#gayengineertobe

Take breaks. For real. And don’t spend them at your desk on your phone, actually go outside for five to ten minutes, get some air. You’ll feel less exhausted after. 

Find something to reward yourself with as a longer break, I personally go running for half an hour every other day to get my mind of things. It keeps me calm and gives me something to look forward to.

Drink water, screw energy drinks they’ll make you dependent on them and can cause you to crash during the actual exam. Water or tea (or a limited amount of coffee) will allow you to be hydrated and functioning without making you ignore what your body needs.

Which brings me to: get your rest, don’t think all-nighters are the solution, because they are not. Only if you have an amazing short term memory and the course is purely knowledge than you might be able to pull off one, but the second you need to have skills more than knowledge, an awake mind will get you a lot farther than having read every chapter again while you were half asleep. 

Stop listening to other people you are in class with when it comes to their study schedules, please, everyone has other schedules.

Exactly 23 nights left before I officially start my studies. 

Until I am a civil engineering student at the Catholic (see this is a great match for an atheist lesbian, but let’s set that aside for now) university of Leuven. 

I know four people that will start alongside me.

So far I’m not nervous. I am however excited for my living arrangements (in a student residence near campus but completely free from obligations outside of courses) and I am looking forward to the classes and the new social circle I’ll find myself in.

I still have a while left before I actually start, I’m going on two trips before that (NYC and Venice, pretty fucking cool), but it’s nearing quickly. 

I’m not entirely sure that I’m ready.

That’s why I’m doing this, writing this blog, to have somewhere to write down my life and have it be open to others. If I won’t have something like this, I’ll probably freak out more than would be healthy.

So here, this is day one of unknown. 

So I have feelings for three different people...

Well I am dating one person who I like and have beginning feelings for, I have one friend who I think might like a little more than would be cosidered friendly (and it's pretty mutual that way) and then there's my ex who I still see regularly and am not entirely over.

It's all complicated and this time is a weird to interpret feelings in, so I don't know what is actual feelings and what is just me being lonely, but this is still on my mind a lot.

What I can say is that my (so far unofficial) girlfriend is someone I have really good chemistry with and so far like spending time with when I can. Also we've slept together several times an I wouldn't mind continuing that habit once quarantine is over.

My confusing feelings friend is someone I've only known for a short amount of time but I'm super intrigued by her and if she wasn't someone that my friend used to have feelings for I would probably have jumped at the chance of letting it evolve (but friendship does take priority and I'm not even single so I won't go for it).

And then there's my ex who has completely shattered my heart twice and who still occupies my mind from time to time. She's the first girl I kissed and also the first person I've liked who liked me back at one point. We work together and we're working on a tentative friendship because we both didn't want to lose that, but no matter what I do, no matter who I kiss, she's always there in my mind even if it's only for a moment.

This just sucks because I feel like it's unfair to my date mate but I can't stay single to heal forever, part of moving on is actually moving on with someone new so I took the plunge and now I'll see it through. It's just so insanely frustrating to have all these feelings for people and guilt intertwined in all of it...

yeah

So romantic things didn’t work out. I’m feeling fairly shitty about the whole thing, partly because I was very excited about this possible relationship, but also because the other person is someone that’s been a close friend for a long time and we see each other frequently.

I’m not a stranger to being rejected, which is not a plea for sympathy. It allows me to assess just how I know to get over this. It’ll take a while and the friendship will probably never be the same as before, but in time I think the pain and the insecurity it brings me will fade. 

I’m still having a good time in my life all things considered. School is hard, not gonna deny that. And I realise I’m not being the kindest person I can be to my friends, so that I’ll have to fix. But all in all I can’t complain. 

I think it might be time to focus on myself and my friendships for a little while. Right now I feel like I’m becoming a character, one with many traits, but I realise I’m starting to act as to be in accordance to those traits, instead of being authentic.

So that’s something I’m gonna be working on now.

More than a year I think.

But guess what: I'm doing good!

Okay that might be trying to be a little overexcited, but in all honesty I really am. I'm almost completely done with my second year, only one exam left on Tuesday that I should, all things considered, pass without a lot of problems.

