thevoidworld

[thevoidworld]

Last night I had a dream that my kitchen was on fire and I grabbed the fire extinguisher but that burst into flames too

Really explains college life sometimes

[thevoidworld]

job interviews be like

interviewer: What are your goals?

Me: At this point in the semester i’d love to get the fuck outta here, meet up with some friends, blast some music, then pull out a large bottle of gin and go to town on that bitch

interviewer: ............................................................

Me: Just kidding. I aspire to get a graduate degree and  work in the chemical or pharmaceutical industry

[thevoidworld]

I hate the feeling that my life has been pre-determined my society or my parents or myself. I am an entity with free will and dreams.

[thevoidworld]

Keep calm and mix some EtOH

A drunk chemistry student. How orignial. I mixed some gin with the juice of black oranges, and added some seltzer water. I love this so much. You know chemists, they love to mix stuff.

Am I a chemist? A river guide? an artist? an alkie? IDK man. I just know i havent touched alcohol in a long tiem and it’s the last day of my spring break. so YAY EtOH!!!

Don’t do this too often, but once in a while... I just listened to a lecture from my dad about how im too materialistic, my parents may or may not divorce AGAIN, im not sure of my career choice so...  Et OH.

You know, i can draw a newmann projection of EtOH. I feel like a terrible person. Because i love this. 

My skin feels weird. A moment ago i thought i might vomit but i didn/t. 

If my research advisor knew what his 3.9 GPA student does in her spare tiem he would be quite disappointed. This is terrible.

[thevoidworld]

just like when there’s nothing to eat in the fridge

1. Open Job Search Site 1. Nothing worth applying to.

2. Open Job Search Site 2. Nothing worth applying to.

3. Open Job Search Site 3. Nothing worth applying to.

4. Lower standards. Repeat

[thevoidworld]

Isn’t female anatomy wonderful? I’m supposed to be out there shreddin the gnar and what not and instead im lying here in pain eating chocolate and counting down until I can take Advil again

Not to mention the pre-period week full of crying for no reason, depression (on top of my already frequent state of existential gloom) and thinking my world is falling apart and then feeling like a fool once the period comes 

[thevoidworld]

Venting

PSA here: if you ever have a kid, and that kid develops a speech impediment, please, if you can afford to, take the kid to speech therapy. Or course it may not work, but at least TRY. I'm not trying to blame anyone who cannot financially afford medical care: I truly sympathize with that and understand that sometimes people can't afford life-saving medications, much less speech therapy, and that's quite tragic. But if you can afford it, there is no reason not to try to help your child. A sttutter is not because the kid isn't trying hard enough, or cause they are lazy, or stupid. it's a health problem. "Don't stutter" and "try harder" and "think about what you want to say and then say it" doesn't help. It just makes the person feel like dirt. When the kid is 20 years old and can't pass a job interview despite excellent credentials because they stutter, they will resent that no one tried to do anything about it 10 years ago. I know because it's happening to me right now. I'm not saying it ruined my life, but a lot of things would me different if I spoke better. In not blaming my parents as people: lack of information and awareness is at fault. A stutter in and of itself is not a reflection of intligence or personality. However, growing up with a stutter is an experience which leaves its mark, and not always in the best way. For me, it caused me to develop heightened anxiety and emotional instability and fear of some social situations. It changes me as a person. I know speech therapy isn't a 100% success, but I just can't stand it when parents "don't believe in speech therapy" or thing the kid "will grow out of it" and don't even bother. My parents seemed to believe that im not trying hard enough. Sure, speech therapy also requires effort, but at least there will be some guidance. I just use avoidance and word substitution. I know speech therapy doesn't work for everyone, it's not a cure, but there's a chance there, and you won't know until you try it out.

[thevoidworld]

Math people. Math.you gotta have N in the expression to be able to take a limit as N gets infinitely large. It would make more sense if they had the classes to the power of N. Geez.

Social life = lim n to ifinity (time you have/chem^n+bio^n+lab^n+MATH^n) = 0

Yup.

[thevoidworld]

It’s 4 am and im still up and will be up for another 20 hours studying. I drank so much coffee I’m nauseous, and still my eyes are closing.

Junior year burnout really got me.

[thevoidworld]

somehow the level of genuine heartbreak I feel because I’ve been stuck in the suburbs for days without going out into nature even once, and probably will not do so for months, is far more intense and prolonged than I felt about anything else in a long time.

All I can think of are rivers and forests, mountains and cliffs.... and all I see are red brick office buildings and lecture halls and fluorescent lights. 

I feel trapped.

