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July 2024 | April 2024 | March 2024 | February 2024 | January 2024 | December 2023 | November 2023 | October 2023So this will be my blog/thoughts. I probably won't write much though. It'll just be life updates that aren't extremely personal. I do have an actual handwritten thoughts but I will not post any of the entires from there on here, unless (again) they aren't that personal.
Been a bit. Lots of stuff has happened.
For starters, I got my first job! I'm pretty proud of myself that I'm finally making money of my own now. It also helps with summer boredom that I often get because I can never find enough stuff to occupy my time.
I also got a car! I didn't buy it, a family member did, and that was really nice of them. It's toyota corolla. The reason I wanted one of these cars is that I've heard they're pretty reliable and for a tiny 5'2" person like me, it's pretty comfy. I'm glad that I have a car now because it makes my life easier. I can get to work without having to rely on other people, and I have more freedom. I'm gonna feel so cool driving to school in August with this thing lmao.
One bad thing: a family member of mine died in May. I was pretty bummed out for a couple weeks, but now I've gotten over it. I wasn't extremely close with them, but I still talked to them a few times a month and they always enjoyed seeing me. It hit pretty hard. I cried a few times for 2 weeks after, but I'm better now.
But yeah, other than those three, life hasn't changed much.
I haven't written here in a while and a lot has happened.
For starters, I got my drivers license. I don't have a car yet however, so I plan to get a job during the summer (I did not get the job I applied for in March) and save up for one.
Also, I've taken the ACT. I got a 25, which is barely above average, but it's better than my practice score of 19 (took the practice in October).
I visited a university and won something, which got me invited to a national conference which I will unfortunately not be able to go becasue I don't have enough money.
My life is still the same as it always has been though.
Today is a small step in a big direction: I applied for my first job! If they actually bring me in for an interview I think I'll shit my pants (joking). Anyway, I'm excited to make some money because I want to save for the future.
Happy March (not really). March is my least favorite month of the year due to the fact that I always feel strange, like always on the brink of change that I didn't consent to. One foot in something, one foot out the other. I'm always confused and frazzled in March, but I am happy that the days are getting warmer and longer. Soon I'll be able to take walks outside again, which I really like.
Ever since I've stopped using social media as much, I've noticed a change within myself. I've noticed that I'm not as stressed, bogged down, and generally more relaxed. I've been spending my time doing my hobbies and doing my school work, which has led me to being more productive. I think it was a great decision to set a time limit on my social media apps and not use them as much. Eventually, I hope to not have those apps on my phone at all and limit my access to them to only the computer, as I don't scroll endlessly when on my laptop. I enjoy it and I encourage everyone reading this to do the same. The internet genuinely makes me feel like total dogshit and I hope to use it minimally (except spotify because music is amazing).
I think physical media was once becoming a dying art. With the rise of streaming platforms and video sharing sites, people saw less of a need to own media. You can really see the peak of this in the late 2010's through the pandemic, when everyone was bored out of their minds and watched random shit on Netflix endlessly. Recently, I've noticed an uptick in physical media sales. In 2021, for the first time since the early 2000's, CD sales went up. Vinyl record sales have also been steadily increasing since the 2010's. A lot of YouTubers are also making videos, talking about the nostalgic feelings they get from DVD's as a child, and others demanding that you stop streaming everything immediately and pick up a blu ray from walmart.
Thing is, physical media is slowly rising up again in sales and I'm extremely happy about that. I love physical media, especailly CD's. There's just something special about holding an album, movie, or video game in your hand. You can feel it. It takes up space in your residence. It says that you love this thing so much, you're willing to let it take up space in your room. It's magical. There's a feeling when you find a CD in a store, buy it, and excitedly take it home to play at full quality, hearing every single note and the space between. To clarify, I only buy CD's once I've actually heard and liked the album, but this point still stands. It's a different vibe from blasting your favorite album on spotify than from playing it in a CD player. It feels more real, more special to me. I feel the music way better and actually get to indulge in it's sound, without my phone to distract me.
I just love physical media and hope it never goes away.
For the past few days I've been trying to cutback on my pinterest and reddit use because I've been spending way too much time on social media (especially those ones), and it's annoying me on how much time I waste on there. I've set a 2 hour time limit for both reddit and pinterest together for each day, and I uninstalled a lot of apps that I didn't want to keep on my phone. I'm trying to spend my time on hobbies and school work instead of social media, and I can confidentally say that I feel way better. I still watch YouTube, but I don't watch the shorts and I don't watch content that's made purely to make me pissed off. I'm enjoying this change, as I can update this website more!
I also try staying off of it anytime I get bored. When I have nothing to do, instead of immediately getting my phone, I'm trying to be in tune with my environment and living in the moment. I like it. I hope that by doing this I'll have more time for things I actually enjoy doing and regain my attention span.
