Thursday, June 30, 2011

one step further

Dear Diary,

 

I woke up a little stressed, financial woes taken me aback, and I am ready to sleep knowing that I've done a lot today. I've applied to one job, I've been invited to an interview (and declined because its unreasonably far - and too far from a train station), I've done a big amount of job searching and I've withdrawn from my ISA. Now, most of these things merit a diatribe or a story in themselves: I hate withdrawing from my ISA; I barely applied to that job and I feel really shit about declining a job interview because its too far.

I've been invited to give a talk. A talk at an art gallery, about art, about my degree expertise. This is really odd and its been on my mind for a little while, I guess i'm chuffed about it.

Another momentous thing: my dad's last day of work is tomorrow. My dad is retiring, and as of today he will be a retired man. I guess that means he's gonna be in the house a lot more, it also means financially speaking, I need to be the breadwinner eventually. There's a bit of pressure on me. My parents are getting older and health issues are increasingly evident. I will need to face the fact that as their health declines that will become a ...another issue to deal with in my life. I suppose one can never be prepared for that, but I do anticipate it. I also wish that I could get a proper job. All the things that happened today are evidence that I can be a worthwhile person and contribute well to the world: I was invited to a project management role, even though I had to turn it down.

When I think about the time I tried to kill myself, I realise life has changed so much. My sister is married and now has two kids, my brother has had 2-3 girlfriends since then and about a dozen and a half jobs he's been laid off from, cousins married, family members and friends departed from life, and I am but an observer. I think its fair to say that I'm a little isolated. I didn't go to the gym today but I did observe the dietary restrictions to a point ( I didn't overeat). I should probably weigh myself tomorrow. Perhaps something has changed in the past few weeks and it is this: its a belief in change.

I write this blog because I have less and less people to talk to with such candour. I write this blog because I would not exist if I didn't: I'd just be another anonymous face in the crowd. I feel in a little way that my life is slipping away, but I also know that I do things and I innovate and creatively think and act in ways that most people would never consider. I think if I just keep doing that I'll get further in life, and hold on to that sense of creativity and sponteneity and determination. I need to mould it, like how I'm trying to mould my body. It's not easy. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get more done, and most importantly, I'll be one step further to where I really want to be.

 

Saturday, June 25, 2011

change you can believe in

Dear Diary,

I'm completely shocked. I have been busy as fuck of late, and it has taken a toll on my body in various ways: I've been pretty ill (I'm still stuffy nosed), I've also been too busy to eat very much, I've also been behind on my schedule as much as I'd like to get ahead and another thing is that I've been sleeping a whole lot to catch up with my body. When I woke up I knew I had things that I needed to do, after the meeting yesterday I made some concrete commitments, I felt a little bit uncomfortable perhaps more because of the unfamiliarity of this project than anything.

So, I wake up, I feel more chirpy than most mornings which, I must admit, is very unique. I looked at my body in the mirror and I almost didn't recognise myself, my beard, and I have a few lines on my belly. The fat, is slowly going away. But looks can decieve, after some anxiety riddling tasks, such as entering my shifts for next month (realising I have few shifts), and emailing someone to start my first step towards this project; I then went to another task that I've put off for a few days: check my weight.

I think its fair to say that due to my busyness, and perhaps even contributing to my fatigue, I have resisted temptation and ate a lot less of late. Perhaps one of the saving graces of yesterday was that there was no burrito to be found at the cafe after I finished work. I love those burritos! I did a whole lot of walking over the past few days, and I think the fact that I've been busy has taken a toll on my body for sure. Now came the evidence, the real evidence: my weight went down 5lbs between my last reading and today. Now I feel like I still have some still inside me that is still an issue that affects the reading, but this is an undeniable change in weight. Exactly a week ago my weight was 224.8lbs, today its 214.8lbs, I took the reading numerous times as well, and it kept saying the same thing (well, some variance of 0.2lb between some readings). Now that's a pretty damned big change in weight. 10lbs in a week, that's 4kg. If I had an equivalent weight loss like that for 20 weeks I'd be less than a skeleton!

My next real target is 210lbs. Seeing the weight reading today tells me that such a goal is achievable. I am also to believe that real change can happen. This is a sign, this weight loss is an omen of change, of positive improvement in my life. Perhaps the lonely realisation is that if I do it without mia, I am more alone. I suppose I am being led to a greater truth, one more uncomfortable. That said, I don't have to be so hard on myself in terms of calories either, just hard enough to make change happen. I'm hungry, and I need to eat. Is taht okay with you guys?

I have only a few hours before I need to prep for work. I'm going to chill for a little while, and take it slow.

Friday, June 24, 2011

This is hectic and I'm not even working full time!

Dear Diary,

As soon as I finished work I aimed to get to the gym. I spent about 10 mins doing calisthenics, and believe me when I say that I didn't go any easier on myself simply because I was tired, and ill. I did my ab excercises and literally at the last rep I was at collapsing point. I then did 10 mins of weights, and to be fair, I took it a bit easy on myself, well I say easy but I don't mean that it didn't hurt. Usually I do longer, and focus on more muscles. I was mainly focussing on tricepts with weights. I barely ate anything when I got home, but I had a little naughty snacking in the morning which made most of the calories, the rest of my calories came from protein shakes.

By jingo I feel damned tired typing this. I then did an hour on the x-trainer and got to 721kcal, I was half asleep while doing it as well. I haven't been that tired in a long time, I was really pushing my endurance. I then did the sauna which helped me quite a bit to relax, and feel sleepy, the rise in body temperature was very welcome strangely enough. As I got home I fell asleep not long after, I had some troubled sleep, but I had my head down almost constantly from about 1930 last night to 0500 this morning. Since getting up I had a breakfast while watching house and now I'm prepping for details for the rest of the day. since I went to sleep so quickly I didn't bother with all my schedule tasks. Now I need to think about things, I need to prep for work, I also need to consider some serious thoughts for the meeting later today after work. I think its fair to say that I'm pretty worn down, and I still have more to go for today. I guess this is what it means to be an adult. I kind of feel a bit of pressure.

Anyway, lets get on. I have tasks to do. I said to myself I'd blog about this, so I'd clear my head. I can't think about using Lampe right now because the time frame is too tight to determine these tasks. All things considered: my diet yesterday, carrying on while ill, and surviving today, I'm doing pretty well. Once 16:00 happens today I will be able to just rest at least for 22 hours (then its work again). This is hectic and I'm not even working full time!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

not having a mini freakout

Dear Diary,

I woke up exceedingly early. I think that was a sign that I'm better from yesterday. I am still, however, a little icky. For the sake of it, I have packed my gym bag. While I was awake I masturbated a whole lot from 7am, snacked a little, and now I'm prepping for work. Knowing me I've probably forgotten some important element of my gear. I've gotten a potential interview date for the aforementioned vacancy yesterday, I then realised that its based way outside of london, and not very near to Surrey (I could do Surrey easier than east london).

My initial plan was to go to work, survive and then go home and sleep. My plan (slightly more ambitious) is to do the same but do the gym after work. Heres to hoping. I have a lot of food for thought, but I'm all inaction right now. This is an instance where a person has too many thoughts to handle. I think for now I'll just pack my bag and go. (don't forget shoes!)

Signing out

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

the rejection letter that offered me an interview

Captain's log, Supplemental:

In addition to the two jobs I applied to on this day where I feel very sick. I fell asleep for what must have been 2-4 hours. Watching House M.D. is a great way to indulge self-pity. I want to add some achievements to today:

  • I have opted to go for more extra shifts, whether I get them is another issue.
  • I may have mentioned that I got an email earlier today, I just saw the first line of it and barely glancing at it told me that it was the same letter I get every so often

Dear Mr. Conatus,

Thank you for your recieved application for the position of Admin wanker/assistant wanker/executive wage slave. We regret to inform you that on this occaison you were not chosen for the shortlist as a more suitable candidate was chosen.

I saw this briefly, I word skimmed for 'Unfortunately' or 'Regrettably', or a variant of that. There happened to be another paragraph after that and I just ignored it because I felt they dissected my application saying where my flaws are (I hate reading those kinds of emails, because the information is so important that you need to read it, but it also is upsetting). In an unrelated action later on in the day, I happened to look at the email. I then noticed something very unusual, the email said that i've been turned down for the post, but the subject heading I then realised wasn't the job role. They are offering me an interview for another entry level role.

The role is in politics, it involves a bit of travel, and I'll deal with VIPs. It also involves research, it is a think-tank type organisation, they work with politicians, and its not technically public sector. This is a very nice oppurtunity. When asked: do you want an interview? my answer is always: YES, then I think about it, and then I say: YES! My second thought was then about the guys who are asking me in a part time media role. I don't think they are going to pay, and furthermore, I don't think they are going to offer me a proper job. I'm happy to help out with them, but if I get a role that sounds as good as the one I've just been offered, I'm going to be a bastard and join the train to Westminster.

I've survived today, physical discomfort has been constant. Perhaps I may survive better times tomorrow. I think I'm going to do something incredibly awkward and do the thing that's been on my mind all day: anxiety and fear has brought me to avoid it. It's best not to avoid the demons.

