Here’s what student life away from home looks like
Warm sarma, yogurt, and freshly baked rolls, with the fragrant clothes freshly ironed, neatly folded in the closet… these are all the things a student leaves behind when they move out of their parents’ home. What is it that one should, and what should one not sacrifice for the sake of academic education?
Beviplex
From freshman parties and passed midterms to charity events and petitions for an extra exam session… a lot of cooked sausages on the iron in the student room and sleepless nights in the exam period without heating have passed. My sister and I both enrolled in universities in Belgrade – there’s one academic year between us. We came with the intention to graduate on time and then return to Kraljevo, where we are from. In a way, we’re both local patriots.
For me, separating from my family was honestly the hardest. I was the first to move out, the first to break the ice, to get to know this big city, while Sanja, well, she almost came to a ready-made situation. I won’t lie, my first year was the toughest, and when she joined me, somehow my worries about her made all my fears seem distant. That’s when I started socializing more, walking around the city more freely, and even the food in the cafeteria didn’t seem so bad anymore.
In my first year, I was probably scared of failure, so maybe under that pressure I studied better and had more energy. By the second year, exhaustion caught up with me. I started to forget my schedule, yawn or even fall asleep in lectures, or once even on the bus (horrible), and formulas I once knew just seemed to have disappeared from my mind. I was even scared to complain to my parents. They’d say, “Did you start using drugs in Belgrade, Ana?” A serious drop in energy and the inability to focus on even the simplest topics. Of course, the first thing that came to mind was some illness. I thought, Is it some autoimmune disease, early dementia, a stroke that I could only have in my dreams? All kinds of silly thoughts…
One day, I decided to go to the Student Health Center. I was a bit worried that I might come across as a hypochondriac. But my doctor during that shift was a queen. She listened to me, sent me to the lab for a blood test, and asked how long I’d been feeling this way. First, she calmed me down like a mother, and then started bombarding me with questions: When and what do you eat? When and how much do you sleep? And of course, how regularly do you study? I had zero correct answers. Zero! I don’t sleep, I eat when I can because the cafeteria closes when I get back from the study hall, and I exhaust myself studying at night because that’s the only time I can have peace in the student dorm. The blood test results came back quickly, and, of course, everything was fine! My doctor told me that the best thing would be to get myself back on track and slow down my ambition to “clean everything up on time with a high GPA.” She also recommended some supplements to help improve focus. She said that they would maximize my performance, help me concentrate better, and save me from that chronic fatigue. And really… it was like I was calmer, in a better mood, and not irritable. Sanja says she tolerates me much better now that I’ve started taking Beviplex. At the university, there are always so many things happening, everyone is on edge due to exam periods and various activities, and I’ve never been better. For two years now, I’ve been regularly taking Galenika’s Beviplex with short breaks, and if I can say one thing, it’s that not only have I lost a bit of weight because I’m living healthier and not eating junk, but this complex has also improved my skin and my mental state.
Sanja, of course, claims “all I needed was someone to find me the right treatment,” but whatever. The important thing is that I made it to the final year, that Belgrade doesn’t seem so big anymore, and that university teaches you more than just formulas.
