The real world awaits...

Today is the first day I'm not a student anymore. Sure, I finished my thesis about 3 months ago now, but as of today, I'm officially no longer enrolled at uni or any other educational institution. I'm out into the real world now as they say, although I guess I've always been in it anyway. It's scary and exciting at the same time to know my future is still wide open at the moment. Scary because being a student - be it a high school student or a uni student - is all I've ever really known how to be so far. And I haven't quite figured out how to be a professional working girl just yet. Or what exactly I want to do for a job. But then there's also the excitement of The Great Unknown and this sense of adventure that always comes with not knowing what will happen next. Of not knowing where life will take you, but you know it's going to be different from what you've known before. Although I have to admit, sometimes that great big unknown can be scary too...

Anyway, as the end of my student years also means the end of my right to free public transport on weekdays, I decided to make some good use out of it while I still could, especially the past two and a half weeks. But not before I had had my reunions that I mentioned in my last blog. It was so so awesome to see my friends Maaike, Henni and Coen again after all those months/years :) I loved it. I think I said it last time as well, but I always find it amazing how it seems like you can simply pick up the friendship where you left off, even though it feels almost not real too at the beginning that you finally see someone face-to-face again after so long. Especially with my friend Henni it was so surreal to have her close for a day, walking around Amsterdam with her and being able to chat again in real life after more than 6 years of keeping in touch only through e-mails. Very cool :)

After my three little reunions, I did a lovely day trip to The Hague with my family, where we did a canal cruise through the city, took a stroll on the beach, visited 'Het Binnenhof' where the Dutch parliament is seated, and ended with a beautiful dinner together in the city centre before all heading home again. A really fun day :) Two days later I went to visit my friend Jelmer in Delft for a spontaneous lunch, and ended up staying for dinner too. Jelmer and I live in different cities (for now) that are about an hour apart from each other, and while we were both working on our respective theses, we developed a habit of having lunch together via skype from time to time to break up the thesis-writing and catch up at the same time without having to go anywhere. Which obviously made it feel a lot more legitimate as a study break than going out for lunch would have, haha. That habit has still kind of stuck since then, but this time I thought it would be nice to change it up with a real-life lunch for once, seeing as I hadn't actually seen Jelmer for a while. And nice it was indeed :) Got to love random surprises like that in your week. Just like surprising myself by staying out until the early hours of the morning to help my dear friend Coen celebrate his birthday a week later, while I hadn't really planned on making it a late night at all. Lovely :)

Then this week it really hit home that I would soon not be able to use public transport for free anymore, so on Monday I decided it was time for a beach day. Now in Holland they have this term called 'uitwaaien', for which there is not really a good English translation. It's basically a mix of getting some fresh air and clearing your mind. Anyway, so I went to Scheveningen on Monday, and it was exactly the kind of weather I think the term 'uitwaaien' was invented for. There was a strong cold wind, the sea was rough, and there were not many people around that afternoon. Perfect conditions to just stroll along the shore with the wind in your face and let your mind wander to everything and nothing at all. Even though my lips turned blue and my fingers numb (I had actually not expected it to be as cold as it was at the beach so I was a bit underdressed) I loved it :) The next day it was the last day I would ever use public transport for free, as my friend and housemate Li-Shi and I decided to go to Amsterdam in the afternoon. Li-Shi wanted to check out this shop in Amsterdam and I had been wanting to see the 'IAmsterdam' sign for a while now but never figured out where it was exactly. With it being the last day of free public transport for us, we now not only had a mission, we also had the perfect excuse to do it that very day! So we visited the shop Li-Shi wanted to go to, and then joined the many tourists at the IAmsterdam sign, took our touristy photos and just enjoyed the lovely sunshine for a bit :)

And now I have to wrap my head around the fact that I'm really no longer a student! The real world awaits... I visited heaps of job agencies yesterday to see if they could help me in my search for a job, and they pretty much confirmed what I had already discovered through my own search for jobs: it's a tough time for starters in my field and there aren't that many job openings at the moment. But I'm sure something will come along eventually. And when it does, I'll tell you all about it :) For now though, my bed is calling me and I need sleep. So I'm going to love you and leave you, hoping you're all well, happy, and loving whatever is keeping you busy at the moment. Would love to hear from you!
Love Carine xx


PS. Photos will be added tomorrow, it is too much past my bedtime now to select them. But if you're bored and in desperate need of photos, you can now look back through many of my old photos, as I'm now a VIP member of this website and they have all been placed back for you to enjoy, thanks to my friend Froukje!