice.  

Then more school (online), afterwards I went grocery shopping and I'm soooo proud... Before I went out I decided "if they have the cookies I like so much, I'll buy them" (they didn't have that special brand of cookies the last few times I was there)... Of course today there were tons and tons of cookies... But in the end I didn't buy any, since standing there in the shop I didn't really want them anymore. I call that progress.  

Now I'll do my daily stretching (wanted to do the video between my two school blocks, but the train stuff took too much time of my lunch break.), then I'll take a last little look over my pathology stuff for tomorrow's exam and then I will chill, maybe go for another walk with the mister and generally enjoy the evening.  

 

*sigh* Ones life is super exciting if the most important event of the day is not buying cookies.   

[JuiceeTarget]

2 hours ago, Epsilonte said:

*sigh* Ones life is super exciting if the most important event of the day is not buying cookies.   

That's a solid win and therefore cause for excitement!

[Epsilonte]

On 12/3/2020 at 7:08 PM, GoodDoug said:

That's a solid win and therefore cause for excitement!

 

Hmmm maybe I should get some cookies to celebrate...  

 

 

 

Friday:

Got up early, did my stretching, then had my text. It went pretty well (getting up early instead of sleeping in really helps there. The brain needs some time for waking up. xD) 

Afterwards we had another zoom meeting, I used the time in between the test and the meeting for some vacuuming to get rid of all the adrenaline. xD Later I decided to celebrate by cooking a nice lunch (Goulash.  My mother's recipe, I'm not a big cook but this stuff basically cooks itself - it needs to simmer for about two hours). Tuned out pretty tasty as well.  

Then I tried to do some stuff for school, but needed a break and spent a lovely afternoon with youtube.  After-exam-days are always a bit slower than normal days. But I think that is fine.  So yesterday was all about household tasks and winding down. I did massage the mister later in the evening... That counts as school stuff.  

 

Rest of the weekend will probably (hopefully) be spent studying muscles, nerves and joints (yep, still not finished with this stuff... It's a lot. ^^) and maybe some more cooking, I start to really enjoy cooking. xD 

But first - another round of stretching!  

 

Have a nice weekend, my friends!  

[WhiteGhost]

5 hours ago, Epsilonte said:

Goulash

Oh man, I haven't had goulash for decades.  I think the last time I had it was when I still living at home back in the late 80s.  I should see if I can find a good recipe for that

[Manarelle]

14 hours ago, Epsilonte said:

I did massage the mister later in the evening... That counts as school stuff.  

 

And I'm sure he was TOTALLY fine with being a test subject.  How do you think you did on the exam? 

[MezzotheLefty]

 

On 12/5/2020 at 4:40 AM, Epsilonte said:

 

Friday:

Got up early, did my stretching, then had my text. It went pretty well (getting up early instead of sleeping in really helps there. The brain needs some time for waking up. xD) 

Afterwards we had another zoom meeting, I used the time in between the test and the meeting for some vacuuming to get rid of all the adrenaline. xD Later I decided to celebrate by cooking a nice lunch (Goulash.  My mother's recipe, I'm not a big cook but this stuff basically cooks itself - it needs to simmer for about two hours). Tuned out pretty tasty as well.  

Then I tried to do some stuff for school, but needed a break and spent a lovely afternoon with youtube.  After-exam-days are always a bit slower than normal days. But I think that is fine.  So yesterday was all about household tasks and winding down. I did massage the mister later in the evening... That counts as school stuff.  

 

Rest of the weekend will probably (hopefully) be spent studying muscles, nerves and joints (yep, still not finished with this stuff... It's a lot. ^^) and maybe some more cooking, I start to really enjoy cooking. xD 

But first - another round of stretching!  

 

Have a nice weekend, my friends!  

 

Sounds like a very productive Friday to me! Cooking and massage? I'm sure the mister is very happy.

 

Good luck with the studying. I hope it's been a fantastic weekend!!

 

PS I'm back on this challenge. wrote an update there... Lots happened and I've finally got a little time to come back. Can't wait to start 2021 on a positive note!

