Why not go around tanking pictures then? I mean, that 40xp per year is a general guideline. If I'm not mistaken the current iteration of the guidelines is this one: Character Creation Guidelines
Thinking about your first season: writing spells from your lab texts is done at 20 x Latin, meaning 80 levels. A distraction of 2 months from your writing means you could still write about 50 levels of spells (2/3), so why not take a few photos? Sure, you copied books for your parens, but you also made one 1 month trip to the nearest city to photograph the landscape, and learned etiquette from a minor noble (10 xp). If the problem is the snow, you could spend the boring winter season gossiping with the other Jerbiton and unravel some kind of minor plot against a friend, or against yourself. Nothing serious, just a practical joke... but still worth 10 xp in intrigue.
On the other side, winters would be the natural choice to prepare for further trips (inventing a spell to protect her from the cold so that next year she can go take pictures of the frozen lakes), so maybe those are the seasons you want to spend inside the lab.