A Bit Boring, But Lets Face it I'm Out of Practice

The awkward moment when you some what doubtfully post a to be continued and then completely ignore the existence of your blog for almost a year.

Hi,

So it goes without saying but I lot has happened since I last posted. I had a supper crazy semester of uni (who new I actually needed my year 13 calculus?) in which I actually managed to manage my stress levels (probably not compared to most people, but lets face it I have never been most people). Summer happened (actually nothing to elaborate on in that area). Summer school happened and I wondered what high school teachers didn't bother to teach us why the content they forced us to learn actually mattered (Because actually Chemistry is AWESOME!!! Too bad I was on the last paper for my commerce degree).

Finished uni (Yay). Started job hunting (YUCK). Graduated (Yay!). Job hunted some more (double YUCK). And as of three days ago GOT JOB (double Yay).

And that was my year.

That was fun, lets do this again sometime, maybe next year????

But actually.....

A year of my life happened and blog wise I have nothing to show for it. Blogs were planned but not written, I small few were even written but not posted. The fear I intended to elaborate on last year what that sometimes I feel that to record one thing I will then have to record everything. Its like I haven't yet accepted that a blog is a series of snapshots and not a comprehensive summary of my life. But what if the snapshots I make create a story that doesn't match with life?

So in the last year life happened and quite frankly I didn't really have the desire to blog about it (which is absurd considering how much I actually like the ones I have written even if I wasn't so hot on them at the time of writing). So on I day when I realize sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own lives we don't see that other people need us in the fear that blogger will assume I have abandoned my blog and delete it I am back.

So aside from a series of milestones here is what happened in the last year. There were hellish days, there were good days and every kind of day in between. Friends made and lost. Progress made and lost. Shows devoured and shows abandoned. Songs loved and hated. Procrastination, tears, arguments, tantrums. Goods ideas, giggles, witty comments and head palm moments. Self conscious, overthinking, irrational, crazy. Learning content and skills. Character building, character writing. Pleasant surprises, bitter disappointment. Time wasted and time used to the full. Life happened and time passed and things changed.

So while it would be nice to think that this will be the the start of some magical inspiring story where an anonymous blogger actually blogs and things get lifted from mundane reality to that something more I used to hope for, maybe for now we will just accept mediocrity. I don't mean that things are bad or boring (at least not all the time) just that my current pursuits aren't typically blog worthy.

I will  just have to trust you to trust me that even when I don't post life is still happening and sometimes I like it more than others.

Though Not What I Originally Intended, It's Still Something

Hi, I suppose you have been feeling a little neglected. Another semester down. I now have just over three weeks to put myself back together and convince myself to do it all again. If uni has taught me anything it is that life can always get worse but also on some level that despite that I can do things I would have argued to be impossible. I never wanted to hate uni. I mean I love learning but the pressure of assessments really gets to me. It ruins it.

I mean exams really are the times where you regret every decision you have ever made in your entire life. I mean it. Every single one. Even the good decisions because it is the sum of those decisions that have lead you to having to sit the exam. Content that was once interesting is no longer and for some stupid reason it wont stick in your brain. And that is just the preparation. The exam itself is a whole other ball game. Because it is only in that moment that you question things that have always made sense, because suddenly nothing does. And I have always had only semi legible handwriting at the best of times but add some nerves and it becomes another language. Your brain no longer feels part of your body and you find yourself asking, no, pleading with it to just calm down, start working and answer the question on the paper.

…

Hi, again. I typed the above the day after my last exam then promptly ignored it for the next two weeks. However, one cannot claim to have a blog if one does not post and let’s face it I am very unlikely to post during semester time. But my results are in and without details they are nothing to be ashamed of. So, even though at the time I seemed to lack faith in my brain it did good and I am now officially only 4 papers away from a degree. Which as awesome as it is, its actually a bot frightening to have the end so near in sight. People are now asking me “so, what’s next” and the only answer I have for them right now is “the real world,” and I’m not quite sure what that looks like just yet. What makes it harder is that uni insulates you. Now I don’t mean that in a positive protective way. What I mean in that a person only has so much brain space and energy to give. With the pressure of uni I end up having little of either for anything beyond my next seemingly impossible deadline. Even though it’s a bit late for me I find myself wondering whether a more gradual transition would have be possible and/or better, rather than the direct cut-over from uni to life.