Signing off

Sickie

Dear Diary,

For whatever reason, I feel quite ill today. It's my throat again, or maybe my tonsils. I woke up late, meh. After an hour of wake I felt that I wanted, nay, I needed to get back to bed. I perservered, at least until now. So far I've done a few job searches, applied to 2 jobs and I think I might turn down the oppurtunity to go to the gym. After all, isn't feeling ill a good reason. My concerns right now seem to be twofold, one is about what the heck happened yesterday at counselling, I really don't know. My other concern is whether I can make it to work tomorrow. As it happens, I've cleared up a lot of tasks today, and over the next few days. Come Thursday to Saturday, I will be working. I suppose I should rest up to stay strong for tomorrow.

For being a sick man today, I think that I've completed a good amount, even if its still a little bit compared to when I'm well. I think that I'm going to lay in bed for a while. At least I can catch up on my podcasts and audiobooks

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

lucretia, my reflection

Dear Diary

I have this nagging feeling because I called the door on the building where I go to counselling numerous times and there was no reply. I can only try so many times so I went off to the Gym early instead. There must have been some kind of issue. I also noticed that I have not been able to receive any texts for a while. I may have recieved a message. My texts are working now, but there are still no texts from the counsellor. I feel like something went wrong and I don't know what it was.

Anyway back to other things. I took the protein shake right before the training session and I definately felt a boost. My exercise consisted of 20mins calisthenics, 20mins weights. I pushed myself pretty hard on both, and I have been following a guide that I read on Men's Health. I then put in an hour on the x-trainer, I pushed the resistance up to 10 and that made quite a difference I think. Normally, my workouts reach from 600 kcal, sometimes if I'm really lucky I go up to 670kcal. Last week I started using resistance and I did about 700. Doing 800 was so far beyond my normal target that I didn't really comprehend, or feel very confident. Normally I aim for a specific outcome, on the basis of past experience, but I didnt' know what was 'good' or the proper form.

Regarding form, it was not so great, despite the high calorific cost of the workout. I kept slowing down and speeding up too erratically and additional to that I kept feeling fatigue and low moments through the x-trainer session. If I can aim for good form and that amount of calories I would be laughing my way to fitness. After training, Diet is everything. I was naughty and had a walkers crisps and bacon/chips binge this morning. That racked up my calories quite a bit. In addition to that my milk intake was pretty high, but it needs to be if I want to assimilate those protein powder supplements. All in all (excepting the confusion about counselling), I think that I've done fairly well today.

Yesterday, for some reason unknown to me, perhaps a sense of guilt, I went into that support group that I created and sent a few goodwill messages of support to people who are having a nightmare. It felt good, it felt like I was delving into an ancient part of myself that I've ignored for a long time.

I'm too tired to think with much lucidity so I'm going to have a shower and probably go to sleep.It was a good day

Monday, June 20, 2011

back to routine

Dear Diary,

Today is the first day of regularity since Wednesday. Thursday involved wedding preparations; Friday involved a wedding; Saturday was the hangover and then a meetup with friends, that continued to Sunday and then I went home. Today I did the following things:

  • Job Search (I made quite a few searches)
  • Catch up on GReader backlog
  • Prepared an application but then the server of that website crashed. I couldn't complete it
  • I went to the gym, in frustration. I did 1250 kcal damage. That almost covers for the fact that I overate today (2200kcal)
  • After gym I finished that application (server was up) and then sent off another application
  • A side note, I did a lot of reading today, and I was following thsi website that looked through the history of music. I loved the 20th Century. Having that historical context kind of gave me a bit more of a context on my place in the world.

So, its business as usual. I send off job applications, go to work part time, do the gym a little bit and once a week I do some counselling. I need to up the ante: more applications, I need to be more serious about the fact and belief I have that I need a job, a proper job. Even though there aren't many proper jobs out there. I have nearly a year of admin experience, good work experience with charities (which I continue to do), experience working in hospitality and events, and volunteer experience with victims of crime. I also have a masters degree in a subject that people are shit scared of, I have a bachelors degree and 'A' Levels in subjects that intimidate people because it represents 'old white history' and traditions that probably would have made me fit in well at Cambridge (note to self, if I go to the past, try to apply to cambridge, that, and tell your younger self to avoid all girls until you finish your second degree).

I did a lot of tasks today, I'm glad in a way, I'm also glad because I have been distancing myself from a few awkward feelings, let me list them:

  1. Last weekend I may have drunkenly annoyed a friend
  2. Today I found out I annoyed her (as in girl in 1.) friend, and she (as in former girl in 2.) won't talk to me
  3. I had a go at my dad, I feel he deserved it, but I also feel guilty. My mum and I are always having a go at him, usually for things like how neglegent he is with his body. It pisses me off because it reflects badly on me. It shows me up, and it shows my flaws. It shows me not only what I could be, but in other regards what I am now as a flawed person. My fear is that I am so angry and pissed at those things about him, that it makes me transparent, or unable to deal with my issues because he pisses me off so much.

In other news, a friend of mine is a bit down because a girl turned him down, and Sadia is flirting with me again: it's only sexual. Tomorrow brings more things to the fore: I have a lot of jobs that I could apply to, my timetable is actually quite full, despite mentioning earlier that I cleared up a whole lot of it. The fact of the matter is: i've cleared it up, but its still full. That may sound overly stressful to have so many tasks set for myself, but right now it doesn't scare me. I'll also need to fit in some training tomorrow, as well as of course, counselling. I need to train to get my weekend weight out of my body. I ate a whole lot on Friday and the weekend, sunday night/monday morning led me to eating some ice cream as a binge. I was still in 'holiday fun' mode mentally. I've gotten it out of my system for now, I think.

Looking prospectively, I think that the regularity of my schedule and even the tasks which involve initiative don't have results that I want. I did apply, for the record, to 2 jobs that I'd really enjoy doing if I got them. I never get those jobs. I'm being negative, do you know why? because I'm better than so many people, I enjoy richard strauss, i read Sophocles, and I have a high memory retention even when I have memory problems. I use linux and when I have a problem I have to use initiative to band-aid it. Fucking lazy windows bastards. I feel like it is the limitations of other people that get in the way of my progress. It is however, my only response that I must try to boost myself even more, my memory to the limit, my learning to the limit, my initiative and task-handling. I do so many little tasks that it takes only the transparent record system of Lampe to remember what they are. I act like I have a plan, but when people ask me the mid or long term, I leave it to lampe to decide. I can't act like I know what I'm doing, because I don't, and also, I'm always trying to make a way to fix things.

Earlier today I was listening to a graduation speech by comedian Conan O'Brien to (I think) Dartmouth College's graduating 2011 class, the one thing he said was that his experience with the tonight show and the whole leno situation forced him to change his game, and in recreating himself, he found another route to do things. Because of the flux that occurs in life, the economy, society, being flexible is very important, it means that the criterion of success becomes harder because of changing circumstances, but it also means the crieria of success can be edited to allow other new things, and innovations unforeseen.

Perhaps I need to consider new ways, new conditions of success. I have such a drive and I can see other people don't have it. Why can't I succeed?

Sunday, June 19, 2011

I can trust the imaginary people with my openess

Dear Diary

Phew! What a weekend! I am back home, and I am finally back in front of the computer, which means essentially, back to business as usual. Having the wedding this friday passed, and the boys night out last night with the subsequent morning afterward enabled me to reflect upon things of late. It is nice to have a day away from the humdrum of whatever one goes through as regularity. I had a couple of triggering experiences, and I also had an anxiety moment when I was with my friends. Physically it hits me as difficulty with breathing.

We had a few laughs, we did some fairly homoerotic things during the night. I would like to think that I did not do any faux pas and I was (relative to the situation) well behaved. This friend of mine that I went to visit is a PhD student, and someone who does research on a funded basis. I did anticipate that it may bring up some issues because, he's basically doing what I've dreamt about all my adult life and well, on the face of it I am not the most magnanimous of people. However I didn't (until I just explicitly made the point now) really think about that and I had a really great time. I had a couple of triggers as mentioned but I managed to handle them publicly, without letting on as it were. 

Maybe its the wedding I just went to, maybe its the fact that increasingly many of my friends and family are coupled up, maybe its the fact that I spent all morning watching Gok Wan on E4 addressing the issue physical beauty and sartorial elegance, or the fact that I watched the Wrestler today, a film about sacrificing the things that really matter, for another percieved thing that matters. For whatever reason, I am feeling a little bit worn down right now, emotionally worn down, physically speaking I am worn down but I have been worse. I suppose I am afraid of being alone. Perhaps even more of a fear is that I am afraid of being mediocre.

Mia started talking to me on the train. It seemed to help, and no, I dont feel tempted to purge. I just needed someone imaginary to talk to. I can trust the imaginary people with my openess. I cannot say that about many other people, and not trusting others does make me fear I would be disingenuous and dishonest about myself, to myself.

I'm going to get back on with my schedule, time now to play catchup.

Friday, June 17, 2011

From an episode of House

Dear Diary,

I had a fucking awful time last night. Since we will have guests staying over, I have to give my room over to them, so in preparation (since we are busy today with the wedding), I had tosleep in the box room. Sleeping in that room gave me all sorts of triggers, and perhaps pathetically I must admit, i cried a little after reliving a few painful memories. I got myself drunk and eventually I passed away to sleep, then I got a text at 1am, got a bit pissed off cos I couldn't sleep, and then I barely remember any thing (ergo I drifted off) and woke up at 5:30am. We all got up early in the house today, we are excited about the whole wedding thing. The guy getting married is someone I've known forever, and he's basically family. I'm excited for him, and I'm excited to see all the people in the ceremony, many of whom I know from the long distant past, and others are friends of my friends who are also his friends, since we grew up in close vicinity this is to be expected.

