A Sort of Goodbye

It's been a while since I've revisited my old habit of writing my thoughts and experiences here.

Whether it's the busyness of the past two years, COVID, laziness and life leading me in a different direction: I've missed it.

I believe it's time to reflect on university, given that I graduated a month ago, and have become an official adult, and the fact that I'm moving on from this blog chapter of my life, and figuring out the next chapter in a different place on the internet.

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It is a struggle to find to words to write it out, to be transparent.

Two years, without reflecting, is a hefty time to get back into the habit of writing and expressing emotions online.

To start off with, I'm aiming not to pressure myself to squeeze the most content out of my brain right now, just letting it flow.

I'm not sure how many people have truly read my blog. Is it an empty shout into the void? Has it been an inspiration for those that have browsed past the novella of my life on this corner of the interweb? Or has the most important thing about this blog been the fact that I now have a poetic memory of my travels, existential thoughts and uni days?

I think the latter.

The past day that I've been planning to write something has put me in a mental state of slight disarray.

Am I too wordy now? Am I not wordy enough? Are my thoughts even meant to see the light of a computer screen?

If you've met me before, you know I overthink. And that's who I am :) I've come to accept it after long years trying to contradict it, to think I'm the only one that does it and the only one that thinks deep into unnecessary segways.

I think (think think think) that it's ok to be different. And it's ok to be the same as everyone else.

This blog has 10000000% been an outlet for me, especially when I was trying to find who I was, in a time and place that was an enormous growth period (being a young adult and at university).

I'm 22 now.

What a scary number.

And I've spent the 5 years out of high school as a uni student.

For many, it's the journey that counts, not the destination.

For me, it's been the destination.

I can't pinpoint the day I became disillusioned and disheartened with uni life, but it was somewhere in third year.

The first few years I really tried.

Tried to make friends, take leaps and bounds to become a 'social butterfly', to find friends for life. But it didn't happen.

I'd make the occasional course friend or two to rely on late night messages for class notes or homework advice.

Politely ask how they're going this week and complain about the horrible assignment we haven't yet started.

But meeting up out of class? Studying together? Going out for drinks?

Left as nothing but a fantasy in my mind.

It'll be better next semester, just be more social in the first few weeks! You're just not confident enough, try to make conversation! It's not them, it's you! What's wrong with you?

That cursed circle of social to antisocial truly plagued me for the first three years. In the third year it hit me, after exchange, that it was due to a multitude of reasons that I couldn't find friends that stuck.

Let me list them out:

1. Doing a double degree that mixes three (four with a diploma) different fields, that I'm not passionate about

2. The melange of students that I meet while doing subjects literally and figuratively across the entire campus

3. That I rarely see the same people in my class semester in and out

4. Some people don't want more friends

Where I was searching for my lifelong pals that would go through thick and thin with me, everyone I met was content where they were, who they were with and what they were doing.

It just makes it that much harder to make friends.

But wait, I hear you, I am totally blaming anyone else but me.

I get that, I have a lot of work to do on myself (and it's ongoing).

I should've been more social, more smiley, more talkative, more friendly.

I have a resting face that could kill. I admit.

I've dwelled on it a lot as you can already tell, so my faults are clear to me, I just don't want to rant any more about what I should've/could've/would've.

It's getting late now; my thoughts jumbled.

What are my final words about uni?

I'm glad I'm done; I'm still yearning to learn more; I'm still yearning for more friends; but at least I have closure for this part of my life.

So long UQ. I don't think I'll ever be back.

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It's been interesting writing my thoughts out onto a white screen again.

It feels more like a journal entry this time. But at least it has a heaping of honesty.

With this, I say goodbye to this brooding chapter of my life.

Thoughts, doubts, feelings and emotions: I'll always have them with me in my head. Never to part with.

But my next chapter, as I turn the invisible pages of my life, I wish it to be exciting, daring, productive, passionate and carefree.

To find myself, I need to let go of old habits, things and experiences.

I'm leaving this blog as a time capsule of who I have been the past few years.

I hope to revisit you when I'm older and wiser.

With many more of life's adventures under my belt.

So long, and farewell.

(don't forget to write <3)