But anyway…

Naturally, I have been intending to post for a while. Every now and then I will actually hypothetically write a couple of lines, work out a general plan and think “hmm, not bad, the next time I sit at my computer I INSERT NAME HERE will write that and finally post.” But, when I am actually at my computer the moment is gone and of course I’m looking for my next show to binge watch. Priorities people. So life moves on, work happens, appointments happen, you procrastinate all that stuff you put off during semester, you get a cold and in my case a concussion (not at the same time thankfully) and that creative outlet you promise you do actually want gets neglected.

Which in a round about way brings me to something I think has contributed to my reluctance to post and strangely enough what I had originally intended to talk about when I originally sat down and wrote the first two paragraphs; which is how little of my life I actually capture with this blog.

But, I’m not sure I would give it justice right now and this post is long enough as it is. So I’m going to try something new. I will post what I have with the goal of finishing what I started later.

However unlikely it is I leave you now with a:

TO BE CONTINUED… (maybe)

If I Had Posted

Well it’s that time again. I find myself post exam with only a bag full of notes on a subject I would rather not think about for a while, a computer and 40 minutes to kill.

So, summer school was a thing that happened. And the lack of posts should not be attributed to a lack of ideas rather I would say it was caused by a lack of follow-through for any activity requiring the engagement of one’s brain that is not entirely essential for the passing of papers.

In saying that it could have been a lot worse. Word of advice: only consider full time summer school if you do not require sleep to function optimally and have absolutely no other commitments (I would also suggest that before one undertake such an endeavour they secure the services of a cook, cleaner and a P.A). Because half the papers in half the time does not (as one might expect) equal the same workload. But, one paper, one is completely doable.

Now if I had posted I could have told you about the awkwardness of sitting in lecture that talked about blogs (note: uni paper subject was computer science) and how the advice was that you should only start a blog if you have something important to say because there probably already exists a better one for the desired niche. And you sit there thinking of your blog neglected by both author and readers, full of bad grammar, self-consciousness and some under-developed rants. But the lecture also said that you will be able to find an audience for anything online purely because of the number of people on it. No this is important because what this means peoples is that somewhere out there in this crazy world of ours is at least one person who would read this post and actually enjoy it. Later lectures touched on how unlikely it would be that this person would ever find my blog in the plethora of other pages on the Internet but I will choose to ignore that point just now.

Additionally if I had posted I could have told you about how I Insert Name Here managed to elevate this this blog from the classification of procrastinatory activity to useful endeavour. Now obviously this is a gross exaggeration but I will elaborate. For a task in this paper we had to make a power-point presentation and a small website about ourselves. Naturally it was at that precise moment that my brain decided to forget everything remotely interesting there is about me. So in a desperate attempt to not be boring I grabbed a few quotes from my blog and just shoved then in there. Which means this blog will have now directly contributed to my degree.  So basically we can now justify that anything that may possibly be useful in future is not procrastinating. And since we can never really tell what might be useful in the future then nothing is procrastinating, we are simply preparing for a very unlikely and currently unforeseen future occurrence. Now this may be at the expense of other more pressing matters but hey such is life.

If I had posted I could have also told you about a strange phase where I decided that it was time I became acquainted with the early works of Marlon Brando to figure out if I liked his style of acting or not. Yeah, actually it’s probably for the best that I didn’t post about that. These things are almost never as simple as they seem when you start out.

I will leave you now with one last thought. A staff member at university recently told me that the brain does most of it consolidating regarding learning when we are not actually thinking about the subject. So next time when you find yourself procrastinating you can say to yourself (or others) the following: “I am not procrastinating, I am simply giving my brain a chance to consolidate the information I have learnt.” Now of course I would advocate actually not procrastinating over almost anything else. But, what I don’t advocate is excessive guilt because that never helped anybody.

Note: Not that it matters or that you care but in the interest of honesty I feel the need to confess that I did not actually write all this in the said 40mins killable time. Life happened I and I have to pick up where I left off the next day and the day after that. But it’s not like there is a rule that says post has to be written in one sitting.