I love going to family things like this. I dont really admit that as much as I should. I love my family and most of the time I have a ball with them, my family is very close knit and we have collectively suffered our shared tragedies and pains. I think its important when you are with people who also share that pain and those memories. I was thinking of exactly that last night, for many of the memories related to times when I didn't have anyone around to help me, or perhaps also put: many of those people who were around me I am no longer close to. This reminds me of an episode of House that I saw yesterday morning (Wilson, season 6), about a man with cancer who left his wife after he went into remission. When the threat of cancer returned, he reconciled with with wife over his new younger girlfriend, and his wife supported him and reunited with him once more. Being House, M.D., through some divergent roads he had the cancer cured, and at the end of the episode he went back off with his new girlfriend, being an absolute cunt. There was something said in the episode by this character: who you want in the bad times is very different to who you want in the good times.

In the good times everyone seems to be around you, in the bad, anyone that matters is there. Perhaps I am a little bit like that,I feel that I needed to distance myself from those bad times in order to move from it, and in doing so, I distanced myself from the people who knew me then. Something has been eating away at me lately, I'm not quite sure how to articulate it. Anyway, I'm now just passing time, I've done some reading tasks and job searches, I'm waiting until I can put on my suit. This wedding is making me really giddy with excitement, its either that, or the coffee makes me want to shit.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

knowledge is the adequation between thought to its object

Dear Diary,

I have completed most of the tasks which I have had on my mind of late, mainly pertaining to losing my gym pass, having loose glasses and preparing for the wedding. I should feel a little at ease. When I was outside, I was reminded of how consistent many of my actions are, how a sense of consistency, or perhaps, better stated, regularity rules my life. I guess this is why people think I am autistic or autistic spectrum: on the basis of my 'obsession' with order. From what I was once, the schedule, as I always call it in counselling, is key. Having a sense of order goes in such detail, from having spare wax strips in certain bag, having spare deoderant which I probably haven't used up since 2008 after Boots had a discount on that brand I really like. I always seem to anticipate certain things, that's normally why I keep odd items in my wardrobe. Odd perhaps to many people, but to me, it makes perfect sense. I keep trinkets from the past, perhaps more to remember what I have immediately forgotten in the days of yore, and things that just somehow end up being useful, like a usb wireless adaptor.

Having a sense of order also means that I religiously stick to it. I need to have my equipment, or I need to adapt my gear depending on the situation. For work, I need my smart shoes, for social events, I use my boots. This sounds small, but my inventory inclodes a whole amount of variations, my newest of late, is a bowtie. I have been (to my failure) attempting to tie a bow, luckily I don't need to as my mum knows how to do it. Ironically, I taught her how to tie it, I taught her the how to do it theoretically, and showed her the bit that I didn't havethe manual dexterity to do. I suppose in situations like that, where my body does not obey my mind, my disability shows.

I wish my body obeyed my mind a little bit more. In my mind I am rigorous, ordered, obsessive, tough, smart and determined, my body however is flabby, unmaintained (cf. hairy shoulders), and as I have just checked now, flatulent. When I used to purge, my body fit my mind more, however my mind also became warped. I wish there were a better connection between the two. There's so much I need to change, where does it start?

I've officially completed most of the tasks I've really needed to do today, I *could* go to the gym, even though its raining horribly outside. I could even catch up on my tasks. Now that, would be amazing. I did everything that my anxiety ridden self wanted planned, and then some. I just wish that translated into personal and career or even financial success.

I'd like to hope maybe one day I'd want it to. One thing I've addressed during counselling is that I'm stubborn. I'm stubborn about my ideals.

no good exemplar.

Dear Diary,

There's a lot to do today, the way that I have planned it I should essentially complete many of the tasks just going to the high street, each component task is important to complete, and in my mind I cannot seem to focus on them all. I'm not good at dealing with bulk tasks, thus the need for my schedule. Anyway, this morning I've felt a bit distracted. There's a part of me, like, I suppose many people, which is deficient. Deficient because I am alone and isolated. Many people are said to live 'full' lives even if they are not fortunate. Full lives often include love, sensitivity, a caring nature, engaging in nurturing relationships.

I often speak of ideals, I often speak of the notions of eminent character, in some cases I would try to exemplify them. I am no good exemplar however, I'm not a good exemplar of anything. When I train, I partly do it to punish myself. I feel like I need to be broken apart, and re-set into someone else. Like, I suppose, how the Jesuits changed me, or how I changed at uni. So often do I have to break apart and re set, so often do I have to make myslef seemingly more suitable for the world, or perhaps better put, more adequate to succeed. But I'm not succeeding, I'm a failure. My greatest fear is inadequacy. I wish I could escape this feeling.

Its raining today. I hate going out in the rain. I think that I shall attempt to get as much done today as possible. I might not be able to do any training, though.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Juggling with more balls than expected

Dear Diary,

Right now, Slicethepie is running in the background. I am trying to do as many reviews as I can, in a worried mindset that i am short on my budget. The extra few £ helps me quite a bit. I feel a bit of an emotional rush for several reasons, I suppose the main thing that's hanging over my head is the fact that I've lost my gym card. I couldn't get into the gym today because I seemingly have lost my gym pass. All things considered it is the least worrying thing that I can lose, because I can easily replace it. I cannot say the same for my phone, or even my tie for work. I get in a bit of trouble if I lose the tie.

I am also a bit anxious about work today because I left early. I left early because I was the only one listed on the shift, and simply put, I wasn't needed, nobody was there. I left early, and headed to the gym, then found that my card had disappeared. I called the gym (anxiety points) and asked what to do, they said its just £5 to get another card, no issue, just money. Speaking of money, I've been invited to a boys weekend with the boys. Last time I went to a boys weekend, I got so drunk we started throwing ice cubes everywhere. I should, for legal reasons (not that we hurt anyone, but we still were acting naughty) I should say no more! Anyway, those nights are so much fun its kind of like being at university again.

I suppose when I got home, I worried a bit because there seems to be so much that I needed to think about. I am trying, for instance, to learn how to do a bowtie. With little success I'm getting stressed about everything else. However I think that I have successfully completed a good amount of tasks, even if I didn't do any training today. If I eat no more tonight I will have succeeded at least with one more struggle. Sometimes I wonder to myself why I need to lose weight, but then I am reminded that body image is so prevalent and so overwhelmingly a means of social credibility. I'd rather be thin and feel worthless, than be fat and have that feeling confirmed. I've felt like purging a few times today. Maybe I should summarise my day:

 

  • Did job searching
  • RSVP'd to meeting about project that I'm invited to
  • Sent application
  • Went to work
  • Learning how to do a bowtie
  • invited to boys weekend out

I think I might have to politely decline the boys night out, on the sole basis that I can't afford it. I've made way too many expenses this month and I dont think I can make ends meet, despite the fact that I did more hours than usual last month. I know its a fucking bummer, but I am learning in a very hard way that I am surrounded by limitations. The limitations are the world around me, the fact that I can't afford another computer or that I'm broke all the time. I need to work with the best I can, and in fairness, its not terrible, but I need to utilise every scrap of my resources and wit in order to better this situation.

I've planned tomorrow as well, I need to make sure nothing goes wrong in the run up to the wedding. Most tasks tomorrow aim to resolve my anxieties about various things that I have now, which include:

  • bowtie anxiety
  • lost gym pass
  • shampoo replenishment before the wedding
  • tightening the screw on my glasses

I hope I can do 3/4 of those in a single outing. I think I might even do an early gym session so that when I'm outside I'll do many things at once. I feel like I have more to say, but of those things I ponder, I still need to develop such thoughts. In that way I'm still academical.

Accept it, then surmount it

Dear Diary,

I was too tired to write anything at the end of last night's training session. It was one of the first times I really took the protein shake right before I started training. I suppose to summarise my day I did the following: training, counselling (I brought up uncomfortable stuff which fucked up my mood afterwards), more job searching, and I sent off an application. All in all its not too bad. The training session was pretty intense, I did more oblique excercises than I usually do, and on the x-trainer I normally go between 550-670kcal burn, now that in itself is a pretty big variance of energy output. However, it was like I was on steroids or something yesterday because I changed the parameters, I increased the resistance of the stepping machine, and perhaps it also helped (if for anything, psychologically) get more out of me. By the end of it I really felt worn down and since my neighbours were also at the gym they gave me a ride home.

I am starting to think to myself that I should stop counselling. For one the money could be better used I think, and for twos, I am not sure its really helping me as such. I spent over 6 months there, if I haven't fixed anything in my head I never will. I can at least say, that I've tried to give it a go. I am not sure there is as much a problem now, or perhaps the problem is the world. Which I repeat in varying ways to express. For some reason I my thoughts keep leading to the past, I'm not really sure why. I was really scared when I started uni, I didn't have a clue how to make it in the real world, and to a large extent I still don't. I feel so incredibly infantilised by my parentsbut I won't blame them for my undoing, being around them however, does not help me help myself.

