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i'm not sure if i am acting from rationale or from emotion (it clearly seems like emotion right now) but the rationale is to do it later, and i don't know if later will allow us the time so i am doing it now. i sent it now. my heart is beating with every second now gives me. will i regret this? will i regret being honest to my feelings?

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little january thoughts that made it to february

i've been thinking about how i've been feeling different recently. words that didn't hurt before, hurt now. conclusions that i didn't come to before, come now. and the people around me don't know this, because i can't pinpoint what within me has changed. silly conversations, end up making me feel horrible. and i wonder how much reassurance from people do i think to not be hurt by words? why do i think everyone will craft every word that come out of their mouths with thought and care before they say it? and knowing this, why do i still let these words hurt me?

do you ever feel like talking to someone about it, but knowing it won't make sense to other people so you keep it within yourself. and it keeps expanding and expanding until it dents and strains the relationship. or so it feels. i want to talk about this, but i feel silly for feeling this way, so i can't let you know. although i really want you to know. i want to talk about this with an open mind, i don't want you to be defensive when i talk, or feel bad. but perhaps understand that's where i am at right now. i just need this extra care. this extra thought.

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day in, day out, i cry about not being able to communicate myself clearly to people. it's so frustrating, and i feel invalidated by their responses and lmao i can't just cut everyone from my life to avoid being hurt and expect to grow?

another day, and i hope i can receive the help i need to not shut a part of me away to get along with people and continue self-loathing because i am consistently afraid of expressing myself and consistently not knowing how to word my thoughts out loud to people.

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i don't know what has become of me

being overtly stressed and incapable of handling it has made consoling words meaningless. in the sense that, the words don't do anything to me, because my brain is refusing to believe an ounce of them, or be comforted by them as tomorrow is another day of the same pain. i need a solution.

and maybe i needed to reach to this level of misery and disturbance to finally realise that i am the priority, my existence and my mental health matters. because if i neglect those, what remains of me? i had to be told this to understand, that persistence – as foolishly as i am doing – can do more harm in the long run. it's not brave, or sacrificial. it's leaving evident marks that i ought to fix in the coming years.

but i struggle to separate from my perfectionist tendencies. i want to continue on this streak. i want an upward trajectory. i know the words that i want to be printed on that paper. but am i erasing myself in the process, and ridding the world of my existence by pursuing this? by pushing, and pushing, gritting my teeth and being tormented. what becomes of the wound that i inflicted knowingly. what becomes of my hopes of getting better. what becomes of my core once i've exhausted all faucets.

it all boils down to what am i capable of and what am i not. in my current position. in my current mental status. in the burden that i carry at home. in the burden that i carry until i graduate.

i just want to be in one piece at the end of all of this. on my last day, i want to have lived. i want to say i have taken decisions for my own sake, for my own well-being, for my own life that i ought to take charge of. i want to stop hiding behind excuses that i give others, excuses that i fool myself of, until i believe them.

i want to live. and it turns out that this is the hardest thing of all.

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re: terms of endearment, the tibetan nyingdu-la, which translates roughly to “most honored poison of my heart” - the translation being im sure only a fraction as breathtaking as it is in tibetan - haunts me day in and day out

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it's a long night

it's one of those nights, where i am brewing with anger because my brain is somehow taking things out of context and lighting it in red. it's also like that because i didn't say, no what you are saying is wrong. please do not say this if you are not sure of the factuality of the thing you are saying because it is invalidating my concern, fear and worry.

this is what happens when i neglect to schedule in my check-ups because i am under the belief that i can shoulder it all.

i think i need affirmation that the decision i am making (god only knows if that decision will change by tomorrow) is the correct one, at least with me. i have an inkling it is, but i need words of reassurances, and i need it to actually be the right decision in terms of my future, because i do not want to exist in a grey area and blame my naivety for believing that things would be different in a later stage in my life.

i am literally not protected by the system, i have no cushion to fall back onto. my last resort is my worst resort and all of this pushes me to want to make decisions to protect myself to the max. because in doing so, the people who depend on me, can continue to depend on me.

in other news, paperwork sucks and i do not look forward to the level of paperwork to go through in the end.

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i understand you could be busy–but so am i

it's just go horrible when you take time out of your day to have someone treat it lightly. the simplest my teacher could have done is not rush me through my concerns (or so i felt), hear out my reasoning about why i possibly could not have completed my education, and then proceed to advise me? i literally scheduled this early-as-hell, super-inconvenient call for me to be heard and to have a fruitful discussion, in the end, it just felt like the complete opposite. i felt so disregarded, and i hope i am not projecting, so looked-down upon. it almost sounded like "you're coming now to talk about this, when the semester literally starts next week?" and i have had a horrendous summer. i was tormented all summer with how to go about upcoming academic year. i was robbed of any peace of mind. and just i begin to light up, i do not want to be squashed with this feeling.

now i have to make decision, i am sick with nerves because of attending physical classes in this strenuous time of ours and settle on a research topic. it's literally my summer vacation condensed in horrible numerable days and i feel like today's call should have definitely been done earlier because i cannot have my tuesday be ruined like this and expect to be on top behaviour by the coming working week.

i really need to disconnect.

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Tony Hoagland, from “Don’t Tell Anyone”

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You know I love you, right?

