This month, I’m a little late with exams, holidays and all that good stuff. My second semester (or trimester if you want to be more accurate) has just wrapped up. I’m about to go into a-four month long research internship – but I have two weeks off now, so I’ll give you a little “how it ended, what’s cracking and what’s about to start”, if you don’t mind.
The last three to four weeks leading up to the exams were a deep, dark tunnel of studying. The effort of the last seven months became visible and all of us were on our last strides. We finished the last of the many projects about two weeks before exams started, so there was hardly any room to breathe. The project work this semester was very good – I personally learned a lot from it – but together with Midterms and Finals, it amounted to a lot. Exams went mostly quick – we had one day of break before the last one that felt like an eternity because we just wanted to be done with it – and just like that, the teaching part of the first year of the Master’s came to an end.
Then came all the goodbyes: We threw a party at our house for us roommates to say goodbye to each other and to the flat, and to host our friends one last time. I said goodbye to many people that have grown dear to me – only a few are staying in Toulouse for their internship. The people closest to me are going into all kinds of directions, Belgium, South Africa, Costa Rica, the Philippines, you name it. Those goodbyes are very bittersweet. It’s sad not to see my friends for months, or in some cases even longer – but it’s amazing how many and how many good friendships have developed in such a short time. I’m truly grateful for that.
