Flu

I've never understood the distinction between flu and cold. I think flu is worse and cold is more headaches and head-related. I have either one of them (I think it is flu). I'm feeling a bit delirious and I thought some thoughts which just seem metaphysically obscene. Its hard to explain what I thought but let me try: I thought that a little film by Otto and George should be rated as to how it was made to relate to the events to my life. So I asked myself what period of time did it relate to, as the work in question was a bit dated. Short story is that I feel susceptable to confusing and inconprehensible ideas, also a bit of anger. I want to shout but I cant; I'll just resolve to laying down as I am now.

I hate being ill.

suicide bottle

I keep a bottle of harsh medications that I would overdose on and hopefully die if I were to consume it. I constructed a suicide bottle of collected harmful medications about two years ago so I always kept open the possibility of my suicide. Today I decide that I shall get rid of them. Right now. Well not right now, as soon as I finish this blog post.

dread

this is a week that I feel a lot of dread about. Here are a few reasons why:

1. I'm returning home for my Nephew's CofE baptism. It's also easter
2. I recieved a 'we missed you' letter from the post office. I think my book has come in (the one I am reviewing for a journal), but when I went to the blasted post office I found that it closed at 12:30 and I was an hour late. I'm also going away for a week so I need to try to have it delivered to another address and its a lot of headache.
3. I should be expecting to recieve a response from the council tax people as to whether I or the landlord are liable parties to the council tax. (positive: I did get my passport back from the other benefits form I sent)
4. My old university email account will be terminated (ETA thursday), I ought to reconfigure my facebook account to change my sign in details.
5. I should be hearing back from my university application for an MPhil, from the eminent university that I applied to which has various famous intellectuals attached to it. I'm dreading it so much that I half expect a rejection already. I just wish that they sent me a rejection earlier i.e. as soon as they saw my application; instead of waiting so long. It took a long time for the first university to reject me because my dissertation marks weren't recieved.

I feel very ashamed of my dissertation result. I am a failure.

So, that's my week. I don't earn any money, I'm waiting to hear from a university or two and I'm not optimistic about my life. On the plus side, my parents have given me my monthly allowance; that pays for the rent and this month I learned out to be really frugal. I spent barely £10 on food supplies. I basically raped my frozen food supplies and ate loads of ryvita. It worked successfully.

Yeah, I said it!

I'm going to be honest.

I fucked up my master's degree grades cos I didn't have my head screwed on and took the correct priotities. I'm angry at myself. I'm angry at my body for being fat. I'm angry at myself for bad grades.

Over the past year I've heard a phrase which sends a chill down my spine. The phrase is "we're not going to take this any further". I heard it at a job interview, I heard it in a story my brother-in-law was telling me about his own job applications, and worst of all I hear it at various applications and it is said to me in emails. We will not take your application any further.

It seems so impersonal and horrid.

The things that I used to complain about in my life seem to change. I feel that once I get into an MPhil (assuming that I do - a very scary assumption), my life will be bearable. I am feeling that I won't get an offer. As such, I feel pretty shit.

redundancy

Google definitions of redundant include:

redundancy - the attribute of being superfluous and unneeded
redundancy - repetition of an act needlessly

I got an email stating interest in my service as a tutor, and in 4 hours I get a reply saying that they found someone 'local'.

Here's another instance of redundant (possibly). After my big jog, I went over to somerfield and bought a microwaveable burger (well, two actually)

morning tastes like flouride in the mouth

I got up quite late, on the other hand, I have been up later this week. I got up, thought to myself "oh shit", then I checked my emails. I had a feeling that I got my reply from those two universities today, but alas; no reply (yet). I did however get an email from the tuition website. I have another person interested in being tutored by me. This time it's in the city where my parents live rather than here.

I'm drafting a reply; it's nice, on the one hand, to have more clients and getting a book review but these things are merely cherry on a cake. I need a base. I need an offer to get into university. I feel dread at the inevitable news of failure. Things in my life were always fortunate, I always had good luck. My luck, and my effor had run out. This situation is my doing and righteously, luck had no part. Im not sure how to cope with that fact.

sour realities

my neck just clicked as my head moved shakedly in disgust of these chips that I have concocted. I decided (foolishly) to oven cook them in the vinegar that came from my jar of chilli's that I have been eating. I have been eating a jar of chilli over the past week in an effort to lose weight. It is something to snack on, but also I hear the anecdote that chilli makes your metabolism go faster. I used to believe that when I lived in the flat before I was in this one, jeez was that a dark time!

