Flowers out, backpacks on

Mar 2025: (finally) getting responses from unis (mixed reactions) & starting the great European adventure

If this is your first time here :

I'm Lisha Lovely, a young South African who loves learning 🧠, people  🫶, and all things beautiful in life 🪸. These monthly newsletters are all about sharing my meandering journey to somewhere big ⛰ (as yet undefined), as I build a life of impact and meaning.

Piccie of the month 📸

The backpacks are on

#smilethroughthepain — a recent pic of my friend and I after we missed our train stop then got on the wrong bus to bring us back to said train stop:

In case you’re unaware, the reason I was working (yes, I promise I was waitressing and hoovering and folding napkins and stuff when not on the ski slopes) in Switzerland for 3.5 months was to earn money so that I can travel Europe with some friends from school. Well, first one friend, then in a month-and-a-half, three friends.

It’s the end of a season. Quite literally (where the snow at, right?):

And it’s the beginning of another 💐. It was sad to say goodbye to my colleagues and Mürren, but I’m also really happy to have finished working and to embark on my European adventures! And to see grass.

On a little side note, it’s official: I have a skiing addiction, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’ll be back on the slopes someday, I’m sure 😈…

So apparently you can log in online, and see all the skiing data connected to your ski pass. Guess what I found?

I’ve done over 1 000 km of skiing. And descended 134 640 vertical meters. ANDDDD (and this one shocked me), that vertical-meterage put me in the Mürren-Schilthorn region’s top 100. Okay, the dude in first place did over 800 000 m, but still.

At the beginning of the season, I was worried I’d buy the expensive season ski pass and pay for the season ski rental, only to find I don’t like skiing, or that it’s too scary. That didn’t happen. I think I’ve well and truly extracted the worth out of my hires (kaaa-chingggg🤑).

Anyways, back to the start of the backpacking trip. Initially, we planned to travel clockwise-ish (left pic) through Northern Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, then up through Italy. Last minute, we decided to go anti-clockwise (middle pic) instead, chasing the sun and the warmth with immediate effect. However, following unexpected feedback from my universities (keep reading), we decided to do a funky 180-degree turn to stop by UWC Adriatic so I could get some advice from the college counselor of our sister school.

I absolutely love the spontaneity of this trip. Having the freedom to choose one’s route last minute, extend one’s stays in stunning places, and add unexpected recommendations to the itinerary is so great. That being said, space in hostels is already becoming limited, and we’re not even in peak season. We might have to start booking further in advance than the night before.

One of the highlights of the trip so far has been hiking Cinque Terre, five colorful coastal towns in Italy. We made a slight (very) chaotic video about it:

Starting the bible in a year

Starting to read the Old Testament and New Testament in conjugation through the Bible in a Year has been a total game changer.

I had one of those little lightbulb moments when reading some of the atrocities of Numbers in the Old Testament and God’s quite astonishingly awful punishments for sins that seem ‘not that deep’ — being stoned to death for collecting wood on the Sabbath, sending deadly venomous snakes among the Israelites for their impatient complaining, or killing tens of thousands through a plague for worshipping other gods.

“Why can’t he just be a little more accepting of sin?”, I wondered. If he loved the Israelites so much why did he punish them so very harshly and kill so many of them?

I then realized that God would not be perfectly just and holy if he made any allowances for sin.

“Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.”

— Habakkuk 1:13

To “accept” sin would be in contradiction with His own nature.

It’s a pretty dire picture for us impulsive sinners, if we’re just looking at the Old Testament. But the power is in pairing it together with the hope of the New Testament.

God did not and could not accept sin (not even a wee little bit-lit of it), but through Jesus, he could accept us sinners. He took our sin seriously enough, and his love for us seriously enough, to die for us. He paid the price of justice that, really, we should pay.

The Bible in a Year has powerfully shown me afresh the terrible, terrible punishment that should be mine, and the mindblowingly gracious Saviour who took it for me.

A big yay and also a big eish

This is going to be annoyingly vague, because I’m still in the midst of discussions with the universities that admitted me.

“Why is that?” you may ask. Well, I managed to get into some pretty cool universities in the US, buuuut, none of these universities have offered spectacular financial aid (not even close 🥲😬). I’m currently following a financial appeals process that I just hope will be resolved before the May 1 offer acceptance deadline.

At the moment, I’m hedging my bets by researching and applying to universities in Europe (and, somewhat randomly, Sydney University, as they have a 100% scholarship available for international students).

Moral of the story: let’s see…