MARCH '26
diary
haircuts and being Bad TM like really really bad at communication, why????
sunday 22.03.2026 | [general]this'll probably (?) be my last entry for a little while, it's getting so busy!!! i like this site and don't want to get rid of it, but it is inflexible LOL and i want to sit down and code a more webby website from scratch you know rather than copypasted layouts... i love browsing random neocities they are such a delight and there is so much inspo and creativity out there. anyways, when i have more free time (......) i'll probably do things over on a new site. i'll keep you updated :3
i got a haircut today but it was lowkeyyyyyyyyyyy an awky experience TwT my regular hairdresser left the salon, so i booked with a new one and i forgot to mention explicitly that i wanted to keep my curtain bangs haha, i had my glasses off so i'm blind during the haircuts but i could kind of sense something was wrong because yuppp that's. that's my bangs being cut away and that's a . fringe. fawckkkkkkkkkk,.,,,, i sat there just inwardly freaking out for a while because i did not know what to say or how to speak up it was genuinely a really bad time for me i brought it up a bit later than i should have probably and i felt SO BAD because i guess i wasn't clear about it, i normally do specify curtain bangs at the start of the haircut but i forgot this time ahahaha i'm so stupid... like the haircut doesn't look bad, she's a good hairdresser, it's just my hair grows very fast and i cannnoooooott stand having hair in my eyes also fringes are my mum's thing ;_: she fixed it up a little but since it was snipped short already my bangs are gone, i think i'll just make do with bobby pinning my fringe for a while and hope they grow back fast. i got a cheese oolong osmanthus tea afterwards to cheer myself up but ended up nodding along to an order that wasn't quite what i wanted (not a big deal, a total non-issue, it just rubbed in my lack of speaking-up skill)
i don't know why i'm so, so, so bad at communicating what i want. it's really stupid, with things like haircuts and ordering food and drinks and stuff they are there to provide you a service, it doesn't make any difference to them whether you want 50% ice or 0% ice or whether you want a fringe or a side bang, why can't i just clarify what i want??? for some reason i get really self conscious and panicky about it. correcting people or letting them know that i want things (like a ... normal person? hah?). and then i just go along with whatever and feel unhappy, completely as a result of my own utter ineptitude. one of the things about myself that drives me nuts.
maybe everyone hates me and wants me to die
friday 13.03.2026 | [general]feeling very very anxious and bad and it's only been 2 weeks of the semester TT_______TTTTT my period ended a week ago but i'm getting hit with the feelings now and i feel so awful... hmmmm ok. no. not ok. im not ok. :( maybe i stink and am awkward and repulsive and boring and i will be unloved forever and i will live a mundane unfulfilling life working 9-5 in a boring corporate slave job please kill me maybe i should just do that AUGHH...... i probably shouldn't kill myself but it's looking kind of tempting
ok, it probably is just that the university parking lot makes me want to kms, and i don't like being at the age where people are getting married and dying and going into fulltime work. i'm not old enough to feel super nostalgic for childhood (just remembering having zero independence and no money and,,,) but i think i'm getting there and it makes me a bit sad
cat lady route
monday 9.03.2026 | [general]here's another popular topic for today: romance~ (aka the lack of it in my life). yesterday i caught up with a friend at a cat cafe, so cute >w< it was a bit more crowded than expected because the staff did not kick out the people from the previous session. huahua and orange are my favourites, i think huahua was overstimulated or something because she spent most of the time hiding under my skirt TwT. anyways, it was a nice time, we ate taiwanese food and dessert afterwards, i love grass jelly and mochi and matcha ice cream yum!!
are there topics of conversation that instantly make you cringe? for me as a final-ish year student, it's "employment". that always comes up. but also, "dating" eughhh. this friend from high school is engaged and we brainstormed some baby names, which is always fun, but yeah very different stages in life. when i talk to my friends who are in relationships about relationships they usually try to convince me to "put myself out there" and i see their point, it's not going to get any easier to meet people after you graduate university. logically, i know the benefits of being in a relationship!!! lots of reasons: fulfilling familial and cultural expectations, security, social mobility, all of that (don't think there are tax benefits for it here?). in pretty much all parts of the world, to varying extents, long-standing patriarchal cultures perpetuate misogynistic expectations and stigma of single women past an acceptable age blabla feminism 101 type shit. i'm not immune, but i do not care to the extent that i'd get into a relationship purely for the sake of one of these factors and am lucky to live in a country with relatively progressive women's rights. the bar isn't high.)
what does appeal to me about a relationship? i like the concept of romance, but it doesn't make me actively *want* to be in a relationship of my own. i think there's two main appeals: 1) the prospect of home ownership. it's a rough economy, and our social infrastructure revolves around the concept of people in relationships and the traditional family unit. 2) future fomo for when all my friends are in relationships and have families and careers and there's no time left for me. maybe i will be all alone then, so i guess i could rationalise getting into a relationship now as an investment for the future. most of my friends are still single at this point in time (guilty admission i'm kind of glad this is the case TTwTT hahahhaa, i'd be happy for them and wish them the best if they did get into relationships, though) so idk i feel like all my social needs are met rn so i feel no active desire to get into a relationship. if anything, it sounds so effortful and time consuming to go through all that, maybe just to find out in the end that we were not a match after all. i know it will only get busier after university, but as it is i already feel like there's no time for a relationship and it would take away from my precious little me time.
i feel like when you go 20+ years single you just kind of. are ok with it. like hey, by now, if you were that desperate to get into a relationship you could get into one, there are (probably) enough desperate guys out there after all. i guess you'd have to have no standards though. uhmmmmm. how do i say this, for me, there are probably a number of reasons i've never even tried to date. here's a major one: i don't want to date a man!!!! i really don't think i could ever do that!! in school, the response from peers was always "yeah it's normal to say you don't want to marry a man and have kids now, but you'll grow up and change your mind" and i nodded along thinking that sounded reasonable. well i'm going to be 22 in less than a month, but i guess i'll never grow up... since i went to a religious all-girls school, i did a lot of mental gymnastics flipping around the idea of not being straight: 'it's because i go to a girls' school and only interact with girls and that's why i feel like i might have a crush on a girl but really it's not because what does a crush even feel like. i really like girls' love stories but i guess that just makes me (15 year old teenage girl) a fetishiser of lesbians... maybe it's because i'm a teenager and teenage boys are gross. when i get to college where there are men, i will be so attracted to guys. right?' five years into university...... not a SINGLE attractive guy. is it my campus? is it the faculty of IT? starting to think it might be me, haha. i think i accepted that i liked women when i was 18, at least that's how old i was when i first told someone trusted IRL and it felt so good to say that out loud and be accepted just like that T_T.