[Epsilonte]

On 12/5/2020 at 4:57 PM, WhiteGhost said:

Oh man, I haven't had goulash for decades.  I think the last time I had it was when I still living at home back in the late 80s.  I should see if I can find a good recipe for that

 

Yesssss, do it!  Super easy to make and it tastes great. And it's also great for freezing it and always having something to eat at home.  Hmmm I can see if I can translate my recipe, if I find the time.  

 

On 12/6/2020 at 2:06 AM, Manarelle said:

And I'm sure he was TOTALLY fine with being a test subject.  How do you think you did on the exam? 

 

Haha, he really needed it. Poor guy is a bit stressed out with his job right now... 

Ah, it was quite easy for an exam. I'd be surprised if it's anything other than an A.  I'm a lot better with the subjects where you can learn by understanding something rather than memorizing some disconnected stuff (looking at you, anatomy! ). 

 

17 hours ago, MezzotheLefty said:

PS I'm back on this challenge. wrote an update there... Lots happened and I've finally got a little time to come back. Can't wait to start 2021 on a positive note!

 

Thank you!! 

Yes, I found you, I'm glad you are back! Can't wait to read how your december goes.  

 

 

 

 

Weekend:

Oh my, such a slow weekend. xD I was super tired and unmotivated. So all I did was a bit of stretching, one bigger walk and not much more... I did study a little bit yesterday evening, but by far not as much as I wanted to and had planned to. Oops. Well, I still have some time for this, so I think overall it will be fine.  

 

Monday:

Today was MUCH more productive. 

Got up early again, did my stretching, then went to get corona tested (my city is doing free tests for everyone who wants to right now, and since I have to leave the house severals days a week for school, I just wanted to see if everything is alright). All good.  Was very nice as well since I ran into my best friend there, who I haven't seen in weeks... Afterwards we decided to take a walk together, it was really nice.

Then I went shopping and got TONS of chocolate... Not for me though (mostly xD ), almost all of it is intended for my family... Since I can't visit them this year (my first time not spending christmas at home. Feels... strange.), I plan to send a little care package with their favourite treats. And I got some sweets for tomorrow - pen and paper night! It's a holiday here tomorrow, so we have some spare time and it's been over a month now since our last session. Very much looking forward to this, and not just because I'm getting some sugar there...  

I also plan to bake some cookies, since I don't get any from my mom this year... (at least one of my brothers is also living in my city, we plan to have a little christmas celebration together, but it still feels very weird. 😕 Ah well, with a bit of luck I can go home in February for a few days. Then I can quarantine before going and everything will be fine. I hope.  Haven't seen my family since christmas last year).  I never baked cookies on my own before, so we will see how this goes.  I'll keep you posted. 

The afternoon was spent at school, or rather at the anatomy lab where we had a few hours of free study time with anatomical specimens, really really helpful! And I'm smelling rather delightful of formaldehyde right now. xD Ah well, better get used to it, we will spend the remaining week there.  But it helps so much to actually hold the thing you are learning about in your hands instead of just looking at pictures all the time. 

Now I'm quite tired already, but bellydancing class will start in a few minutes. I hope I can do this today.  

[raptron]

55 minutes ago, Epsilonte said:

 Haven't seen my family since christmas last year).  I never baked cookies on my own before, so we will see how this goes.  I'll keep you posted. 

Aw, good luck! They're super fun to make and I bet you'll kill it.

 

I'm also staying put this xmas and sending my family treats. I'm planning on doing cookie boxes myself.

 

Yay for anatomy lab! Sounds exciting.

[WhiteGhost]

10 hours ago, Epsilonte said:

And I'm smelling rather delightful of formaldehyde right now.

My mom worked in the biology department of our local university and her office always smelled of formaldehyde

[Mad Hatter]

23 hours ago, Epsilonte said:

Since I can't visit them this year (my first time not spending christmas at home. Feels... strange.), I plan to send a little care package with their favourite treats.

That's really sweet. 🙂

 

22 hours ago, raptron said:

I'm also staying put this xmas and sending my family treats. I'm planning on doing cookie boxes myself.

I must now know, is this a box of cookies or a box made of cookies? 🤔

[raptron]

10 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

I must now know, is this a box of cookies or a box made of cookies? 🤔

Haha, I am not a 1 woman Great British Bake Off! Though they did make it look very cute when they did it: