Welcome to November & a rambling kind of day

Let's turn this around, shall we? After pondering a thousand and one ideas about social media and blogging, I returned to some basic thoughts: I love writing. I love the little things. I want to continue blogging, but on a more personal level. This time, I try to blog on a more regular basis. I want to turn this blog into a more "life" than "style" direction.

Vienna Augarten park on a grey Sunday afternoon

my terribly bad self-cut pony is already starting to annoy me. nonetheless, I'm still good at making over-excited
coffeine induced faces

What's going on here in grey, cold Vienna? Well, there's the midterm exams coming up at the end of November. I'm almost done with my bachelors degree in Psychology. 'Almost' meaning here that I have already done my bachelor thesis, but I have to pass a few more MC exams. Not a fan of that, to be honest. Especially not, when you have to study +500 pages and in the end it is more a thing of luck than knowledge if you pass.

Actually, I do enjoy the idea behind the European bologna agreement and the ability to study a bachelors degree anywhere in Europe & making all degrees more comparable and therefore easier to move around and work within Europe -- BUT in Austria, it lead to a lot of wrong decisions in turning big diploma based courses into "shorter" bachelor degrees. It turned into the direction of "get as many students through the degree or push them out of the system" way. You can feel that "outcome" pressure during exams and seminars. Unfortunately, there is basically little to none money available for more professors or extra courses. Most of them work as "external" professors, which means working a lot for very little money. It's a sign that University education and education in general don't mean a thing in Austria's politics and society.

Yes, it is nice to study at a University where you do not have to pay any fees at all for your degree. No, it is not the best situation when it comes to research or interest to study a subject in depth. You rather to that on your own than within the education system.

night of november 1st. foggy and cold. can you hear the trees talking?

In my case, I am planning to finish my bachelors degree in Spring next year (if all exams are done by then, fingers crossed). Afterwards I want to find a place for a master's degree abroad. I want to study again in the English language and honestly, after living seven years continuously in Vienna, I really need a change of place. There are a few places which come to my mind. My boyfriend is Swedish, so Sweden is definitely up there in my "study place wishlist" - as well as Denmark, Scotland, England and the Netherlands.

Besides the whole study thing, I am doing a drawing course at an adult education center. Drawing is a kind of meditational act for me. When you start to draw something, you start to get lost in looking at the details and everything around you turns blurry and nonexistent. Add to that, I try to learn Auto CAD for an online course in interior design I'm taking. Learning a new program is fun, the only thing which is bugging me here are the differences of the versions on the different computer systems. I usually work on a mac computer, but I also use a notebook with windows ... nerd problems, ugh! ;)

At the moment, there is also a "Christmas abroad" plan going on between my boyfriend and I. We've spent the last two years at my parents' place. We were thinking about going to Sweden again for this year's Christmas and visit a few friends along the way. We are both very indecisive and it will probably end in a last minute trip, but I will keep you updated :) Winter in Sweden is extremely cold and dark, but the people are so warm and welcoming. We'll see!

(P.S.: The last time I was so obsessed with a pop album was Britney's Blackout. 1989 got me out of the blue. Taylor Swift made a really fun, brilliant pop record. I've never considered her music to be of any interest to me, but hell yeah, you can count me as a fan of hers now. It's adding glitter and color to those grey November days! My favorite tracks at the moment are Out of the Woods, All You Had To Do Was Stay, Style, Blank Space and Wonderland. Damn catchy!)