Results, Reflections and Reading (The Mostly Good Kind)

In an attempt to prevent a true disconnect between the content and the title of my blog I thought that I would take a moment to talk about procrastination. You see results are in (they have been in for a while, I just haven’t got around to posting) and without going into specifics mine were good, in fact they were the best I have ever had at uni. So obviously that is good but, it got me thinking about what it took to get those marks. I would have to say that this past semester my level of procrastination was the least it has ever been. Don’t get me wrong I still procrastinated, just not quite to the same degree as in the past.

Now obviously I’m sure we would all agree that procrastinating is never ideal. So it makes sense that doing less of it will lead to greater periods of productivity and better results. The interesting thing is that it did not lead to less stress. Even though I put more time and work into my studies I was not in the slightest bit more confident in my ability. In fact the prospect of doing badly was even the more devastating due to the fact that I had put more time and effort in. It also did not mean that other areas of the life grew. By that I mean in the end I just spent the time I would have spent procrastinating doing uni work and not well leading a balanced life. It’s also not just about time but productivity.  So I may have been actively working but man I work slowly. It’s a problem.

Anyway may I procrastinate even less in the future and be more productive.

But for now I am on holiday and by holiday I mean work with intervals of procrastinating in my days off (maybe I am experiencing procrastination rebound where because I did less during semester I’m doing more during the break, at the very least my break time procrastination has not reduced). I won’t talk much about work but to say that due to my experience of being a check out chick I will be a much better customer.

The thing I have managed to do more of during the break is reading for fun rather than  for academic purposes. Now I am a fan of the dystopian genre in fact I was a fan before the name was common place and all the series started being made into films. I also freely admit that in can at times feel like you are just reading the same story again the main character just has a different name. Of course there are some real gems (the other day I finished the Unwind Dystology) with a twist or feature I have never seen before (which probably is dependant purely on the order in which I discover series’) but I openly recognise the similarities between many of the series I have read and quite frankly thoroughly enjoyed (well most of them, there have been some stinkers). The thing that frustrates me a little and only a little is that with most of them being a series rather than standalone books there is the small problem of maintaining ones knowledge of the previous books while waiting for the next.

I will explain.

You read a fantastic book just to find that it is the first in a series with the next to be released in … lets say 10 months, these days with goodreads and library ordering services remembering that the book exists 10 month down the track is not so much of a problem so let’s say you have ordered the book and when it is published and you have got down the waiting list you can pick it up. So you now have the book in your little hot hands, the first thing that happens is you are holding a book you no longer have recollection of ever ordering but a quick look on the back or inside covers informs you that this is the sequel to the above mentioned fantastic book. Well now you are excited because the last one was SO FREAKING AWESOME and you start reading… and more often than not my first thought a couple of pages in is “who the hell are these people???”. You see with all the time that has gone by I don’t remember much beyond the general premise the main characters’ names  and that I loved the previous book. It’s not unheard of for me to get three quarters or even the whole way through a sequel without remembering who some of a minor characters are which appear in both books. I feel like I don’t get as much out of the book. And considering the fact that I don’t often get time to read for pleasure I don’t want to sped that time rereading books just so I can get to the sequels. Now since these are not the type of books one would write an essay on in high school (part of the reason I like them) a nice summery of the previous book is not available and as entertaining as some of the longer goodreads reviews are they are not always the best at summarising the plot objectively.

My point is that I think there should be made available a summary of books which are part of a series for the very purpose of jogging the minds of readers who have waited patiently for the next book. Now there may be issues e.g. spoilers but really I think people who really want to enjoy the reading experience would only use the summery in the way I have suggested. Maybe there are some other issues with the idea I haven’t considered but I am at this point too tired to  go much further. I just think that it would be nice and make my life easier and my reading more enjoyable so why not.

That’s enough for today, I have a book to read.

I have a pile actually

Cya

Brains, Excuses and Physical Exertion

I went for a run today. It was great… and by great I mean absolutely awful. Now you may be wondering why this is a bloggable experience. Quite simply I cannot remember the last time I went for a run but I suspect it was at least two years ago.

Yeah, I’m not an exercise person.

So why did I go for a run? Well for one, today I had to try on my summer clothes to make sure they still fitted and assess the state of my wardrobe (it wasn't pretty) and secondly three days ago a neurologist told me that in the absence of any identifiable cause lifestyle changes would be the best (only) way to deal with my current wide range of symptoms.

