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Breath

I am currently procrastinating from studying Japanese. I am quite truly sick and tired of revision and I just…can’t seem to remember anymore than I already have. But I am pleased to say- my exams are over!! Had my Circuits and Fields last Saturday, which went even worse than expected. The paper was written by a different lecturer and I have never before seen questions like that in my entire life. They were at a totally different level from the questions and past papers my lecturer had given/set before. Harder, more complicated, less clear as to what the question wanted. Methods had different names too, which didn’t help. I actually couldn’t answer most of the questions. I had never ever seen circuits that looked like that- how was I supposed to analyze them? It was terrible.

Then I thankfully had a nice long break until Friday, spent mostly stuck in halls procrastination from revision and revising. I did go out Thursday to go get Sushi with a friend. And shop by myself a little afterwards. Instead of revising. It was pretty fun.

My friend and I went to Yo!Sushi as they had an offer on. I wasn’t really feeling well and wasn’t that hungry, and I had to face being in the embarrassing situation of not being able to use chopsticks and having nothing else to eat with but chopsticks (thanks, yo sushi and I won’t be going back to give you any more of my money any time soon. I don’t even like sushi, I just go there for the tamago and the katsu curry.) but it was nice to chat to my friend. This came up at a point- that I have no friends. And I told my friend I honestly don’t need any friends but her (well, I told her I didn’t need friends and had to furiously backtrack to explain that I meant I didn’t need other friends, oh awkward). I have the feeling people expect me to be living differently than I do, that they find it strange that I don’t go out, that they feel bad for me that I’ve not gotten any friends on my course or in my halls. But these things don’t matter for me. There are situations where I feel yeah, it would be nice to have friends on my course but that’s for selfish reasons- needing someone to contact when i’m not sure of coursework deadlines say. But, in truth I don’t really need people for any other reason. I don’t like to talk to people. Being around people makes me anxious, and I end up feeling exhausted because of it. I feel embarrassed by the things I say, I feel self conscious and I just don’t like it. Not around my best friend, or my sister, the people I trust. They’re enough. I don’t trust easily, and I can’t relax around people until I know I can trust them. They are the only people I can really relax around, and thus I like being with them. No one else. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel strange myself. Sometimes I wonder if there is something wrong with me. There are so many things I can’t do that most people my age can (use chopsticks, for instance, apply makeup, go to a bar or club and know what I am doing etc) and I guess…I feel a little like the odd one out sometime. Even though I feel mostly fine with myself, it seems the world is telling me that it is wrong to be this way. :(

I don’t know where this paragraph came from. Or if it even makes any sense.

I’ll leave it there and continue with the day to day stuff.

I probably shoulda revised more during those 6 days. I had electronic engineering at 9am on Friday, and the paper was OK but I couldn’t remember everything and I made lots of little mistakes and forgot gray code thus totally messing up on one question. Hopefully should have enough marks to pass that one? I hope. I’m trying not to think about it anymore. Results should be out mid February/by the end of February and there’s nothing I can do until then.

Today I went out again, got brows waxed, shopped, had coffee at Starbucks. Nothing major, but OK. I was mainly avoiding studying Japanese, because I did mention I’m sick of studying yeah?

Semester 2 starts on Monday. I have lectures from 9am until 1pm, then from 2pm until 6pm and then I have Japanese from 6:30pm until 8:30pm. yeah. What a fun start to a new semester. I am in a way…dreading semester 2. There’s a lot more labs this semester and I don’t really like labs? And I start something called real time systems this semester and apparently we get to choose our own groups. This phrase usually makes most people happy. Most people who aren’t me. That phrase brings back memories of standing out in the cold during P.E lessons waiting, waiting to be picked and no one ever would. I’d always be the one left behind, the one that someone is stuck with. I am totally dreading RTS, not only because it is going to be difficult, but because I am going to have to deal with working with someone I don’t know, and someone who probably doesn’t want to work with me as much as I don’t want to work with them. This is one of those situations where I think, for selfish reasons, that it would be nice to have friends :/

Forget Japanese revision, I’m going to bed now. So tired. I feel a little sad, but no, its more I feel like having a good cry. Just, letting it out. All this worry and anxiety, all this stress. But I’m too tired for even that.

Listening To: Mad Soul Child- Breath
mood: tired

But a part of me sometimes wants

In the last entry I was packing up and about to leave halls. Let me continue from there.

