THE ESTHERIAN BLOG

As we are about to wrap the year up, I have decided to review the year and ask a few questions like what were my plans for the year, how did I fare by the end of the year, what can I do better next year, and what have I learnt about accountability? I am going to try and divide this into a personal review and the blog review and do a quick summary at the end to ensure nobody misses anything, myself included. Also, I am going to be a lot gentle with myself because I didn’t see most of what happened to me coming. With that being said, let’s dive right into it. Photo by Monstera Source: pexels.com THE ESTHERIAN BLOG 2021 REVIEW. This is the  mid-year review  for the blog so that you will have an idea of where we were and the direction of where we should have been by the end of the year. I know, giving excuses for why you didn’t follow through with a plan can be a sign of irresponsibility but I have valid reasons for how things turned out, trust me. I would start by reporting that my laptop

Sometimes I struggle with finding the right words to use, I struggle with the order of words that would leave an impression on your mind. How do I write to a year that touched my soul? How do I tell a story that I hold dear? How do I express my gratitude in  the simplest way?  I will start with this one that chooses to remain in my head. I am a bad dancer with limited knowledge of dance but if I take the time to reflect on the year and how far it has brought me, I would relate it to a Waltz, or any other slow dance. I would mention the soft caress of my soul and the deep longing it left in me. I would mention how much the year lacked a lover’s touch and how slowly dancing across the year left me with the audacity to finish this dance with a flourish because even if it was slow and lonely, even if it was filled with a longing for something more, even if the universe couldn’t stop to make things right for this one person, everything looks so perfect, serene and a bit untouched and for so

Something I was conscious of doing this year was to write down the things I learnt in the year, even if the processes involved in learning those lessons were not served in platters of gold or found on the smoothest of rides, I am so grateful for these lessons because they helped me in the process of becoming. This is going to be a long list, so strap yourself in. Source: Pexels.com Ylanite koppens 1. Burnouts are inevitable if you don't know when to rest.   I would say this is the most important lesson I learnt this year seeing that I was burnt out early in the year after concluding my exams and to be honest, I will say I am still recovering from the aftermath of that burnout. I will say maybe it became a transition of sorts, it was so bad and exhausting, and I hope to never find myself in such a situation again.  2. Rest is not a luxury, it is a necessity. Just to show how important the first lesson was, I learnt to stop saying I can’t afford to have a rest. I mean, burnout is way

  Picture by Omar Houchaimi Source: Pexels.com I have a question and I will share the thought process that led to this question. I was away for most of November due to a string of unfortunate events which led to me not having access to the internet. Not only that, I lost contact with almost everyone because I couldn’t access my Google account. I could only reach out to those I have their numbers memorized -my parents, those that tried to reach me via phone call and those I went looking for their contact info. I was also cut off from anything happening and general school/class information like fixed classes, online clinical conferences, and so on.  For a while, I felt blind -like I was not seeing the world- so out of the loop, and I realized that one of the ways I relate with the world has been taken away from me. I was no longer sharing stories, laughing at memes, listening to other people’s stories. I was missing football matches -I think Chelsea is still on top of the EPL table. What