The year is over and it’s time for my annual tradition of “what I did this year” in form of a blog post. While I have already shared my TV show consumption of 2013, it’s now time for life, the universe and everything.

January usually begins with a week of being far less productive than planned – I should have studied for exams, instead I probably watched some TV shows. But eventually the semester (my third) commenced after its Christmas break, and I started studying for those exams. Which I think was just one exam, and all of it was repetition, so easy-peasy. Oh well. At the same time, I also started researching my first ever big 12 page term paper on the Weeping Angels (Blink-only) of Doctor Who. Fun!

In February, most of that stuff continued, now in the peace and quiet of semester break – I aced that exam and started typing away at the term paper. Sometime between January and February, I also booked flights for Australia and New Zealand…

March continued to be an average, rather boring semester break month. Occasionally I went to uni for my job at the student union as well as for a compact course. I also finished writing my term paper and handed it in. In my free time, I noticed how Toronto very often appears on TV as New York and visited friends. I decluttered a lot of shelves and sent in the stuff to resellers, but there’s still more to declutter….

In April finally the new semester began! New courses, new fun! The weather started to get better, so new stuff for the garden. Oh, and there was that second major term paper I started writing in March… I continued writing it in April. Back then, I was annoyed about having to write stuff during the semester. There was more of that to come…

May and June appear to have been particularly productive months. Not only did I write tons of stuff for uni, I also wrote four blog posts (The Edible Woman, Deus Ex Machina: Person of Interest, International Cinema V: English, Please and This is what it’s like to study at a German university) in May and another five in June (The Utopia Experiment, Düsseldorf in the Movies, Surfacing: Identity, Vikings: Raiding your TV and the extra-long Only the End of the World again: Jericho vs. Revolution). Somehow I managed to do all that while simultaneously also studying for the two oral exams I had to take at the end of June. They went pretty well, but not as good as I wanted them to (because my standards are too high). Then, right after stepping out of my last exam, I started preparing a small farewell party…

…because in July, I took off to Australia for my study abroad semester! It was not an easy start. After 24 hours of travelling from DUS to BNE, I arrived in the chilly yet somewhat hot winter sun of Brisbane. During my first week, I was rather miserable. I was separated from my boyfriend for the next 5 months, I was very unhappy with the hostel I was staying it, it was frightfully cold at night (though nice during the day) and the house-hunting went terribly. Landlords in Australia generally rent their places on a fixed 6 month lease, and nobody would want someone who can rent for only 5 months. In addition to that, about 80% of the places I looked at were in horrible condition or had horrible housemates. I almost thought I’d be homeless (or broke), but then my application for university housing was accepted and I moved into a 6-bedroom sharehouse right next to campus – I was promised to live with graduates only, and so far only one room was occupied by a very nice Indonesian PhD student. During the first week I was happy and did a lot of exploring of Brisbane. But then two 18 year old American girls moved in… they were were friendly and tried very hard to peer pressure me into partying with them. But I knew the chances of this ending well weren’t very high…

In July, the semester officially began and so many things happened OMG I can’t handle all of this… my courses were all great (expect for one, which had a horribly arrogant lecturer and didn’t meet my expectations in general), and on Market Day I joined four of the clubs and societies, of which only two I would later regularly go. This exciting new life in Brisbane continued largely throughout August, but somewhere along the way I had a huge fight with the American bitches housemates about cleanliness and respect, and henceforth they completely stopped talking to me. Which is really ridiculous, because I really don’t understand how anyone could possibly have that amount of disrespect for people they live with. Anyway, I returned the favor and tried to find a solution. Unfortunately, my landlords weren’t really fast in resolving such issues. I distracted myself with Spartacus…

Also in August, I went on my first trip outside of Brisbane with the photography club to Noosa. I also got myself a membership for the uni gym and started going to pilates sessions – it did wonders for my lower back pain, which had completely disappeared by the end of my stay in Brissie! I also went to the pool once a week, which was just awesome. The weather started getting warmer and swimming under sunny skies in an open air pool is something I hadn’t done in… ever.

In September I started to realize what a great city Brisbane is for living, because it offers so many cultural highlights for its citizens. One of those was the Riverfire fireworks which concluded the Brisbane Festival. But more importantly, I finally got rid of the American bitches housemates! I moved into a different house. My Indonesian housemate, who was likewise annoyed, joined me, and we now shared a 3 bedroom house with a very nice South African MA student. This new atmosphere was certainly helpful for all those assignments I had to tackle – Aussie uni really takes assignments seriously. Deadlines were just chasing each other, and hardly ever did I manage to finish an assignment earlier than the deadline. During this assignment-heavy time, I dropped that course I was unhappy with because I really didn’t see the point in continuing. More time to focus on the important courses!

October was a time of fun with friends – I went to Byron Bay and the Gold Coast with my friend from next door (in between all the assignments) and I also went to a Middle Earth event with members from one of the clubs I joined – the Sci-Fi Fantasy Society. That club easily became my favorite club – I went to the meetings every Thursday (where usually we’d just chat and watch a movie) and it was just awesome to hang out with a bunch of people who are just as nerdy as yourself. October was awesome. But also very hard work, because my three final term papers were due. Somehow I managed to finish all of them in between all the fun with friends.

Then November came along, and with it, the end of an era. The semester had finished, my assignments were handed in and I had two weeks of free time until my boyfriend would arrive for our great journey through the southern hemisphere… I spent most days with exploring suburbs of Brisbane. I saw a lot of places I hadn’t been before in my time there and it was fun. Earlier during the semester, I had applied as a volunteer for the Supanova Convention – and was accepted! So eventually Supanova arrived in November and I had to do my duty by wearing a blue shirt and answering people’s questions. That way, I also got to see some actors from Spartacus on stage. OMG fangirling! Supanova was huge fun, but hard. Very hard because I didn’t know ANYONE there and because I was assigned something I’m not usually that great at, and because having an accent usually prompts Australians to ask questions like “Where’s your accent from?”. But I would certainly volunteer for Supanova again, if only I could…

November saw another first: canoeing! This was also something I had never done before, but it was an amazing experience to see Australia from this perspective and to spent time with some of the great friends I made.

Then finally, in mid-November, my boyfriend landed in Brisbane, we were reunited and ready to take off for our adventure! For one month, we explored Australia: first Brisbane, then the Queensland coast, then Sydney and Melbourne. And the journey didn’t end there – it continues in New Zealand, where we spent a week exploring the North Island and where we are currently in the middle of exploring the South Island. Along the way, I finally met long-time fellow bloggers Amanda and Caity. Here I am, sitting in New Zealand, writing about the most exciting year in my life – and wondering if there will ever be a year to live up to it. I’ll certainly try.