What a year, what a year. So much has happened with me in such a short time, both marvelous and dreadful. On the flight back home, lack of sleep made me end up staying awake, listening to Frank Sinatra and staring at a gorgeous scene of abundant stars. I think that’s when I realized that I had such a very lovely time all year round, it’s just easier to get sucked into your problems in the moment. You can never just have adventure without a few bumps that you learn from and to showcase this, here are my wins and fails of the past year:

Win – Traveling

2016 really did spoil me in it’s second half with all the traveling I got to do, probably because I spent the first few months complaining about how I was lacking in the adventuring department. But the universe heard my pleas and all in a few months, I found myself in Munich, Paris, Barcelona, Brussels, Maastricht, and ultimately my favorite, several cities in Latvia! Heck, I even got to see the pyramids this year which is slightly embarrassing to say considering I am an Egyptian that’s been around for 19 years.. Regardless, I would lie and say my wanderlust was appeased but that would be an absolute lie. For more pictures on my travels have a look at my blog sidebar or better yet, follow me on Instagram.

Fail – Sour Note

This semester has definitely been rough on me emotionally (I feel like I’ve been saying this every semester), a lot of other random events seemed to also take a toll on me through out the last months of the year. My ceiling fell at some point, you know, the normal stuff.

It’s just that I lost sight of what I’m grateful for in life and it was just much easier to be engulfed in self pity rather than go through the process of attempting to make myself happy when I was already tired of university and other things. Truth is, back in high school, I never thought about who I am as a person or my identity and after moving out, I ignored it some more. It’s really not something you can just push back and its also definitely not something that comes without struggle. Through this I’ve found out more about myself and the people around me, and even why I love my major so much!

Win – Friendship

With the years ups and downs and as corny as it sounds, I wouldn’t know what I would have done without the lovely people around I have the pleasure of calling friends. I consider myself rather blessed to have people who care for me and feed me when I am too distracted to take care of myself. Before, I never would have thought that I would meet people that would drive me all the way to another country for a Harry Potter Expedition.

Win – First Times

2016 was definitely a year full of new experiences, from my first concert to seeing snow for the very first time to a business trip to colorful Holi festivals. To another year and seeing more and more every day!

Fail- Blog

Sigh, yeah. My blog has been pretty much abandoned for a few long months. But of course, it’s not about not having time, it’s about prioritizing and sadly, the site over the course of the last year was not given primacy at all. I’m going to be doing a lot of major changes to the site from now on and I hope I start posting more frequently!

Win – Job Opportunity

I got a pretty great marketing job this semester, it was with a major German company and I was super stoked to start with them since it would give me a lot of work experience, I also managed to keep my hopes rather low through the entire process..

Fail – It Didn’t Work Out

Yeah.. due to my university schedule, it didn’t quite work out. Still gave me plenty of experience in applying!

Win – Passed One Year Mark in Germany

It’s actually the strangest feeling ever knowing that I’ve been in Germany for more than a year now, knowing that ever since I’ve moved out from home, I’ve taken the same route to university for an entire year. It seems much longer but it also passed by ridiculously fast. Honestly, it’s been much harder than I say it has but I’ve stuck it out and the result, I think, has been really worth it!

Fail – Balancing

Ah, the constant struggles of a university student on the quest of finding balance in life in terms of all kinds of things like: health, classes, work, money, family.. the list goes on and on. Many a times this year I would an absolute wreck in managing everything because there’s just so much repeatedly happening all at once, focusing on one thing would inevitably lead to the fall of another factor I wasn’t previously thinking of. Nonetheless, that’s what growing up is about, learning what you want to prioritize through trial and error.

Win – Christmas

I’ve never really got to experience a proper, western Christmas until this year which definitely helped end the year at a very high note. I practically dragged friends across several cities to any and all Christmas markets around, that combined with listening to Christmas music every morning with breakfast, made for a very cheery close on 2016.

This post was inspired by one written by Heart My Backpack, a super interesting travel blogger!

Happy new year!