Dear Diary,
I have had quite a long day. In a sense its the kind of day which I haven't had in a very long time. I was cramming. I have the assessment on monday. I am on good route to hopefully have finished the cramming by monday, or better still, Sunday evening. The plan is this for tomorrow: wake up, meet community group and get my hands mucky; go home and revise; do some further revision and last minute steps before the assessment; buy chocolate; go to a choir rehearsal; go home, sleep.
"Wait a minute", you might be thinking, "choir rehearsal?". I saw a notice about it among university alumni links and I thought I might give it a go. I haven't sung properly in a long while, and I thought I might give it a go. All of today I have been thinking that this plan for sunday would be a good idea, it sounds perfect. Meet people, relax, prepare for the assessment but feel comfort in the fact that I've been cramming loads for the past week (and in fairness, I have done a fair bit). I have started watching a tv series lately, it's called 'Life's Too Short', its with Ricky Gervais and it has a masterful appropriation of the unwilling loser. Warrick Davis' character tries to give this perspective that everything is going to be alright and going to a greater plan that things will end up well, and then it goes all Del-Boy (as in Only Fools and Horses) and fucks up.I can totally relate to that feeling. I've had in many occaisions wanted things to go well and had optimism about maybe a party, or my life, or a day plan, and something doesn't quite work out to go so well and it crashes. I sincerely hope that that doesn't happen tomorrow. I feel it will though. Maybe I get overboard and commit to a faux pas when gardening, or I am the only non-white person there at the choir (very likely) which makes me feel odd and insecure and a token 'ethnic'. Or, I'm reminded of how much of an outcast I was back in the uni days.
A really pessimistic part of my mind often comes up in instances like this. "You are trying to cling on to a nostalgic notion of the past that you didn't have", or "these people didn't accept you as an undergraduate". I'm starting to realise, through its difference, how my mind used to function in the past. Facebook told me that it was Marie's birthday today. It was a lifetime ago (4 years) when I bought all of those presents for her birthday. I had these brown levi's cords that broke at the zipper on the way home. Marie kissed me on the cheek several times and that feeling of intimacy that I had with her was so intense.
There is a dark side to my mind. A part of my mind that believed in what she said about me, a dark side that believed that she cared about me to such a degree that I would suspend my perception of reality about everything else. I said happy birthday to her, I kept angstily debating it to myself for the better part of 2 mintues and I thought: fuck it, just say happy birthday. I was then thinking about whether she would reply to me on facebook, and I realised how that mindset of waiting and longing for any attention from her was destructive, so I closed the window and got on with revision. I've been reading about research methods. I now know about the things that intimidated me during that open day. I had a Neo-from-the-matrix moment (I know elementary quantitative analysis techniques).
I find it interesting how easy it is to seep back into old mindsets. If there is anything about today, it is the reminder of how powerful old mindsets are. I have been many people, many mindsets, and in a way they are all still inside me. The thing about the 'me' of the present, is that I've responded to all of those powerful mindsets in different ways. Some of them have insights which are valuable, they can also be short-sighted in others. Some remind me of things that I could work on as a person, others remind me of how far I have come. Today I've bought a few things for an excursion next week that I may be going to, plus a present for xmas for my nephew. I also went to the gym and did some reasonably vigorous weights. I think I might make a habit of short and punchy training sessions. I like the idea of going there, busting my abs, arms and legs, then going. Maybe with the additional cardio, such as today where I attempted to do a mile in under 7 mins. I still have a lot of work to do in that regard. My heart was really burning in that instance today.
When I look at beautiful women, or beautiful men, I'm reminded of how I am still the nerd. I'm still the ugly duckling, and I feel like maybe that story that one day I could also be a swan isn't actually true. Lots of things go on in my mind during training, sometimes I don't think of anything at all except counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... for my reps. I've been in contact with my parents quite a bit today, and a friend who came to visit who is a tradesman and advised my dad on a project of his. I've also read a fuckload. I then played some skyrim but after a few hours I lost motivation and started watching some videos instead. So tomorrow is planned. Tomorrow is the day before the crunch day. I've planned to make it relaxing, vigorous, social and crammy. I've set a lot for myself. Perhaps too much. I wonder who I am as a person, especially how others perceive me. I'm so vulnerable to what people think of me: job interviews, potential dates, new friends and so on. I really don't have any control anymore. Not over my narrative, not over myself, I'm not even sure if my weight loss is on track.
I think its good that I'm training still, I think that I've been determined in a way that I've not been for other jobs in prepping for this assessment. I'm also showing an enterprising side of myself that I'm joining in with these other activities, gardening, choir and so forth. Maybe I am someone among these other people. Maybe I am an identifiable person. How do I define myself? I don't really know. There have been so many selves that is the thing that makes such analysis problematic. The other problem is that there are so many negative demons just ready to pounce, i fear it may come at any moment. I'm not only vulnerable to other people's judgments, I'm especially vulnerable to my own. I find something somewhat and strangely powerful about this acceptance of vulnerability. I feel like after a very long time, I'm making my own oppurtunities, I'm making my own life path, and perhaps moreover, I'm answering to those darkest questions I refuse to answer: what are you doing with your life?
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