“I’ll be different, but somewhere lost inside me there’ll always be the person I am tonight.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald (Magnetism)
(Source: senshuk, via piquantl-deactivated20120322)
“No wonder we cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from the horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home.”
— David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays (via: mianoti & ohnonotme)
(Source: queerlythere, via fuckyeahexistentialism)
A very over-due post about the new year and my thoughts regarding the one before. Solid title?
I’m a believer of getting things out when I’m feeling them, so here goes…
2010 to me was kind of like a foster mother I’d just moved in with (at the beginning of, well, 2010) who seemed fine at first - firm yet reasonable, didn’t bother me too much, kept off the parenting cliches; basically tankable. Not Angelina Jolie, but hey, one can’t have it all. Except she kinda descended into alcoholism towards the end of the year and beat me about the head with a broken beer bottle everyday. But as with every relationship between a daughter and her fictional, violent, alcoholic foster mother who was denied AA membership owing to the fact that she wasn’t exactly um, human, there were high points as well as low ones. Sometimes there were high points because of the low ones. Sometimes the high points led directly to the low ones. And sometimes there wasn’t any real connection between the two; the universe had just (also) gotten drunk.
So this is just a little note to remind myself not to let the bad times in 2010 overwhelm - and override - the good. Dealing with 2010’s problems made me a better person; dealing with 2010 in general made me realise so many things about myself I never even knew. I realise it’s all well and good to say this in retrospect, sort of in a really Confucius/ bard-like “ah, I have learnt much” kind of way, but right now I do remember very acutely the flashes of absolute despair I felt periodically, especially towards the end. My father says I’m melodramatic. I say I tell it like it is.
And here I will try to salvage a point to this post… Um. Well. I haven’t made any resolutions. Not because I think I’ll break them - you WILL break your new year’s resolutions; it’s a basic law of the universe. It’s more because I don’t feel anything remotely special whenever the new year rolls around, so I never made it a point to commemorate it with anything. I’m a little apprehensive of what this year may bring, but as I maintain that I am an optimist at the core (glass half full! Of ribena!): thank you, all who braved the last twelve months with me, and here’s to a legendary year ahead. Onward!
“Life, even at its simplest level, occurs apparently just for its own sake. It is easy to overlook this thought, that life just is. As humans, we are inclined to think that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - arguably even stronger. If I were told I would have to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additional existence. Life, in short, just wants to be.”
— Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
Everybody sing love
Been almost a month since the end of As. To be absolutely honest, it does feel like a lot more. I figured I’d better put down in writing what the first part of an 8 month holiday feels like so that when it starts to stagnate in a frustratingly languid manner near the end or so, I can take comfort in knowing that the first part was mind-blowingly awesome.
Not that it has been, actually - mind-blowingly awesome, I mean. I sort of envisioned myself waking up every day after the exams bursting with joy and excitement and just so ready! To! Live!… But no, to answer your un-asked questions, I haven’t been bursting with joy, or excitement, or any sort of emotion, really. Yes, I whine during exams, I whine after exams - does it ever stop? Well. Just because I haven’t been overwhelmed by a single emotion doesn’t mean I haven’t been smiling a lot more lately. It’s nice waking up knowing I have absolutely nothing to do. It’s nice bumming around reading the books and watching the movies/ brain-depleting sitcoms I’ve been meaning to since forever, but always put off in lieu of other more pressing needs (i.e. chasing an enormous backlog of unfinished work). It’s wonderful not having to chase an enormous backlog of unfinished work. And it’s absolutely amazing being able to spend more time with the people I love, without my mind being cluttered up with a million other things (read: rotting around town with a glazed look on our faces, sipping too many peppermint mocha frappes for our own good). I guess it’s a quiet sort of enjoyment that I wake up to every morning, and no, I’m not going to end this sentence with “fall asleep to at night”. I don’t actually know how to end that sentence un-awkwardly. Hey, I just did. Mindfuck!
