Tuesday, December 30, 2008

...there's lots of things I want to say..

...but they never come out when Im in front of the laptop.

My friends from college make me feel like shit
my parents don't approve of my PhD, and they have been so great at supporting me
my girlfriend is so amazing supporting me, and i've disappointed her, i actually don't deserve her, Im worried she will leave me.
I'm in the worst financial situation
I have nothing to show for myself or my life

that feels strangely better, i have that feeling of a blocked snotty nose, red eyes, and almost having cried. catharsis, I think they call it.

i still feel shit. I should start purging or something

Monday, December 29, 2008

opiate of the mass

at the moment i feel pretty upset nd self-loathing, i feel masturbating might lift my mood.

it doesn't really, but it helps up to a certain point (pun intended)

Approval

In some way, I've found a kind of relationship with the notion of approval; namely, the approval or disapproval of others. Do I seek approval? I'd say its not a matter of seeking or avoiding approval, but I do feel it affects me; approval is supporting, disapproval is debilitating, discouraging, upsetting.

Long hair - disapproved
PhD application - disapproved

I think I have had enough to post at the moment, this feels like enough already for a thought-let of a post

A bad loser

Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser. Alan Johnson's attitude to life (the character from sitcom 'Peep Show'. I came back from visiting friends just now. Friends from college, who I may have mentioned a few times in the blog in the past.

Part of me has come to realise that the so-called change that had happened to me since starting the blog has amounted to very little. The PhD rejection had made me come to realise some hard home truths.  In essence, it had brought to me some very hard realities, the kind of things I can't purge away, well, I could, but it would still be there.

My life is pretty shit, despite the masters degree that I may or may not have recieved, I have somewhat failed in my life. No job, no money, no immediate or obvious prospects, no way out to change.

These are very negative thoughts, negative thoughts don't amount to much positive change. I cannot ignore them, but I must overcome these things. I must find a way to make anew of my life; to improve upon things.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Old issues

Dawes and the ADC have been bothering me. It upsets me the way he treated me. I competed against him for president at one point; I never was elected, and he always had his hand in the presidency and running the society. Im no longer a member of the university, no longer a member of the ADC. I should feel that this is not a relevant issue to me anymore, but it still upsets me.

I am trying not to feel as upset by issues of the past. I have a lot of stuff going on. I have felt a big drop in energy today. I want to escape. Has my slow painful recovery come full circle? has it come to the return of my low period?

There is something about good writing that wants me to say 'no!', to say, I will fight on, as that seems to be a nice literary device to be determined, but my life is real. I fight on and it feels like my life is slowly ebbing away; this is not easy by any means.


Monday, December 22, 2008

No compromise

Ever seen the film 'Romi and Michelle's High School Reunion'? There is one character who states in the flashback scene of how she had these aspirations of when she grew up; there were then later expressions of her 'aspirations' in her later adulthood. Basically what we find (I think it is called socratic irony, by the way), is that her aspirations slowly decline, as her life does. Beginning with high aspirations she has all the hopes and determinations in the world, when met by disappointment and failure, she puts the bar down a bit.

Have I done the same? Have I lost my integrity?

Please forgive me.

Im struggling to make this dream work, and the world has not fit my dream, so I'm trying to make it happen in some other way. I want the PhD...
I didn't get into the PhD

That's all I am able to say right now.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Waning

Today I feel my hope waning

It's been 5 weeks since I sent off the PhD application. I think about the grad school I spent over the past year; Part of me feels that It isn't going to happen, another part of me thinks that "if I keep believing it will happen and if I, for any moment lose hope, all hope is lost.

It feels like being a non-person

5 weeks, one day

It has been 5 weeks since I have sent my PhD application. Every day for 5 weeks I have longed for it to come in. Every day I have met disappointment and the possibility of failure. Every day I say to myself "today's the day!", then after 1pm I think to myself "I'm not getting in". It is a rollercoaster, and I am left feeling less than a person; feeling like I am not like a normal person who can earn money or do things. Im just in limbo.

I need this to happen, for my limbo to end.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

at the moment...

