Can you believe that three months have already passed since I moved to Ireland? That is one quarter of my time here. Before moving abroad, one year sounded like such a long time, but now every time I look back it seems like life has been passing with the front facing forward.

It is almost the end of the first semester now. We have loads of assignments to deliver before the end of the year (our coordinator always says we have to relax a bit and that things seem more complex in our minds than they really are, let’s see… haha).

The leaves on the trees are almost all gone by now, making their way to the arrival of winter. Can we take some minutes to talk about how incredible it is to see the seasons changing? My first week in Ireland was the last week of Summer. The gardens from South Campus looked absolutely gorgeous by that time. Roses were everywhere, each one a different colour.

And then, suddenly, Autumn showed up. All the green leaves turned into different shades of yellow, shining like gold on the days we were blessed with the presence of the sun. The fact that the academic year starts in the Autumn is particularly interesting to me, as it symbolic reminds me of a quote I read once: “Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go and make way for the new”.

During these three months, I have been making way for the new: my mind has switched back from ‘work mode’ to ‘study mode’ again. I have been studying with 13 Irish students (a real cultural experience, I can say), and I have made presentations in English in front of a class in which I am the only non-native speaker. I realised that I had underestimated my skills, and I was surprised to be considered fluent by the natives! I learned how to use ‘grand’, ‘lads’, and ‘thanks a million’ in my phrases (attention: remember these words if you want to speak like a local). I even got on a field trip on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but that is another story.

So things are beginning to settle down now. I know there is still a lot to go through, and that things will not be all a bed of roses. But when I go outside and feel the wind helping the leaves to fall down, opening the way for winter, I can just think that time is passing by so fast, and that every single day is unique in its own way.

So let the winter come – and with it, new adventures that await me.