In other news, my absolute favourite holiday of the year is just round the corner. I don’t really know where that corner is or when I’m going to go around it, but seeing as Christmas is 5 days away, I figure I have enough justification to use that phrase. I love Christmas. I mean it. Everything - life in shades of gray, unfulfilled moments, the state of abject boredom I am about to sink in from rotting around too much, world poverty - kind of fades away in light of Christmas (in my world, at least, which is actually a really great place. Come visit!). I don’t quite know how to express it in words, but there’s a sort of irreplaceable warm and fuzzy (“Hey, they invented that phrase for a reason!” She cried indignantly) feeling that washes over you in the days leading up to it that I’ve had trouble finding elsewhere. Said feeling lingers throughout mass on Christmas Eve, the assorted feasts/ dinner parties, and even Boxing Day. And it’s not so much about the gifts - they’ve followed a steady downhill pattern of Not-So-Great to Meh to Eurgh; this year, I suspect, they’re going to hit new levels of low. The strange thing is, looking back, I can’t even pinpoint an exact Great Christmas Moment, or a single event where I went delirious with Christmas-infused joy. Maybe it’s the idea of it; maybe it’s the untainted notion of a golden, magical holiday that I’m desperately trying to keep alive. Whatever it is, I hope (as naively and sincerely as one can hope) that the roaring flames of my Christmas excitement never dwindle down to a spark, or get stamped out by the Great Holiday Hiking Boots of the Universe. Whoa…
Anyway. It’s not even 2pm, and I’ve already spoilt your day by mentioning the word “Christmas” far too many times. I almost always end my posts too abruptly, and for that I apologise. Have a great week, everybody, and happy holidays!
“Maybe we should just stay here, Harry. Grow old.”
— Hermione Granger (via yerawizardharry)
The map is most definitely not the goddamn territory
Well hello there! A few notes from the midst of the As:
1. This thing does not go by quickly. No, seriously. I don’t know if the people who told me it does (using very misleading phrases such as “before you know it” or “in the blink of an eye”) were just trying to be nice and comforting, but the past few weeks have just made me really, really wish nobody said anything about this bitch speeding by so I wouldn’t have waited all expectantly for it to zoom past and instead have my hopes dashed (hahaha. Dashed. Oh god.), and dashed so… damn… slowly.
2. Feel like I’ve let myself down after every single paper. Try not to think about it. Relax to take my mind off things (read: watch Merlin). Panic as next exam approaches. Try to cram in an impossible amount of knowledge into my head the night before. Die. Go for paper. Repeat.
3. New Curious Capitalist entries continue to make my day… Don’t think this needs explaining.
4. Was just telling Andre how I’ve missed rotting around and being a burden to society. He said that was a very strange comment. Well. Strange it may be, but also entirely true. I revel in its strangeness.
5. As you can probably infer from the above, my life of late has been… I was going to say boring (in a really obnoxious way, like BOH-RIIIIING), but then I realised I’ve been to Boring and it was positively bursting with energy and vigour compared to this place. What is this? Town With No Name? Untankable Hole of Despair? I have no idea, and I really don’t want to find out. Absolutely cannot wait for the 26th, after which I can close (slam) the door on these Dreadful Days and leave 2010 behind. Generally an ok year, whose ok-ness has unfortunately been far outstripped by the lack of ok-ness that has characterised the past few weeks.
6. I finally, FINALLY, fully and completely understand what people mean when they say “zzz”.
7. And so, taking points 1-6 into consideration, and my general “puppy-left-in-the-rain demeanour, except puppies are cuter” (description courtesy of my mother), THANK GOD THE END IS NIGH. THANK GOD. THANK. GOD.
P.S. Wow, I really am a very whiny person. Well. I didn’t actually ask you to read all of that.
P.P.S. I repeat, the end is near!!! So very near!!!!!!
