It is 15th February as I’m writing this and I feel like I can finally get going with my plans for 2023. I’ve had a rough start to the year.
The thing is, it started alright. I had a week off after new years. Then Dennis and I went to Prague to celebrate two years together and for me to do some research for Project Codex.
But then uni started and as much as I’ve missed going back to uni, we started with the worst possible module: Linguistics 2A. I’ve not missed linguistics at all. It’s covers seven subjects (semantics, syntax, phonetics and phonology, pragmatics, morphology, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis) in four weeks. It’s dense. It’s daunting. And exhausting.
It’s all about understanding and memorising, and nothing about writing. Basically, it’s not literature.
All of this was based on knowledge that we learnt in the past term, and while that was two or three months ago for most people (autumn 2022), I did it the autumn before that and couldn’t remember the stuff I’d learnt over a year ago. It was like walking uphill for four weeks without oxygen.
Needless to say, my writing suffered. I hardly managed to get my daily life together under the stress and anxiety. I had neither time nor energy to write and it was awful. I didn’t post anything on the blog or on social media. I didn’t knit or sew. I hardly read anything for joy and had to put beta reading on pause. Lizzie and I even cancelled the recording of a podcast episode for The Writing Vikings cause I needed to prioritise sleep.
But the exam was yesterday and I think (fingers crossed) that I passed with a decent grade. I can finally move on with my life.
Which means I’m opening up my PowerSheets and my bullet journal and looking over the goals I set back in December. Half this month disappeared, but there is time and I’m looking forward to living life a bit more on my terms.
It’s exciting to be back!