[thevoidworld]

So I just wrote a post that just used a whole page of text to state the following "follow your dreams and allow yourself to be happy". Why didn't I just say that? Because I think that it would have lost its value and meaning. Our modern internet culture (of which I know I'm a part of, don't worry) loses the nuance, the subtlety, and the poetic quality of a carefully expressed idea. When half the internet it full of inspirational quotes printed over stock photos, the quotes cease to be inspirational. They become annoying and invite a backlash. If you take a quote by Thoreau, paste it over a generic photo of a beach at sunset, and have someone look at every day, they will start to hate it, which will translate into hatred of Thoreau in general. I used to scoff at people who said stuff like "follow your dreams" because I thought "wow, you're quoting a Facebook post, how original. Was that the one so with the sunset or the one with the forest?" Then I realized: just because stock photos and memes have bastardized and de-valued a good idea in the eyes of the public, it doesn't mean the idea lost meaning. Thoreau doesnt get worse because someone put him on a beach sunset and posted it on Facebook. If we separate the idea from its perversions, we can see that the idea itself is a good one. So follow your dreams the best you can. Not because that's what is written on an inspirational blog, or on a stock photo, a Facebook photo or a tumblr page, but because it will open you up and make you a little happier. Even a simple idea like "follow your dreams" had complexity and nuance. Delve into it. Don't settle for stock photos.

[thevoidworld]

Thoughts: life lessons aka not liking my major enough is sucking the life out of me

What matters the most in choosing your career, your major, or what have you, is how much you like it. How much you wants it, how much it inspires you. The passion. You see, you have a light, a flame, inside you. Everyone does. Your inner drive, your power. Hopefully, you use it for good. 

You gotta figure out what fuels that flame. What makes it burn brighter, and what makes it dimmer. Our careers, (if you prefer to call it “specialties” cause a “career” is a very limited and narrow concept), take a lot from us. Our jobs take up most of our time. Of course, there’s the old saying “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”. It’s true, but often it’s impossible. That has been replaced with a more accurate saying, “ do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life, because that field probably isn’t hiring”. I realize that not everyone has the luxury to pursue their dream, that people have families to feed, and what I’m saying is not directed towards those people, not entirely. They too, have that flame, and they need to fuel it in ways they can, but I’ve never been in that position, I don’t know what that’s like, and I can’t speak for them.

Right now, I’m speaking toward the college kids. Those of us who had a choice and made it. Really, to myself. 

IT FUCKING MATTERS. It matters more than anything: whether or not your chosen career/job/major/specialty fuels that flame. You have to love it. It has to fuel that flame. Or, in the very least, your lifestyle has to not actively snuff it out. It should allow it to burn naturally. 

A flame needs two things to burn: Fuel and oxygen. Even if you have fuel, you need the breathing space, the opportunity, for that flame to burn. Your flame can be surrounded by fuel, but without oxygen, it will not burn. 

Ok, enough analogies. What I’m saying, sometimes you don’t know yet what your passion is. You gotta try a few things to figure it out. That’s ok. But once you know, once your figured it out, you have no excuse. Then, you have to go for it. If you KNOW you subject X, but you major in Y instead because of your parents, salary prospects, hiring statistics, etc, you are making a HUGE mistake. All those factors (salary, employment) aren’t worth a damn if studying subject X snuffs out your flame. 

I know what you’re thinking. I’ll major in X, make decent money, and do Y as a hobby on the side. But if doing X, and the lifestyle that comes with it, does not allow that breathing space, that oxygen, to come in and keep the flame alive, you won’t have the energy to do Y. In order for the hobby passion scheme to work, your major career has to be something very flexible and permissible. Which, we will know from observing our parents and other middle aged adults, is not the case. It’s almost never the case.

 The lifestyle you force yourself to live is stronger than you are. 

You may think you will be the exception. the one that breaks the system. The one whose flame will burn despite being immersed in something they hate. But most likely, it will eventually overpower you. It might be ok for a while, but your flame will eventually begin to get dimmer. And dimmer. And if it even goes out, it’s oh so hard to get it back. 

