screencaps

Because I can, that's why.

Also because I felt the urge to point out how few posts I made in all of 2012. I'm so sorry, dear old blog. I guess you've just fallen out of favour with me. Possibly because Blogger has fallen out of favour with the world in general, to be honest.

Yep. 

Also, I figured while I was riffling through my screen capture folder I might as well include this: a little demonstration of the horrible number of tabs I had open during the writing of last semester's company law coursework. And this was during the writing, mind you - the research and readings were much worse. Meh. I know I'm just being a terrible student and a complete lazybones, but ugh I hate dry reading. Like now, because I'm writing this as an excuse to look away from International Business.

That's a highly-recommended playlist, by the way.

Toodles.

in which the author finds her attention drifting

Theoretically, there shouldn't be any reason for my inability to concentrate. I'm holed up in my room with tea and biscuits and music. Nothing's missing from my usual studying needs. And yet there's something writhing and wriggling in my head that won't let me sit still and focus - something that pokes and prods and won't leave. I've never had a great attention span, but this is ridiculous. Even now, I'm listlessly writing about it because I can't concentrate on my notes. Ugh.

on dangerous thoughts

(mirror to my tumblr post)

It’s three minutes to six and I just considered self-harming.

I don’t even know what brought that on. I’ve considered suicide in the past — nice and painless, if possible — but I’d stated quite flatly that I believed self-harm to be the one thing I’d never do. And yet I find that I just did, less than a minute ago. How odd, is the main sentiment that comes to mind. I don’t feel any strong emotion right now, so what brought that on? I’m quite sure I’m not depressed. I’ve been there before, and I’m not there now. How odd.

Up until the moment itself, I’d been engrossed in the usual mundane things I amuse myself with on the internet. I got up to go to the bathroom. I had scarcely closed the door behind me when the thought came to my mind. For something so dramatic, it sure happened at an incredibly undramatic location. If it had to have happened in the bathroom, I’d have imagined it at the very least to occur while I mournfully stared at myself in the mirror, or while I took a long, contemplative shower. Having such thoughts while standing right in the middle of the bathroom, not thinking about anything in particular and hands halfway undoing my belt, is somewhat perversely disappointing.

How odd.

ennui

Why does it feel like I've titled another post exactly like that before? I suppose it's because I have no imagination. Whatever.

^ Image by arbebuk on dA.

What I was trying to say is that I am in another of my moods. (Well, that actually sounds incredibly stupid, because I'm technically always in a mood, whether good or bad or even neutral. But the phrase lends itself so readily; let's not mock it.) I'm in holiday mood, which has been rather ambiguous for me since I've started my studies here in the UK.

On one hand, holidays are great. They really are.

But on the other, they're just excellent for highlighting how alone I am. Away from friends and family, alone in a cold room with nothing but the dwindling attraction of the internet to distract me from acknowledging the pathetic flop that is my life.

As I write, I am slowly awaiting the deletion of my thousands of tweets, born of a mistake I made in linking my Twitter to my Tumblr account. My room is a mess of random packaging from random parcels and clothes that refuse to dry properly (I still haven't begun packing for the trip on Tuesday - which, if I might mention, is beginning to lose its appeal for me). My tea-stained mugs sit accusingly to my right, a reminder of the many dishes I have yet to wash today. My bedroom smells of my dinner, because I didn't want to eat alone in the living/dining room. No, I wanted to eat alone in front of my computer, so that I'd have less time to mull over my sorry state. Now I'll need to check if my drying clothes smell of food. But again, whatever.

To put myself in an even less favourable light, I feel compelled to mention that I actually do have plenty of things I could do right now, the aforementioned washing-up being one of them.

• I could complete my applications for a placement next year. 
• I could start revising for the January exams.
• I could draw up a revision plan for the January exams.
• I could read my many books.
• I could finish the themes challenge.
• I could take a long, indulgent, hot shower.
• I could clean my room.
• I could clean the house.
• I could start packing.
• I could sleep.

Do you see what I mean by "sad, lonely, introverted existence" right there? I assure you, it has nothing to do with it being half past two in the morning. Even if it were two in the afternoon, there'd be nothing I could do outside of this house. And it'll be like this for the next three weeks - the whole of Christmas break. While the festive cheer is heartwarming in its own way (especially since the people here obviously take the holiday far more seriously than most people back home would), it also grabs the heart and twists it into a pretzel of pain for depressingly depressing people like me.

I have nice friends, ones who think me better than I actually am, and without them I'm just... sinking beneath their expectations of me. I become the disgusting version of myself, because I don't feel the need to reward anyone's faith in me. I rot.

But writing helped. Is helping. Will hopefully help.

I can't say for sure that my mood will take a turn for the better in the weeks to come, but I'll man up about it all. I might write again, or I might not, but for what it's worth, it's made me feel a tiny bit better. Probably because my guilt about abandoning this blog (and long posts in general) has been assuaged, but I'll take what I can get. Beggars can't choose, yeah?

Boo.

Super quick post, just popping in because the prospect of BM(A) is absolutely terrifying.

I haven't actually abandoned you yet, my old bloggie. You know full well I'll always turn to you when I have a lot to write about that doesn't go well on my tumblr, because, well, you're the safer option. Tumblr is a great place to explore and to make quick connections, but it's a bit of a fair weather friend, if you get my meaning.

