Refresh Thyself

The first holiday for my school year has started. The first two months of school were interesting, especially since I did take a gap year from the academic world. This third year of engineering school is very much more like a typical university in its pedagogical structure. There are a few projects here and there and then right before a little break, there are exams on a few of the subjects.

This is novel to me because I am used to more regular testing, like in prépa or even the army for that matter. There were constantly bigger and smaller, oral and written tests to check if we were up to pace. In my case, for these past two months, this meant that I followed in class, but always found some other things to do after school.

I had only accumulated a basic understanding of subjects when I started to study a week before exam season. It is also why I did not get to the level of understanding I would have wished to before my exams and am not most proud of my performance.

That being said, exams are over now. I am at peace—well, as close to it as I have been in a while. On Saturday morning, I took the train to visit my mother in Brussels. My train was delayed due to some accident on the railway. Fortunately enough, I took my physical journal with me, sat down at a café in the train station, and did some reflecting.

I have not journaled with pen and paper since July, which is a shame since it clears the mind. I got to dissect a few of my worries and successes. It was truly refreshing. Right away, I felt a certain clarity of mind.

The main takeaways of this journaling were that I needed to set more clear priorities. This translates to learning to say no. Time planning is one of my strong suits I would argue, but if the priorities are not set properly then the calendar starts looking like a pile of steaming garbage.

I did not know exactly what kind of responsibilities I signed up for before coming back to Lille and that is why I did not know how to plan. That brings us back to Eisenhower's quote, which puts forward a mistake of mine in this first quarter of school:

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

This Week's Suggestions:

🎶 "Les comédiens" by Charles Aznavour:

On Saturday evening we went to watch a biopic on Aznavour with my mother. We both appreciate his songs. The movie gave an interesting insight into his life and his path to success. That being said it was nothing extraordinary, the most interesting were his songs and how many of them he produced. He wrote 1300 songs and recorded a mind-boggling 91 studio albums in his 70 years of career.

🗺️ "Why Putin is so hard to overthrow":

Recently I have started watching a few political/military video essays. This one details Prigozhin's (leader of a private Russian militia) recent march towards Moscow in March of 2023. The video details the structure of Russia in the past two decades to give context to this event. Worth a watch!

Have a beautiful Monday!