Hello friends, it’s been a while. Maybe you forgot about me? I hope not, because I’ve returned and you’re back to reading all of my ramblings.

I did not mean to go this long without a post or even giving you a sliver of what’s going on in my life. In all my years of writing on this blog, I’ve never just up and left for a solid few months. But, there’s a first for everything and I can assure you that my radio silence was not the new norm or a precedent of what’s to come but more of a response to what was going on in that moment. But, like I said, I’m back and I guess it’s time to share some updates with you about everything that went on in that terribly awful time we were apart.

First of all, I completed my first semester of senior year at Georgetown! I started off the semester feeling oddly anxious to just get it over with and get out into the real world, but this semester was a great one. Of course, there were the usual moments of stress and frustration, but with my lighter course load this semester I had so much more time to dedicate to “passion projects” and spending time with friends which has made me already start to feel emotional about leaving this place in May.

I also… drumroll please… ran my first ever marathon! I still can’t really believe that I did it, but it was one of the best experiences of my life. It sounds glamorous now, but I was throwing up with nerves for a full week before the race and couldn’t walk for a solid week after. However, I am definitely doing it again and I’m really proud that I proved to myself that I can just go out there and do something like that!

Like I said, I also dedicated more time to “passion projects” or that’s what I’m calling them in this blog post. By those, I just mean things that I genuinely enjoy doing and have no sort of impact on school or my career or getting ahead in life. These are things that I think that I’d neglected earlier on in my college experience as I was always so swamped with classes, extracurriculars, and job recruitment, however I finally had time to dedicate to them this semester. I think this was a semester of sacrificing some of the rigidity of my excessive hourly schedule that I normally abide by and doing things that I knew I wouldn’t get the change to do again after college. One of those things was dancing in Georgetown’s South Asian dance showcase, Rangila, which was so so much fun! Practices until midnight every week definitely killed me, but like I said, it’s something I’ll never be able to do again. Another one of my passion projects was getting back into embroidery and making a pair of overalls for my little nephew who was born at the start of the semester! I also got into playing the piano again because I was inspired to teach myself my favorite Taylor swift songs on the piano, which is going to continue being a passion project for next semester!

I don’t know how to put this one, but I also really enjoyed the “domestic” life with my friends this semester. At Georgetown, we’re not allowed to have our own off-campus places until our final year of school, so this past semester was the first time that my friends and I all had our own little Georgetown town houses to invite each other over to. It was so fun to just be cooking in the kitchen with roommates (I taught myself a ton of stellar new recipes this semester), whip up banana bread on a Friday night instead of going out (because marathon training long runs on Friday mornings would really take it out of me), host a Little Women watch party and make chai cookies, run over to a friends house to eat dinner (and run over to a friends house to cry when things got overwhelming), and just engage in all of that beautiful “living” with friends and close to friends that I won’t get after college; that’s something that I’m trying to soak up the last of, even if that consists of chasing a mouse out of my house with a Swiffer and screaming with my friend on a random Thursday night.

So, what am I up to now and why am I back? Well, it’s been on my mind for the past month to come back to this blog and I finally felt like I was in the right mindset to be back. I’m back home in Dubai for winter break and traveled to South Africa between Christmas and New Years for a little family vacation which was so needed. Like I said, it was never the intention to leave this blog for so long but I wanted to make sure I was fully back before making my return! I’m ready to soak up the last week of winter break before heading back to DC for my final semester (which is literally crazy to say).

I’m really excited for this coming semester. In classic Yasmin style, because I can’t chill for even a second, I’ve already started compiling a list of things I want to do this semester, they sort of coincided with New Years so I’m kind of just calling this period my “sorting out my life period” and getting everything in order for the next semester. I think the general theme of this semester is just investing in me! Doing things that I’m actually crazily excited about and have been thinking about doing for my entire college career. For example, I quit my old part time research job and took a new part time job at a kids daycare which I am extremely excited about! I’m putting time into hobbies or “passion projects” like learning the piano and I really want to learn to crochet this semester. Ever since the marathon I’ve also been dying to do different workouts, so after recovering from a small injury, I’m ready to get back out there and I really want to get into barre and pilates again! On my to do list are also a lot of preparation activities, but exciting preparation activities, like finding an apartment for next year, sorting out my summer plans (I won’t be giving too much away right now, but they’re soooo exciting), and doing a ton of graduation preparations (I will in fact be sitting down to do some online shopping for grad dresses after finishing this post). But that’s pretty much what I’m thinking about right now!

And of course, on that to do list for next semester is getting back on top of my blog posts, because you better believe that I am back!! You can go back to expecting your regularly scheduled weekly blog posts to your inbox. I hope you didn’t miss me too much, but if you did, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter so that you hear from me every week (shameless plug).

See you next week (for real this time!)