Maybe I should focus on the now. I woke up this morning feeling pretty fatigued, it always seems when I wake up on a work day I feel tired as fuck. As it happens the following few days are planned fairly rigidly. Today I'm off to work, after I finish work I aim to do a big workout. I think however, that I would need to get a bite to eat in that intermittent time. Either a burrito, or I eat something now. My mum is feeling better and is finally out of bed, but that also means I can't cook that pizza in the kitchen. I can hear it now: it's too early to eat pizza! Well I need a big fix of calories right now before I get my clothes on! Thursday is fairly determined, I am going to do some job searching, finalise my suit preparations and perhaps shave my beard. Friday is the big day for my good family friend and his lovely fiance, it will be a joyous day, it might even be a sweaty day (why do tuxedos have to be overwhelmingly black), after Friday, I've set Saturday and Sunday as potential 'recovery days'. I think I'll play catchup on various tasks, or play some Xbox. I'll have the house to myself on saturday, or I could do the gym. I have broken finally the 220lb barrier, it's a long time coming but I'm glad it came. Now I need to keep going, this is the lowest weight i've been in probably just under 2 years.

Yes I know I am a tubby fuck. I found that I need to accept my body as it is, I can only change it if I accept it. Accept it and then surmount it. That seems to be my mantra for these days. Okay, I'm off now to prepare either some food, or piss about online a bit more!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

something's gotta give

Dear Diary,

 

My mum is bedridden today, as such I've had a few different tasks today to account for that, namely, making her tea, making sure she eats and doing all the domestic stuff she does during the day. Isn't it amusing when a guy is seen as acting extraordinarily towards domestic tasks (special candidate examples include cleaning the car, doing a barbeque), but then if a woman does such domestic tasks it is not extraordinary. Yes there is a gender disparity, and I suppose I contribute to that problem. The scare of yesterday has hopefully now gotten away now that mum is home (albeit sickly still). For some reason, perhaps coincidently or non-related, I'm really getting into watching episodes of House. More likely because I've found a channel that shows regular episodes on a daily basis instead of every week. Man I love Hugh Laurie, and I love how the characters are all broken and hurting in some way.

 

If I have anything to say today, I suppose it is that I have nothing to say. Everything in my life, or everything I was taught to believe, was that any achievement comes through perseverance and determined hard work. Being able to play that Rachmaninov piece I used to play, for instance, took so much effort, it was like engaging in a personal relationship. I used to compare it to weightlifting and training, now that I actually do weightlifting and training, Ithink the analogy is more involving and less involving in disanalogous ways. It is less involving in that when I'm training, I can't give up the plan and it affects even the way I eat. For the record, don't mix protein shake into one's tea without properly mixing it. I nearly threw up! Another way in which musicianship is more involving is that it involves more reading. However, for the longest time that analogy seemed apt.

I had been concerned about my weight loss programme of late, mostly because of all the food I put in me of the past few days. I have luckily found some redemption in the fact that my weight hasn't gone up *too much*. Compared to my really low readings of last week, I've only gained 0.6lb, which on balance, is not bad at all. I have a wedding coming up on Friday, I wonder to myself if the food and alcohol partaken will offset my weight. I will, for my sins, do some training on the morning after.

I'm a bit pissed off because of all the schedule tasks I've done of late, too few of them have involved applying to jobs. I've applied to a few grad schemes lately, yes, and I have kept my job search extensive. But I have found almost all of the jobs found in my searches don't feel right, the following reasons I have given for finding a job unsuitable:

  • I don't want to work in finance
  • I don't have an economics degree
  • I don't have that specific software package familiarity (usually Raisers' Edge)
  • I lack 1-2 features in the PD/JD
  • I lack experience - consequently, no one is offering me a job because I lack experience, and I lack experience because I dont have a proper job

I ask myself why is this happening to me. I have two degrees and I can't even get a fucking admin job. I even have admin experience. I'm so frustrated I want results, I want an outcome. Yesterday when I was training I reached fatigue pretty early during weight training. I was doing some floor calisthenics, which I have unfortunately been avoiding for 2 weeks. After blasting my abs I gained a better appreciation of physical pain, I then did some weights. According to Caloriecount, calisthenics involve more calories than weight training, all the same, the latter makes me tired in as painful (albeit different) a way. When I was pushing those weight machines I worked as close as I could to failure, I think I did in fact reach failure in the leg excercises. I felt so incredibly close to a cramp and to fatigue, that my breathing became a bit of an issue, in that way it reminded me distinctly of the physical similarities with stress, which I was feeling as well that day.

Today I'm going off to counselling, I question whether I really need it, or more specifically, whether I need to lose £100 a month when I'm not even making ends meet. if I had more spending money I would be able to do things like buy a new laptop, or go out socially. But on the other hand I can also make mistakes with cash, too. All things considered, I am perpetually broke, and this is in no small part because of my gym subscription, and counselling, and travel. Some of these things I absolutely need, I can't not travel because if I can't go to work I can't get paid! The gym subscription is absolutely necessary for my weight loss plan, maybe if I reach 160lb in some theoretical future I may reconsider that situation. I think its fair to say that for now, something's gotta give.

I hate saying that something isn't working when people are so resistant to helping me, or if I'm still not giving it enough of a chance, but it's not working. I can't continue to be perpetually broke and just making ends meet, I can't keep applying to these fucking mind numbing jobs because there are not oppurtunities for a PhD, I can't keep getting rejected for jobs, I can't keep my mind suffocated by the listlessness of everyone else who is unwilling to affect change. What do I do? What can I do? In the words of Immanuel Kant: What may I hope? (He also asked 'what is man?', but that's academic)

 

Monday, June 13, 2011

...for tomorrow is another day

Dear Diary,

My mum's back home, for now, it looks like things aren't as bad as I thought. The hospital people still needs time to analyse the samples, so still, we don't know what's going on. Maybe I should summarise the day:

  • Supervising builders in the house today
  • Mum was at A&E (stressed out)
  • Training (a way of dealing with the stress)
  • Sent job application
  • Job search

I suppose this is a reasonable amount to do. I feel pretty tired right now. I won't bother to comment on the fact that I've overeaten today. I've been so stressed out today. I suppose in a small way, the stress situation and worry has averted. My body is feeling some signs of fatigue, I suppose consistent with a hard workout earlier today, and about 4 hours of sleep. I hope I sleep well tonight, for tomorrow is another day and ultimately, another change to vindicate myself

Dear Diary,

 

I'm a bit worried at the moment. It is a warranted worry. My mum is in A&E at the moment and she's having some tests done. At first it seemed fairly routine, but considering the amount of time she has spent since the morning at the A&E I'm srarting to fear the worst. My dad said it's heart related. There are some builders at the house, so for logistical reasons I cannot go out to train right now, until either the builders have finished/they leave, or my dad gets a call to pick up my mum after she's gone through all the testing.

I'm a little bit worried. I think I might just lay down or something for now.

Something is eating at me

Dear Diary,

Today is a better day than yesterday. Yesterday ended up being so bad, that its damage has overflowed into the early hours of this morning. I went through some traumatic memories last night, I felt so terrified by those thoughts that I had to stay awake for a few hours just as a distraction. I describe this as if its a normal routine part of my life, I suppose being huanted by the past is something I do when I let my thoughts wander.

There has been a certain theme in my thinking of late, I don't acknowledge it much but I think it was most succinctly expressed when I was watching a video presentation of Bono (of U2 fame) addressing a graduating audience from UPenn. Bono said something like: the great way to challenge society is to expose its hypocrisies and the way in which it is fundamentally defective. For Bono it means addressing the elephant in the room of Africa, and what it represents to the west (nation inequalities, capitalism abuses, blindness to human rights of all). I feel there is a lot of hypocrisy in the world, I see it in terms of the disparities that graduates go through, I see it in the false class consciousness of many of my friends in their 20s and early 30s and the utter complacency of many to resist change or challenge. I feel suffocated by it, or perhaps different to suffocation, my fear is that I will inhale in this stink of shit that is mediocrity.

After my nightmare of last night/this morning, I got up at a fairly good time in the morning. I am clearing through a whole lot of schedule tasks, but not yet doing any job applications. I find all the jobs I've found sofar, or the ones that I've set to apply to are not suitable for me. There's a lot to do over the coming 14 days, I'm clearing through these tasks at a reasonable pace, with luck I will go and do some training today as well. My main setback for today is that I had a massive binge in the early hours of the morning, because it counts as monday's eating, I am basically almost at my caloric limit of intake. The past few days have been bad for my diet. I'm not sure what the change is, something is eating at me (excuse the pun).

 

Saturday, June 11, 2011

The important steps can also be boring ones

Dear Diary,

According to GCal I've logged 89 small - medium sized tasks. Most of them insignificant. I've probably created about 40 more over the next few weeks, most of them reading tasks. I have been excercising plasticity of the mind today through reading a whole lot of articles and online pages. Today was the SlutWalk, which hasn't skipped my attention, although I'm not a woman I am very supportive of the notion and I think its great women made a stand. I however, am a male, and a bystanding commentator (well I wasn't a bystander at central london today, I mean proverbial).

So I mentioned that I had a whole lot of tasks to complete over the next 14 days. I still do, as it happens. The positive thing however, is that I have cleared up so much of it that don't feel *as* bad that now after I finish the post, I'm going to have a big wank, and then log my walking data for today. It's exceptionally important for me to keep records. I haven't logged my weight for the past couple of days. Part of that is fear, today and yesterday I have eaten a little more than I should have. I have this massive fear that I will go on the scales and see 233 or 240lbs on the scales. Maybe that sounds irrational, but there are a lot of dark places in my mind, many never too far from consciousness.

