embarrassment

i used to hate embarrassment, i still do.

that's a word i don't use very much, more so because i dont think of it than it not being apt..

i went to the job centre on friday, did 3 applications for internships, and sorted out my digital photos. I went one step further and made a photo book for my girlfriend, a professional job. its for her birthday.

i think she'll leave me once she finds someone she can live with. That's sad, but I can't do anything about it.

I'm embarrassed. If it was an office, I'd get a box ready, just in case i need to pack up my desk...

Job seekers allowance - conditions

Going through the job seekers literature, there are 'changes' that I must notify them about:

- Getting a job (Fair enough)
- Get a pension (okay)
- Get involved in a trade dispute (erm, okay)
- Change address or move away from home, even if it is a day!
- change the amount of savings I have

I don't like the idea of the government having control and impact on my life ,especially when they treat me in such a way as the housing benefit yesterday.

My day at the job centre

1. Applied for backdated benefits for JSA
2. Completed some aspects of JSA application (like proof of identity, proof of studying)
3. Talked to a career's person for 'advice'
4. Joined a workshop for graduates.
5. Informed about 'signing on' every week for benefits, and a meeting in 8 weeks concerning a further meeting.

Housing benefit...suspicion?

Today I recieved a letter from the old City council in what is very upsetting wording. I called them a week ago, a few days before moving out to inform them that I wanted to move out, they said they couldn't do anything until I moved out, I then called when I moved out and they asked for some written confirmation, I complied. This morning I find a letter stating:

 

    "We have recently recieved information in respect of your claim, which has raised a doubt over your entitlement to housing benefit. As a result I have suspended your claim, and subsequently no further payments will be made"

 

Feel free to call me paranoid, but I find that me telling them openly that I'm moving out is an act of good faith and they reply as if I've done something wrong. It doesn't help my anxiety very much. I'll just comply again to their conditions and hope for the best. 

darkness looms

my girlfriend isn't happy that i moved. she called it cowardice, called me a fool. she's threatening me.

If the relationship ends. I'm not sure how things will work out. I will be stranded..

It's always nice to know, or to think that you have somewhere else to go.

That makes one a bit of an outsider, or a bit more worldly than thou. If she's leaving me, then, I'm scared of the future. I face it alone, and worst of all. I face it in the realisation that, I am inadequate after all, out of the illusion of relationship-land.

Yup, that takes my boner away.

I wish she could listen to me more.

She isn't being very understanding at my difficult decision.

Settling in: day 4

I've moved back to my parents.

Dehumanising, humbling.

I've been unpacking, setting up my desk, applying to the local GP, and today I've applied for benefits. I got an interview for a charity work placement (I unconsciously typed 'job') next week. I've requested my benefits be 'backdated' to maximise my profits.

I think the worst prospect is my girlfriend, she wants to end the relationship, or is leaning towards that feeling.

I'm scared. She held me together this past year. I can't lose her

my bowels hurt

....and I think that I've gained weight, or I know my 'official' weight.

I have gained about 30lbs on my weighing scale. I think this is because the surface of the floor in my parents house isn't a slanted wooden floor on a 3rd floor. Thus more accurate. If this is my 'real' weight, then I shall continue on my course happily. I was suspicious of my appearance being tubby when last year I was about the same weight, even though I was looking a lot sexier.

I moved out. It was stressful, I nearly beat up a hobo bothering my parents. It took about 20 mins to move out and when I closed the door and left the key in my room; I didn't look back. I only glanced at the house and my life there as my parents drove off.

It was glamourous for a while, on the motorway, in a leather seated medium expense car, talking to my parents and getting back to my old home

Some positives about weight

Here are some positives about my weight:

I've started lipobind around a month ago, and I have lost about 10lbs. I'm 183lbs and my target was set for 175lbs. If I reach that weight I will be very happy with myself. Or, happier.

I've felt my attitudes to food slightly change; on monday I bought some sorbet for my gf, the emotional replacement for ice cream. I really didn't enjoy eating any of it. Snacking is still present in my diet, but I am learning slowly to keep it in a controlled manner.

