Year of the dog

2018 is here, which is very exciting! But I must give a shoutout to 2017 as well, it wasn't a bad year.
- I got to visit South Korea in March, and spend my last days and very last moments together with my closest friends in Japan.
- I got to go slaloming in Sweden in April (which I didn't think was possible), and I also rode a scooter for the first time, which was awesome. And I didn't trip over even once! Though it was close at one point, haha.
- I got to spend almost six months with my family before moving again!
- I got into the university program I wanted, and I really feel like I made the right choice.
- I have worked hard in school, and plan to keep on doing it.

I haven't made a "New Years resolution" since I was a kid, because of course you never keep them anyway! But this year I sort of made an inofficial half-resolution to try to do even better in university, in order to get very good grades.
This is of course something that I am not sure I can achieve, because I do not have that much confidence in my ability to learn, even if I am willing to do it.
But I have to try, and I do have an incentive to.

When starting university I still was not sure what I wanted to do after graduting this bachelor's program. Do I want to work? Or go for a master? Or?
So since I thought I might go for a master, I had already decided to try and get as good grades as possible, since you need good grades to get in to master programs. But I still wasn't really sure, and thus sometimes felt like maybe I didn't need to push myself that hard after all.
The incentive just wasn't strong enough, even though I really did want awesome grades, I didn't have a clear goal to focus on.
But now I think I do.

I have set my eyes on another scholarship.
It's the same type of scholarship as the one that brought me to Japan, but given out by a different country. That's all I will say for now, because this scholarship is for master's, and I still have 3 years or bachelor's studies to take care of. And I am very aware that 3 years is a long time, and that I might very well change my mind during this period. That is why I am not making any promises.
But if I after 3 years feel the same as I do now, I will apply for this scholarship.

Thing is though, I think that it must be a lot harder to get than my previous scholarship, because here they are asking you to have a "GPA at 80% or more", and as a Swedish person I do not even know what that means! We don't have GPA in Sweden, and when I tried emailing school officials about it, they just told me that if you want to know your GPA you have to do some kinda conversion of your grades, which can only happen once you have finished the program. So I cannot know my GPA until after these 3 years! That is kind of nervewracking.

So if after 3 years I still want this scholarship, and my grades are good enough, I will apply. And until then I think this might just be the right incentive for me to study as much as I possibly can!

What I am looking forward to in 2018:
- Learning more Korean
- New university courses!
- Finding a summer job related to what I am studying
- Becoming a better programmer
- Hanging out with my family on holidays
- Possibly finding a student apartment
- And more :D!