the thing is, i think straight women who joke about wishing they could turn lesbian are kind of stupid. i mean, yes i would not want to be attracted to men either. i get the sentiment, it just feels a bit insensitive to make it sound like lesbian dating is easier than heterosexual dating, ignoring factors like how comparatively tiny the dating pool is, and then if you do get into a relationship having to weather this stigma around it not just from society but also your family, for the rest of your life. if you've read how do we relationship? (my favourite yuri, one of the best romance manga of all time), it's like what shiho says in volume 5. and being ace on top of sapphic and possibly aroace, that's just a death knell for your love life. like i don't even want to be in one? how does that work??
about being aroacespec, truthfully it's not something i've talked about much with anyone. aroace feels like a you get it or you don't situation, and for people who don't get it, which is the vast majority of the population including other queer people, if you say you are aroace or something like that you just sound really woke. maybe everyone else is the problem and needs to get woker. i'm not even sure if i get it myself, despite identifying with it. it's a lot harder to place a feeling when it's precisely the lack of feelings that you're referring to. sometimes it feels like the whole world is insane, and its fixation on relationships and sex and romance is so weird, and then i wonder if i really am just emotionally constipated, if it's just a matter of waiting and meeting the "right one" (i think this is bullshit). idols and celebrity crushes...? you guys actually want to be in relationship with fictional characters...? (i guess the y/n fics have to have writers and readers for them, that makes sense) you see a totally random stranger and think about having sex with them??? talking about taboo crushes, huh what do you mean everyone had a crush on their maths teacher in high school and i missed the memo? when people ask me about celebrity crushes and i say i don't have any they call me a liar and i feel so augh............. i genuinely. do not. have. any. or ever have, how are you guys attached to some random stranger who doesn't know you exist and have never interacted with????? and this is the NORM. i spent my high school years looking on in mild confusion at my friends gushing over their favourite boy groups and idols. maybe i am broken. with aroaceness, i can mostly go through everyday life kind of neutrally, as in it doesn't have a big impact on my life. it's just not understood well. at this age it's fine, but i worry about getting older and having to constantly deal with those conversations. cuz no one willingly stays single right?! (maybe this is changing because have you seen gen z men...) you never have to explain why you're in a relationship or chose to have children, but if it's the opposite, sighhhhh
scattered thoughts ...
thursday 5.03.2026 | [general]i really did pick my university degree with my eyes closed, with less than 10 minutes to go before preference submissions closed. i did a course transfer after failing two units in my first year (got a fat ZERO in one unit from not doing a single assessment. i deeply regret not withdrawing from it earlier because it's just there adding a few thousands to my student debt and getting indexed to increase every single year T____T like, i didn't even go to a single class!!! the executive dysfunction that semester was so bad. this is why you do not study compsci. unless you're actually smart and good at coding (i am not), oh well... i just pretend that my student debt doesn't exist, anyways...)
had a reminder about mortality today. our family friend, who lives in a different country, passed away. i've known her since i was a little kid and she taught me how to knit and play rummikub and cards. she's also really kind and funny. we visited her end of last year and she was still healthy and witty, though she couldn't hear well and talked about her memory going, and she showed my sister and i some of her childhood things and her rooms, and hugged us goodbye. today hearing the news it made me think, it's just this one life, isn't it? getting up each day (no matter how late...) and making an active choice to live. i really want this life to be mine and i want to exist in this life with happiness, and i don't want to waste five sevenths of its remainder on something with no meaning or fulfilment... maybe it's a privileged thing to even say and too much to ask for.
i don't know. are our only two choices to be naive or to be cynical? it's true, there's so many bad things. for the earth: we've been yelling into the void about climate change for decades and nothing has changed. companies have been greenwashing and promoting eco sustainable plastic, but the second "A.I." (blegh) became hyped up as this AmAZing miracle to cut company costs and put even more money into the pockets of CEO's and businesses by taking advantage of people's stupidity, everyone's frothing at the mouth for it. on an international level, human rights abuses and geneva convention violations everywhere you look with no accountability or consequence for the people causing any of these atrocities. i want to believe that at the end of the day most civilians just want to live in peace, yet its always innocent civilians getting bombed at homes and schools and hospitals because of corrupt leaders or ideological extremists, everything is unfair? even on a local level, there all these issues you feel totally helpless about as an individual; everytime i walk around the CBD or one of the gentrified inner-city suburbs i see so many homeless people, everytime you open the local news there's another racism fuelled machete attack or other crime, and these are issues that really need to be tackled at a systemic, foundational level. for starters why are we wasting billions on failed submarine plots instead of basic infrastructure and social housing and support for the vulnerable ok we know why. but come on. and all the waste, all the food and clothes and items thrown out into landfill, polluting the environment, because they were not sold for a profitable margin before going out of season, while there are countless people in need. it's so evil. that's business, that's the realisation of the capitalistic ideology we are groomed to worship yay, do i have a solution? no, but can corporations have a little more humanity... no, snarky memes on twitter does not count... i feel like i'm considering going into policy, but everyone complains about it too, it's too slow and ineffective also there have been so many bad policies passed, as a cog in the machine you don't really have any power over it either. maybe i crave dictatorship jk i will never, ever be touching politics, you have to be insane and corrupt to get anywhere. that's kind of the problem. there's such a big world with billions of people and so many people are evil and divided. i feel like this was a gloomy entry. maybe i'll delete it later
the semester starts again
monday 2.03.2026 | [general]ermmmm... today was the first day of the semester (again), it's my fifth year of uni~ that might seem like a long time, but the closer i get to graduating, the more i want everything to slow down. at the same time, i'm so done with this poopoo university and assessments and exams :/ i don't know, the thought of what i am going to do after graduation has been plaguing my mind for the last year. i have a tentative game plan, now, after delaying my graduation so i have more time to breathe between uni and going into FULL TIME 9-5 BORING OFFICE LIFESTYLE CORPORATE SLAVE BILLABLES OVERWORKING NO LIFE TOXIC WORKPLACE life. this kind of depends on me getting a job, which is looking a little uncertain. my grades are not so good. i was all over the place for the first few years of uni, and then there's all this A.I. taking over our jobs (costs cutting yay!) nonsense. i'm going to be real, A.I. is sooooo shit. it certainly has capabilities processing enormous amounts of information and data near instantaneously, and specialised A.I.'s can contribute a lot in fields such as medicine and so on, but it annoys me SO MUCH how these random A.I.'s that just trawl reddit and tiktok and their own bullshit misinformation are being constantly, unrelentlessly forced down our throats. fuck you fucking soulless megacorporations you are everything that's wrong with the world and there isn't really a solution because money and violence rules everything what am i talking about augh why does BUNNINGS have an A.I.?? and don't get me started on the insurmountable damage that A.I. generated photos and videos have done for everything because what is ONE SINGLE GOOD USE OF that stuff??? now every unbelievable video is really unbelievable and you can't trust anything you see on the internet (even more, like way worse) and getting accurate news and information is a mess. the internet was meant to be this great place.