I ate maybe a bit over 2000kcal, according to my log, probably under 2200kcal. I ate 100g of salad today, and to put that in context, that's half of the bag. It tasted horrible and it was a massive chore. I hope it makes my bowels clear a bit easier come tomorrow morning. On catching up with my blogs today, I kept up with a few audio stories. I'm getting a bit into H.P. Lovecraft, I know I'm a bit of a johnny come lately with this, I see everyone with a Cthulu T-Shirt and in a sense, I see them as venerating Cthulu as a similar figure to the Flying Spaghetti monster and having the pertinent veneration of Richard Dawkins: some kind of ironic religious spirituality. Anyway, I have gotten none of that impression from actually reading Lovecraft, My initial impression was that it's a bit Edgar Allen Poe, and now perhaps the last story I read was a little bit more dark, more weird, definately not like Poe in some stories.

Considering most of my day involved solitary confinement, I've also kept to a bit of activity. My 25th birthday looms exceptionally close and I seem oblivious to it, I fear one day I'll finish reading articles and realise I'm 65 living in my parents' house still. My God, that's a scary thought. I need to start living beyond websites and books. Gay rights and feminism is all good and well, but maybe I should start doing things in the world instead of reading about how its falling apart through the economy and government. I also have this overwhelming belief that some new Hitler-like figure is going to emerge, I then think (this is a less prevalent thought) that it would be me. Failed academic they will call me, they will think I have one ball, probably the pillow fucking thing will come out as well. I'm babbling now.

Have I done enough today? Have I achieved enough? Considering the backlog I've had due to work, interview and fatigue this week starting from Tuesday and finishing by about 9am today (when I woke up feeling refreshed and caught up on sleep), I think that I did catch up. I have a little bit more catching up to do, in fairness, but it's a good step forward, even if its a quiet one.

I have two more minor things to do whiel I remember them, and my day shall be complete!

Good night.

(listening to a black metal album that sounds like some weird folk)

Dear Diary,

It's 2pm, saturday afternoon. The girl who wanted to meet up with me hasn't gotten back to me after constant messages, I'll leave it to her. This person is nice, I've been chatting to her for ages, and its not necessarily a date kind of situation, although maybe there's a little sexual tension. Anyway, lets presume that won't come to fruition today. Lets talk about today, I've made an effort towards a few small tasks that are necessary for the wedding, namely, preparation. I've got my whole suit ready: Cummerbund, bowtie, shirt, suit, shoes, socks: all ready. I even have a new pair of cufflinks. The final touch of that process culminated today as I went out and bought a shirt. On the way home I got some milk and I enjoyed a nice protein milkshake.

I had quite a long session in bed. I must have had a full night of sleep, all I remember was keeping the reading light on and putting a podcast on and the next thing I know the lamp was still on and the sun out. I needed it, I had weird and terrifying dreams as usual. Mornings are not easy for me. Getting up at 9am was a bonus, what felt like eternity was not. I got ready and went out to get the shirt, it was nice and warm today. Now I'm back home again, I think it is the perfect opportunity to get back on my schedule. I've mentioned since probably monday that the schedule has gotten a bit tight. This is true more so now than when I said it. However, I don't feel as much the sadistic desire of keeping busy as I did earlier. I will endeavour to complete these tasks.

In balance, I suppose this week has been fairly occupied. I just wish that I put in more job applications. Anyway, onwards with the tasks at hand!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Atavisms, ghosts, and a potential new direction?

Dear Diary,

My post technically pertains to Thursday, which has just passed. Maybe I'll tell the story backwards.

It's 2am, I can't sleep. The podcasts are playing in the background. I feel the need for constant sound in the background. I have woken up after what must be between 5-5.5 hours of sleep. Considering how early I went to sleep, I suppose 5 hours isn't so bad, but I need to get up later for work. My shift is at 11:30, which means 10:30 I leave, which in turn means I need to get ready from about 09:45 or earlier. The time now is about 4:15. After 30 mins of laying in bed, I felt it was good time to venture out of bed. I felt distinctly tired, but not tired enough to sleep. I realised this feeling was hunger. Again, I had a low blood sugar level.

Skip to Thursday morning. I woke up earlier than usua. However, things went at such a pace I wasn't able to do things advance of my schedule. As it happened I made some preparations for the wedding I'm going to next weekend, I bought a Bowtie, I've found a new Cummberbund, and I have determined that I need a new dress shirt. The main item for Thursday's itinerary is a meeting with this guy for a not-quite job in a not-quite interview. As it happened, it was in a nice part of London, I think it was near the various London colleges, and I almost recognised Tottenham court road, as well as the route to the British Museum. Central London is such an enigmatic place, I love learning about it. I came early so I went for a walkabout. My aphorism is: you never get lost in London, you just learn more about it.

Anyway time came near and I had a meeting. This is going to sound necessarily vague, and I really don't feel like saying too much about it and at the same time I don't want to sound bullshitty to you. I'm currently 'in negotiation' with this startup organisation, who I think have been named on various outlets such as The Guardian (the only paper I read). They are well connected it seems. The only thing that makes me feel a bit off about it is they haven't at any moment yet mentioned renumeration, something I desperately need. Basically I've sort of provisionally agreed to take part and take creative ownership of a project they want to run. It's a social media project and I unfortunately cannot say anything more specific then that...okay it involves RSS feeds. This could be a really neat opportunity for me. This isn't where I want to be in life, but PhDs are too hard to come by. I'm happy to read Karl Popper on the train at the moment.

If I accept this opportunity, I'll be in charge and the face of a media project. I have no experience at all, but I do (by some freak of having diverse interests) have extensive knowledge about the medium. Somehow having a google reader fetish has paid off. After the meeting my thoughts started to race about, my thoughts were moving about to things so quickly I felt very uncomfortable with it. I felt like an old part of me from the past, a part of me that used to run the ADC has emerged in me again, or rather, an atavism of my past has found itself to be relevant again.

Should I see it as an atavism that I no longer want, or an oppurtunity to enhance a skill set I used to encourage? An atavism is something like reptilian fear in the human brain, not my capacity to be a romantic lover. That said, romantic love has been so detached from my life, I feel like its dead, or its an atavism long forgotten. We are taking this project slowly for now. I'll meet up with them in 2 weeks. I have an uncomfortable feeling about taking on this project. But I felt the same when I got involved with the internship last year. Lets just see how this goes. I think that the people I'm getting involved with are well connected, and if would do me well if I got stuck in with that crowd. Heck, maybe I have something to offer them!

It's been a long time since anyone has invested confidence in me. As I'm writing this post I keep thinking about that Ladytron song with the lines:

There's a ghost in me
who wants to say "I'm sorry"
Doesn't mean I'm sorry

Maybe its the throbbing bassline that's in my head. Before I went to the meeting I was in a semi-rush as I was picking out clothes pertinent to the wedding. That meant by the time I finished the interview I hadn't done much in the day in terms of job searching or reading tasks, or applications. I went to the gym after the interview and I bought a protein shake, my god it tasted horrible with water. The shake tastes a bit better with milk, however. I think there is something to the viscousity of the milk that enables a froth that enables the powder to assimilate in the milk much easier to water. Does the protein shake help my performance? I am yet to determine that. I do know that I only put in a half session at the gym today. I felt tired enough after all the walking and I reasoned to myself that I've done too much walking and not enough scheduled tasks.

Once I got home I had a slow supper consisting of bread and philadelphia cheese. This was a pretty high cal food because the bread was 100kcal a slice, and I had 4 slices. I was in fact, over my caloric limit on Thursday. I fell asleep soon after as I couldn't focus on anything due to fatigue. I then woke up at 2am, you know the rest, 15 minutes after starting my post I'm right here.

So in summary, I've been invited to lead a project under a potentially influential social enterprise. I could make a name for myself, or at the least, I have something to say for myself when people ask: so, what do you do? I feel odd that my thoughts started to get really flustered and all over the place. I also had this weird dream, I was listening to a podcast and it got mixed in to my dream, where I thought the content of the podcast was a lecture Q&A and I had some really important points about the nature of secularism, and I kept trying to get the attention of the speaker and say to him that he needs to read Chris Mooney and Michael Shermer's less volatile approach to atheism. I have dreams which involve talking about books and references, yes that's the kind of person I am.

 

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

For a stupour day, its not so bad

Dear Diary,

There is not much to say about today. Although I've made a few actions of note, I don't feel they are noteworthy enough. These actions are important in the sense that I need to do them, but I do feel that today has been slow. I fell asleep for 3 hours earlier today between 1600 - 1930 and this was perhaps due to a low blood sugar level. I think that is the case because when I ate something after waking up I realised my energy levels went right up again. Either that, or I'm 'starving' myself. My calories are good today, the estimated intake is under 2000kcal, I just had a fix of lamb and I've mostly had bread today. I hear that they say carbs are bad, but I'm still within my calorie limit, maybe that's okay (right?)

I think one thing was putting me off today, well no, not one thing. The fact that there were several things from yesterday that I needed to deal with as overflow for today and tomorrow put me off a bit today. Looking up the PhD, which I did. It's not suitable, I didn't get a good vibe from it. It's a shame really because it would be nice to do a PhD. I even had a better chance for getting in. I then sent off a shift list to the boss. My 'boss' has changed person of late because one of the people in the managerial staff have went on maternity, in addition to that one of the other managerial staff have moved to another organisation. Anyway that's a change that doesn't affect me, it's nice that all of my bosses are attractive women.