I suppose I need to give you some more context. I had the excitement of having an MRI of my brain, then the excitement of hearing that there were some weird white patches on that scan, then the excitement of googling what the patches suggested (even though they told me not to), the excitement of seeing for myself those white patches and an examination which involved having a highly trained neurologist prick me with a safety pin in varies places and asking if I could feel it and finally the excitement of finding out that there is nothing wrong with my brain and it just has funny white patches when you scan it.

So, obviously the good news is that there is nothing wrong with my brain, plus I got to see a picture of my brain, MY BRAIN peoples. The bad news is they have no clue why I am feeling so sick.

So what followed was a generic, eat well at regular times, sleep enough at regular times, avoid caffeine and exercise regularly preferably outside spiel that everyone knows but never actually listens to until they are desperate and a highly paid and educated medial person tells them.

Now, I don’t know if I am just still readjusting to humanity post exams or something but I’m feeling a bit of an identity crisis going on (it probably just an overly dramatic teenage thing). Quite simply I always say my dream is to be an actor but I never do anything about it. There is that saying about if you don’t want to do something you will find excuses and if you do want something you will make it happen. And lately I have been making a lot of excuses. Take community theatre for example. All of the closest ones are still very far away, they often do musicals (singing is not my thing) and to be a member you have to submit a theatre CV. Now the CV thing seemed quite odd to me I mean its like the whole job and experience thing where you won’t get a job without experience but you cannot get the relevant experience without a job. I mean if community theatre is not the place for a novice actor to get acting experience where is? So let’s imagine I can get to the location and have enough acting experience to have an theatre CV (currently 1 intermediate school production, 1 high school production, NCEA levels 1-3 in Drama including a years 12 and 13 drama class production). I then have to hope that the show they are doing isn’t too objectionable for my sensitive standards and has a part that vaguely fits me. We then have the challenge of fitting rehearsals around work and uni (impossible). And finally I have to audition well enough to actually get a part.

There is also the option of signing up with an agency that involves getting head shots and there is still the issues of experience and scheduling around uni and work.

So no instead I get uni which I hate and a job as a checkout chick, writing scripts in my head that will never be read let alone made into anything and spending my evenings binge watching tv series and feeling bitter about the fact that these actors are doing what I wish I could.

But perhaps I am being too hard on myself a mean right now getting out of bed and through the day without crying is a huge achievement. I’m just sick of felling sick and miserable and I hate that I can’t be bothered to do anything about it, It’s all just too hard, I know that they say exercise will help but seriously exercise is the last thing I want to be doing.

But, I have just bought a voucher for five fitness boxing classes so that is going to be an experience (I blame Arrow, it is the last show I binge watched).

Why can’t I just enjoy my holidays like normal uni students?

Till next time.

Habit Formation, Distraction and Thrift

So I am currently typing this at uni. I have just finished my last exam and don’t quite know what to do what to do with myself. Some part of me obviously thought it would never end. So, instead of wallowing in what mistakes I may have made or what I could have done differently I am talking to you. This is becoming quite a habit I know.  Well actually, the first thing I did was look up the past exams for a paper I am enrolled in for summer school (by choice) and one that I think I might change to but that all felt a bit too much like studying so here we are.

The unfortunate thing is that I have nothing to talk about. I mean not that I ever really do but I usually at least have something. But, the last three weeks of my life have been hellish exams and we don’t want to talk about those. And they really consume your life in a bad way (I would make a very bad advocate for university, this is why I don’t ever visit my old high school, every so often they would get a past student to return and tell us about how great uni was, they must have been paid). 

Now I was going to do a rant about how I didn't like the fact that Taylor Swift took all her music off Spotify but then I would have to admit that I listen to her music. Now I go through phases but I wouldn't call myself a fan or anything. I'm more like a casual observer who will give most music a try by reserves the right to like or dislike music on a song by song basis. So, it’s not that I am devastated that I can’t listen to her songs but it is the fact that she left. Because I like Spotify and Pandora and the like, to be honest I barely listened to music before they existed. And I will openly admit I am cheap, the thought of spending money on something I might only like 10% of doesn't jell with me, plus I am a poor student (Yes I am playing that card). Now obviously I think artists (I know that term is controversial for many, but it is the easiest to use) should be paid fairly for their work but its seems like what I think is fair is rather different from what others think.