i went on a tangent, but i meant to say, my class was alright! there was a slightly awkward thing that happened with someone TwT i don't know what i'm going to do next week......... but the lecturer is really sweet and baked everyone brownies. discrimination law is really interesting too. i'm also taking family law and lawyers' ethics, not TOTALLY sure about these but pleasepleaseplease just boost my marks (have heard mixed feedback about marking augh) i'm going to ace this semester!!! that said, i should go study... bye...
dear princess celestia,
sunday 1.03.2026 | [general]today's topic is friendships... and my personal experience with them?... like season 1 twilight sparkle, i feel like i still have much to learn. in every story, the protagonist's friends and allies always make up the most important supporting characters. from a clinical perspective i've realised how important and advantageous it is to have a support network; access to information and opportunities, mental health benefits, experiences locked behind an exclusive friendship paywall, a more fulfilling life.
hmmm... but actually good quality friendships are a bit harder to come by, right? this depends entirely on the person and their circumstances, but for me, a deeply introverted homebody shy socially anxious awkward rizzless average looking nerd, i'm certainly not 'popular', but i've also never wanted to be? the glamourised image of a large group of friends (a la Friends) who hang out on the regular looks vaguely horrifying to me. i am someone who needs a lot of Me time and prefers one on one hangouts where i can give and receive undivided attention (sorry for being like this)... trios are cool when i get to hang out with two friends at the same time and they are also friends with each other :) groups of four, it's alright because you can rotate pairs and get some interaction with everyone. anything more than four people, hell no because why am i even there? group conversations require a different kind of finesse than one on one talks; the easy to follow nature of turn based combat falls away and now it's just real time combat with rapid pace combos (which i fail at). but also, having to balance your attention between multiple people is so much more draining, and the more people there are, the greater the likelihood of issues like groupthink, hidden animosity, ganging up on one person, etc.
this is kind of an awkward topic to write about. anyways i've never said this to anyone because i feel like it would be received poorly, but does anyone else get really disgusted at the feeling of making friends??? i love my friends, but that pupal stage when a friendship is being formed always fills me with this horrible sense of revulsion and then i just want to avoid and run far away from them so we don't become friends after all. this seems to happen without fail, is it normal? it's not about the person, usually i like them and they are really lovely. i am just a very paranoid, anxious person and i get this feeling of dread, because at this stage i don't really know them and they don't really know me - what do they expect of me??? how will i disappoint them??? they're going to hate me? or what if they don't hate me but i hate them??? needless to say, i'm Not proactive with making friends... i'm really lucky and grateful for the nice friends i have in my life
last year was my fourth year of uni, and i made more friends then the three years before that combined (according to my extrovert friend this was still not much :")). but at the same time my friendships with friends i've had since high school felt better, too. it made me realise, these people were always there and i always did have these friends, lol? so the change was more of an internal one...? when i was listening to this mandarin podcast a couple weeks ago, one of the hosts said something like, you have to love yourself or else you're just a bottomless cup - no matter how much love you receive, it will fall out the bottom instead of being retained. i guess i have been repairing the cracks in the bottom of my cup :)
i've also been trying to be kind, like one of those types of people who make you feel better after an interaction (it's a work in progress, ok?). like nagati kabi suggested in her manga, focussing my mental energy outwards towards other people rather than internally has been really good. in the twelfth year of high school, this girl became friends with me and i had a moment of realisation where it hit me that, oh, a friendship can just be two people being nice to each other. because i can't really think of a stage in life where i had completely no friends, even if i felt like it, but i didn't have the healthiest friendships in high school and since it's life or death there it's not like you can just stop being friends. like, yeah, you can, but that drama will spread around your entire cohort, everyone will turn against you and you will still have to see them everyday!!! so, one of my closest friends would constantly tell me how ugly and boring i am, but at the time i thought she was right so it didn't really register to me that she was being mean TwT. she wasn't always mean, she did nice actions, i think it was moreso an uneven relationship and she didn't like me. i'm someone that can be hard to get along with. but after high school ended (and so did the friendship) and i went into university, i had this new fear of forming friendships and getting stuck in a bad friendship i couldn't extricate myself from. i felt that it would turn out like that again, or, if they didn't already see it that way then it was only a matter of time before they saw the 'me' that my high school friend thought so poorly of.