Now that I have learned to not use chilli brine as an absorbent. I realised that I have been waking up early lately, if only now I were able to sleep early. The onset of early sunrise used to haunt me, nwo I see it as a gentle reminder of getting up. I wake up in a position where the sun shines on my face, it is part annoyance, but partly pleasant. Pleasant because it is a subtle reminder that I can potentially wake up early and face a good day, I can wake up and get more done if I started early and if I start early I would feel incentive to finish late, and work up a real sweat.

Going back for completeness

I am entering the data of is mentioned on these documents into my GCalendar. I am currently entering details about how and when I travelled back home. I went back a year on my GCal and found that I was still doing mentoring then (and I have been using GCal to organise my life).

I often use GCal to help organise my life. Sometimes during my Masters study I go off using it, and then I get back into it big time. It's all a big equilibrium and a constant learning process, part of the reason to why I am doing the foldering is to mark, using evidence and evidential reasoning, my behavioural habits, tendencies and memories. I continue...

Cipralex (2005-6)
Venlafaxine (2007)

These names now mean nothing to me as I destroy these files. I move on as I take these files out of my folders, my room, my memories and my life.

I want to purge them all. I feel desperate as I am dealing with these files. I mark these folders, schematise them, scan them, save them, and now, forget them.

"Soft Paper"

In my scanning of all my documents, I have categorised and subcategorised them, with the provision of these said categories being revisable; I have set a category of documents to scan in my miscellany folder as "soft paper". Soft paper is the kind of paper that is easy to tear and often folded and put in a box for something. I have under this category information about computer hardware and antidepressant consumption instructions. Gee, that kind of sums me up as a person, at least it did when I was in that situation. Now I can smell the sex from my past coital activity last night, that scent comes to my awareness as I type this post, it makes me thing how much my life has change, and yet, how much it needs to change more, in an objective sense of my life being shitty right now.

Back to scanning...

Scanning

I am scanning my folders, organising all of the paper documents that I have had for the past two years. This idea came to me in the summer of 07, to make a permanent copy of my documents so as to save space when I moved to my parents after I graduated. This task of 'scanning' has been on my head for a great few months, perhaps year and a half; but now I have the time to get it all done.

I feel that getting this task done is an excuse to fill up my day and do something. I haven't go much to do and of the things that I should do, I feel little motivation to do them. Scanning, or 'foldering' as I call it, is one of those things that I am averse to. This has been quite a big organisational task and I keep a logbook of all the micro-actions that I do to organise this scanning project. I won't go into the nitty- grity of the details but what I will tell you is that I think I will have finished this pretty soon. I've been putting this off for a long time and now this is a test of who I am to get this task done.

I am also typing into this blog as I am scanning, to get over the monotony and emotionally explore all of the things that I have accumulated over the past few years. Foldering is a time-consuming task, especially after processing 100-page documents to compile into a PDF document. If I make the scanning software agitated the work might turn into a 'not-processing' task of the computer and I lose all the work that I scanned.

Note to self: do not SCRUNCH UP the files until you have found them to be actual PDF files. I don't want to destroy the documents before I'm sure that they have become computerised. I like to preserve my memories, this is one such way of doing it.

Expect me posting a lot today. Memories that are evoked from these documents, in particular

I cannot be eloquent (or even comprehensible) when busy

I have been visibly upset on a few occiasions when I was with Antonia this weekend. I think that it is becoming clear to some (including myself), that my upset is starting to unveil itself. I apparently have been hiding this sense of upset even from myself. I have been having increasingly distressing and upsetting dreams.

Most of the dreams involve a sense of failure and rejection. I want validation. I long so much to get into those two universities that I have not heard back from yet, but I have a suspicion that my dream has died. Staying in this state where I do not know, hopeful, yet suspicious of failure is quite a toll on my psyche.

