25 things about me.

I turned 25 yesterday, so I thought it might be fun to do a little 25 things about me list to celebrate how old I am.

Here we go, 25 facts about me that you probably didn't not know. Make a game out of it, check how many of those were no surprise at all.

1. I am absolutely terrified of spiders.
2. I've only ever been outside of Europe once. I went to the US for a couple of weeks.
3. I can speak a little bit of Dutch. It's rather rusty at the moment though.
4. I spent a year in Leiden, Netherlands, as part of an Erasmus programme.
5. I took part in a 2km open water swim through the canals in Copenhagen.
6. I have a sweet tooth and I'm highly unlikely to say no to cake.
7. I studied law at uni, but decided a legal career was not for me.
8. On the uni note, I've almost dropped out of uni in my final year due to exam stress.
9. I love the sea. 
10. I try to live a low impact life as much as possible.
11. Once upon a time, I sung in a gospel choir.
12. I drink a lot of tea. LOADS.
13. I hate beetroots so much. I don't even like seeing them.
14. My favourite way to pray is to sing.
15. I'm absolutely hopeless with plants, but I bought an epipremnum and it's still alive two months on!
16. I used to hate driving, but now I love it, I would even say that I find driving quite relaxing.
17. I consider England my home. There's no other place where I feel so comfortable and happy.
18. I genuinely thought I was moving to the UK for two years only, to do my A-levels. But then, two years turned into four so that I finished uni here as well, and before I knew it, eight years came and went.
19. Ever since we've covered this topic at A-levels, I have a bit of an obsession with all things viking.
20. My favourite flowers are tulips.
21. I'm getting a puppy next summer!
22. I have two shows I could watch over and over again, Parks and Recreation and Big Bang Theory.
23. I will laugh madly and generally be silly if I'm really stressed or anxious.
24. I was supposed to be a boy. My parents hoped for a son; instead, they got me.
25. I am a morning person: I prefer to wake up at 5am and go to bed by 9:30pm than to stay up late and have a lie in. 

Not a chance.

There are a lot of milestones in life.

There is the first day at school, the 16th birthday, then 18th birthday. And then 25th birthday. A quarter of a century.

I'm turning 25 in a few weeks' time (whoop! whoop!)

I had a lot of ideas as to what I would achieve by the time I turned 25. Many of my dreams came true. Some things exceeded my most extravagant. But many thins I thought I would have been or would have achieved by the time I was 25 simply never came about. 

Be married and mother my first child

I thought I would be married and have my first child by the age of 25 but neither of those is on the cards at the moment. Part of me is disappointed, but a much bigger part of me is very thankful that I haven't got married to any of the men I dated in the past. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking. Marriage is a huge decision and you need to find a person who will love you unconditionally, who will stand beside you regardless of the ups and down of life. But once you find this special person, you will want to commit every minute of the rest of your life to serve him, to support him, to love him.

Have an MA

Getting a Masters degree was another thing I thought I would have done before I turned 25. I suppose this is a legacy of my Polish mentality. In Poland people seem to do an integrated degree programmes with an MA following directly after the completion of a BA. After starting studying here in the UK, I've actually completely abandoned the idea of doing an MA. I had enough of studying, spending our reading journals and writing essays. It didn't seem necessary for the work I wanted to do either. But I've changed my mind and I'm actually almost half way through doing my MA at the moment. I did it to pursue my interest, to become a better practitioner and to keep myself mentally challenged. I should finish the programme before I turn 26, so all is well.

Have an established exercise routine

and actually sticking to it. Do I exercise? Yes. Is it a routine that I follow without an issue? Nope. Definitely not. My flat is on the second floor now, so I get a good amount of exercise from just running up and down. This is made worse by my forgetfulness, but at least I don't really need a gym. The truth is that having an exercise schedule sucks all the fun out of doing those exercises. I much rather go as and when I actually feel like it, especially with a job that is really physically demanding (I must do at least 100 squats a day!).

Learn a third language.

I had a fair go at Dutch years ago, but I never managed to fully commit myself to learning another language. I tried Danish for a while and then thought that an Easter European language would be better, so I looked into Slovak. Learning a language takes time and I have less and less of it as I get older. It is also increasingly frustrating to experience that helplessness of early stages of language acquisition when I am already fluent in another language. I suppose it was natural as a child to be struggling with putting sentences together, but now it is simply infuriating. Maybe I'll have another go when I finish my Masters', there is only so much that you can do at once.

Be a great hostess

What I mean by being a great hostess is throwing dinner parties, hosting board game evenings, puppy meets ups and so on. I occasionally have a few people over, but I'm not a natural and it takes so much of my physical, mental and emotional energy to organise a small get together. I had a vision of myself as a sort of domestic goddess with piles of sandwiches, cakes and fresh flowers always on the table. I am definitely overflowing with cake most of the time, but parties are definitely not my thing. A cup of tea, a book or a good movie? Definitely. I am not going to be fabulous at entertaining people at home any time soon. But that's ok. I'm busy enough trying to entertain myself.

~~~

All the above things won't materialise by the time I turn 25. Not a chance. But I'm not bitter about it, because I came to realise that life needs to proceed at its own pace. I cannot speed things up, I cannot rewind to the past to make different choices. Instead, I tak each day as it comes. Life is good. Life is comfortable and most definitely interesting.

Now I'm off to enjoy the last couple of weeks of my summer holiday. It will be quiet here until September. But do not fear, I'm going to be back!