he has a weak personality and compulsively tells people what they want to hear. […] i’ve become so used to seeing him as pathetic & even contemptible that i forgot anybody else could love him.what's helped - playing with cats, being a happier person now, being more confident solo, being an 'adult' (ew). accepting that actually i don't like people and that's ok. the biggest lie i've heard is 'exposure therapy' like ok maybe i did it wrong but everything improved immensely when i STOPPED exposing myself to things that made me uncomfortable and forcing myself to socialise when i didn't want to lolol. i still feel lots of anxiety talking to 'Adults' like teachers, mentors and people in positions of authority. from a young child i've always been scared of adults... my classmates who network and casually form familiar relationships with professors are so alien to me how can they do that???... to be honest, i haven't really figured out why i am this way. so i'm not sure what the solution is. (bad experiences with teachers in the past? fear of being told off or disappointing them? it being engrained in me from a young age not to be a bother to adults...actually that might be it...?) keep trying, right? (i haven't tried at all)
- conversations with friends by sally rooney
despite everything, it's still you
wednesday 25.02.2026 | [general]HELLO! it has been so long! i thought about neocities randomly and wanted to revisit this website, it's like a snapshot in time of the person i was in 2023. a lot has changed, i think? but also stayed the same. I'm 21 years old now, turning 22 this year... old... the last time i was here i guess i was still in the teen angst phase. maybe i'll do some reflecting ~
1: cat therapy
at the start of 2024, my sister informed us that she volunteered us to look after her friend's cat, since she was going to start a job in singapore. i didn't know what to expect at first, but that little cat quickly became the center of my universe. she's a black cat with green eyes, eight years old. she has no teeth and the softest, most fragrant smelling fur ever~ she smells like burnt sugar and boba pearls and flowers, and she has a tuft of white fur on her belly in the shape of a heart. when clemmy first arrived, she was jumping on and off me in bed all night until she eventually settled at like 5am and purred like a train engine on my blankets. the soothing vibrations of a cat purr can heal any soul i think, what have i been missing all my life? i know she's a pet and basically forced to be around us and depend on us for food, but i've never felt so happy, or filled with so much pure love (of course there's people i love, but it's always at least a bit messy and complicated with humans, you know?). i can divide my life into B.C.: before clementine and A.C.: after clementine. it was really like the sun clearing up the sky and a cosmic shift in the universe. something i won't admit out loud to anyone is that part of the reason it means so much is because i'm clemmy's favourite in the family >__< hehehehehe !!!!!! as the unloveable middle child TM, it really warmed my heart to be chosen for once...
2: frontal lobe development
daily purring and biscuit making from clem did wonders for my mental health. i understand the desire to live now; what mental gymnastics was i doing before to reason that everyone also wanted to die and we were all just collectively lying about it? it's surprisingly easy to be alive now that i've experienced the beauty of life. and my anxiety is no longer crippling, it's just regular anxiety mostly. besides cat, i think the three other things that contributed to this include
(1) my mum finally started working on her mental health after getting diagnosed with a triad of mental illnesses and she is doing better now and she is also cancer free yay :-) our house is not so filled with fighting and screaming and mental breakdowns anymore.
(2) money~ i have a solid savings account (not that great, and if you balance it out with my student debt i'm somewhere in the red, but whatever) and so i can be a bit more lax. i buy little treats and can afford to do things (sometimes)(everything is so expensive). it's freeing. i hate capitalism.
(3) travel!!!
3: seeing the world
at the end of january 2025, i did my first solo trip and international flight since covid hit. i flew to japan for 10 days and visited tokyo, kyoto and osaka as well as day trips to kamakura and enoshima and nara and uji. my favourite place was arashiyama, that was a beautiful day. i screwed up so much!!! i accidentally went onto the premium train cabin (really awkward), ran headfirst into a train pole and bit out a chunk of my lip - there was a lot of blood (a scar which i hope is unnoticeable remains), awkward language mishaps (i tried to learn phrases beforehand but i ended up being too shy and unconfident to say much. learning katakana and hiragana and knowing chinese characters helped a bit with getting around) and other mix ups. but you know, it really was kind of life changing now that i think of it. my nerdy heart overflowed with happiness with all the gachapons and animate shopping hauls, i also watched the miku movie in cinemas and went to the nintendo museum, did tourist things like teamlabs borderless and capybara cat cafe (in hindsight not sure if good for kii-chan?), markets and soaked in onsens (in the cold winter it was really nice). the food was also soooo delicious (and cheaper than here!), though i was quite anxious about eating out and just stuck to konbinis and supermarkets at the start. eventually my hunger did push me to eat actual meals and i'm glad i did, i ate the BEST gyukatsu meal ever in osaka yummmm ^_^. it helped that solo dining is relatively normal in japan. in uji, the restaurant i went to even had a separate floor for solo diners with the low tables and tatami mats - it was so peaceful eating alone there and i had a soothing bowl of matcha udon (it was green but there was not really any matcha taste lol). when i came back to australia i felt so amazingly recharged and refreshed and genuinely happy!
a funny side effect is that since experiencing japan in person i'm no longer a weeb? i don't want to sound like a glazer, because japan is somewhere i would never live (repressive culture, misogyny and porn obsession, overworking culture, lack of lgbt rights, xenophobia and sinophobia, i don't speak japanese, the denial and erasure of their atrocities in WWII and even enshrining their war criminals is disgusting), also when i was there i was pretty confused when it became apparent that all the 'japan is living in 2050' was nonsense propaganda WTF i don't know what i was expecting but it was just a normal asian country...... anyways, it was like after the trip, the fantasy place illustrated in the animations and manga that had been a big part of my teenage years became real. politics aside it's a beautiful country with delicious food and culture and soo many things to do, so i totally understand why it's a super popular destination.
i also went to europe for a month for one of my uni classes. i travelled around italy (went to pompeii!!! it was a dream), spent most of my time in the tuscany region since that's where my classes were held. spent time in naples, florence, venice, arezzo, cortona, cinque terre. after the class ended there was a week before the next semester started, so i went to switzerland (mainly lauterbrunnen and lucerne) and vienna before flying home. oh my god, i have so many happy memories! there were barely any hitches or disasters even... it was summer in europe and the days were so beautiful and sunny (except for vienna which poured nonstop for the three days i was there). in switzerland, i did some hiking and the vibrant greens and blues of the landscape was unlike anything i have ever seen before. i stayed in an alpine village for one night (gimmelwald) and it was just so, so, so amazing to be up in the alps especially in the early morning. there was a rainbow after a small shower and the time i spent walking around the alpine villages, no other people around, smell of petrichor and fresh alpine air, surrounded by mountains and waterfalls and rainbows and cows, was the most peaceful i have ever felt in my life. i ascended to a new plane of happiness and peace guys. being thousands of meters up from the ground and continents away from anyone who knew me helped as well. i really really liked it there... the city of lucerne was beautiful as well, like a fairytale town. then in vienna, i indulged myself in the city architecture and had an amazing time gallery and museum hopping. i returned back home to the banality of classes and long commutes and metropolitan buildings, right into dreary cold winter, and i was so depressed for a long time. i cried driving to uni hahahaha thinking about how much better life would be if i lived in a cosy wooden chalet in a swiss alpine village. for a moment, the world became an open world exploration game and i was Traveller Genshin Impact. i'm back to normal now, this is just normal life i guess.
i also went to new zealand in december with family, it was our first family trip overseas since 2017! almost a decade, wow. new zealand's landscapes were breathtakingly beautiful and majestic. where switzerland's were a fairytale, new zealand's felt like i had entered the pages of a high stakes fantasy novel (lord of the rings indeed (i have never read LOTR)). the lupins were in full bloom in the summer~ we mostly went around the south island and visited aoraki, milford sound, the great lakes, wanaka and so on...