Today I recieved a letter saying that I have a court order to pay my council tax from last year. I think I sorted out this situation on the day this letter was sent to me, so I need confirmation that this letter is an empty threat. I have called the council taxation department just a moment ago, and since coming back to my flat I have called them. They had told me that they will do the motions to exempt me from this situation.

revisiting

google has an interesting feature which allows UK cities to actually be seen by photograph from the pedestrian point of view rater than a satellite (although google does the latter also). The first place i go to is my flat. The second place was the department where i studied, the third place was focusing on a girl and i slightly masturbated, but the current place was somewhere where my mind wanders in thoughts, but I hardly ever talk about. I shall leave it that way and i think there is more normality and healthiness to check out the girls in their spring gear

cord cutting

i feel like I have been crying, I feel a strange sense of catharsis, I had an emotional talk with Antonia today. She got into university and I'm happy for her, she never did an undergraduate degree and she is chuffed, she later found anger that she is entering an offer for a foundation degree and i told her to be happy what she got an offer for.

As a window for her opens, a door in my life is casting the last remnants of light to nothing. I was emailed on my university email to tell me that I am no longer a registered student of that department, so I am getting termineted. That made me feel small, it also made me feel like i did something wrong by having an enjoyment of getting emails from the university as if I were still there. This email cancellation is, I suppose, a good time to close a chapter of my life. This is the kind of closure that I think is good for me. My life in this city is slowly drying up, and I am growing up.

I hope a new chapter opens for me, a new university, and a revitalised desire and longing. As I think of it more, I long for an offer from a university to study again. I am running out of luck, or perhaps I realise that I lost it ages ago..

Curiousity soured the Cat's dinner

No I didn't eat anything weird, but I feel that my skills of deduction and natural curiosity has led me to know more than I ever wanted to. One of my flatmates either has epilesy (which we would have been notified of, so this doesn't seem likely), or bipolar disorder. I discovered this because someone isn't able to hide things very well and leaves things in the public space. I don't know who it is, in a sense, I don't care who it is (it won't make me think less or differently of them) but it just makes me think: mental health affects so many people that any person within any given arbitrarily selected set may be statistically very likely to be affilcted.

I discovered my brother's antidepressants.

I'm going to make more effort to hide my history. I don't want to be defined by my specific details of the past, or my illness. I am a work in progress, I want to be known for my works and acts, not my face, or skin, or arms, or health. Maybe if people thought I was hot I might like being complimented in that way. The sherlock holmes part of me deduces too much.

Personal space

Things I have done today:

Went back to my university-town flat that I am stuck in by contract

Sorted out my council tax for my 07-08 residence

Made motions to sorting out my council tax situation currently: I filled in a form that determines whether I am subject to paying the council tax or the landlord is (I hope that its me as I don't want to inconvenience the landlord)

I got headhunted by some chav recruiting agency while on the bus, I put the phone down on them because they seemed to be messing me about; I told them my situation and they just seemed to be at a loss for words, like a horny dick teenager trying to chat up a girl. I could see (if I were the girl) that he was trying to look for something to say and struggling. I gave him a break and put the phone down. The fellow kept saying things like "Okay...okay...okay...thank you, thank you thank you" after I returned those responses with silence.

It made me feel weird, plus I don't like talking on public transport. I feel intimidated and intrusive.

Oh, and one good thing: I got an offer for publishing a book review: that means a free book and my name on a journal! I take my positive when they come. I hope very much for an offer at a certain university for a certain research masters. That would make not my day, but my life (or at least my twoyear)

frustrated

today has been, in quite a few weeks, maybe months, since I have been really frustrated. I wish that I could move forward with my life. I'm getting short with my parents. I'm making a conscious effort to keep in my frustration. Maybe I can take it out on the tracks today

I want to be in University again. I want so much to go to university. I want to have a goal and pursue it in my life. I want a second chance, the chance that I probably don't deserve. Deep down within me I feel a secret sense of shame, the kind of shame that is hidden to all but yourself, no matter how much I hide it I still feel it, oblivious to the world, obvious to me.

In other news I filled out that council tax form, packed my bags and bought mother's day presents.

I hope tomorrow is the day I get told I am back into university

cord cutting

I deleted and blocked marie from my msn, facebook and all other accounts.

i think I sorted out the situation of my council tax from my 07-08 flat; now i have the original problem before saturday. I did some applications, put up an advert, joined a job site and went for a jog. I'm trying to fight away those dark thoughts.