So I guess I kinda did my rant anyway. I really want to read a novel (weird considering all the reading I have done over the last three weeks) but the ones I want to read you have to order from the library (like Spotify but for literature) months in advance and I just haven’t had the head space. Plus all I have with me is uni stuff. Wow, I am so unprepared for post exam life I really must of thought life would end after my exam I didn’t even pack lunch.

So this incoherent but at least it is legible.
I’m stopping now.
Bye.

Good Titles Take Effort

So, today was the last day of lectures, my first exam is in a week and I have a cold. So, in other words it is time to write a blog post. Don’t get me wrong I have been meaning to post for some time but with all the crazy deadline happening and me trying to get at least some sleep the deal became, watch an episode of TV or write a post you are not even sure you will like. And we all know how much I love my TV. So yeah, sorry to neglect you.

And it is not just that I have been meaning to post in general but I have been meaning to do this post. It intends to be more serious than usual.

So, I suffer from depression. I mean if you have been reading these or know me that probably isn’t a surprise to you, it’s not to me. I haven’t exactly been the shining light of positivity in these things. But, it’s official now. I got to a point where you decide that you can’t carry on with things the way they are. You tried but you just feel broken and life should not be this painful for this long.

Which means I’m not just a miserable human I have an illness.

Now this is the point that I look at what I have just typed and ask? Do I really want people to see this? And the answer is no, not really. Why? Because I don’t want to feel the way I do. It’s not nice. I don’t feel good about myself and I don’t want people to judge me on the person I am when I am sad and tired and stressed.

But this is my blog and while I promised it wouldn’t be a diary this is what is currently going on in my life right now. And it kind of affects my blog because it changes the tone of what I write so I suppose I’m just giving you some context. For example the whole goal this a few weeks back.

I also want to point out a couple of things (Disclaimer the following points a purely based on my own experiences and are not intended to apply to anyone else). Firstly, TV, and the internet and social media all say this if you are feeling down for an unusually long period of time and aren’t coping you should seek help. Now, I just want to point out that I am totally for that. You should get help, if you ask and people won’t give it to you ask someone else until you get what you need. Yes, yes, yes seek help (Side point you should preferably do this sooner than I did, all those questionnaires say to think about how you have felt over the past two weeks, so when you can’t remember the last time you didn’t fell down you have probably left it longer than ideal). But, what I do want to point out is that they don’t tell you anything about what happens after. Because that is where things get tough. The thing is as much as you want it to life doesn’t just stop, you cant just throw up your hands and say I am sick I am going to act like a sick person. Well I couldn’t anyway I had full time uni to do. What happens is that now you have to do everything you were doing before and feeling overwhelmed and also do other things and have appointments ect, treatment takes time and effort and energy which is tough if your symptoms include low motivation, fatigue and feelings of hopelessness and sadness.

There are other things to, like the stigma around depression or mental illness in general. Now, this isn’t a tirade against society or anything I’m simply saying that for some reason mental illness tends to get treated differently to other illness. And, it should be treated different because it is different but I don’t think it is being treated different in a good way. But then maybe the issue is partly with myself. Because it has taken me a long time to accept that I am sick and not just lazy and useless. So if I have been struggling with that for a while can a really expect people to be any different. Even so I think there is still a bit of shame attached to having a mental illness  and that maybe people could treat those who are depressed in a more supportive and better way. I feel that if I have to ask for special consideration I am ‘playing the depression card’ that I have to constantly justify that I am actually sick.

But, there are some interesting things to. Like when you are getting help for depression everyone is suddenly interested in and asking about your breathing. Because apparently there is a right way to breath and a lot of people get it wrong. It also takes training and practice to get your technique just right. Now this to me seems really weird, it’s like asking someone how their walking technique is going. If they are over the age of two,  of average health and not competing in the Olympic games in the walking event (the discussion regarding how weird this event is to watch will have to be postponed to another day but I it begs to be had) walking is not something you have to consciously work on. Now considering that if you don’t breathe you die, I had assumed that if I was still in a state to be asked the question of how my breathing was going and not suffering from asthma I didn’t have a problem. I was wrong.

So, this has been exhausting, I hope I haven’t said anything that upsets anybody. It wasn’t meant to. It is simply a stream of consciousness of perhaps sweeping generalizations regarding what I am experiencing right now and I want to be ok with what I have posted.

Stay awesome.