Packing up took ages. My dad came fairly late, and we ended up only finishing up and leaving at about half ten, eleven-ish. The car was pretty full, but this meant I got to have a duvet on my lap for the entire journey back which wasn’t so bad (read: gloriously warm). We stopped at McDonalds on the way back and I was all :D :D :D whilst my dad was clearly just trying to stay awake. It was surreal coming back home- a little bit because I had gotten kind of used to uni, but mostly for the silly reason that it had been snowing at home whilst at uni there had been no snow. At first there was just a light dusting but arriving home there was a thick layer of snow on the ground. It was unexpected :o Unpacking took a much shorter time and I was soon curled up in my own bed. The next day involved lots of organising and lots of washing, and then soon it became the usual of sitting around wasting time. I was home.

And time has just flown past since then. I can’t believe I’m now on the last few weeks of my Christmas break. I have spent the last few weeks sleeping until ridiculous hours, taking forever to get ready for the day just because I can, attempting to revise but mostly failing at it and lazing about taking advantage of having unlimited internet to watch lots of dramas. It’s been wonderful being able to sleep in every morning, to have a long hot mould-free shower, to eat whatever I want and when I want it, to have my cat around me. Of course my room is in chaos right now, with boxes and bags everywhere waiting to be packed up again, but that’s to be expected. I don’t go out much, so I can leave most of it packed.

Christmas itself was fairly quiet and uneventful. My sister invited two of her Chinese friends to spend Christmas with our family. They were polite and kind and it was a lot less awkward than I had feared it would be. It’s actually very interesting to be around people from such a vastly different culture than yourself. For Christmas I got some awesome presents, ate a lot of awesome food, played monopoly with my sister and her friends and lost miserably… all fairly ordinary and nice.

New years was not as nice as Christmas. It wasn’t bad, but it was awkward and exhausting and I wish I’d spent it at home with my parents and my cat and the internet. I actually spent new years with my old school friends and I was dreading it from the moment I agreed to go, and I can’t say it defied my expectations. Most of said friends I’ve only once or twice since we left school, if that. And we don’t have much in common and they are all so much more mature than me. They’re all second years, with houses, with busy lives and normal hobbies that are not watching Asian dramas or fangirling over fucking Korean boy bands with too many members. It wasn’t so bad, but I felt awkward and out of place. No, I’ve always felt awkward and out of place around them, and its only gotten worse. I was ready to leave by about midnight but ended up only getting home around 2am because I had to wait for my one friend to be able to take me back. :/ I am fairly sure I said some things I shouldn’t, and did some things I shouldn’t, because I always do.

I can’t say I feel particularly excited about the New Year either, which probably contributed to my melancholy at the New Year ‘s party. All the new year really means is that I now have exams in just two weeks. That I have to go back to university in two weeks and deal with all that stress again. I’ve enjoyed the past few weeks, but I think these next two weeks aren’t going to be nearly as relaxing. Now comes the part where every day exams creep closer, and every day is filled with anxiety about said exams. Here comes the regret for not being productive enough, for wasting time. I have been trying to revise but I honestly don’t feel like I’m really taking anything in. Which is maybe worse. Because I’m trying here, but still I’m not sure I’ll ever get to the level I need to be to achieve the things I want. I want to get good grades, but I just…I just don’t think I can do it. I honestly don’t think I am capable of getting the marks I want and I fear these exams will turn out my A levels, and that is not a good thing.

It’s heart-breaking to grow to want something, want it so much, when you’ll probably never get it.

I should end this entry on a more positive note, shouldn’t I? A belated merry Christmas, and happy new years to anyone who reads this blog. May the next year be awesome for you :D

Listening To: Daesung- Lunatic
mood: ill

view from plane

I met up with my friends today, just for drinks at a local cafe, which was fairly chill and nice. One thing that did come up was my one friend has never been abroad, doesn’t even a passport. I always find that amazing. That people have never travelled, have never explored other parts of the world even if it is sitting on a beach for a week. I hate flying with a passion (try 12 hours on a plane with plane sickness aka severe nausea, dizziness and very little sleep so utter exhaustion), but I’m fairly used to it. Put it this way: I like going to new places, I just don’t like the process of getting there. Either way, I cannot imagine not having experienced being stuck on a dry aired, too cold/too hot, cramped plane for 12 hours wishing desperately for fresh air and land. I cannot imagine not having experienced travelling half way across the world in 16-24 hours, seeing the world in miniature from above and the shadows of the clouds on the earth, the rush of customs, the sinking feeling in the gut from a cancelled plane, the exhaustion and relief as you step through arrivals, the joy of experiencing a new place, the confusion of working with new currency, the intrigue of other cultures, different places. It’s not like I’m widely travelled either; I’ve actually been to more airports than actual places. But still. Travelling is good. I have spent the last month and one day abroad. And now, I have been back in the UK for a week. In some ways I’m struggling to get back into things. I feel tired and lazy. It’s somewhat odd being away for a month, doing all new and exciting and wonderful things, then coming back to the same old routine. Not bad, but strange. Probably quite good in many ways. For a holiday it wasn’t always relaxing. Not in a bad way, but it was busy and sometimes awkward and sometimes I just wanted to shut myself in my bedroom and chill by myself but I couldn’t cos I was always sharing space with somebody. But more on that some other time. I will write about the big holiday some other time, if I write about it at all. There are some memories, some thoughts, some experiences I like to keep close to my heart and not talk about here.