I am sitting on my bed with the laptop on my swivel chair, it is 6:14 am and I have been awake since last night. My insomnia has been quite bad on my but today I have decided to be more proactive, currently I am backing up my files on my computer and setting a list of things to do.

Currently I am typing these words while staring at my cupboard and not my laptop, almost as if this screen is a person and I do not wish to be peered into, it's hard to be peered at, judged, especially when I have failed.

My concerns:

I don't want to be fat
I want to be a PhD success

I find that I post when I feel more depressed, but that said, that doesn't mean that I have never done a post saying that things are improving. I guess it is fair to say that at the moment, things are difficult.

I might sit and type on this computer mor if I feel more accidie or, if I feel completely lost in hope; or if I have a thought. But for now, I am going to continue with my day, Im going to fight on as best I can. Today is the day I get a reply from the PhD application people, it has to be! (every other day when I have said 'today's the day' hadn't been the day...) [call this optimism, hope...the dare to dream]

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Aphoristic feelings of the day

1. Im feeling quite tired
2. I think that not shaving indicates my strenght of depression
3. I should shave as a symbol of my determination against my darker feelings
4. She is never far from my thoughts, that is, Marie. However, Antonia's beauty and love is really shining through for me in this period of time.
4. Is it possible to harbour ill feeling toward Marie? I feel that such a response would be the only positive way to move beyond that period of my life
5. On the one hand I feel I should start purging again, its a very small tingling feeling inside me; on the other hand, I feel that such a period of my life was necessary to turn me from what I was to what I am; that is, the who I used to be, the person I was who I was embarrassed to acknowledge, and I still am, I am ashamed to be associated with such a person
6. I pissed in my room again; I used to do it in a bin when I lived in a flat 2  years ago when I was in my third year. I pissed oddly enough into Dawes' flapjack container

Dawes is a guy from the ADC, the university society that I was associated with, you know, the one that Moriarty upstaged me in. He was a first year PhD when I first met him, you could even say that we were good friends. Our relationship deteriorated eventually. I feel bitter things about him. Perhaps I'll talk about that later...

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Baby pictures

In an attempt to free up some computer space, I have been uploading things onto Picassa/Google photos, and videos onto youtube. One thing I noticed is that I have a large amount of pictures of my newest addition to the family.

I remember a friend of mind once told me that when a baby comes into the family, everything changes; you want to show everyone your baby pictures and show the whole world how adorable the little one is.

I however, have always been afraid of babies and children generally. As a contextual comparison, consider the way that the Terminator looked at the little baby in Terminator 2, with complete bemusement and ambivalence. How is it that one is to talk to a baby? I really don't like that baby talk stuff, it's demeaning both to the baby and the adult.

My sister said that talking to a baby helps more than just looking at them. Just looking at them scares a baby (apparently); if i had someone just looking at me and talking about me without acknowledging me, I'd feel pretty objectified.

I do quite like baby pictures. I like how a photograph takes an instance, although there is little interpretation involved compared to normal portraiture, the marking of change in itself is a art itself. I suppose the individual photo gains currency by either the world around it, or other similar photographs.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

3rd December

That is the day, last year, that I was at her birthday celebration: actually, it wasn't; it was the day before. So, I guess, today is the 1 year anniversary.

A year ago, she invited me to her birthday gathering. She said that, "...even though I know that you feel unconfortable around people, I still want to invite you to my birthday" [sic]. I felt an anxiety moment as she asked, even if it was on MSN. I went. Moriarty was there, and some guys from that university society. I wore my Levis jeans, those were the most expensive trousers I had I think they were a size 38', they were not only about to fall off my waist in virtue of my weight loss, they were also falling because, towards the end of the night, my belt broke.

I don't really wear belts anymore, I always considered wearing belts to be a fat-ism, wearing a belt for big trousers, or to hold on trousers that do not fit. Either way, trousers were not fitting, and tend not to for a belt wearer.

During the night, I met up with all of her friends, they were of the metalhead variety, except for the friends we had mutually from the university society, and her flatmates.We went to this bar which is quite popular for heavy metal, gothic, industrial, punk and other such deviant subculture music (except dance genres). At the venue there were, strangely, lots of males, lots of guys who seemed to be enamoured by her, it upset me at the time of all the guys enamoured by here, and I was no different. I thought I was because I knew of her mental torment.