I did a bit of job searching, and article reading, and I have also confirmed a meeting that I have tomorrow. I don't know whether its for a job or a voluntary position or an 'internship'? I don't know if I'm underqualified or have no technical qualifications. I'll just say this: the organisation is a social media startup that has the job of making other startups. Now, that sounds a little bullshitty. There is also the opportunity to use some of my networking (I never thought I'd say that in my life again) with the organisation I interned with, or make a name for myself in podcasting and social media, instead of a facebook profile that has a comic book character on the profile page.

(Note to self: put up recent pictures of your body)

I apologise for being lazy. I'll say some positives:

  • I lost more weight today
  • I did 4 'major' tasks today
  • One of those tasks involved great anxiety
  • Well, two of them did, and I have a sort-of interview tomorrow
  • I'm not behind on my schedule, and even though I've felt shitty and slow today, I have caught up on tasks

I have noticed that I have a certain kind of rhythm in the week. Some days after training I feel really low in energy, this is usually later in the week. It is also in the first half of the week where my weight loss is really active, the 2nd half is kind of more a re-gain of 1-2lbs then losing it again, then goes down further at the start of the next week. My body does need to have 'off' days from extreme activity. Considering the activity of yesterday, I am quite glad I managed to get some things done. I need to push tasks back today however. I'll make it. I think I'll do training after the interview.

Turn it around

Dear Diary,

I got upset today, I think I mentioned it earlier. By most standards, a fair amount happened today. Not only has a fair amount happened but I've got so much to follow up on the next few days that I just cannot deal with today. So, lets talk about what I've done today

  • 1x job application, as usual I'm overqualified
  • First thing in the morning I got an email notifying of an extra couple of shifts, since I was doing one of them already, I volunteered the other one on the 30th, I've got another 4 hours pay. That's barely enough to pay for a session of counselling, but money is money and I won't push it away.
  • Counselling, perhaps the most emotionally moving session. I said a lot, I expressed a lot. I want to feel detached (ironically while expressing my feelings) from the counsellor, because I feel that she is showing more of herself in sessions when she says how she feels. Her reactions to what I have to say show more about her than I. This really messed up my mood for the rest of the day, which until a couple of hours ago was mostly based outside
  • Training: in addition to 4mi walking, I did 1hr on the x-trainer, I did 20 mins weightlifting (some of those minutes involved real agony) and then (shock) 20 mins badminton
  • I went to a local environmental group meeting that I sometimes go to
  • I've been (sort of) invited to a (sort of) interview for a not-for-profit startup
  • I've did (as usual), some job searching

Now things that have come up that I'll need to deal with (other than planned tasks)

  • Look into PhD oppurtunity advertised in Ireland
  • Send my boss the shift list for July
  • Complete online test for graduate scheme that will probably turn me down

It looks like for a trigger day, I did pretty good. Let me state two more positives to turn this day around from a shit day to a great day

  • In addition to the training I did today, I also only ate 1100kcal. This will be help my weight loss effort.
  • I reached 221lbs today. This is one more step closer to the coveted 220lb marker. Once I meet this marker, I will have officially reached my lowest weight in nearly 2 years. It's also a step to another step. Once I reach 220lb, I can then aim for 210lb. I should notice some difference if I reach 210lb, and then if I can, I'll aim to reach 200lb. Although 200lb is still overweight, I would be pleased to see what a 20lb thinner me would do. If I reach 200 I can then go to 190lb if I have the determination, I'd be beautiful again by then. While I'm still in this fantasy projection of less weight, I'll go down further, 180lb, 170lb, 160lb (the super sexy weight) and maybe even 150lb and 140lb, admittedly those would be underweight. I'll think about that when I cross that bridge, but being underweight would be a pipe dream. I'd love to be underweight.  For now, this accelerated weight loss is great.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Itinerary

This is a list of items for further reference.

 

  1. Feelings of contempt after I'm training
  2. I am concerned about the gradient of my weight loss
  3. The role of Schedule - as a personification
  4. The notion of dependence (on others)
  5. Setbacks which are forced (injury, internet was down)
  6. Feelings of contempt about female nurse
  7. Feelings of sadness concerning Antonia
  8. Increasing amount of triggers, mostly concerning feeling of vulnerability during transition.

(!!)

Dear Diary,

As if yesterday wasn't enough to throw me off. I've had another trigger. I attempted to purge, then I stopped after the first (liquid) heave. I think I'm going to state some positives for today:

  1. I've been allocated an extra shift later this month, due to quick-fire emailing this morning
  2. I've lost a good amount of weight between yesterday and today, thus to the dismay of my worries yesterday that I ate too much. This is a really good gradient I have on the graph.
  3. (trying to make something up): Today is a challenge and a study in determination. If I survive

Antonia is getting married in 3 weeks. There I said it. I'm a little upset about it. It's time to move on with my life, starting with data entry and my schedule. I have marked on my schedule that 11:35 is my trigger.

What I want to hear, and what I need to realise

Dear Diary,

 

I have a painful admission. Except for people who have known me before 2006, I have much difficulties with making new friends, or getting close to women. People who knew me from the aforementioned period knew me as someone, someone that I eventually became different from. Not different to be beyond recognition, but other things just got in the way for new relationships. I'm talking about my incarceration.

I was talking to a woman on OKC earlier, she seemed really nice, we got on. I realised that her being a former psychiatric nurse did raise triggers for me. I chose today to walk right into it. I'm not sure why I did it. No, I know why. Emotions are so powerful they draw you in. Anger draws one in so smoothly and completely, you don't even know you drank the proverbial kool-aid.

There's a difference between the pre-2006 friends and post-2006 friends. I open up to the latter a bit more, the former I allow to have a preconception of me, and I do little to change it. I play a part for them. With post 2006 people I can in a way, be more myself, unless I am with the pre-'06's. I'm a bad person, because I'm not going to say sorry to that girl. I got really angry and I dug some offensive things into her psyche. When I'm angry, everyone has the same face: the enemy.

I'm lonely. It is of a great obviousness to me that the overriding factor to this loneliness, and probably to why I have no full time job, is because of my poor people skills. If it were possible to pretend to be someone else and then successfully blag my way through life through personality management, I clearly would have done that already. I need to stop listening to the female voice in my head. Mia, as I've called her, hardly challenges me, she tells me things I want to hear. I realised that what I want to hear is vastly different, and in many respects, irrelevant, do what I need to realise. What I need to know, what I need to realise, is an object that comes through self discovery, and much toil.

In a way I'm glad that I got angry at this lady. I got angry and then it made me upset. I needed that feeling. It's still not there now but I need something, a big jolt, something that when I push it, pushes me back, and then I'm on the floor crying [metaphor]. Isn't life shit when you can't trust the eating disorder voice in your head? I need to stop being lazy and listen to my own voice. I guess the reason I don't listen to that voice is because I'm all alone.

I've invented a new person in my head, the personification of my schedule. This person does not speak, but he has aspects of me, he is obedient to the letter of his instructions, but he cannot cope with change. This person is important to me, but I give him purpose, and he supports me. Perhaps I'm overly dependent on him at times. I've ceased contact with Nadia because of my rudeness, and now this cute former nurse. She is an entrepreneur as it happened. I think the lesson is: if you want a girlfriend you need to control your anger.

My response to that immediately would be: fuck no, I don't want to control it. Then, give a few moments of silence, sobering, and I realise: yes, yes, I do. I need help with this. The anger is linked to a feeling of vulnerability. Many of the things I mentioned in the post a few days back were things I couldn't get angry about. Because of my incarceration there was a visualised enemy, an agent of evil, all my hate, and all my frustrations and fear turn against that personification.

Someone once said to me that perhaps I need that hate to move forward. I saw that as weakness. My fear is they were right. Maybe I'll go to that dark place in my mind tonight before I sleep. I don't even know why that's a good idea, my feelings are just inclined that way, like rage, I guess...

(someone help me)

Saturday, June 4, 2011

the best I can ask of myself

Dear Diary,

 

I have little to say in terms of emotional depth, writing those posts yesterday and the day before had a very powerful effect on me. My dreams have started to become violent. For reasons unknown to me, I had real trouble sleeping last night. I think I balanced it out by waking up at 10am, after sleeping at 6am. Today I sent off a job application, for a role actually related to something I'm doing now. I did a whole lot of job searching, and reading of articles, and I even went to the gym. I did a half session today because I felt like I tore my arm doing deadlifts. I felt to myself that if I were to continue I would invoke some harm so I decided to stop. I could have done more cardio but I realised even light cardio would have aggrivated it. I was being reasonable, at least I did 4 sessions this week. My diet has not been as good today in terms of calories, however, my calorie rating is B+, I guess that's a good thing.

I am forcible deciding to end my scheduled tasks for today. I said yesterday (it was technically earlier today to be pedantic) that I had a lot of tasks set for myself after the rescheduling concerning the wedding I'm going to in 2 weeks. I think that I've cleared a bit of the air for that. I did so much job searching today that I realised that if I did any more, I wouldn't have reasonable expectations to complete the actual job application process for all of them.