I decided to be a science major. A double one at that. I found biology interesting, I got straight A in it in school, and although it didn't inspire me the way art did, I thought I tolerated it enough to spend 4 years studying it. Then I racked in the chemistry. I like chemistry even less, but I thought it wouldn't hurt. I figured I can do art on the side. Well, I had no idea what it was going to be like. At the time, when I entered college, that was the most reasonable decision. Hindsight is 20/20, so I'm not saying I made a bad decision at the time. But my reading was flawed. I assumed I was gonna be ok doing something I merely tolerated for 4 years. A lot of people do it and they get through college. Freshman year I went into a depression. I told myself it was just the 17 credits I took. That everything would be perfect as soon as I lightened my course load. I failed to see that what was really happening was that science did not fuel my flame, and took away the oxygen too. It all for worse from there. Each semester got a little harder to bear. Now, a year and a few months away from graduation I look back and think "I've made a terrible mistake". But it is too late. I don't know how I'm gonna keep the flame burning for that long while I double major in science. The next time you chose a major that you don't truly have a passion for and think "ill just plug my way through it for 4 years and no one will notice that I don't like it", think again. In a year or two you will hate it and resent it for killing your inner light. No matter how good you are at something to start with, if you don't like it, prove will notice. You will fall behind, because while you're fantasizing about getting on a train and never coming back, they are studying and working. It's like a marriage. Does getting married to someone you don't love because it's convenient sound like a good idea? Oh, it's ok, it's just a marriage. I'll grit my teeth and bear it while distracting myself with other things. It's not like people don't do it. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? Now apply this to your career. Your inner light is the most valuable thing about you. It's who you are. If you feel something sniffing it out, don't stand there and let it. Get away. Find your fuel, and your oxygen.

[thevoidworld]

So I’m back on tumblr cause I need a journal to write how I feel about everyhting. 

So remember how 6 months ago I wrote about how I wanna live a travel life and fuck college? Well, that hasn’t changed. I honestly don’t know HOW i can take another YEAR AND A HALF of this. The only thing I need this degree for is as a crash pad if on my way up the rocky face of outdoor adventure tourism, i fuck out and fall. 

Modern western (and not only western) society confines us to a very specific path in life. Or so we think.

The life if the traveling artist/outdoor enthusiast is becoming harder and harder. Doesn’t mean we should do it. We just gotta break the system.

But there’s also a selfishness and guilt I feel about living like this. My parent’s hearts will break. But then again, I learned a golden rule: generally speaking, you CANNOT make anyone else happy exclusively by means of your of unhappiness. Not  your kids, not your parents, no one. Because eventually being miserable will eat you alive and you will turn into a terrible human being who no one want to be around. 

Is being a river guide a career risk? Yes. Is living a hopeless and meager existence while hating yourself an even bigger risk? I think so.

Don’t get me wrong, i’m NOT quitting college yet. I might as well make this into somehting I can put on a resume. BUT if you’re less than halfway through college and HATE it, please, please please do somehting else or at least switch majors. You can accept input from parents and relatives, but in the end you make your own decisions.

It makes me so sad to see parents go “So what do you wanna be, a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer?” 

I’ve felt this way for 2 years. It’s not a phase. Yeah, science is hard, but if you love it enough...

Here’s the big secret. I don’t love science. I conditioned myself to like it and talk about how cool it is and how cool I am for liking science. My original goal was art. Then medicine. It was not science itself until college when I eliminated all other possibilities in my mind.

If only I knew this 2 years ago. But hey, making hard decisions builds character. 

Now for some Icona Pop lyrics to reflect how I feel about it all.

I got this feeling on a summer’s day when you were gone,

I crashed my car into the bridge, I watched, I let it burn,

I threw your shit into a bag and pushed it down the stairs,

I crashed my car into the bridge! I don’t care!

[thevoidworld]

daily i-wanna-drop-out-of-college mood

writing a research paper and my thoughts just go like "concentrations of VOC in atmosphere causes.... why do i have to do this??? i hate living here in this stupid room writing these stupid essays which no one will even care about and getting a degree which is not adaptable to a traveling lifestyle I'm so done with this is wanna drop out of college and LIVE IN THE FUCKING MOUNTAINS"

[thevoidworld]

addding tahiti to my travel list. Mt. Aorai looks awesome.

[thevoidworld]

experiencing the effects of long term sleep deprivation and it is not pretty...

headaches, dizziness, low motivation..

falling asleep in lecture in the 2nd row right in front of the professor because as much as i want to i can't keep my eyes open because i have a raging headache and looking at the board physically hurts

need to get my lifestyle together...........now i think the professor hates my which is bad because if i need recs in the future i can't get them from him.... and in general i dont like to be hated.. like "that girl falls asleep in class all the time"

[thevoidworld]

travel list

must have:

Acadia national park, Maine

Paris (France, where else)

Greenland or Iceland

Colorado (again)

Yukon (Canada)

Would like:

Tasmania

Aleutian Islands

Alaska in general

Yosemite

Utah or Arizona, death valley