BEEN A WHILE
tuesday 05.12.2023 | [general]haiiiii... sorry the uni sem started and neocities slipped from my mind. for a few months. i want to renovate this site and probably redo the blog and other things, i might archive this page. considering making a new site entirely? hmmmmm...
title
sunday 20.08.2023 | [general]when will i learn that if i am considering something at 4am in the morning i should NEVER EVER follow my instincts argh... i made a mistake, but whatever......
edit: ya know i was overthinking it, it turned out to be fine haha! i just have full blown panic attacks over nothing sometimes where i jump to the worst conclusions and feel awful and freaked out and act accordingly (self sabotage) then later realise it wasn't a big deal. oop
java bonds
tuesday 15.08.2023 | [general]you know those stories that you've been following for so long that you've grown loyal to them in a certain way - like, no matter where this goes or how long it takes i have to keep up with it to the end. like, the type of attachment that's only possible when you've slowly ingested the content over months and years since its beginning and the characters have festered in your brain for almost a decade so that they're like old friends? :') maybe i'm a bit delusional hehe
what brought this up? i just reread a webcomic that i've followed since i was in primary school (2015?), it was one of my favourites on tapas back then, even though looking back, i was definitely not the target age demographic for it but. for a young child with unrestricted internet access i could've seen worse, riiight haha??
it's called java bonds. it has a special place in my heart, not just because of the nostalgia but every time i've come back to it to read the main character becomes more relatable to me and the story grows more real. like, i read it once every few years and every time i do a few more things make sense or hit home,, >_<,,,
lately that person keeps drifting to my mind again and it's so bothersome. i feel so annoyed whenever my mind brings them up like broski who asked (do you know the term limerence... if you know you know. yeah im mentally ill. i hate my dysfunctional brain). i just wanna never think of them again... it's a good thing that they never think of me and HOPEFULLY i have faded from their memory completely because i was embarrassing as fuck around them augh it haunts me. anyways! let's just shove these memories into the mental recycling bin
mid-august
monday 14.08.2023 | [general]the past days have passed by in a blur. not because i was busy or anything exciting was going on or anything, just because i lose sense of time when i do absolutely nothing and spend my days sleeping at 4am and beginning the day at 4:24pm. haha. i... should fix that.
humans are social creatures, you know? for a lonely and friendless person, one good interaction can make your week and one day of happy socialising can make you fall back into the pits of despair when you return to your lonely, void-of-a-social-life life. i found my last tweet of the year from 2022 and it was like, "every now and then i fantasise how nice it would be just to disappear off the grid from everyone i know and idk explode or something" anddd huh, i don't think i do that as often now which is good? but i still feel like it sometimes;; i wanna see my friends from highskl since it's been a little while and ik they'd probably not refuse if i tried to suggest smthing but i'm still waiting for the birthday present i ordered to deliver so i can give it to her when i see her (her birthday was over a month ago). also idk what i would suggest to meet up so -_-
and yeah they are closer to each other and probably hang out w/o me which is fine and all my (few) friends have better friends but i don't mind being on the fringes that much since i don't crave that much social interaction. like not getting any makes me feel a bit blank but getting too much makes me mentally combust in a bad way. i'm not a big talker or an interesting person or a good friend tbh. just now and then, if we could meet up or something i would be satisfied >_< is that selfish of me? i didn't mean it like i'm just using them to not feel lonely or fulfil my delicate social battery balance,, i just mean there aren't many people who i can just enjoy the company of without feeling stressed out or uncomfortable during or after it, so i guess i like to spend time with them when i do...
but i don't know how to become any closer or even keep holding onto my current friends because i'm really bad at. that. i'm scared of being clingy or making people uncomfortable or so on,, because i think that old lifelong fear of mine that i'm inherently unlikeable and no one could actually willingly want to interact with me ever and i'm just an unwelcome burden or annoyance on everyone i know is still a little bit relevant. so everyone will probably just drift away. idk
in other news; currently listening to babooshka by kate bush, and my current raison d'etre is the fact that madoka magica fourth movie news is going to release on 10/9!!!!! yippee
bucket lists
friday 11.08.2023 | [general]nothing much happened today (work day). i think i'll plan for my future, because i seem to have one
ok like, so. i'll do an internship next year. i'll do summer units to finish my degree on time. i'll. do an exchange to travel, in my fourth/fifth year. to travel a bit and maaybe mak,ok umm and then i graduate i guess, find a job in some graduate program...... work..........9-5 five days a week............. til i die? i move out at some point into some shoddy apartment with a stupidly high rental price because the cost of living is skyrocketing and you're always on the brink of homelessness. then get depressed, despair at the monotony and dullness of a life lived in the shackles of utter loneliness and a concoction of various mental illnesses, eventually neck it.
oh! i also want to visit a costco at some point! but i've been saying that forever but i don't know if i want to go there in reality... i've heard so many good things about it that it's like something fantastical in my mind, but i know if i really went it would probably be kind of disappointing? ahhh. i also, want. to visit the salt flats (salar de uyuni)... other places i want to see... maybe... hm. but i don't know, i don't really want to do solo travel, it sounds kind of scary ;;_;
instead of feeling excited for the future i feel daunted by it. it's not like i want to go backwards into the past... ough everything's just. funny... i don't want to think about it anymore.