Moriarty was there, and we talked a bit, and some other people as well conversed. Towards the end of the night, I discovered that only two people gave her a present, a flatmate, and myself. I bought her some books in a very expensive box, and a teddy bear. No one else made the effort to give her a gift. When I did give it to her a few days before, we cuddled in the corridor of the maths department. We cuddled a couple of times again that night, and she kissed me a few times on the cheek, repeatedly almost, as if that were the expression of herself in secret, a secret expression in a public place, to express that we had some kind of bond
.

Now after all this time, I want to forget her, move on with my life. I suppose my recent feelings of lonliness spring from knowing that she is out of my life She was an awesome force; she changed me, perhaps for the good, and also for the bad. I lost a lot of friends, I find now that I must be alone. Even with a lover, I will always be isolated.

What is it that marks my isolation? Her, perhaps, or perhaps me. I said to her once, on the last time we met and talked properly, that she was almost like the mirror of me.

Antonia told me to forget about her, and in some large way, I do; but there are small lingering memories. I feel like the only way to fight this is to empower myself, she has no power over me. I must not let her have any power over my feelings, she must be nothing to me. I must eliminate all traces of that past, that tenderness, that care and love for her. Essentially, to take away a part of me, to eliminate it, to change who I am.

In a way, I feel that I could do this, and I can still remain as someone within me. To still retain a sense of myself, a sense of self, of identity, and let her go. I must empower myself, I deleted her from my MSN contacts list, and I decided not to greet her for her birthday.

I feel desparately alone, no amount of kisses, or cuddles, or sex could ever take that away. I long for tenderness, and yet, tenderness is lost. I have to focus on other things in my life. I will put everything into my PhD studies...I just hope that I get into the PhD...

I'm quite worried about it. Lots of other people my age have already started a PhD, I feel like I am behind to them; that I am not as good as other people, not as good as they are. All around me I sense disapproval, from my parents, my brother, my sister, my friends care neitehr whether I fail or succeed, if I fail, they will have something to laugh at. So maybe you will say "then maybe they aren't real friends", then I suppose, that I have only one real friend, and I do not cherish her enough. I cry as I realise how fortunate I am to have Antonia, and I feel so utterly ashamed that I put her in second place.

That is, another of my flaws, I do not pay attention to those things in life which I should consider important. For a greater goal, I always abandon those immanent and worldly things, which, while make love and life so beautiful, and make the real world, always seem to be unimportant to a higher, singular, transcendent goal. I want to be an academic. I dream of it. Please let my dreams be true, if it comes true, I will be eternally greatful and things will still be difficult, if I do not, I will be destroyed.

If I do get into the PhD; I will still feel this sense of deprivation. I need to realise that my life is wonderful as it is and although I want so much to get into the PhD; I long that things improve once more. Im greedy, I guess. I was duped by Marie. It was my failure, I have many flaws and imperfections, it makes me feel almost powerless.

Im going to enact a change to myself, I must lose more weight, perhaps I shall start purging again. I want very much to fight this darkness, this emptiness. I want to be an academic, perhaps I can lose myself in the work, perhaps the emptiness may remain, but I strive to fight these feelings. I strive to be special. I don't feel bery special, I feel like nothing.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Insomnia

I am awake at 3am currently. Im at home again in my parent's home; I feel this sense of isolation, that I am outside of time, alone, in a void. I suppose this is just my head fooling with me, and I must try to fight this feeling as much as I can.

Im alone in the house, in limbo; my PhD application is neither approved or rejected; I am just waiting. I ought to make another application, and maybe apply for a small job.

I got a letter from my home address a few days ago. The letter was from the university about my graduation for my MA; I haven't recieved a mark yet, nor is this a sign that I have passed; but the day looms of the next graduation. I feel like I am dangling from a string, over an unseeable, vast expanse. Eventually the dangling will end, but will I fall, or will I fly?

I try to distract myself with this state of limbo. I try my best to force my feelings away from this, but it's hard. I'll continue to play some computer games...