It has been exactly a month since I stepped foot in the country of the Netherlands and it has been three weeks since I started class here at Maastricht University. In my two weeks of classes, I have received a substantial amount of work and have been under a bit of stress due to the workload. This workload is more than I get at the University of Denver and I am trying to get used to this new school life. However, I am starting to feel under a lot of pressure to do well at Maastricht University, as I know if I fail a class (5.4 or below), I do not get credit from Maastricht and the University of Denver.

This started towards the end of last week. I had just finished my first mini exam at Maastricht and even though it sounded like I got similar answers to my peers, I started to get nervous and my anxiety started racing. What if I failed the exam? What if I start off so bad in this class I am unable to pass? That was when I started to feel under a lot of pressure to do good at Maastricht. That would mean, to me, to work hard and write down every detail that I thought to be important down when I am reading. I felt like that was the best way to maximize my studying and homework. However, that would require a lot of will-power to do what I deemed a tall task mentally. I had to work without distractions and get things done efficiently. I had already been writing notes down when I read, but I wanted to take things further. One of those ways was to answer the questions provided at the end of each chapter. Hopefully that will help me enhance my overall study skills.

Friday was rough. I worked all day just to finish a chapter of my EU law book. It was one of the most exhausting things that I have done. I have to turn that chapter into a presentation this Wednesday and I am pretty sure I have at least 15 pages of notes on this specific chapter (reading about EU Law Supremacy is so much fun, not). However, I was too exhausted to start the presentation or any other homework. I spent my evening stress eating, which included a plate of pasta and half a German marble cake. It was my first time in a long time experiencing burnout like that.

I have been gone the entire weekend because of a frisbee tournament. Coming back, I am looking at a substantial workload before I leave for Oktoberfest on Thursday. The pressure is on for me to put forth intense effort for this week in school. I do not want the weight of my workload to impact my experience in Europe. I came to Europe to have fun and travel the continent, and I also came here for school, but I want to have fun. This is an experience of a lifetime and I do not want to feel so much pressure to work harder than I am already working.