normie life
thursday 10.08.2023 | [general]one of my most frequently felt questions, aside from "why do i exist"/"what is life" is: "will it ever feel ok?". obviously i feel ok sometimes but i mean like, in a more permanent sense. or maybe "will it ever feel good or will it ever feel right" is more accurate phrasing, but mm. i don't know. the feelings of ok-ness are good but they never last very long. everything's just whatever. dull. who cares?? what's the point? etc., i don't want to go through all that repetitive existential crisis spiel because it's also incredibly boring and i've been over it a billion times with no answer or development. ARGH. i don't get it, how do happy people do it? are people happy? i remember looking around a room of people dancing and partying and socialising and having fun with their friends and pathetically wondering if everyone was genuinely enjoying themselves or if they were all just had far better acting skills than me.
it's a very common one thing to feel, because you can hear or read all about it if you search for it. i feel so empty and bored and boring and sometimes i think i honestly don't care whether i'm dead or alive, at worst i've had the real urge to just end it but i've never acted on anything or self-harmed so it's nothing serious. this is super common though, right? not wanting to live, surely EVERYONE has felt that at some point, i don't understand how you can go through your entire life without having contemplated suicide at least a little bit, even briefly? not in a joking way but a real desire to just stop your existence. i know thinking these kinds of things is wrong. i know what the right trains of thought are, vaguely. i just can't do it?
spending time with the people you love, that's what makes the world go round~ unfortunately~ i ~ am~ lonely (i hate to admit it)~ and i~ don't even know if i want~ to go through the process of forming tangible relationships, because that's so fiddly and difficult and it's not even. enjoyable. but you do have to try, right? to be friendly and stuff... the problem is if i want to make friends i feel like i need to change my personality and put on an act of sorts. i don't really want to talk to people and forcing myself to talk is so annoying and i say dumb shit i'm not even feeling. obviously you can't really form a friendship being fake like that, so i don't know if i even want friends. a healthy lifestyle is probably a boon too, but i have no self-discipline. i always say i'll start trying or making healthy improvements but i don't think i even believe in myself at this point.
i just don't LIKE things and i wish i could LIKE things and have passions and dreams and a will to live. i don't have interests or hobbies, i don't really do anything with my life. i don't know what to do with my future. i can never get out of bed and it's been like this for years and years and when i wake up i just can't get up to start the day and then it's over in an hour or two and yeah. i feel so unmotivated and i can't get myself to do things even if i want to (some part of me wants to at least, just not the part that is in control of my executive functions). i feel like a bug again. an overturned arthropod. grosss.
mmmmmmmmh... whatever... this is what happens when you get out of bed at 3pm... it's three weeks into the semester... let's see how much further my mental health drops :]
edit: ok so i ate some peanut flavoured ice cream and watched a couple episodes of gomens2 and i can deem once again that life is not horrible and entirely unworthy of living ahahah oopsies. my mum was in one of her moods earlier so i felt kinda shitty,, also idk why it's so hard to get up in the mornings. i'll try harder...
to be likeable
monday 07.08.2023 | [general]i just watched a youtube video on how to be more likeable; it said to be optimistic, show reciprocal liking/express appreciation and interest in others, have good body language and make direct eye contact (T_T), have a positive effective presence (regulate emotions) and understand others/be understandable. i've always been a little desperate to be liked sooo maybe i'll try it... though i struggle with all of those things (has a negative presence, poor body language and inability to make eye contact, is distrustful, closed off, unfriendly, pessimistic, allegedly a non-human and gives off a "don't talk to me" vibe et cetera) so maybe that explains it.
... i mean, all of the stuff she said makes sense but i don't even know how to start AHahHa. now my youtube reccommendations are full of self help videos erm!!!! oh
inertia, normality
sunday 06.08.2023 | [general]i now diagnose myself as mentally sane... it was hard to get out of bed as usual this morning, but i'm feeling so nice and normal rn! i think i'll even watch my lectures so i can be prepared for the week! ahh i missed this!! the weather is normal, i am sitting at the dining table feeling normal, my family is normal, it's peaceful and safe and normal and calm. i feel like i can think clearly. i'm not sad or scared or nervous or manic or empty, instead i'm kind of content? i even feel slightly excited to go to my classes next week instead of having to fight off a burning anxiety about it. i know it's temporary but i'll still enjoy this calm floaty happiness while it's here.
in the evening i got out the switch and played some celeste (i really like this game's pixel graphics and music! i'm terrible at it but i'm slowly getting through >_<), splatoon (team LOVE!) and hatsune miku project diva (i think i injured my wrists on hibana...)~
saturday
saturday 05.08.2023 | [general]earlier on i was thinking of leaving early because ahhhh too many strangers (i probably leave things early too much. because i think i can handle socialising but then realise an hour or so in that i really just want to be at home and i don't fit in)... and the atmosphere was really rambunctious and like, idk, crazy... i know i'm no fun but i couldn't vibe and kind of just wanted to sit in the closet alone because i was miiiiiiilllllddddlllyyyy uncomfortableeeeeeeeeeee and awkward and starting to dysfunction but after the birthday girl arrived everything was fine:] cake was yummy and it was good
currently listening to miku's cover of boom boom boom!!! (it got annoying after a couple hundred replays though)
?
friday 04.08.2023 | [general]today was a nice and calm day of work (technically, i am writing this from work. one more hour ehe), i don't know why but i've been feeling kind of nervous all week and i can't shake the feeling off... it's ok! everything will be ok! right? ahhh!! what is life!!!!! not this again.
to be honest, i feel weird and lonely and fundamentally unlikeable and like i don't know how to be a normal human or a friend. i can't talk about my insecurities or make self deprecating jokes out loud because i'm sure people would agree with me and they'd either have to pretend like i'm not or they'd just tell me outright what a loser i am. and that would make me very sad and confirm all my fears that other people really do just see me the way i see myself.
change of topic but i forgot neocities had that social media aspect to it too with profiles and views and follows and comments n stuff>_< i disabled it for now because i kind of want to ignore it... sorry i really don't like social media it makes me pukey;;... currently my website layout is just copy-pasted from a template because i was too lazy to code and wanted to jump right into the other stuff, but i think i'll eventually get around to revamping my layout to be more personalised/flexible/responsive (when i figure out HOW to do that). i'm playing with/building my shrine pages as a way to learn coding (and they're going,, errh) so at some point when i'm confident and can be bothered enough i'll make something nice :-). (i hope). when i browse websites i'm always in awe of how creative and talented people are.