Taking some mature external standpoint, I feel to myself that it's a good time to stop tonight. I could apply to more jobs, but I can always in principle do so. Tomorrow is another day, and another oppurtunity to apply to more jobs. I'm off to a remembrance mass in the evening, and maybe jogging in the morning. I should go jogging tomorrow, if for anything to redeem myself for the poor performance today at the gym. I should have warmed up before deadlifts, silly me.

I deleted Sadia from my msn contacts. I'm chatting to her and using her too much as an emotional crutch, and not the good kind. If she wants to contact me I have nothing against it, but I don't want to contact her. I'll make it one-way. What my counsellor said is slowly seeping into my thoughts: I have trouble trusting women. I have trouble trusting people in general, but somehow its more significant that many of these people are women who I distinctly distrust. Maybe because threatening them with violence is not an entertained option compared to doing so with men.

My mind has been through a bit of an emotional rollercoaster today. I've had a lot of triggers today. But I managed, I guess that's the best I can ask of myself.

breathe, 2, 3, 4...

Dear Diary,

I feel anxious. I am not entirely sure why. As far as I understand my own feelings, I had this moment where I realised that I am not as in control as GCal as some settings have changed, I had to make a more long winded way to change tasks. I also acknowledged the potential of an error with GCal where changing recurring events might delete their future occurence. This gives me a sense of fear because I rely on GCal, and I have a warrant for distrust. Over this past week I've had a lot of things offset my mood, and even though I'm accessing GCal right now, i feel like something is wrong, it's a feeling I can't quite shake off my shoulders. All I can do is carry on with my schedule, but I feel something is very wrong. I don't know what it is

Memories of transition

Dear Diary,

I was watching a documentary earlier this week called 'In Bed with Chris Needham', it was a fascinating piece. It was about a guy who was 17 who made a documentary and the BBC commissioned it, it was about his band and their first gig, and the tribulations of his life at the time. I just finished reading an interview with him in 2008, it was pretty heartfelt for me to read. I guess because it brought up some feelings for me. This guy, Chris, spoke about his friends since the time of the documentary, how he's in contact with some of them, how awesome his younger brother is and how he's moved on emotionally since those times. There was then some discussion about a comparison between youth cultures then and now, and a bit on youth cultures then.

It led me to think of my teenaged years and I could think of very little. As I read the interview, I was listening to an audiobook, technically its of a play, The Bacchae by Euripedes. Lately I've developed a niche for Greek literature, I thought The Trojan women was particularly interesting, in how it explores the tragic situation of the women from the Trojan war, compare that to say, Lysistrata by Aristophanes which also highlights the social role of women. I find it interesting that a culture that was so patriarchal also had elements of awareness of the female situation. Consider also for instance how Plato was gender-blind in the Republic, as women had no barriers to becoming philosopher kings.

No one wants to listen to my thoughts about ancient literature, or social commentary. No one is interested in my thoughts on how increasingly relevant Aristotle is to understanding the world today. No one really is interested in me at all. When I was a teenager I was quite the same, I was obsessed with trying to master a piano piece, I was probably as ambitious as Chris in the documentary about being a concert pianist as he to be a rock star. Myself, like him, probably overestimated our respective talents at the time, at least Chris is still doing the music and from what I last heard, was pretty decent.

When I was a teenager I was reading Homer and Virgil. When I was a teenager I probably wanked a lot more than the other guys. When I was a teenager I used to go into my head and play fantasies which mixed a bit of star wars space opera with dragonball z energy manipulation. I was very unfocussed for much of that time. When I was 18-19 I was in such a horrid emotional limbo I don't really think it could count as being a teenager.

When I was asked in counselling to talk about my childhood, I thought it was a horrible cliche, some freudian bullshit where necessarily I would have some experience that explains everything about now. I did not think and I still do not think that is the case. I do think however, that there is some reason why I keep re-visiting the past. I'm not necessarily re-visiting the same areas that I used to (particular trigger spots include: the time leading up to my incarceration, my ex girlfriend, feeling on top of the world in year 13 at sixth form, the piano years).

I think if there is one thing about these seemingly unrelated instances that I keep thinking about, it is that they all reflect moments of transiation. I had an upsetting memory of 2007, around the time I started this blog actually. I went to Bristol to go flat hunting, for various reasons, perhaps the most pressing was that I didn't give much time to prepare: I was homeless for a few days when I started my masters. In the Indian summer months of August and September, I was travelling to Bristol on one-day return trips (very tiring by the way) to view houses and flats, and then come home. One time I got messaged by a girl from this postgraduate web board who was also house hunting, she was doing a PhD in policy or education or something, and was also desperately house hunting. The reasoning was that groups tend to get better chances.

On that day I went to view a couple of places, I at one point met up with a guy I knew from my first and second years of uni, I didn't see him much after that. This was a nice guy, I suppose there are many memories of him I could talk about for another day. When I was house hunting with this girl she then went off on her own to view places, I ended up in this strange emotional place, where I was in the city where I lived for 3 years, but I didn't live there. I think there's only one time I was in that situation since my MA, when I went to  Bristol with my ex (and she was at the time, my ex) for a concert. Handel's Messiah it was.

Why I remember this particular time of house hunting is because I realised that girl probably has a PhD now, she's probably a post-doc and doing well as a researcher. This girl is living the dream that I wish I had. This girl also emailed me like 6 days later after we went viewing and said she's ditching me to join a house share, all I got was a sorry followed by an exclamation mark, as in: "sorry!", how very 'of the time' to end things with exclamation marks. I felt kinda upset by that, and that feeling, that sense of betrayal I felt again today.

In ideosyncratic fashion as my counsellor said to me once: It sounds like you have trouble trusting women. I find it strangely odd how the things I often reject tout court from my counsellor end up having more depth than I realise. It's nearly 3am, and I'm writing memories.

Another memory I have is around the time my friend Greg met up with me to submit our dissertations. A related instance is when our mutual housemate, and my school friend John said goodbye to me. I really hated him, I hated him because of a comment he made about Marie. What's funny about that time is that Marie abandoned me, and John ended up being the true friend, I didn't realise that at the time, and to some extent I still refuse to accept this fact. My friend and I said a goodbye of sorts, it was more symbolic than anything. Symbolic because it was a transition. For us, university was over and the real world awaited. For myself, I refused to accept this, which was my undoing. That I suppose, is one of the lessons that came from the memory. I seem to be reminded of these memories because they all represent transition.

Right now I'm not sure how I feel, if I were to look in the mirror I would not reconise my face, that is because I have a beard. If I were to look in the mirror my eyes would be a little bit red but not quite teary. I haven't cried in a little while, I dont think there has been anything that I've felt so strongly that has made me cry. Gym tears for the record, don't count, that's a totally different thing because that's a bit about pain, physical pain.

There's no gym to sort out this unresolved up in the air feeling I have about these seemingly unrelated memories, there's no workout I can do to focus on making it better. I remember one experience. When I lost my virginity. As soon as I watched those words appear on the screen I paused and thought: I can't tell this story. The night after we had sex, we had a bit more sex. There were moments in that night where I just stayed awake as this woman, beautiful and naked, transformed me into a different person. I knew that life had permanently changed from that point. I knew that I had changed from that point, I felt to myself that I would forever look at myself as another person. Forever I had this moment, this event to distance 'then' and 'now'. I also felt a distinct openness and vulnerability in sharing myself with someone emotionally in such an imtimate way as I did with Antonia.

(for the record, now I'm teary)

I felt this distinct vulnerability, this distinct feeling of frailty, and it wasn't the post-orgasmic frailty either. It was this feeling, perhaps a realisation, that despite this change, there was still a darkness inside me. I could at least share it with her in giving her and showing her this vulnerability. I remember this moment when we cuddled just before she left the flat. We were in our clothes, and I think it was because of that, it felt so incredibly intimate. I never felt so close to a woman before, and perhaps I never have since, maybe I never will.

When I think of that memory I do realise its a moment of transition, its also a memory I don't feel too happy about revisiting. It's so personal, so intimate, in that experience I am both physically and emotionally naked, and at the time I was extremely self conscious about both. I'm kind of glad no one really reads this blog anyway, because as I type these feelings I find it a consolation to my soul, and a feeling that anyone else would read it would give me a comparitive feeling of being caught naked. This is me naked of my pretensions and my feelings laid bare.

I'm going to admit something I've refused to put up on this blog for a few days: I've thought about Antonia as she held me on that morning. The sun shone into the room like it had never before (well so it seemed), the tree outside my window was starting to grow again, and I felt transformed.

I realise that I bottle so much of myself inside me. I'm always self conscious that people just don't care. They aren't interested in Homer, or black metal, or philosophy, or academia and the future of the humanities. As I bottle myself up, I realise that I'm starving myself in a way as well. I would like to say to myself, and I do say to myself, that those times I mentioned, those moments of transition no llonger apply to me. All of those experiences reflect a flaw, or some kind of undoing that has happened since them, or happened because of it, or happened in the lead up to it. All of those experiences seem completely other to me, and yet, they seem so criterial to my experience of the world. All that feeling of uncertainty, fear, vulnerability, feels like a black hole that is going to consume me, it has, it did, and it will do so over and over again. Instances like these make sense of Nietsche's 'Eternal Return'.