Eating within controlled limits is what is most important, I think. If I'm visiting someone and they have lots of fatty foods; I lose control and lose a grasp at what food I am eating and how many calories it costs

this weekend, written in the style of a covering letter

Dear hiring manager/reader

I would like to have a job, in my spare time I like to keep busy. This is a sign of my motivation and persistence. I am also a person to work with others, as evidenced by helping my girlfriend pack this weekend and I am also patient when she hassles me and puts me down. Here are some other skills I have displayed during the weekend:

• I have avoided my normal daily tasks of applying for jobs and sitting around the computer
• I have apparently a sexual problem of taking too long in sex
• I have spent a few hours alone with a 2 year old and kept her company, having fun and her not having a tantrum
• I have healed my leg a bit, and although I have more to do, I do not need the crutch anymore (I think)

Thank you for considering this application
With Regards

last year on google calendar

I'm going through (just for the sake of posteriority) my google calendar from last year. Here are a list of things that summed up the zeitgeist of the time:

1. Emailing potential supervisors for PhD
2. Socialising with two guys in grad school who are now PhD students (probably officially second year phds now)
3. Dropping off CVs in shops
4. Going to counselling
5. Purging
6. GOing to gym
7. Living in postgraduate halls full of international students.
8. Looking for flats to live in for my (seemingly inevitable) future PhD course

I'm broken. Things I don't really think are worth thinking about anymore, because they upset me.

I have a lot to be upset about, if I let myself think that way. I think we all do, some more and some less than others.

I must be positive for tomorrow. Today, I've felt...uneasy about people. I realise that my situation in large part is a construction of how i make myself feel. This is not to trivialise what I am going through, but my attitude defines how I get by in the world. A negative attitude attracts negativity. I must be positive.

I feel like I want to cry.

I write this like my diary, but some thoughts I am careful to not talk about. I am not trying to bias how things really are, but I feel that the things that make my soul heavy are things best left unmentioned and I write this to focus my intentions rather than express myself (although that's good too).

I want to go to counselling, but I don't think I can afford it and I don't want people to know. Maybe I can go and see a psychiatrist again?

i want to cry

For the past couple of days, I have felt like I want to just stop and cry. I have paused for moments to allow myself a brief and controlled period of grief.

I have lots of reasons to be upset. I try not to give those things any more air but I hope that they just pass away like a stool in my bowels.

I have to push forward and imagine, visualise the future that I want to have.

things that made me feel positive today

1. I cleared out all the things that have been bothering me: google calendar, google reader had a big backlog that I emptied out a bit.
2. i did a months worth of receipts
3. I felt somewhat more 'intellectual' by means o flistening to some podcasts. The Archers, some general BBC stuff, and a lecture on Darwin.

I like doing 'intellectual' things, it makes me feel cultured and most importantly, makes me feel myself. I shall make a note of indulging more upon things that I like. That said, I do have a sadist streak of indulging in things I do not like, particularly in terms of audiobooks and heavy metal music. My Dying Bride and that gothic band Flowing tears were symbolic of a tough spot that I hated being in, but I had to power through it in order to pass through it. I really emotionally do not like music that I find uncomfortable listening to.

Under eye cream

Since perhaps august 2007, just before I started this blog, I've been using boots Organics mens cosmetics. I have discovered today that I have officially finished my first container of under-eye cream.

It's pretty good that this cream lasted until his time. It was two years in the making. I feel an odd sense of achievement. It has been nearly two years since the whole bulimia incident had happened, life seema lot shorter in the space of two years.

At the moment I am packing up my stationery and other things in lieu of my inevtable flat move-out. I'm listening to about a week's worth of the archers. It is quite enjoyable and gets my motivation and productivity up. It works better than my music playlist. I shall try to change my habits. I don't feel the need to impress Marie and try to be something I am not and someone that makes me unhappy. I try to be authentic by not trying hard to fit into a social category.

ouch, the burn

I've blown a lot of money this month.

I need to keep track of my spending, stay in control. A lot of it is impulse and silly buying. In terms of my foodstocks, I've been eating some food that I kept in my reserves for the past month from promotions and the like. I started doing some packing.

