Balancing work and life

In the last few weeks I received an increase in workload after a meeting with my supervisor about the analyses I was doing. Personally I find stress something very hard to handle and don’t usually do well with balancing my work and personal life. My normal response would be to lock myself in my room and tackle it all at once. However, I’ve since come to realise this is not the best way to deal with such a situation!

Balancing anything is hard, whether you’re a gymnast on a beam or a waiter in a restaurant with 8 glasses on one tray; you have to find the middle ground and try to tackle the challenge in a calm and collected manner. So for the last few weeks I have tried to do this, and I must say I think I was fairly successful in doing so. I found that setting small goals each day really helped with dealing with my work but also relaxing and enjoying some downtime too.

Time with new friends

One thing that has become a ritual in the last few months is cooking with some friends once a week. Since we have a mix of students studying and working on placement our schedules are all over the place, so we decided to choose a recipe and once a week cook a meal together in the evening, when the day is done and everyone can wind down together.

We also get together at the weekends, since the weather here is glorious at the moment, and walk around some parks that show the city of Milano from above. The sun makes everything better!

Trying new things

I am always one for trying new things, especially being in a different country, there is so much more to experience for the first time. Since I finish my placement in a few months I have really been making an effort to enjoy being here and work hard but also play hard too, and that doesn’t always mean going out and drinking.

Running a marathon with my family

I found out a few months ago Milan had a huge marathon event on in April, where runners could participate in a full marathon, or alternatively participate in a relay marathon whereby a team of 4 would split the 42km up and run roughly 10-12km each, passing on a baton to each runner as they finish.

Running is something that I enjoy and use as a way to de-stress at the end of the day so I thought this was a brilliant idea! Luckily my parents are also avid runners and so both of them and my brother flew over last weekend and we all did it on Sunday 7^th April- it was SO much fun and SO tiring.

So my advice would be this: placement doesn’t last long, it goes by in the blink of an eye, so make the most of it, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. It doesn’t matter if you have a busy schedule or a very relaxed one, you can always find the time to do fun, creative and exciting new things.