at peace
thursday 03.08.2023 | [general]the energies were alright today, after a fulfilling sleep i woke up at 1 in the afternoon; the weather was nice. i have decided to just watch the lecture recordings for consti instead of going in person and i am glad i made that decision because i'm not sure if i could bear all that if it wasn't playing at 2x speed :).
so i only went to one class today, sat with people from last week and some other people. i accidentally did the shrinking/being silent & avoident in a group setting thing again like i always do... idk, i am just very accustomed to wallflowering it just feels easier to go invisible mode. but i start to feel a bit worried(?) when i'm quiet for too long, because it sometimes results in people telling me i'm boring or asking why i'm so quiet. idk i'm just chilling.
i also realised i have a habit of assuming what other people are thinking of me before we've even interacted - paranoia? projection??? and being kinda antisocial as a result grh >_< ... in truth, they probably aren't thinking stuff like that at all... unless? no... haha i just made it worse... i'll try to be better though. maybe i'll be more friendly (uruhrhhm??). hnng
bug soup
wednesday 02.08.2023 | [general]i've had stomach pain all day from a combination of anxiety, my period and three-day-old avocado... i set a bunch of alarms this morning so i would wake up and leave for uni at 10, but i ended up getting out of bed at 10 and ... that is where it all started going downhill......
you know sometimes you wake up feeling covered in ants... and the ants keep multiplying and they're inside of you and your brain is crawling with ANTS!!!! and you're filled to the brim wth unbridled, directionless anxiety and you can't focus and everything feels odd and shaky and your eyes are twitchy and uncomfortable and your vision is unclear no matter how many times you blink or wipe your glasses. and you keep walking into doors and walls and so on. (ow, my stomach still hurts).
my car anxiety was extremely awful today too, cuz i CAN'T drive when my brain is like this, the last time i got into a car accident it was under similar circumstances. that day i forced myself out of bed for morning class despite every cell in my body resisting, almost got into multiple oblivious car accidents on the way to school and when i made it to class (late) my stomach and brain were churning and spazzing so much i could barely think about the content at all; internally i was hyperventilating and overthinking and on the verge of a mental breakdown but externally i was just there with the expression of a dead fish and smelling like slime (...).
i felt so nauseous and unfocused i decided to skip the rest of my classes that day and went to my car in the parking lot. so i sat there marinating in my helpless jittery anxiety but then i got worried a parking inspector or something might come along and see me sitting in my car and fine me. so i forced myself to start driving despite the fact that my mind was blanking on how to drive and i had forgotten the most basic of things about cars and i couldn't focus straight on the road my brain was imploding in on itself thinking SO much!!!! every thought going in different directions (ranging from ARGHHHGR to GRAHHGJGH to ugh to uuUuueueUUEUeuUEUU to ?????) and all this noise coming from inside my brain so there was no way to block my ears and. so much thought yet so little!!!!! none at all! ;__; can't think straight!
that was not a good day.
back to the present, i somehow didn't get into any serious car accidents today. well, i did reverse into a tree when leaving the garage and wwarrghh. it just bent the mirror though... it got fixed later but it caused some panic initially. i think driving in silence is probably for the best...... was gripping my steering wheel for dear life which i didn't realise until i felt how sweaty my hands were (ew;_;). everytime i hear a car honk or beep, no matter how far off, my nerves immediately spike because i think it must be directed at me even though i have no idea why and oh no is someonemadatmeimreallyreallysorryimtheworstbutidkwhatimdoingwrong orhhowtobebetterwhatdoidoimsorryimsorry;;; and campus parking, i think today was a record low for me. i don't even want to think about it ARGHHHHHH let's just say my life was saved by a kind stranger i will forever be grateful to them but they don't even know cuz i don't think i thanked them enough and i feel bad for burdening them what if they were in a rush and idk how to thank them and urffh;;;;;; uhhhrm.
on a somewhat happier note, i did get a group for sysdev and they are nice people ;_;. i actually made it on time to all three classes today (by the skin of my teeth), which was a very novel experience for me because i got to exchange pleasantries (/gripe about the state of parking on campus) and sit at a table of choice instead of showing up ten to thirty minutes late sweaty and short-breathed and just awkwardly sliding into the nearest empty seat while simmering in too much embarrassment to make eye contact with anyone. so... interesting
august
tuesday 01.08.2023 | [general]ahhgh!! how is it august already? time moves too quickly, as always. i told myself i would use the weekend to do my pre-readings and get ready for classes this week, but the weekend plus two days have gone by already and i haven't done a thing. i don't want to fall behind in the second week of the semester... again..... >_<
i'm really nervous for my systems development tutorial tomorrow (it's the three hour one....), it's the one where we had to do all the icebreakers and i didn't make a single friend... unfortunately being a loner (like i have done in my other classes) seems to be especially disadvantageous in this unit because the major assessments are all group ones, where you need to choose your own group T_T help!!!!! it's gonna be awkward!!!!! do you think if i get there extra early someone might start a conversation or sit with me instead of me having to go up to someone and accidentally creep them out due to my social ineptitude/anxiety......:') ARGHH but what if no one does. and i'm just. alone. AHAHAHA. well, i should really aim to get there early anyways (i am always late for everything (not on purpose) and it makes me feel bad); to make time for parking, i'll leave my house at 10 which means waking at 9 which means sleeping before 2...
ok, i'll study now!!!!! holding myself accountable. let's go
hmm
sunday 30.07.2023 | [general]... i feel so inconsistent all the time, like i don't really have a personality or identity of my own. i have a loose attachment to my 'self', if that makes sense, like i drift closer towards and further away from it but i'm never all the way there. similarly i've never been good at picking names and labels for myself. i just feel like a thing, and that thing is barely even 'me' sometimes.
maybe i should join a cult? not very fond of the social or religious aspects though, so probably not.
on a different note, i've been updating my neocities every day so far but maybe i'll take a break from it soon. gotta focus on my uni studies, after all! though there are still things i want to add and maybe i want to revamp the layout... it can wait...
