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Productivity recap (documentation) - second study year

· 4 min read

With the end of yet another academic year I'm spitting out some documentation.

This post is more or less for myself, just to keep track of things, be conscious about the things I've achieved and to know better, what I want to do later (or what is left to do / what is the next step). However, this post will be followed by a series of other posts with some ideas I want to share.

So, basically, I classify/separate my after school life into stages. The first stage was the my first year of bachelor studies - I just got familiar with the world, did a lot of activities that I couldn't do before, rethinked my life decisions and got a start for software development and teaching carrier (academys, internships, tutoring). Also, measured my limits (by pushing them :D) But I already wrote about this.

Second studying stage

2nd stage was the first semester of second study year. Or how I call it - "The big money-making burn out phase".

I didn't actually have a burn out at that time - it was worse - I was having near-burn-out all the time, never reaching the bottom, always keeping an inch from it, so I could still function. But it was fun. I actually used all my capabilities. Or, in other words, used my limits, that I measured in the previous stage. Yeah, so I was studying the same Software Engineering (I'd also taken minor Pedagogy studies - yeah... didn't get that scholarship), also working part-time (0.5) in Danske Bank as Student Cloud Developer, working part-time (0.6) as a math teacher in Secondary School (also didn't get that money support for new teachers in Vilnius) and also freelance tutoring math (0.4) :)

I'm not gonna share any time management wisdom or other life coaching bullsh*t. It just comes naturally, when you engage in more activities than your short term memory can handle and have responsibilities for other people. Then you don't have any other choice but plan your time.

But, as I said, it was fun. I enjoyed (almost) all the things I did and it was a nice experience. I will never forget writing on my time schedule paper the teaching time right on where I'm at office, and then signing the job contract :D I also will never forget my first teaching experience - I thought that someone will guide me and show how the teaching works so I could get used to it, but I was greeted with just a few textbooks, 5 minutes before the first lesson, and basically the words "Here you go, now go teach some 8th graders math" :D Then I understood, how much freedom does teaching job give.

Third studying stage

And, of course, "The big money-making burn out phase" was followed by the 3rd studying stage - the second semester of the second study year. Or as I call it "The runaway".

The runaway, cuz I left everything behind in Lithuania and went to the Netherlands for studying via Erasmus. It felt as if escaping the chaos and retiring - I had enough money to live by, but also kept the math tutoring online. But the best thing about this "retirement" stage is that I could get back to my old hobbies for a bit, and develop/make a start for my numerous ideas, like writing, making a decent website with categorized things I want to share, record some of my compositions, create some games, learn a bit more coding, and the most importantly - have some physics courses and some better quality lectures that you (usually) cannot get in Lithuania, together with some new language learning (I should have A1 level in dutch by the end of semester :)).

It also gave me some time to rethink my values. I'm not completely confident saying that I know what I want, but I'm close to that. One think I know - I want to create things. And I think I made a tiny kick-off for that.

That's it. Yeah...

I have a lot of plans for the future, so I'm probably gonna continue being burn-out-level busy :D making some posts about my experiences and some philosophical (and/or fictional) thoughts on that.

And as I said, this post will be followed by a bunch of other general posts about studying and other carrier-directed experiences that I think some people would find useful to learn about. Also about learning in general and other philosophical insights from my experience. So stay tuned :D