My grades aren't exactly amazing, but they suffice and I'm still standing and taking up all my classes so academically I'm honestly a model student.

My personal life over this last year has had insane shifts, at least that's what they feel like to me.I had my heart broken twice, which I'll admit, was painful as hell, but I came out of both of those and recently something happened that makes up for both of those. (More on this when I'm not scared of jinxing it anymore...)

Aside from my romantic life I've formed kind of a family unit with my dorm mates, specifically with one of them who is something akin to a brother now. I mean he's closer than my brother but it's very different, well, argh, we're just really close.

My gay life is also now just part of my daily life, which is a change I didn't expect or plan.

Starting from October I am taking up a function in the LGBTQ group to lead activities, I've told my mom enough about them that I now can just go on weekends, there are people that I think could become life long friends and l... well I'm in love with someone I met there, again, well see how that turns out later.

So all in all, shit has been good, some might say amazing. But my brain is still a little bitch sometimes and that does make enjoying it all a little harder.But I'm good right now.

Shit it’s been long.

But I’m here now so I’m writing this. My second semester passed in the blink of an eye and now it’s August 17th and I’m studying for the three exams I have to retake. My first one is in three days. 

Honestly I don’t want to write about those, I want to tell y’all about something else. 

I’ve changed. A lot.

This last year was without a doubt the best year of my life. But I didn’t start out feeling that way. When I started I absolutely despised being away from home every week and not being the same straight-A student I used to be.

I was rereading my old posts and I remember the way I felt when I wrote them, I was lonely, stressed and I didn’t think I’d ever finish the second semester. And now here I am, in the top 30 percent of all 560 engineering freshmen with (only) three retakes in a course where the majority has 5+. 

It’s not just my capabilities as a student that changed. I’m so freaking different as a person. 

I made two really good friends since I last posted, both in my course and surprisingly also both in my dorm, one of them I sit with in pretty much every class. Honestly they’re the first people I’ve known who’re like me in the nerdy ways. Also I had a two hour discussion with one of them over a glass of bourbon about the sub-genres of metal we like, that was pretty fun too. 

I’m also a LOT more confident. 

At one point last semester I was talking to high school students for three hours straight about the things lgbt people face with a dear friend next to me, which I would never in my life have expected. I actually thought that was fun, even when there’s hurtful discussions I love doing it because there’s that few kids that finally see there’s a future for them in us and shit that feels amazing.

But it’s more than my gay identity that I’ve grown more confident, I’m actually a lot more comfortable talking to strangers now, and talking to people I used to know. I reconnected with an old best friend recently and I never expected that to happen, honestly it probably wouldn’t have if I wasn’t a sarcastic shit, but that’s another story. 

What I’m saying is that this world is so good for me. I’m thriving, I actually love where I’m at, even if I had to reevaluate my priorities at some points.

I can’t wait for October to roll around and for classes to start again, I can’t wait to see my friends again and honestly I CANNOT wait to see what next year brings.

I love feeling like this.

Never have, crushes, yeah sure, but I've never truly been in love.

But now...

It's been nine months since I sent a girl a message about dogs. She became the first person I ever went on a date with.

Somehow I've managed to not make a definite move, but I've never wanted to make one more desperately.

We've started to hang out a lot more recently, twice a week if we can and sometimes more. I know that we're good friends by now, but there's more, for the first time in my life there truly is more.

And I'm falling for her. Completely and desperately, and I love it, I truly love it.

Catching feelings has never been a good thing in my life, always unrequited. But here this girl is, this beautiful, smart, funny, sweet, loving girl, and suddenly catching feelings has never felt better.

I love her smile, as cliche as it sounds, i love her smile.

I love the way she says my name, cliche again, but deal with it, and I'm growing to love all of her, her love for disney, her rants about anatomy, her voice when she sings, her hands when they tremble after we go training, the way she knows me now when so few ever bothered,... I love her (I know I shouldn't say it yet, but I do)

And I'm in love with her.

And I'm tired of waiting, I've been tired for a while, but seeing her this much has made me sure. I'm ready to try this.