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it's happened more than once–i can't stop feeling horrible about it

i've had it happen to me by 2 different people and i don't understand why i feel so horrible after. it happens like this: i haven't spoken to a person for a long time, the first word when we start to talk i hear from them is "let's meet" which then i agree to because it's exciting to meet them and then they go offline and the conversation dies. as i always do, i try to justify the other person's actions. maybe they ran out of energy, or no longer want to talk. but it just hurts me so deeply. if they've spoken to me with such energy and happiness and want to meet me, i know there is no bad blood, but such a small action ruins me. especially when i absorb all their excitement and then they go offline and i'm just left with all this rush of feelings.

i feel things so intensely that it scares me sometimes because i always go 0% after them. so it's quite a draining thing. feelings are so draining.

also, i didn't realise it was a thing, until it has happened repeatedly. feeling so ignored while texting someone. and it's odd because we are both texting, but some messages just kind of receive no answer. it feels like i'm being immediately shut down/silenced and it makes hesitant to say anything else so it wouldn't receive the same reaction.

i realise that i have surrounded myself with people who are so wonderful and attentive all the time and even address even my hums that such things stand out so much to me. such polar opposite behaviour. also i can be more assertive? in the sense that okay some of my words were not answered, i can always pop them at them again? i'm so used to avoidance coping mechanism i realise i am so much opposite to how i think of myself.

do i say the things that i have on mind? not always. i don't express myself clearly or express things amicably so i'm not causing any shift in conversation. i avoid being opposite to the person i'm conversing to, and it's stifling and i feel regretful after because i have opinions i want to share too. and my opinions and thoughts define me. so denying that feels like i'm denying myself being represented in front of the people i am talking to. and in the end, i will always be a person different with them than i truly am.

big thoughts for the day.

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morning sleepy.

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take time off from over analyzing yourself

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my favorite thing about tumblr is that someone can be absolutely unhinged in the tags over a photo of their fav and then end it with that one tag that they organize their blog with

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it was always the little things–what happened to that

it was finding happiness in the little things. i found a cute doodle. i read a cute text. i read a lovely passage that warmed my heart. i had a small interaction with a stranger who was kind. i bought myself a little thing. i've written something.

but now nothing sparks joy. i'm on a downward trajectory. i feel very vulnerable and sensitive to any word being told to me. and i'm trying not to think negatively and take words negatively and twist them out. because suddenly the world is turning against me (it isn't true) and i am fighting alone (it isn't true) and i am–

it's the same patterns.

i recognise my lack of being reflective, because i'd always rather do something than sit and reflect. case in point, i delayed getting thoughts out of my head until this moment. it's 5:18 AM. i want to catch something before i sleep, but i just got fed up with delaying written things out. i come to good conclusions when i brain dump. i haven't done that in age–but i did get better at talking about my problems so there is that.

i've taken a day off today, aside from immersing myself in reading first thing after i woke up, i had a slow day. and thank god for those. a friend of mine called me "complex" the day other (the context is missing here) and it stuck with me because i realised i was overthinking things to a whole new level. and i've also tried to avoid resisting when life literally takes a sharp left turns, that i'm just face stuck to the window from the sharp turn, holding onto anything for support in this moving vehicle of life. but nowadays, i'm just resisting. resisting and persisting. i want to do work, but i always feel like i have no time (an easy fix is to dedicate a suitable number of tasks in a day– but that's what i am doing!!) and then i take away any room of indulging in shows or movies. things that spark joy and get me thinking/reflecting. i definitely need movies to double kick me in the gut like the ones i watched during my time off in 2019.

anyways.

here's to less resisting. here is to feelings my feelings (although i still am clueless about that and i am trying to work on it). breathing and allowing myself to process, even if slowly, the things around me, the changes around me and me reacting to all of that. i realise if i had been more compassionate, if i had another physical clone of me who'd carefully remind me to take it easy and would tell me to resist less and just– okay, as i wrote that i just felt that no one would be able to soothe what i carry inside me. because people tried in my life. but the hurt never stopped. i have to be the one doing it. i have to be the one confronting myself, soothing it, consoling it. wow, we are throwing big words there.

it sucks when you the solution to your problem but don't know how to go about it. but hey, at least i know something.

here's to self-compassion. and liking my own company again. to opening up again and bridging the gap between the many me's i carry on daily basis. i'll try to be better. i'll do better. i'm sorry for neglecting you for this long and this harshly.

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Korean resources I’ve found useful lately

TTMIK Level listening dialogues - these are available for free on Youtube, although I believe you need a TTMIK account if you want the transcript on their website. They are short dialogue videos, one for each level of the TTMIK course, involving the vocab and grammar from the appropriate level. I don’t even follow the TTMIK course or books, but these dialogues are a good way to test roughly where you are in your comprehension skills, ranging from beginner to advanced.

TTMIK Iyagi podcast - these are available on Spotify, and each one is usually less than 10 minutes. This is intermediate content; the topics are fairly simple, but the hosts talk naturally and casually to each other at varying speeds and make jokes. Topics include travel, food, family, history etc. Great for picking up common conversational phrases and testing your listening skills.

LingQ - this is a paid membership site but is one of the best things I’ve chosen to do lately. It only costs about as much as any streaming service, and I think its best for bridging the gap between late beginner to early intermediate and beyond. The site is a wealth of content including audio clips, tons of mini stories, song lyric translations etc on every kind of topic. You can study multiple languages, and you progress with points by collecting new vocab that gets added to a flashcard deck that you can revise. ALSO someone has put the transcripts for TTMIK Iyagi podcasts on LingQ, so you can read the whole dialogue while listening and click words to explore meaning and add them to your deck (as well as lots of other TTMIK content and stuff from textbooks!)

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a spontaneous sunday bake: cherry pie with fresh cherries from our local greengrocer 🍒🥧

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cuisiniere