Okay

I was once a great multitasker. I can hardly believe myself when I look back a few months and remember the things I was able to do at work. I was like an automaton; I was a machine. I hated it, sure, but other people admired me for my ability to do so many things at once and still remain polite and on the positive side of a breakdown. What happened? How did I get from there to here? Now the idea of "one thing at a time" has been taken to the extreme. I feel like I've been turned off. I'm not interested in anything anymore. If I don't get something done, there's no guilt; there's no stress. I just don't care anymore. I don't feel anything when I finish a project that's been plaguing me for weeks. There's no sense of relief or release. It's just another day. Once I finish something, I go back to doing nothing. And I mean nothing. It doesn't matter if I'm in front of the TV or the computer, reading a book or deep in conversation. It's all the same for me. I'm really not a fan of this emotional stagnation. It seems to have nothing to do with anything, but it happens all the time. It'll just show up one day and drag me down until I don't notice it, and then it disappears as quickly and quietly as it came. I don't know how it happens, and I don't know how to get rid of it. It's like an outside apathetic force that envelops me in a state of transience. I try so hard to avoid it when I'm doing okay, but it always catches up to me in the end. It would be frustrating, but right now it just feels kid of disappointing. Everything's been put on hold for a while, and I'm afraid it won't be back to normal until sometime next term. I miss being able to work.
Sorry if I brought you down. I'll probably feel better tomorrow.

I miss you all like you wouldn't beieve.

Perpetually at 49 posts

The other day, while I was on the bus, I heard the following conversation between two kids:

kid 1: How many cellphones have you gone through in the past year?
kid 2: Eight.
kid 1: Eight?
kid 2: Yeah, well, my parents keep buying me new ones so...

Marvel at my restraint as I said nothing. That conversation filled me with loathing so powerful I almost found myself grumbling "kids these days...". How on earth did this happen? One cell phone alone is a tremendous strain on the world's resources, but friggin' eight?! Questions flooded my brain: does he have anything to do with the expenses associated with said cellphones? What was he doing with them? Did they break or just become unfashionable? Does he know where cellphones come from? Does he know what they're made of? Is he grateful of his parents' foolish generosity? There is something very wrong with the world if a kid in junior high school can motor through cellphones without a second thought and rely on his parents to keep giving them to him as if they were his god-given right. I couldn't help but wonder what his future will be like, and I have a terrible sinking feeling that he's going to be tremendously successful.

Disregard this.

I've decided to write because I'm freakin' out and I need something to calm me down. I'm operating on binary right now: super mellow and crazy frantic. I don't want to be crazy frantic, but super mellow doesn't do anything for me either. There needs to be some middle ground, but in the middle of all these assignments, it's pretty hard to find. I start working, and things get hectic. I take a break, and things come to a standstill. I need some way of doing things until they're done--focusing on one thing at a time, prioritising--all that nice stuff they taught you in high school. But my goodness everything comes at once and I spend too much time enjoying my day to get at it! My wheels are spinning, dudes and ladies. My brain is too fast and my body is too slow. I can't articulate my ideas because there's so much in my head. Good gracious, this isn't helping at all. It's been a long time since I've felt this complete shut-down stress. I think it got completely out of hand with that new sculpture assignment: build something massive with 8-foot planks. I don't know how to build! I've never built anything in my life! The only "training" I got was a half-hour lecture on what to do if your fingers get cut off in the woodshop. I think the problem here is one of demographic. All the other people in my class have had extensive experience in the field of sculpture; they entered this class because they're passionate about sculpting, carving, and building. I, on the other hand, joined because I needed a 3-d class to pass first year and I didn't want to do 3-d fibre. Ahaha! Look where my idea of a :slack class" got me!

A quick suggestion

Go outside and look at the leaves. They'll be covered with snow before you know it.

Sometimes I miss being able to look at art and just enjoy it. The "that's so cool" factor is still there, but now it's coupled with a nagging "I'll never be able to do something like that". Creativity is hard to come by, and all the ideas I thought were brilliant have been done to death. Making something "cliche" has become my greatest fear. I get the feeling that my ideas are inadequate now that I'm surrounded by brilliance. Art is no longer far-off and separate; artists are no longer behind the curtain. Everything is right there. These great artists are my classmates, and I feel like I have to keep up with them to be worthy. I've lost a lot of confidence in these past few months, and it's getting harder and harder to realise my own self-worth. This feeling of losing in a competition isn't doing me any good. I wish it was easier to shift my perspective.

Oh my goodness hello!

Rediscovering these blogs has made me feel, if only in part, that I'm still in contact with my friends. Which sounds a little depressing or melodramatic but isn't really. I've been in a sort of limbo for the past month, not really talking to anyone except Hannah, moving in and out of my classes arbitrarily, and either working too much or too little. It kind of feels like all my feelings have been neutralised. So I can feel a little bit sad, or a little bit happy, or a little bit angry, but anything really passionate is kind of on hold right now. I think it might just be the regular beginning-of-fall blues, which descends rapidly into the dead-of-winter horror. Hooray! ACAD is alright, but I really wish that a) I wasn't so shy and b) I had more than one studio class. It's hard being in an Art school and spending most of your nights reading textbooks and writing essays. The things I'm learning are really interesting, though, and I've already begun to feel the characteristic University Turnaround. I'm actually learning things that affect the way I look at the world! How foreign! Ooh, also, the ACAD library has this little nook made out of boxes of National Geographics dating back to 1923. Some genius set up a group of chairs in the shape of a bed back there, so I like to see it as the communal student bedroom/archive of aristocratic American ads. It's pretty beautiful.

I'm missing you all more than I can say. I am super looking forward to our joyful reunion, so I can get back to not being lonely.

LUV YAZZ

I have realised something.

I have realised that I hate facebook. It actually feels like part of me dies when I log on; like I've lost something that I will never, ever get back. I get a sinking feeling in my heart when I check a friend's page and realise that they've been having a billion times more fun than I ever will. I get lost in the pictures of smiling faces that I recognise, in places I will never visit. It just reinforces the divide between me and the people I miss so much. And that's why I hate being addicted to it.

Pre-tensions

Summer always seems to happen all of a sudden, and every year it takes me a little while to realise that it's actually happening. In the 6-8 months of winter we get here, summer to me is like distant memory of something rare that happened years ago. I can't conceive of green grass and sunburns, mosquitoes and sunshine at 9pm. In the first few weeks of real summer weather, after the annual May snow that we're all still surprised to see, I feel a strange euphoria. Like this perfect weather can't really be happening. I tell myself I will not take it for granted. I'll get outside every day and enjoy the fleeting green. I will go to the mountains and attend music festivals. But after those few initial weeks, I start adapting. I stay inside because it's cooler. I complain about the heat and the sunburns and the mosquitoes. And by September, I'm already mourning the loss of long sunny days and picnics in the backyard. Summer turns into that distant, misty-eyed fantasy again, and I prepare for the next long winter.

I wish I lived closer to downtown. I'd love to be able to just go somewhere with someone without having to set up a date and time, without setting it up days in advance and without figuring out bus routes and schedules. I've decided that my dream living accomodations are the apartments above the Oolong tea house and Hot Wax. They're super close to ACAD, relatively inexpensive, and seem like just the broken-down, ramshackle bohemian apartments I've been looking for. I could walk across the street and buy cupcakes! I could walk down to the theatre and see indie films whenever I wanted! I could wander down to The House and get drunk while listening to live music! I would never have to buy a car! I could live the dream of being a new urbanite in a suburban city. My dream is tangible; I just hope it's still there when I'm ready to move out.