On new beginnings

August is still summer, but it is also the start of autumn (or fall if you will). Berries are ripe. People are picking pears outside my bedroom window. I crave vegetable soup. The sun is still hot, but the days aren’t long and light anymore. The night is once again dark.


August has always been a month of beginnings for me. Much more than, say, January. August is the month school starts. After 18 first-day-of-school’s, new school supplies still make me excited. I love stocking up on pens, post-its, paper, pencils (is it a rule that all school supplies start with a p?), and books (no, apparently not). A new year at school always meant new subjects, new classrooms, often new people. A new term at the university has some of the same implications. This term, however, I don’t get a lot of the “new” feelings since it’s just a continuation of what I left before the summer. And frankly, this time it also feels more like the beginning of the end. Which I guess it sort of is.

Unless something unexpected and life-altering happens, this will be the last semester I’m working on my master’s thesis. I’m not saying I will never take another class, but for all intents and purposes, I am looking at the start of my very last semester at the university. My last semester of formal education. Hopefully my last semester before I get a “grown up” job (why do I feel like knocking on wood right about now…?).

I have tried to work on my thesis this summer, but in between working extra hours in the bookshop, having a social life and trying to see the sun every now and then I haven’t been all that diligent. Also, I’ve had a bad case of vacation mode, and I’ve been spending far more time on blog writing than any other kind of writing. Ah, well.

With the new semester starting today, it is time to accept that I can no longer keep neglecting my thesis. Because this will be a stressful semester for me, and in the spirit of new beginnings, I think it is time to announce a new blog schedule.

This summer I’ve kept a fairly strict Monday to Friday schedule. While I enjoy the regularity of that, I no longer see myself capable of keeping it up. Thus my new plan is to blog on Mondays and Fridays, and if I post any other day you can consider it a bonus. I will still try to visit as many of your lovely blogs as possible, in fact I suspect that I will be able to be a more frequent visitor when I’m not spending as much time writing my own posts. In addition I am still writing posts for the Burrow Blog, and on the days I am posting there I will probably leave a note here as well. I’ll still make sure to read and reply to all of your comments, of course.

New beginnings can be scary because we are usually afraid to give up on what we know. But at the same time new beginnings create a unique opportunity to start over on a clean slate. I’m hoping that I will be able to carry with me all the good things from previous semesters and leave behind any bad habits.

Wish me luck!

(Apparently I am not so great with new beginnings since I forgot to schedule this to post this morning, and instead saved it as a draft. Great start... I did not notice till now, though, so this means that my tactic of not compulsively checking my blog for comments every ten minutes is working.)