List my feelings and then let them go

1. The university that I did my undergraduate and postgraduate degree in, that also rejected me has advertised today that they have 3-4 studentships for postgraduates.

2. I am coming to the realisation of my flaws

3. I am fat (again)

4. I'll make an effort to lose the belly

5. I don't see how fat I am in front of the mirror; it is as if I have reverse-bulimia goggles: as if I wish to ignore the laziness that I have (contrasted to the original state of seeing myself as too fat).

6. I have been fucked over with another council tax bill from 2007-8.

7. My life is almost in tattters: I'm not in university, I have no job, and perhaps worse of all: my dream of becoming an academic has been ruined because of an honest admission: I spent too much time thinking about Marie and not doing the work that I should have: I just assumed that it would be there to be done and done well; that I'd just pull it off.

I longed for reaching a point in my life where I 'made it'. I think I have made it, in the sense that Im no longer destroying my life but now picking up the pieces that I did not see were falling apart.

sowing seeds

my life has been like sowing seeds lately, and i've not found fertile ground.

I have been persisting at some things; a lot more in some days than others. If I do not act, I do not get a consequence. If I do something in a day, a repercussion or consequence of it will come up in a further day. That repercussion is often a success of my action earlier; action begets action: applying to an MPhil leads to getting emails from the admin staff; applying to jobs gets me replies (if I apply enough)

I need to remember that. I have to get my life back on the tracks. I have a small feeling that the MPhilStud hopes may come to be. I'm afraid of telling people because of the embarrassment that it wouldn't happen. This application means the world to me. I'm going to sow another seed and jog today.

Nightwish!

Last night I went to see Nightwish. They are were my favourite band about a year ago. Not to say that I don't like them any more, but my palette has been enlarged and I am not so keen on indulging upon the same musical tastebuds all the time. It was lovely though. Seeing my favourite bassist in the whole world, Marco Hietala, and they played Romanticide.

A girl in the queue mentioned that they were playing romanticide, I got very excited as did she (giggling etc.); it was a performance that was notable for pyrotechnics; shooting foam; confetti, and lovely stringy shiny things coming down on the stalls. There were notably sexually attractive girls and, parents.

The last gig I went to at the brixton academy, there was a guy who threatened to kill me (it was megadeth). I felt like one of the more macho people in the crowd. Also, most of the people were fat and geeks. I also noticed , welll everyone else is; how fat I am getting. I went for a jog for about 40 minutes ago after watching In the Night Garden. I went for a jog in my big heavy boots as I didn't bring my other shoes.

My bank balance is depressingly low. Today I have resolved to busy myself. I have been doing some of the family washing, drying, and have been busying myself in front of the computer and marking my activities on google calendar.

Conatus out.

competition

I've discovered that one of my friends has is applying for a PhD. A friend from school who is a complete dumbass; he did a foundation degree and got a string of D's and C's for his 'A' levels. In all fairness, he's going to get a masters degree in physics and it will probably be a 2:i.

I'm tempting fate but I have a feeling that he's going to get into a PhD and I will get rejected from the MPhils and I will feel an ultimate sense of rejection. I feel embarrassed already. I must stay positive, for Antonia and our relationship.

stop it!

I spend too much time with my left hand. If I had no hands, or was a proper Christian; I'd not procrastinate in such a way! I spent the past 2 and a half hours jerking off to girls I know from university who ended up as nude models after graduating. The temptation was too great.

now its over 2:30 am and I have a gig tomorrow

it's not okay

I feel a little bit distressed.

I put on wieght
I'm not sure if I'll get into university
I don't have a plan B sorted
Antonia's landlord is bullying her
My mum is not tolerable right now
I have very little money in the account

the 'angina' email

I am on the computer and I see that the secretary of one of the universities that have not yet rejected me has emailed just now. I felt a sudden shock in my chest, a feeling that perhaps this was the rejection letter that I have dreaded. It was not, it wasn't an acceptance or offer either. It was just to conform to me that the PDF that I sent has been attached to my application and it is now a full application that I have sent to them.

