I'm combining months two and three because they really can't be separated. Looking back, they were some of the hardest and most rewarding weeks I've had in a long time.

For a little while, May felt like everything was falling into place. I started working as the media photographer for a podcast, then photographed my first major concert featuring Boundaries, The Amity Affliction and August Burns Red.

Shortly after, I finally bought my dream camera. It had been something I'd been working toward for a long time and picking it up for the first time felt surreal. Photography became even more enjoyable overnight, and now the hunt is on for my dream lens — hopefully one that won't send me into bankruptcy.

Less than a week later everything changed when I got a call from my cousin, who almost never calls me, at 9:17 a.m. while I was sitting in class.

My grandpa passed away.

He helped raise me alongside my grandma, who had passed away just seven months before him. Losing them both so close together has been one of the hardest things I've ever had to navigate. I missed a week of school for his funeral and when I came back, I was met with a mountain of assignments waiting to be caught up on.

While I was away for his funeral, I captured what is now my favorite photo I've ever taken: a hummingbird — my grandma's favorite bird and what I now believe will always be a sign from both of them. I saw one every day while I was home, but somehow, on the day of the burial it didn't appear until afterward; as if they were waiting to say goodbye together. I'd like to think it was their way of letting me know they were finally reunited.

Before I could get back on my feet, June brought two trips to the ER and even more missed classes for medical appointments. Balancing school, grief and my health felt overwhelming at times. There were days when simply showing up was enough. But I kept going and I still am. I'd like to think they're both watching over me, quietly cheering me on every step of the way.

School itself has started becoming more exciting. We're finally moving beyond the fundamentals and into material that's completely new to me, so it feels less like review and more like real learning. It's been intense, especially with the summer heat but I'm genuinely enjoying the process when I'm not on the verge of having a heat stroke.

If there's one thing these two months have taught me, it's that progress rarely looks the way we expect it to.

Sometimes it's celebrating a career milestone one week and grieving someone you love the next.

Sometimes it's catching up on assignments between doctor's appointments.

Sometimes progress is simply refusing to give up.

I also passed my second exam, which felt like a meaningful victory after everything these past two months had thrown at me.

Even better, my classmates and I have started spending more time together outside of school. Somewhere along the way, they stopped being just classmates. They've become the people who help me catch up when I fall behind, celebrate the wins with me and remind me that I don't have to carry everything alone.

For all the chaos these past two months brought, they also gave me something I wasn't expecting: the feeling that I've finally found my place. No matter what life throws at me, I can confidently say I have people I can lean on and I like to think my grandparents would be happy to see that.

Now it's time for summer break. From July 10th to August 10th I'll be away from school, although I still have work to keep up with. The difference this time is that I get to do it from home, in the little village where I grew up.

It feels like life has come full circle. I went from wanting nothing more than to leave because it felt boring and there was never anything to do, to genuinely looking forward to going back because of the scenery and everything I never really appreciated growing up. I'm still not sure I'd want to move back there permanently, but I'm excited to spend time during the next month rediscovering it through a different lens.

And maybe that's what these past few months have been about all along: learning that sometimes it's not the places that change but the way we see them.