Am I a different person now? Am I a stronger person? These questions seem unanswered, these questions seem not determined. These questions fill me with fear, fear that the answer is no. I feel like I should go to sleep, I have lots of tasks coming up over the coming weeks. I've no shortage of things to do. I wish that now could be a time of transition. All the factors seem rife for it: I can't recognise my face in the mirror, I feel fear, I feel vulnerable, I feel uncertain. In all of those instances, I also was alone in my thoughts and actions, even in the virginity case, I was in bed alone with my thoughts.

There's an emotional part of me that right now I really need to indulge. I wish I could talk to someone that wasn't a random off the internet or my counsellor. I wish I could have a cuddle, connect with someone, touch somebody. All I have are voices in my  head, and I'm starting not to trust them when I realise the real strength comes from me.

dealing with embarrassment

Dear Diary,

Over the past couple of days, I've had a few triggers, upsets and anxiety moments. Part of this relates to social embarrassment. There have been some embarrassment triggers or upset factors that have sunk into me a little bit today, but just because they have upset me a little bit doesn't mean their affect or their power is great, I've much better coping mechanisms lately. Still, while mechanisms are in place, its still not very good.

One thing that has really gotten to my curiosity is when I get upset at something, my mind is suddenly thrown back to certain historical moments in my life. I'm led back to certain feelings, experiences, situations. I'm not sure what to think of it, in a way I don't really want to readdress those feelings. In another way I have to, and in another way, I have to keep going in spite of them. For me that seems to be the essence of embarrassment. I guess I'm not good at admitting embarrassment because it's so hard for me to admit a sense of vulnerability.

It's hard when I'm in counselling to admit the things that really make me feel vulnerable. I just don't feel comfortable telling an attractive blonde in her early-mid 20s that I'm vulnerable. The counsellor has also appeared in a few of my dreams. One dream got a bit weird and sexual, but not sexual about her. I looked up the notion of 'transference' because a lot of stories about therapy have come on the news of late. Anyway I'm babbling now.

I feel a bit unnerved right now. My dad got a new modem and it doesn't work, so I put the old one in again, I feel a bit guilty. I also feel embarrassed when I put out too much of myself to people. I didn't go to the gym today, I guess this is a rest day

Friday, June 3, 2011

Tight scheduling excites me

Dear Diary,

For some reason I feel very slow today. I have learned to accept days like this and not be so hard on myself. My weight loss plan is going okay, I got an extra shift at work last night on short notice (which means extra money for July!) and I have done at least 3 workouts this week, maybe today will count as a rest day, I think my body is saying it is needed. Yesterday I hardly did much, because of work I felt like I couldn't commit to any big tasks as I was leaving at 16:30. The tip last night was pretty good, I got enough to buy a cheap takeaway to fill me up (in my defence it wasn't KFC or McD, and I barely ate anything yesterday. The consequence of my takeaway decision last night will not be without consequence, however. It's early in the day and I've already maxed out my calories.

In a little way the thought of having a full schedule excites me. The thought of having a massive weight of tasks excites me, it also causes me a bit of anxiety, it also can have an effect of distracting me to such an extent that I end up getting nothing done. I'll tell you what really surprises me: in the 5 days that the internet didn't work, that hindrance did not have the consequence of ending up behind my schedule. I think that is amazing. That's also the plus of being ahead of schedule. I'm starting to think of the schedule as a person, a person that I am, one person at least. Inside me it is like there are several people inside. I'm not sure that makes sense to anyone, but that metaphor seems to have meaning for me lately.

Back to the grind. I also need to plan some things for the coming few weeks, there's a mass on Sunday that I need to go to, and also I need to clear up a weekend coming up, as there is a wedding. That means tasks are going to be compressed within a tighter timeframe, somehow that excites me.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Embrace the fear

Dear Diary,

I realised this morning that my everyday monologue resembles something like similar to the blog: an inarticulate "Mark Corrigan" style of thoughts with some humour and many parts pedestrian thought. My overriding thought for some reason is my irregular bowels. Two things affect my weight loss that really make a difference except for eating, those are how much food I get out of my system by poop and how much energy I get out from my body (by excercise). For the last couple of workouts, I've only managed to do about 90 minutes in my workout time. Over the past couple of weeks I've made a routine of doing a 1500kcal burn, which includes an hour on the x-trainer, 15-25 mins calisthenics/weight training and then an hour on the rowing machine to do 10k. I just haven't been able to do the 10k  over the past two workouts due to fatigue. All the factors were good for me to do another hour, such as: I was at the gym, I'm standing up and the most important one - sexy ladies around to motivate my evolution-proof mamalian sexualised brain. The advanced homo (sapiens) in me decided to stop due to fatigue.

Over the past few workouts however, I have started some new routines. I've decided to use this shoulder and back advanced plate machine and I've also upped the ante on the weights. I've started doing deadlifts and using the dumbells to do a thing called the 'skullcrusher' and this wide arm excercise which is supposed to be good for the pecs. Even though my past couple of workouts have been shorter and less calorific, they have at least been harder to do. I think my muscles were getting too used to the x-trainer and rowing, although that's a good thing too. Pain is also good for progress.

With the possible exception of sunday and saturday, which was nearly a week ago now, my diet has been okay. I've reached closer to 1800-2000kcal than 1500, but I won't beat myself up about it because that's not terrible. I feel my mindset changing a little bit with regards to my diet psychology. I've made a little promise to myself, if I say it on this blog then its concrete: I don't want to do another takeaway like KFC or McDonalds until I'm 200lbs. It's funny as soon as I say that I've already entertained a loophole, I'm going to work tonight and when I'm coming home around midnight I will feel positively ravenous, coming home from the tube will entail a walk down 6 (I counted just now in my head) fast food places that normally tempt me. I'm trying to negotiate it in my head: if I don't eat anything for the rest of the day, I'll be 'available' for some fatty fast food goodness!

Perhaps the one pressing motivation about my avoidance of fast food would be, or rather, should be: is the fact that I am not earning much right now. I'm just making enough to make ends meet for the next few weeks. I'm not even sure if I can afford July and August. I need to get working by july or august. I feel afraid of setting a task like that because the job market and all is so uncertain, its not as if I haven't been applying to things. I'm starting to sound defensive right now. Why haven't I, after all this fucking time managed to get a job? am I simply not hungry enough??

When I ask that to myself it brings up a lot of dark feelings and thoughts inside me. I've been afraid to talk about this in counselling and especially in this blog. Lately I've been really jealous of my friends, and I find out more about other people I knew from university and such. They all are successful, very few of them are doing as shit as I am. Many of them are teachers, some work in advertising, a few in media, a couple in banking, one guy works for a musical instrument distributor, one guy works as a comedy agent! A few guys I know work in academia or around research. One girl in my intern office was 1-2 years down from me in the philosophy department at uni, I knew her friends but I dont think she knew that I knew them. Anyway, now that I've said it I think I've cleared the air emotionally. Secrets are terrible to keep. I think the worst kinds of secrets are the ones you keep from yourself. You can be aware of it on a conscious level, but you never really want to face them. Those are the kinds of thoughts that always creep up on you, and they seem more menacing especially because you don't confront them.

My mantra for the past couple of weeks has been: embrace the fear. When I'm going to the gym, or when I decide to go, one of the main thoughts in my head is something to the effect of: face this now! Yesterday I went because my brain felt like mush. I did as much as I could of the schedule tasks (by the way I'm doing pretty well on the schedule, despite the 5 day disappearance of my internet!), and then I thought to myself that normally in this situation I either lay down and rest while listening to a podcast, have a wank or just feel so aggrivated and bored and lazy that I just end up binging and watchign family guy on the Sky+. Instead, I decided to gym it. Gym'll fix it!

When I'm at the gym, I often make a habit of facing my darkest thoughts, my greatest fears. They are very deep cutting and they still have power over me to hurt me. But what I do is I don't let myself succumb to them, but think about them just enough to upset me, sometimes it upsets me more than a little bit and then my body just slows down during the repetitions I'm making on the x trainer or the rowing machine. I make myself aware of that, by the declining speedometer reading and I push on to the speed I kept. I feel there is some deep metaphor here (I am using the word deep too much in this post), when the pain of memories become great, it slows down my present behaviour. I become aware of this and keep moving, either in spite of those memories, or because of them, I'm not sure. What I do know is that when I face those fears, it makes me feel stronger. When I face those fears I internalise a little bit of it to make me push on harder. There is an extreme version of this, if I act on emotion alone when I'm training, a pure rage or pure feeling of something else, I go as hard as I can and it doesn't last long, eventually, usually after only a minute or so, I just burn out. That's no good for extended cardio. It might be good for short term sprinting, but what I need in my mind when i'm doing cardio is balance. A forced balance. It's like when I get up in the mornings, I feel terrible and hopeless, but I force myself out. I force myself into a certain rhythm in the day. Not because I want to, but because I have to. because I've set that for myself, just like how I've set myself to beat my 10k in 57 minutes or less, because I'm aiming for between a 650-700kcal burn on the x-trainer. I push myself because I must, an old part of myself resurfaces, a good part of a person I once was.

Progress is slow, but it is progress.

I've managed to write a really long blog post. It took like half an hour to write. I'm really glad I wrote this post, I'm gald I've said what I had to say on this, because I've been skirting around these feelings and I've forced myself to just blurt it out. Sometimes it helps to have a 'eh, I don't give a shit' attitude to your feelings. Anyway, I'm going to put some money in my oyster card, because I want an excuse to go for a walk.

Laters