Need to check my balance more to keep 'aware' or else I look away in fear and recklessly blow my savings. I'm back to pre-700 levels

The lame ending

I always believed in having glorious endings to significant stages of my life. Glorious endings to college, unviersity and grad school. What happened normally was that it ended up like a dud firework. At the end of college, I went to the pub, a wetherspoons, the same pub that we have since 2004, been going to for every reunion.

After my undergrad degree, I had a calm and reserved graduation. I was not happy with my result, but not unhappy that I got into a masters. After the masters, I didn't even go to graduation. I decided to 'wait' and withhold my celebration until i really had reason to celebrate my achievements. Since then, I felt that I have even less of a chance that that day will come.

Yesterday, my old friend from university invited me out for a drink. I went to an old haunt, in fact, the pub where I met Marie, and the next door pub was the first society event I ever went to, a discussion group it happened to be.

As I went through the old university premises; I remembered the last days I passed through. I did not care to remember every memory. I felt sadness and regret as I paced through those roads, I felt that I regret my nulled friendships, I regret chasing after Marie, I regret being so erratic and having little dedication to the things that mattered.

I passed the library and saw that it had been refurbished. It looks really good now. Exactly a year ago it was undergoing repairs, I went there from time to time to get a few dozen books to complete my dissertation.

Around this time last year I was looking for a new flat.

I want to go to counselling again.

My friend Alan who I went out with last night, noted that I am different as a person now. I am reserved, I do not talk as quickly, I have less 'physical tics' and I have a less energetic personality.

A friend once said that this was presumed to be a reaction or anxiety mechanism to appear so extraverted.

My girlfriend is a bit pissed off at me today for not visiting her. I was at her house since monday and came back yesterday afternoon. I need to do stuff in the house, like apply to jobs. She has enough hands to look over her.

I'm soon to move out of this flat and the city of my unviersity, I stayed here to resolve my 'failings', I ended up fucking up my life even more. I stayed in the city and solidified my relationship with my girlfriend, in a sense, this is very opsitive, especially for her. But financially and in terms ofm y life chances, I have ruined a lot of my life in not only the past year, but the preceding year which had a big place in defining it.

I hate you Marie.

University Jobs

I found some jobs at two local universities. When I look at them, it looks like the educational requirement is GCSE, most of them are research-based. I could go in on the basis of having a research background and having been taught research methods.

I feel a bit of guilt or being 'too good' to apply to these jobs. In a sense, they are what I am qualified to to, but in another, it is like conceding that my life is going down.

I must say to myself that it is a good oppurtunity. and apply

procrastination problems

Some procrastination is good, productive, proactive, i try to procrastinate in such a way to be productive. I catalogue all the things that I read, for instance. I try to listen to audiobooks, catalogue the music I listen to and so forth.

I've not been doing very much, desipte the fact that this past friday I did about 7-9 important tasks.

I had a viewing of my room yesterday, I went out charity shopping while they were doing it.  I love charity shopping, it is the only shopping that I can afford. I have a near-obsessive fascination with my bank balance. I want the number to be higher.

In other news, I am having problems with motivation, particularly, the problem with getting up, staying up and having my laptop on the table and a stand. Further, I have a problem wtih applying to jobs, while I have indeed applied to those agencies this week, I have a problem with the long list of things I have applying to. I delay and dally for so long that the job I plan to apply to has passed its application deadline. I had a nice internship at a cultural venue that I fucked up.

Not good. I need to be more go-getting and less sedentary.

I am not sure whether I am losing or gaining weight, today I weighed myself and found that I am 188lbs, later found (after having a 2nd shit and feeling more hydrated), I was 196, granted, I was on my crutch. I'm going to weigh myself again.

I had asked for the modifications to my book review, but I found even more typos after my first modification. I'm fucked, I hate when my flaws make themself apparent to me. Although I supopse it is a good learning experience. It would be a better learning experience not to actually have such fucking flaws that ruin my life.

I feel lazy and weak, rather than depressed. I think I'm going to email my online friend to do some further procrastination that is useful socially.