driving anxiety
saturday 29.07.2023 | [general]so i think the relevant term is 'intrusive thoughts', but whenever you get into the driver's seat of a car, does it briefly flash across your mind that you're about get into a horrific car accident and this might be the last day of your life? like... a sudden sense of doom or something... even as a passenger, i'll be sitting there happily with my seatbelt strapped in and the sudden realisation will hit that if we were to get into a high impact collision right then and there, my knees would likely go through my skull and i could end up paralysed or crippled for life (or just dead). which is a pleasant thought.
this morning i woke up to something which reminded me of something from a few years ago and i just sobbed in bed for a bit, somewhat pathetically. i don't think there's any other memory makes me spontaneously tear up every time it comes to mind, and idk. it was a relatively small, insignificant thing, but reliving the memory just makes me feel utterly helpless and sick and nothing all over again. i fell back asleep afterwards and had a series of dreams where i was always in my house like normal, but something would be slightly off - for example my sister, who moved to a different state two months ago, chilling in the living room - and i'd become vaguely aware of the possibility that i was dreaming, at which point i'd open my eyes and "wake up" in a similar sort of dream. i finally woke up around 1pm. in the evening, i went for a walk around the neighborhood. it was nice.
anyways, intrusive thoughts are really common right? doesn't everyone think of getting their fingers sliced off when they're within a five meter radius of a sharp knife, or get the urge to jump/free-fall every time they're somewhere up high. or fear it's the last time they'll ever see a loved one again when they wave goodbye due to so and so and so reasons? those thoughts don't bother me much since they're fleeting and basically normal (at least, it's been like that for as long as i can remember); besides, i'm not suicidal or anything right now so i know i won't act on them. the worst kind of intrusive thoughts are ones that involve other people and i hate when those happen because i am a terrible person... they make me feel really guilty. and the very worst category of this is when, erm i'll save it for another entry because that's something i could talk a lot about. wowowowowowow my brain is awful! i often feel like i have no control over it at all.
internet memories
thursday 27.07.2023 | [general]i got home from uni a little after 10pm today. i woke up at 3pm and decided to forego my three hour constitutional law lecture... was considering skipping my databases workshop too but my friend needed a laptop charger so i got my butt to uni in the end. already skipping class in the first week is TERRIBLE i swear i will fix my habits! i will fix my sleep schedule! to myself, please don't make me repeat my disastrous semester two mental illness boogaloo from last year again.
umm so the reason i woke up so late was because i fell asleep at 8am... my neocities addiction stirred some old memories from my carefree, slightly-chronically-online primary school kid era. back then, i would walk home from primary school with my grandpa everyday and hop on the family 'puter until i heard the screech of the garage door opening, signalling that my mother had returned from work. animal jam, moshi monsters, flash games etc. and i remembered (for some reason i totally forgot about it during high school) this website i made in 2015......... it's still there when i google the specific title. oh.
i think it's interesting how our internet personalities just remain archived out there (a lot gets deleted or lost, of course) - in your old social media accounts, websites, comments and so on - even if you forget about or move on from them, there's a good chance you'll be able to re-trace bits of your past cringey online personas. and this one was VERY passionate about warrior cats...
icebreakers
wednesday 26.07.2023 | [general]i am sooooo tired right now. It's nearly 8pm here and I'm sitting in the uni library, at the end of my first day of the semester. my databases class technically runs from 6pm - 8pm but I left early because it was boring. i was sitting at the very front of the classroom and had to walk past everyone to get to the exit, but whatever !! i couldn't take it any longer !!! my only other class today was a three hour long systems development tutorial, where the first hour was taken up entirely by ice breakers. we had to talk to every other person in the room for two minutes each, following a systematic rotation. grahhhh :(!!!!!!
"What's your name? Oh nice to meet you [name], I'm [name]. (*forgets their name immediately*). What year are you in? What are you studying? (*both going huh?/asking the other to repeat because we can't hear each other over the sound of everybody talking*). Cool. (I don't actually care or think it is cool and neither do they). So... (*slightly awkward silence as we both stand there staring at each other waiting for the time to run out*). Ok well byeee!! rinse and repeat thirty more times. i don't remember a single person.
but after class i treated myself to a dalgona pearl milk tea and it was yummy!! i sat outdoors in a secluded corner of the campus and blissfully sipped my drink while reading a book (i've just started The Handmaid's Tale, i'm three chapters in and i don't have any strong impressions so far but i like it for the most part! the worldbuilding is interesting, makes me want to keep reading on and see what our protagonist will do).
friend got at a con!! i like this keychain :)
plans for this blog
tuesday 25.07.2023 | [general]hihii i just got off from work~ well, i work from home so it's fairly chill, i don't feel drained of all joy and energy after my shifts like i did at my old retail job ^_^. i was browsing through neocities for much of the day and i think it's fun to sort by 'last updated' or 'random' and just sightsee (sitesee? hehe). feels like a glimpse into the e-soul of an internet stranger.
but anyways, i was thinking about my plans for this blog... it's not really feasible to just keep adding every single entry onto the one webpage like this, right? :') i think i'll have to split them up, but creating a new page every time i want to make an entry sounds like a pain, so, i'll probably group them by month... i also plan to have different types of entries, maybe i'll try my hand at writing something nice? i've never been much of a poet though. when i have the energy to do something, i usually turn to media consumption (it's easy), but i want to try creating more. maybe it won't be good, but i want to get better at expressing and understanding myself (SORRY THAT WAS CHEESY but it's true). after 19 years on this planet, i feel like i've only regressed in that aspect as i grew older.
the corporatisation of the internet
monday 24.07.2023 | [general]recently i felt nostalgic about all the time i spent on the web as a preteen, so i decided to play around with neocities. it's fun, though i have a lot to learn about html.
anyways, doing this has made me realise how disappointed i am in the current state of the soulless, corporate internet! twitter, reddit, discord, instagram and the handful of other centralised social media giants; of course there are advantages of convenience, reach and accessibility among many others, but they feel so sanitised and artificial. like the digital equivalent of a bustling shopping centre and you're the seller, the consumer and the product all at once. it's all so c a p it a l i s m-core - can you tell i hate being inside shopping centres? they invoke my anxiety like no other (besides maybe high schools and airports).
i don't hate the internet, i'm addicted to it after all. but with discord getting rid of discriminators, the reddit API protests, and *gestures vaguely at twitter going up in flames*, i guess things will just keep continuing down this path to the point of no return.