Welcome to Katie to Katherine in 2024!

Hi there! Happy New Year!! I hope you all got to spend the holidays surrounded by loved ones and lots of joy & cheer:) One of my New Year's resolutions is to bring back consistent updates to the blog so this post is the start of that!

This post will be about this week (which is Jan 7-14) and my plan for the next couple of days. But don't worry, I'll be posting a couple of back-dated posts about the last weeks of December and the first weeks of January! AND there will even be a "goodbye Ghent" post coming soon but I don't want to spoil too much yet!! But basically, get ready for lots of posts coming soon, sorry if that's a lot of emails in your inboxes:))

Ok, so this week! A little bit out of order but it will all make sense soon, I started my week with James in Amsterdam. I know, what you're thinking, Amsterdam??? What is she doing there? And James?? What's HE doing there? And the real question that I know is on your mind is, is he finally done writing the blog post from his week there in November?? And all of those questions will be answered soon enough but for now, just accept I started my week in Amsterdam with James.

The time in Amsterdam was very quick and it was more of an extended layover for both of us to return to our "homes". We spent one night in Amsterdam, had a nice dinner and stayed at the Bulldog Hotel before I had to hop on my train early Sunday morning and James flew back to Canada :(

Saying goodbye always sucks and this time it's for a bit longer :( BUT I will be visiting Halifax in March so it's not too long.

Anyway, I hopped on my train and headed back toward Ghent and I studied statistics the whole time, oh what fun!

This week is a bit of a hell week. That might sound a little bit dramatic but it was a quite stressful week. Here why:

• Moving back to Ghent, into a new (ish apartment)

• The next morning writing a 4-hour statistics exam

• Writing 2 more exams that week

• Starting school in Norway (while still being in Belgium so not actually attending classes)

• Needing to get my apartment and the lack of furnishing in Norway sorted out from a different country

• Stressing about the fact that I didn't study pretty much at all over the holidays

• Stressing about the fact that these exams are worth my entire mark in each of these courses

• Missing my family & friends that I just had to say goodbye to :(

• Leaving Ghent (maybe forever?)

So, with a full plate and heavy suitcases, I trucked up the stairs to my apartment to continue studying. My landlord was nice enough to rent me the upstairs version of the apartment I was living in for the semester. AND on top of that, he also kept my second suitcase full of stuff that I didn't need over Christmas so I am very thankful for that.

Here's what this week looked like:

Sunday I travelled back to Ghent and spent the day studying stats and stressing.

Monday I wrote my stats exam.

Tuesday I studied for genetics.

Wednesday I wrote my genetics exam.

Thursday I studied for virology.

Friday I wrote my virology exam and finally breathed for the first time this week.

I think all of my exams went pretty well and I think I did well enough to pass. I know that doesn't sound like what I should be going for but exams here are not set up for success here. Firstly, I finished some of these classes at the end of October and haven't even thought about them since. On top of that, the exams are the only things that contribute to my final mark so 100% of my mark for each of my courses are based on this one single exam. Even crazier, each of these exams have like 4 questions on them. So you mess up a little bit and you lose a lot of marks. Seems like a silly idea. Even crazier, last year, not a single student in my program made it through without failing at least 2 exams. Rewriting exams in August is very normal here so I am really hoping to get by but it's not the end of the world if I have to rewrite. At least that's what's letting me sleep at night.

This week I've also mixed in lots of walks to keep me sane, chatting with friends and enjoying my favourite parts of Ghent before leaving!

By the end of this week, my stress list is very reduced. I have my unfurnished apartment a bit sorted and I should be able to pick up my mattress and some essentials when I get there on Monday. I've finished 4/7 exams, the last 3 of which I write after I move to Norway. And I'm slowly getting a hang of what my schedule will look like for classes in Trondheim, but I feel like I can't fully settle in until I start going to the classes.

Still lots going on and so much more to come but I am surviving!! Having this week behind me is definitely helping with my stress levels and I keep reminding myself that this craziness is kind of an adventure, I don't think my stress list will ever look like this again so I'm laughing at all of the moving parts and I know that no matter what the stress list will sort itself out eventually!