reflections on 2018
so hereβs my annual recap. 2018 was an interesting year. it was a year of comfort and discomfort at the same time.
the year started out with a lot of snow. way more snow than London is used to. i woke up to tiny barely there snowflakes and trains would break down. i got snow days off of grad school. it was a beautiful nuisance.
my husbandβs visa application had issues so we were apart for 7 months. it wasnβt as bad as i thought it would be. i learned that iβm surprisingly okay by myself.
i made it through another graduate degree. it was tough. i felt imposter syndrome and burnt out. i wasnβt sleeping well for weeks. exams and deadlines gave me anxiety. talking to my professors, classmates, and the psychological services at uni did help eventually.
i enjoyed getting closer to grad school friends. despite the pressure, i enjoyed every bit of my degree. we had a couple fun field trips. i watched the country around me get excited over world cup and watched the football matches in random pubs with friends, sometimes getting home soaked in someoneβs beer.
shortly after husbandβs visa issues cleared, we packed everything we own and moved out of our lovely flat. it was bittersweet saying goodbye to London but after 3 years it was time to move on. we shipped most of our stuff back to Indonesia and went traveling.
Munchen was comfortable. Zagreb was memorable. Hallstaat was pretty. Salzburg was tidy. Venice was magical. Vienna was sophisticated. Prague was beautiful. Paris was fun.
we made it back to Indonesia and shortly after went to Japan to spend time with family for a month. then to Surabaya for a week with extended family.
i got a job as a GP. then husband fell ill. got admitted to the ICU for dengue hemorrhagic fever. we rang in New Years huddling in a hospital bed. suddenly the small stuff doesnβt matter anymore.
oh but what a year of memories.
iβm not sure what 2019 will bring. at this point i donβt have many plans for myself. but if thereβs one thing i took away from 2018 is that no matter what happens, iβll be okay. sometimes itβs hard to remember that.
