That having been said, I haven't been reading or writing much in the last year or two - definitely a lot less than when I was in school. It's a sad realisation. It feels rather like losing a part of myself that I was proud of. My vocabulary is shrinking, and my enthusiasm to grow it has pretty much shrivelled up and disappeared. I may be sort of making up for it by learning more Japanese and picking up Hangul, but that really isn't much of an excuse.

Sigh.

what am I doing wrong?

I'm lonely. There you go, it's a nice, cold, hard fact. I'm emo and homesick and tired and moody and evasive all the time now because this loneliness is growing and growing and it's eating me up and I can't stand it any more than I already have. I can't tell if I'm lonely because I have self esteem issues and feel as though no one could love such a person, or because I'm (ironically, in the opposite direction) an arrogant being who looks upon humankind as a whole as a flaw beyond help?

Perhaps I'm just over-thinking everything as a self-defense mechanism because I need to drown out the nasty voices in my head. I need to not hear the truth, whispered to me in my own mental voice, that I am just a really nasty person who will never let enough of herself be known to anyone to feel wholly accepted. I have beautiful friends who care, who want to know the reason behind my mood swings. But I don't want to tell them, I don't want to release into the world any more filth than already exists in it. All these negative thoughts should stay locked up in my mind, where at least they would damage only me.

I just don't think I could be poisonous enough to let anyone in on this unhappiness, especially not when so many of the people who care seem so happy. When someone is that happy, and that happiness is so well-deserved and so overdue, you can't honestly expect me to tell them that their happiness makes me feel lonelier than ever. That the happier they get, the further I feel my world is from theirs. That I am tired and miserable and terribly jealous of them. That I can't help the bitterness even if it disgusts me more than it would them.

And then I switch perspectives again and consider a different possibility. Could it be that I am not, after all, a vile creature who casts a pall on a friend's joy? Maybe - maybe I'm being too arrogant in assuming that my black vibes would even remotely affect that friend's happiness. Maybe I'm too nice, too careful, too conscious. Maybe I'm being a fool and keeping everything to myself when all I need is to open up and stop assuming things. Maybe I need to stop trying so hard to make something change when all I need to do is let things flow as they should. Not to strive for light or dark, but to get comfortable with the grey area and just - chill.

Mother of god, what do you do when someone suddenly tells you the most intense life story you've ever heard?

Especially since all I thought they were going to say was, "Oh, it's a silly nickname that stuck..."

To be perfectly honest,

I don't like waiting all night for someone to come online. I hate it even more when someone comes online for five minutes, then disappears. And I wait for two hours, and see that "online" sign pop up just to find that it disappears in another five minutes. Damn it, if you tell me you want to talk then just bloody stay online. Stop being so damned impatient and hopping off into another world just because I can't type fast enough to reply in ten seconds. I know you're bred kiasu and can't bear wasting your precious time but for god's sake, just bloody give me thirty seconds if you need to talk. Otherwise please don't rob me of my sleep. It's so damned annoying.

Kthxbye.

Me and my words.

I typed out a long rant yesterday about something that has since become insignificant. Or rather, I have since realized its insignificance.

I was about to post it on my blog from my mobile, but just then a call came in and I accidentally deleted the entire thing. My initial reaction was, of course, complete outrage at myself for the amount of effort gone down the drain. But I couldn't summon the energy or the feeling to write it up again, so it didn't get posted in the end. I'm that kind of person; when I write, I follow the flow of my emotions (usually ending in melancholy) and by the time I've finished the final paragraph, I've released all my emotions in the words and I no longer feel the same as when I wrote the first lines. My emotional state vacillates a lot. I get influenced a little too easily.

So you can imagine that when I thought back about what I had written, I suddenly felt glad that I hadn't posted it after all. It was quite pathetic, on hindsight - the whole thing reeked of petulant whining and melodrama. When I think back on it, it was a shallow, thoughtless rant that came to no conclusions and sounded like a thirteen-year-old's desperate attempt to draw attention to the heinous drama in their life. In a way, it was a manipulative bitch of a rant, taking ordinary truth and phrasing it in ways that tried to hint tantalizingly at something serious and interesting. The equivalent, forgive me, of a young teenager posting statuses on Facebook about heartbreak and love when you know for a fact that they have never even experienced either. Not quite the same, but equally foolish.

I've thought up a theory that I should test. The next time I feel worked up about something and decide to rant about it on my blog or journal... When I finish the piece, I should always hit Save Draft first. If I still feel the same way a day later, I'll publish the post.

I am not always easygoing, or reasonable, or open-minded. But I try very hard to be.

-.

You'll need to click on it for the full size version.

*edit!*
60 notes on tumblr? That's like a personal high score for original content! :D And to think I nearly decided against uploading it...

-.

I don't know what the future will be like. That's fine, because no one does.

I don't know what I want my future to be like. That scares me more than anything else right now, even more than the upcoming exams.

When did I change? Was it gradual, or did it happen in one cataclysmic moment? I used to dream of doing what I loved for a living. I used to believe I had a little talent. I used to have potential. I used to picture myself working hard but enjoying myself because I loved my work. Why, then, do I suddenly stop functioning on autopilot - after a year and a half - and look back to realise that I might have made a big mistake?

I am so, so very terrified right now.