It's been December for a while and it's soon to be January, which means a new year is on the horizon. I want to use this entry to share my Christmas presents I got the other day. I got a lot of cool ones. One of the teachers at my school actually nominated me to get a gigantic trash bag of gifts, so that was really cool.
The average American reads at a 7th-8th grade level, doesn't even get to high school. My explanation for this is that people just don't find reading to be fun anymore. There has always been people who haven't liked reading, but over the course of the years, more people (especially kids) are abandoning reading for going on social media or doing other things. Lots of people see reading as a chore because the school systems in the United States take the fun out of reading for the majority of children. As early as 3rd grade, I was expected to read a book for 20 minutes and then write a 5 sentence summary for it. Being a junior in highschool, I can easily do this, but a third grade me was put off by it. I used to enjoy reading as kid. I would always read dork diaries or diary of a wimpy kid and some other books, but when reading homework became mandatory in middle elementary, I lost interest. Being forced to read a book for 20 minutes and writing a summary on it felt like the hardest thing on planet earth. This wasn't encouraging me to read, it was making me not want to do it because I didn't know what books I wanted to read because the aforementioned diary of a wimpy kid was banned. Concentrating for 20 minutes on a book as an 8-year-old is a hard task, considering I had "better" things to do such as playing with my barbie dolls.
For me, it turned reading into a chore, as it did for many kids. It was forced upon me and I rebelled, rather taking the bad grade than do the homework. Because of this, I think many people are put off by reading, considering it a chore, something that is inherently boring, when it isn't. People are forced to read boring books in high school and college that can further make them detached. Point is, the fun has been taken out of reading, and the spark for it isn't being lit again. In fact the only reason I picked up reading again was because I was so bored of constantly looking at my phone for entertainment, but this time I seek out books I'm interested in, and the fun is back. I'm not forcing myself to do it, I'm just leaving it as an option.
I got introduced to polynomial division yesterday in my math class, and let me tell you that it's sheiße.
We learned two ways on doing it: long division and synthetic. Except for the fact that the "long division" is actually the box method, which has become my personal enemy.
I'm on Thanksgiving break right now, but the teacher gave us homework and told us to, "just complete it tonight so you don't need to worry about it", so that's what I tried doing. Except I just can't get the box method down. Synthetic is fine, but you can only use it for when the divisor is linear (think x-3), but some of the divisors are quadratics and that's what pissing me off!
One problem I'm stuck on is the following:
I tried youtube videos, didn't work. I tried mathway, mathpapa, symbolab, and photomath, still didn't work. I posted on a homework help subreddit, and only got a few answers that are helpful. People kept saying "just use long division" and I would agree, except the teacher only wants us to use the box method for this.
So now here I am on Thanksgiving break worrying about homework. I'll try doing some other people's suggestions for the problem once I get back to it. But for now, screw the box method and screw polynomials :)
11/23 Edit: I finally figured it out thanks to this youtube video. If anyone else is reading this and struggling with that, it'll be a great help. What I was missing was adding up the diagonal.
When you're a woman, even if you're still in school, you get asked constantly about having children. Sometimes even your parents might imply automatically that you're going to have children, and even when you state that you don't want any, they still hold on to that idea and get offeneded. My perspective is that it's kind of weird to be bugging your child about having their own children when they're not even out of elementary yet. I've never really wanted kids. I remember as far back as kindergarten being intrigued by the idea, but never wanting to practice it myself.
But even today when I still give my thoughts on the matter, it triggers my mom especially that I don't plan or want kids. I just don't want them. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate kids, but me having to put up with feeding them, taking care of them, having to tolerate their screaming, etc for 18 years is just scary to me. I value my free time heavily; if anyone were to constantly interfere with it I would probably go insane.
Take in case my little half brother: he's 6, and yet he still screams exactly like he did as a baby - like a banshee - and it drives me nuts! He's not even my kid, but since I live with my family right now, I have to deal with it. When I wake up in the middle of the night due to his tantrums it makes me so pissed off. Why would I want to deal with that again but never get an escape from it?
Also, I believe I wouldn't be that good of a parent. Firstly, my mental health is shot to death and probably will be for years into my adulthood. Not a good state of mind to be in while raising a tiny human. I have noticed patterns in myself that I would not want to subject my kids to since I don't want to traumatize anyone. Namely, I'm in patient as hell, can get really mad (not often, but when I do it can get hectic), am not good at comforting, not good at taking care of anything (I can barely take care of myself), and I just don't want to bring someone else into this world.
I haven't even stated the obvious yet: I'm a lesbian. In order for me to have a child I would have to get an artifical insemination or adopt, and am interested in neither. Don't want to get pregnant and I don't want to deal with traumatized children because again, my mental health is horrible. I will happily remian childfree. Life is hard enough without having a kicking, screaming toddler you have to make sure doesn't die.