For now, I am back in the UK. I am 19 years old, my last year of being a teenager (as people love to say, as if I’ll magically turn into an adult when I’m 20). I am moving out of the house to go to university in September. My sister has graduated from university and is now looking for work, and I have no idea what kind of graduation present to get her. I am a little sad, a little angry, a little scared but mainly happy. The holiday was good for me. I had a mostly wonderful time being abroad, and now I am gradually slipping back into the old routine. I do in a way miss the family, and miss Cape Town, but not too badly homesick. Things are good right now. I’ve been catching up on the RSS feeds I follow, enjoying Internet shopping once more (Ebay <3), and watching the variety shows and dramas I wanted to (like material queen. omg SO GOOD. SO PRETTY. SO DIFFERENT.) I love having my cat around me again. I’m enjoying waking up late, goingg to bed late, and eating whatever I want without that horrible feeling of being judged by the relatives for my relatively poor diet. And I can eat chocolate again! And I don’t have to have 3 meals a day. Seriously, I eat like a bird. On holiday all I did was eat- from 4 course meals to tea times. Being on holiday is great but after a while it gets too much. By the last day in Harare I was desperate to get back- to my house, my cat, to the food I want when I want etc etc.

In many ways it’s good to be back. Very good to be back.

Listening To: Zooropa Yellow- U
mood: content

This is so unusual

I haven’t been posting much lately, have I? I admit sometimes I find it difficult to blog. I’ll have so much to say but somehow I can’t quite put it into words. And I’ll admit there’s not much happening at the moment. I am almost finished with my foundation year. I’m not entirely sure what happened to all that time but there you go. Just got three exams and one assignment to go. Fingers crossed I do well. Not that I’m spending nearly enough time revising, yet. (I want to add a hopeful ‘yet’ to that statement. I will revise, eventually…) At the moment I’m spending the majority of my time lazing around marathoning every Japanese detective drama I can find (I seem to have become addictive to detective/mystery/crime type dramas. It’s becoming a rather serious problem…In one week I’ve gotten through three separate dramas D: (Which are BOSS, Control and Galileo for anyone interested and all three were awesome and totally worth seeing, yes.))

I did go into university on Monday to do work and I also went into Liverpool on Tuesday to meet up with my sister and show her around. We went to the world museum and amused the staff there with our childish antics (no really, I totally caught one of the staff smiling watching as me and my sister play fought over something stupid. I think she said I wasn’t old enough to go see the planetarium show for 7 years and over and so I hit her (lightly!)…and it went from there…) Me and my sister both like going to museums, so we trailed around with genuine excitement and interest- even trying out some of the interactive displays with childish enthusiasm (but I’d like to add uni student intelligence and determinism). It was so much fun! After that I showed her my university (Which was pretty much her: It’s just a building. me: yes, what were you expecting?) and then the library (her: it’s just… another building. me: yes. What were you expecting?) before walking down to the docks (see: Albert dock) where we somehow found ourselves at a pub sitting outside drinking ice cold drinks in the freezing winds. The weather is pretty nice right now in the UK, but still a bit temperamental and there are cold days. Tuesday was one of them. It was warm but there were strong, cold winds (especially near the mersey, for obvious reasons). Anyway. After that cold, rather foolish experience we went shopping for a bit and then parted ways. It was a very fun day. I love spending time with my sister. It’s just so easy to be around her. I was saying that to her actually. How she is one of very few people I actually speak to. Most people I struggle to even form coherent sentences around, even my own mother and father sometimes. I appreciate being able to spend a few hours feeling comfortable in my own skin.

On that note I actually met up with some of my old friends on Thursday and man, it was awful. The polar opposite of how awesome Tuesday was. They were talking about things that happened that happened in high school and high school friends and I’m sorry but am I supposed to care about all that? I didn’t have anything to talk about because I don’t care about high school, I don’t keep up with current TV or movies (I don’t have money or opportunities to go the cinema) and I don’t have much happening in my life (I’m either studying or spending hours procrastinating from studying…). I was just sitting there wishing I could teleport myself out of there. I was thankful when that was over. As horrible as it is I’ve changed, outgrown those people. Outgrown highschool and everything that happened there, all those people there. I just don’t care. I was kind of looking forward to catching up with people now but not anymore. I’d much rather be alone watching my dramas, thank you very much.

