Student Blog: Everything I didn't do this summer and some things I did.

My summer break ends in about two weeks. Having to calculate this almost made me cry in despair, but here we are. At the dawn of a new school year, I realize I did absolutely nothing significant during this summer, and it is okay.

When the previous school year ended, I graduated. I was beyond excited to finally be on vacation and be able to relax and relax, I did. During the first week, I went on a family road trip to our country, Switzerland. Because of, or thanks to COVID, we decided not to go abroad. We discovered new places in a country that seemed so familiar to us.

That was great, and it lasted ten days. I still had about two months to do whatever I wanted to. When we got back, the weather decided that hot girl summer would not happen this year for the Swiss. Indeed, it started to rain non-stop for weeks on end. Great. I quickly forgot my plans for outdoors parties, hiking, and short trips. I optimistically thought that this situation was a good opportunity for me to catch up on books, TV shows, plays and movies.

Because of the weather and unseasonable cold temperatures, I stayed inside most of the time. My plans to learn a new language and catching up with everything sailed quickly. I was not motivated to do anything, so I did nothing and felt guilty because I did nothing and felt more guilty, and so on.

Instead of keeping trying to force me to do something productive, I took a few needed days to take care of myself. I was feeling really low, and I allowed myself to breathe and reassess my life. That was long overdue, and after this, I was finally able to be productive.

As planned, I began catching up with various things. Starting with TV shows, I watched Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. It is about Ted Lasso, an American football coach who is recruited to coach a soccer team in England. I binge-watched it in only a couple of days and adored it. The whole show was heartwarming and funny.

As I am writing this, I am finishing A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I saw this book countless times on TikTok and decided to give it a try. Without saying too much about it, the novel tells the story of four college friends from their twenties onward. The 720 pages took me a whole week to get through. The weight of the topics was too much for me to read faster. At some points, I could not even keep going and had to stop for the day. This story is heartbreaking. If you really want to read it, which I do not particularly recommend, you should definitely check the trigger warnings out. Surprisingly, I overall enjoyed the novel.

Those were just two of the most memorable things I watched/read during the summer. On the less bright side, I was supposed to visit Italy and an amusement park in Germany. I abandoned both ideas because of COVID restrictions. I was also supposed to see Mamma Mia in an open-air cinema. It was the thing I was the most looking forward to doing. Unfortunately, on the day of the showing, a massive storm broke out, and we were forced to stay at home.

I felt guilty about doing so few things during those two months. Of course, I did not intend to be on the same level as Phineas and Ferb, but I wanted to make the most out of my time. I discovered that making the most out of my time did not necessarily mean travelling far, or write a book, or build a rocketship. Sometimes, we need to slow down and enjoy small things. It took me a while, but I can now look back on those two months without feeling ashamed or blameworthy. You do not need to feel pressured to go back to school with tens of ridiculous stories to tell.