Now it's November, a month that I have some opinions on. Overall it's one of the better months, at least it isn't March, or godforbid April (I really hate April). Used to be a time of joyfulness as I realized the holiday season was nearing, but now I feel nothing. Could this be a byproduct of just growing up? Perhaps, I'm not sure. Anyways, November is definitely one of the better months. It's also a pretty month to say. A big win for it is that it's nearing the end of the year. The last few months of the year are always better. The first few months are just depressing in my experience.
Anyway, today I first listened to the album "Strangeways, Here We Come" by The Smiths. I'll talk more of my opinion on my music section, but I just have to say that an album hasn't hooked me in like this in a long time, not even The Queen Is Dead. I think I like it better than that one. I like Death of a Disco Dancer the most, but I gotta say that the lyrics for Unhappy Birthday are just straight up out of pocket.
I have a splitting headache right now, which is a result of my sickness I've been having. I don't know what I'm sick with, but all I know is that it's messed with my senses a little. My head constantly hurts and I always feel "out of my body". Interesting.
I wish I could write good lyrics or poetry, to really describe how things are in a nice way. I just think it'd be nice to fully hone in my likeness for writing so that people except my english teacher would actually like it.
Hello again! It's been 11 days, but that's because I have been busy doing other things. Anyway I've been feeling sick the past few days :(. Just constant congestion, coughing, sneezing, and a bad headache. I don't know if I'm heading to school tomorrow. I kinda wish that I'll get just slightly worse so I won't have to go tomorrow, but then that also sucks because on Tuesday I have to take the ACT practice test, and if I'm not well enough to go, I don't know if I can make it up. Shitty I know.
So here's the thing: lately I've been obsessed with US presidents. I spend my days scrolling r/presidents and wanting to learn more. Let's just say that this is an interesting topic to me.
Anyway, the other day I watched a nearly two hour long video on 14th president Franklin Pierce. At the end of the video, the guy plugs in a book he wrote like 10 years ago called "The President In The Bathroom" where the premise is: a man get's visited by the ghost of Franklin Pierce, in the bathroom. When I heard this, I laughed my ass off. The storyline is so goddamn stupid. I need to find this book. I swear if I find it, I'll rate it.
Also in my honest opinion, computers have got to be the superior form of technology. I know that phones are also technically computers, but you know what I mean. The laptops, desktops, those sorts of things. Man going on my laptop is super satisfying. It actually makes me feel like I'm getting shit done, even though I'm only browsing pinterest. Can we just talk about how much easier it is to navigate things on a computer too? Everything is just easier to do. I can type things faster, I can have more things open without my device having a seizure, I can do things here that I can't do on my phone, etc. It's just amazing. I love my computer. Only negatives I can think of are that it takes longer to load things on, and they're not as portable. Right now I have a laptop which I love, but when I can get my own place I think I'll just get a desktop for funsies.
Today has been really, extremely mid. Borderline kinda miserable, but not miserable enough to call it an official "bad day". The thing: I just feel like shit all the time, no matter what. I'm always tired even when I get enough deep sleep (I pretty much pass out most nights) and it's just AAAAAAAAAA. Not to mention the fact that I struggle with an issue that's been plaguing me since I was 12. I would like to give it a name, but since I can't get any diagnosis, I'm hesitant to give it any. The closest contender would be "dysthymia" but again, since I don't want to appear to fake a mental illness, I just call it "the blues". It doesn't sound as bad that way.
I don't know why, but I randomly get pangs of extreme longing, emptiness, and hopelessness. I'm also extremely lonely. I have pondered for a few years on how this could have happened. I've had a major depressive episode that lasted for a year and a half that hoenstly I didn't expect to still be alive. But I think I've finally gotten to a root cause: a thyroid disorder. It runs in the family, and I think I most likely have it. My hormones are fucked up. I eat constantly but am never really satisfied, I'm tired all the time, and I struggle with "the blues". I think I could be a likely contender for this. Problem: I've mentioned to my mom that I want to get a thyroid test but she doesn't think I need one. So basically, I'll be struggling with this shit until I'm able to get help myself. And that's another hopeless thing.
See here's the thing: I'm good at some things. I'm good at school, I'm considered smart, but this won't help whatever the hell I'm experiencing. I've never felt more lonely in my whole life. Holy shit why the fuck can't I make normal human connection??
That's the other thing: I feel socially handicaped. I can talk just fine, but I can't seem to form any meaningful social relationships. It always stops at acquantances. I just want an actual friend, someone to be by my side. But I feel I'll never reach it as I'm just too out of the loop with things. I don't talk like my peers do, I can't relate to them. I try so hard to just try to talk to them, but I find it difficult. I want to talk, but I can't stand the thought of annoying people with my very presence, so I don't. I've been like this since 12. I don't know what the fuck happened that year, but it seems that's when all my problems started. I just want to be left alone.