Listening To: Namie Amuro ft Yamashita Tomohisa - Unusual
mood: relaxed

Bo Peep Bo Peep Bo Peep

For the first time last year (this year?) I went somewhere for new years.

I know right?

I went to my bests friends house for the evening. My best friend was there and 3 others. It was a small gathering but it was nicer for that. We played games- first a game of Articulate where I’m sure I got a little over-excited/loud and my team still lost miserably, then a game of pictionary that dragged on forever although my team did win despite my poor friend laughing in helpless despair at my strange drawings that didn’t seem at all related to the question (she didn’t understand my artistic vision :P). We talked a lot and ate lots of food (chocolate is food). I enjoyed hearing about their university experiences. Unlike me they are all having the full uni experience of living away from home. My one friend goes to university in London which is quite exicting; I’m making a mental note to visit her sometime! The train to London can be cheap but accommodation is always expensive- not anymore! XD Three out of four of my friends say they aren’t enjoying uni, and two of my friends say they are struggling to make friends. The latter scares me the most because I’m 10 times more awkward and anti-social than them, and I have weirder hobbies (they like popular TV and books. I like Japanese/Korean shit that no one has heard of). Conclusion: I am going to die when/if I leave home. D: I have no friends right now but its ok because I can just come home and retreat to my room, instead of being in a flat/hall of people I am awkward around.

As new years approached we got out glow sticks, party poppers and a bottle of bucks fizz. We gathered round the TV and watched the count down in London, then the fireworks. Soon after I left. I felt unwell the whole night, and moody so I felt a bit awkward but it was still somewhat fun. I wish I could’ve drunk (not because I’m some kind of crazed alcoholic but because it may have helped me loosen help…or turned me more moody. Either way I would have risked it for the chance to loosen up a little). Unfortunately I was on strong pain killers which meant I had to be very careful. And said painkillers despite being strong don’t work that well which meant I was in a lot of pain the whole evening. Feeling unwell was the only thing that I hated about last night and maybe my lack of brain to mouth filter. I’m still such an awkward person. I worry about what others think and whether they really want me there. I can’t help it, paranoid thoughts like that come as naturally as breathing. :( It was much nicer to be around my friends though than being surrounded by strangers at University. My friends by now have some understanding of how odd I am and if they are still putting up with me I must be doing something right.

Lastly me and my friends decided we’d write down three goals for 2011 to stash away until next new years, then see then if we’d kept them. There’s a lot that could go wrong with that but still, it was fun. I only have one real goal this year, so I made up two silly ones to make up the full number XD My goals were thus:

1. Get into first year engineering. The important and most obvious and the one I really need to focus on. My one friend is doing the course I want and she hates it so I am nervous about it but at the same time its something I want to do and I have come too far now to turn back. I’ve paid my dues and I’m hoping, a little desperately, that this will be my year to succeed. At the same time I know it rests a lot on myself and my attitude. I am constantly trying to find the motivation to get motivated (coffee man!) but that isn’t good enough. I need to do well in my foundation degree.

(She says whilst procrastination from her work…)

2. Read all of Haruki Murakami’s books. I love Haruki Murakami. Kafka on the Shore was amazing and I vowed to read the rest but alas I never got round to it. His books are much more expensive than the usual 90’s fantasy books I buy for 1p+150p shipping. The most I spend on books is 400p usually. Murakamis are about 500p or often more. Either way I must read them all!

(My pound sign on my keyboard is broken. Deal with me writing in pence!)

3. Get 3rd piercing. I have long decided I want 3 piercings. Why? No reason, I just like the number three. I finally got the second piercing in my ear this year but I want to get my nose pierced still. I’ve been putting it off though because I’m not sure how professional it is. Its all very well for university but how will it affect me when I want to get a job? I want to work in a professional environment and thus I will need to look it. A nose piercing is pricey, painful and takes a long time to heal (which means having to clean it everyday for months, not a job to take lightly) so I’m not just getting it only to let it heal in a few years. Which means I’m thinking of either a 3rd piercing in my ear or reevaluating my stance on body piercings. I’m not a fan of belly button piercings (and nipple piercings are just D:) but they are discreet. I now have all of this year to ponder it and then go for it!

These aren’t resolutions. The first one is a necessity and the other two are just silly. It will be amazing if we actually do have a similar gathering next year and remember about these (and find they haven’t been lost in Narnia or thrown away) and get to look back.

Happy new years everyone! : )

Listening To: T-ARA- Bo Peep Bo Peep
mood: sick

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