P.P.P.S. Before that, must start properly on econs tomorrow. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz… Oh you get the idea.
“Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”
— Douglas Adams
There was once this bad metaphor. But it was so true.
Have you ever experienced a dull kind of fear? There, but you’re so sick of it you don’t even bother pushing it away anymore. Perhaps you’ve grown accustomed to its presence; welcome it, even, because occasionally it snaps at your heels like an angry rottweiler and springs you into action for a day. So the fear is good. The fear serves a purpose. But the regret is the worst, because it gnaws away at your insides and spits them out into little pieces - thousands of little pieces, which when stacked up on top of one another don’t even compare to the huge mountain of untouched material you have yet to plough through and familiarise yourself with. And the year’s experiences separate themselves into piles, too: things you should have done, things you shouldn’t have done and things you swear you will never do again. Someone stop this train… Looks like we’re pulling into the final station, but I’m not ready to alight just yet.
If God had a face
What would it look like?
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like heaven and Jesus and the saints and all the prophets
I can see the end. So I should probably start, as all journeys do… At the beginning. Sometimes the final goal looms out of nowhere and startles me; at others I am able to distract myself with frivolous, unnecessary thoughts about what lies beyond. Mostly it just seems I have been trudging far too reluctantly, and for far too long, right into the gaping maw of the biggest demon of my life. At first there was company, and I was content to savour the good times while letting the world pass me by. But now the crowd has forged ahead, and it’s getting lonely. Anyone?
Quantum Libet
Am sitting here, drinking a strawberry smoothie that’s slightly too sour for my liking and listening to the Star Wars theme, typing this. I guess it’s a better option than my brother’s birthday dinner or studying. Felt too sleepy to do either, but couldn’t sleep in the end. I’ve learnt not to get too angry at the little things.
I realise this blog has about three types of posts. Photos of things I like, Lamebook, and Whinybitch. This is really quite dismal. Is my online journal going to lend itself to lame categorisation so easily? So here’s introducing a fourth: my life! Which will be expounded upon in bullet form, mainly because I haven’t written properly about my life in prose since forever and any attempts I make to do so will probably read more awkwardly than me accidentally sending the ‘Hi! This is send-a-disabled-person-a-msg-of-encouragement day! Hang in there my friend! You’re special!’ message to my dad.
1. 15 days of proper school left in the rest of my life. Wow. I’m not going to say anything like “GOD I FEEL OLD”, because I don’t. I feel young, and energetic, and fresh… Well not really, but I just think saying I feel old and weary and sick of life trivialises what REALLY old people have been through. So respect, all you old folk. Unless you’re like my mother, and refuse to claim this respect on the grounds that you’ve been turning 30 every year since you were, well, really 30. But I digress. 15 days of school left! Grace and Andre suggested making a list of things to accomplish before graduating. My contribution was that everybody duct-tape their entire body underneath their uniform and spend the day as a ninja. My contribution was subtly and tactfully ignored by Grace hastily telling me something about Mr Pen and his suicide. Having a crazily short attention span… it worked! I see what you did there.
2. I am on a ship. The ship is heading straight towards a whirlpool. Kinda like the Cherek Bore in David Eddings… (hehehe Winky, if you ever see this). While the captain of the ship (me) (in case that was too subtle for anybody to get) has spent the last few months hyperventilating and trying to change said ship’s course of direction, she has finally come to terms with the fact that the ship WILL reach the Bore, and after that it’s either sink or swim. Better to accept this fact and travel with a steely heart, prepared COA and preferably a cool sailor’s hat than foaming (ha! Ha! Ha! I’ve grown fond of terrible puns lately) at the mouth and wailing incessantly about wishing I was dead so I don’t have to face the music (all this wailing can be found under the Whinybitch category, which I am not very proud of).
Fun fact - in this post: 2 Star Wars references and god-knows-how-many mentions of my parents. As Zaphod Beeblebrox once said… “I’m so hip, I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis.”