I'm busying myself by sending an email to a journal editor asking to be a reviewer. Worth a shot...

things I learned about myself

[caveat: I'm purposefully going to not talk about Marie anymore, I think that if I don't write about her on my blog of my most intimate thoughts, she will be out of my mind]

Things that I learned about myself:

1. I'm fat again
2. (1.) happened because I am greedy
3. I'm not 'hungry' for changing myself like I was when I used  to purge

I'm going back to see my parents as there is a gig going on in a couple of days. I planned it many months ago. I'm not so keen on the gig but I have an excuse to go back home and to keep busy with something. I have reset my weight targets, and my starting weight begins not from 2007, but today. 212.8 lbs is my new starting weight and 175 is my new goal.

I must change.

I need to fundamentally change who and what I am. I spent 4 hours today wanking. Not acceptable

p-h-uck

I bougtht a suit today for my nephew's christening next month. I also got an email from one of my university-application places asking for an essay sample (it didn't process on the online form, it seems). I saw the name of the admin staff that I contacted before and saw the title 'MPhil application' on the email, I dreaded. I conceded that yes, I was rejected, but no, it was asking for more information. That means they are considering me even if my grades are shit.

I'm scared. Part of me would want to die if I didn't get in.

I learned that hiding things is the best way to cope with life. I just need to hide things from my intimate thoughts, concentrate on other things. So, I won't mention things on this blog..

back home

I have come home for a few days in an attempt to purchase a suit.

I've not been in the frame of mind to write blog posts, and I think I have masturbated significantly less than usual, since I'm around people a lot more.While I was out this weekend I wrote a few blogs that might come along over the next few weeks.

Today I went for a jog, sweated a bit, and cooked a curry. I also tried and failed to install Ubuntu onto my laptop: the hardware simply does not accept non-windows things.

Financial worries include: life, rent, bills and taxes. Another new worry is internet security subscriptions. I can't get onto my old one because the funding boy only sponsored a year. My dad's internet has an offered security service for multiple laptops but that seems not to work either (in the install programme it has an internet-explorer type brower that gives a 404 error at the install page (!!).

So, I decided to take the route that I wanted to avoid. Using my university access to obtain an virus software package. Technically, I'm not allowed to do this. [Update - they found me out so now I cant use this]

Good people have good friends...

(Written 22:03 28/02/2009)

I've been picked up by my parents to visit some long-time family friends this weekend, then coming home to my original birthplace home (as opposed to my student home). Returning home is an uncertain experience. Sometimes you say how you feel about something with the most honesty, and then realise being honest to yourself is the worst possible thing you could ever do.

I realise that the flaws I have are quite the same flaws that I see in other people. I see them as I see my own; often it is the opposite: in people that one hates, one always sees fault, which often reflect one's own faults.

Not talking

In others...

My sister does not talk to my dad. In my living memory, I have never seen her talk to him, except in serious conflicts they are in close vicinity. There seems to be an unforgivable hatred of my father, I don't know why, or how it happened; I know only of two things that I can reasonably guess about it. Firstly, it was about when my sister was between 7-10 years old; and secondly, it was not sexual abuse.

My family does not talk to my one of my aunt's (dad's brother's wife) after my uncle died. Apparently, my cousin of my age (who is estranged) is not only engaged to be married and has a child, but only my brother had been invited to the wedding.

Resentment (the filipino in me)

This is something I saw last night, not in my parents so strongly but a guest of the people whose house I am staying with. There was this one Filipino woman (my mother is Filipino) who was a friend of the two friends that we are staying with this weekend. This Filipino gues was going off on a rant about the inferiority of white people; how Filipino and they are superior to other people; and how threatens violence to her work colleagues. My mother has a friend who also similar (so my mum testimented on the next day) to this; she is often described to me as a singleton. Dita only goes out with white people (this is not said, but is tacitly assumed that her attitude is that she thinks white men are the only suitable sexual and romantic conquest for a 'superior' Filipino).

My mum mentioned Dita some time back. My mum said that Dita doesn't return phone calls or mail: she is probably blocking selected people out of her life and wants to lay low from her old friends. I get the impression that she is not in very stable relationships (since they eventually and inevitably end), and is a very lonely person. She probably has a regularly rotating circle of friends.

