First Post

As it’s time to write my first blog post, I find it fitting to start with the ending of my master’s studies.

One bachelor’s degree, one magister degree, one master’s degree, three theses, and five years later.

Looking back, my bachelor’s felt like swimming. Not in a dramatic or exhausting way, but in the way you move through water almost without noticing how far you have come. I followed the current, took in everything around me, and felt little to no resistance. I was curious, open and hungry to learn. Like a sponge, I was soaking up as much knowledge, information and experience as I possibly could.

The magister felt different. If the bachelor’s was swimming, the magister was closer to drowning. Suddenly, the water was deeper. The workload was heavier, the expectations were higher, and advanced studies required a completely different kind of focus. It was no longer only about learning and absorbing. It was about taking everything I had learned and pushing it further, to a new and more demanding level.

There were long days, difficult texts, deadlines, doubts and moments where I felt drained of everything I had taken in before. But somewhere in the middle of all that pressure, something took shape. The result was a magister thesis I am genuinely proud of.

My gift to myself after finishing the magister was spending a month in Berlin during the summer. At the time, it felt like a break. A pause. A way to breathe after everything. But looking back, that month became more than just a reward. It opened doors, created new connections, and slowly led to many of the things that eventually made me move to Berlin at the turn of the year.

And then came the master’s.

At first, it felt like being washed up on a deserted island. I had made it through the water, but now I was standing alone, unsure of where to go next. I felt lost, uncertain and overwhelmed by every decision. Whatever direction I chose, it sometimes felt like I would still end up in the same place, not really knowing what I was doing.

But the last part of the master’s changed something for me. It put everything into perspective. Maybe I was lost, but I was still moving. Maybe I did not have a clear map, but I slowly started to understand where I was going. I found a way to break out of that deserted island, reach land, and finally celebrate my labour and efforts with friends and loved ones.

Of course, studying was never only studying. It was also the music I listened to, the albums I discovered, the concerts, the parties, the conversations, and the friends who made everything feel lighter. It was Erykah Badu’s whole discography on repeat, Junior Brielle’s album “TAMPA”, Miynt’s ”Lonely Beach”, Mad Season’s ”Above”, Robyn’s ”Talk to Me”, Yaeger’s ”Hazy Eyes”, X-Ray Spex screaming ”Oh Bondage Up Yours!”, Oingo Boingo, PinkPantheress, and a whole lot of Anastacia.

Some songs became background music. Others became memories.

Music was also something I got to share with other people. I hosted music quizzes at Mono for music lovers, worked a few summers at Way Out West in the Artist Liaison team, and kept finding myself in spaces where music was not only something playing in the background, but something people gathered around. Sometimes it was work, sometimes it was friendship, sometimes it was just a song at the right moment. Either way, music kept following me through it all.

Travelling back from Berlin to Växjö, to the place where I once studied, made everything feel real. The familiar rooms, the people, the energy, the anticipation, and the strange feeling of returning not as a student in the middle of it all, but as someone who had actually reached the finish line. Just like the bachelor’s and the magister before it, the master’s is now done.

I am left with a mixture of happiness, relief and pride. Happiness for everything I have learned, relief that the deadlines, revisions and late nights are finally behind me, and pride in knowing that I kept going, even when I felt lost. And that’s worth celebrating!

Looking back, I can see that these years were never only about studying. They were also about changing, doubting, trying again, finding my voice and learning how to trust my own direction. Maybe that is what I want this website to become, too: a place where everything I have collected, questioned, listened to and cared about can continue to take shape.

It was not easy. Not at all.

But I made it!!!