This assumption is based on an academic guess, but also, following my own experiences and another friend who I knew some time back.

Circulating friends

It is a flaw in people to avoid stable friendships and long-term relationships by regularly circulating friends and the appearance of being accessible, pleasant and rowdy. This is the character profile of the party animal, the maniac, the life of the party-person, and some formerly good friends of mine. These people seem really friendly, really cool, seemingly have loads of friends; but the ironic reality is that no one really knows them, or even cares. Marie was like this, I recall this just as I write this post, but I am thinking of an older friend of mine, Silvio.

Silvio used to be a good friend of mine at secondary school; until sixth form college we were one of a few peas in a big pod. Silvio started hanging around with lots of girls, we still hooked up and went out at bigger events, but in those events I was the outer of the group. I was at the party, but not really part of it. I was invited but never really paid any attention to. Sitting on my own at a party is basically the story of my teenage life.

I'm the guy at a party who was not brave enough to talk to new strangers, put myself off as always re-hashing old issues because of familiarity bringing comfort; and I was filled with lingering self-resentment that reflects on looking like resentment of other people.

The flaw that I may have is that I sometimes associate with a group of people who I eventually have nothing to do with after a period of time like a year, but in the pinnacle of those relationships, we are like 'bros'.

Shit stirring

Talking badly of other people is basically my forte. I used to find resistance to change, having an attitude like 'anything but that'. That kind of attitude also led me not to be willing to change who i was, or challenge who and what I was. That kind of attitude did not foster a propensity to improve or change for the better. I heard this Filipino guest (the one who threatened her colleague) talking a lot of shit about people, talking badly of certain other people who they disliked and whom they wished to associate with less.

While this was represensible, I found perhaps more disturbing was how my parents talked them afterwards in not unlike the same way. How this person was so rude to have been talking shit about all these people and how it was unacceptable, my parents more or less tolerated what was said last night, while not necessarily agreeing or adding to this shit-stirring; they were bad-mouthing a certain couple that involved a white-filipino partnership.

This is a big flaw of mine too. I think that I need to get over myself and stop this bad habit. I really do need to stop it and change; like how my weight is managed by excercise, I act to fight my inner darkness and faults. This too, I must improve upon.

Poor grasp/control of english

Because my parents are immigrants, I might give some exception to their situation, but I want to blame my parents for my bad grasp of English, the poor grammar and no insistence on grammatical correctness, proper pronunciation, proper spelling, adequate mastery of syntax and a respectable lexicon. Instead, my parents chastise me if I seem to exhibit any sense of improvement or unfamiliar sense and grasp of the English language.

I often feel like I am being punished or criticised for having a better understanding of English than them. There are varied responses but they are similar form:

1. Retreat: I am not English so I don't need to talk proper English
2. Defensive: Just because you have such-and-such an education does not make you better than us
3. Defensive 2: We taught you how to walk and brought you up, treat us with respect

[N.B] I'm going to proofread this piece before I send it

Not accepting that you create your own situation

I kind of implicitly did this in the previous section (to invoke my own sense of hypocrisy and my own candidacy for this flaw), but I shall be explicit. Blaming other people, the social situation, family and other such 'circumstances' is an infamous safety zone to defend yourself as a failure as a person or a failure in life. This deflection in itself is a flaw.

Percieved lies:

I'm fat because I never have time to excercise
(I'm fat because) Gym costs a lot of money
I'm fat because of genetics
I'm fat because of my parents

Actual attitudes:

I'm afraid of trying new things
I don't want to
I'm scared to accept that I can change my life (this is a hard fact to accept)
I don't believe I can change/I don't have enough willpower to change my situation, despite the fact that I hate my present situation

I have made excuses to my family and friends:

1. The credit crunch has had implications to how projects in postgraduate courses work
2. The faculty rejected me because of university quotas
3. I am unemployed because of the recession (= I am not putting enough effort)
4. I am a valid, normal, and acceptable human being who should not be questioned of integrity/The recession is to blame for my problems

Summary

Let me sumarise my faults:

1. I must accept my own faults and not blame others for my situation (where reasonable)
2. Resenting people
3. Avoiding my good longterm friends
4. Shit-stirring
5. Poor grasp of english