Week 17: I'm back!

Regular programming. 

Tuesday, April 22. 

Hello, welcome to this week's newsletter, I'm so happy to be typing this right now, you don't even know. I've been looking forward to writing this newsletter again. How are you doing? I hope you're great and sleeping well. 

Currently, I feel good. I'm supposed to have an exam on Thursday, I just finished reading for the exam. We were actually supposed to write this exam last week Friday (good Friday), but they postponed it, so I'm writing it this week instead. 

Today has been an interesting day, my phone somehow decided to stop working. It just blacked out, I could receive calls and see that my phone is charging when I plug it in, but it wouldn't let me do anything else. It was crazy. 

I took it to the phone repairer—even though, I had earlier said that I wasn't going to, because I wanted to stay phoneless, but alas, I remembered the things I had to do, and nobody had to tell me twice to do something about it. 

Somehow, I knew it wasn't a big issue and it will probably involve turning the phone off from an external source and turning it back on—that is, removing the battery and putting it back. You know, what you can easily do with a keypad phone, but yeah, you can't easily do that with an android phone. 

Anyways, the phone repairer did that and then he told me the price, and even though I thought it was outrageous because in my head, all he had to do was touch the phone with his screwdriver, something came to me in that moment and I started thinking about how I was underestimating what he did because it LOOKED simple, but I actually can't do that simple thing. 

It reminded me of how sometimes we actually just pay people for their knowledge, not because they are doing something so huge. It's like how I feel when people ask me about certain things and I start wondering why they are asking me when Google is free (like, everything is on the internet) or when people pay me for services that I learned through the internet. It was an interesting experience. 

My phone is fine now and I somehow didn't manage to get any work done still—or did I now? I actually did, but I guess I'm feeling like I didn't because I didn't do everything in one go or there was no burst of energy. It was just a little here, a little there. 

You know I told you guys I'm working on my faculty magazine (I'm the Editor-in-chief at my faculty's organisation), and so far, it has been an experience. I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near done. 

I'm still at the preparatory phase and I constantly feel like there's so much to do and get on top of, but I just have to tell myself to stay calm and set meaningful deadlines. My Google calendar and Google tasks are my besties now. 

Most of my anxiety comes from the interviews I have to do with the members of the faculty like the dean, staff advisor, and the HODs. Everything is timing, you know. There's my deadline and then there's their own schedule. I will just have to get it together and keep at it. 

Asides from the entire anxiety with putting together the magazine, I'm actually looking forward to the faculty week—it’s scheduled to hold in June, and I'm excited for the events, especially the ones I have a direct hand in, that is, I'm working to put it together.  I guess that's where most of my excitement is coming from. Ah, yes, we wrote an article for the faculty week, you can read it to get an idea of what it is about. 

That's all the update from me today. I will continue this week's regular programming in tomorrow's update. 

Wednesday, April 23. 

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today. I spent most of today trying to prepare for my exams tomorrow and  sleeping. 

Something interesting that happened though (although, I wouldn't exactly describe it as interesting, it was just a thought I had) was when I found out that a social media mutual had dropped out of school. 

They said they did it because they were uninspired by the environment and couldn't continue anymore, and I've felt that exact way—I still do anyway. 

When I saw it, I kept thinking, “wow, that is really courageous”. It takes a lot of guts. It reminded me of times when I was really tired of school and all I could think about was dropping out, but I never got around to doing it because I wasn't sure what else I would do with my time and life—then I would start thinking about what my life would be like if I was a nepo baby instead and could just hop careers and do whatever, which makes me start spiralling more. 

It's why I'm not exactly in a hurry to graduate, I mean, graduating is nice and all, it means I'm moving, but graduating means that I would have to start thinking seriously about my life. 

Not like I'm not doing that already, but school acts as a shield sometimes. All you have to do is just focus on that and forget about anything else without guilt. 

When I graduate, I can't just do things anymore, my parents would start expecting serious things from me, and I honestly just want to do things, you see, and just doing things requires money. I have to work to sustain my creative lifestyle. So, lots of work. Plus, there's external pressure. 

Sometimes, I get scared that I'm going to be one of those “adults” (lmao, I'm literally an adult) that gets caught up in capitalism and never do anything else, never have time for their hobbies or pursue their creative projects. 

I think about it and it's just really sad, what kind of life would that be? I understand that life can get hard and there are bills to pay, but if I have to wake up everyday and go do the same job—especially in my current field of study, because that's what my parents think—every single day, I might just kick the bucket myself. 

It's why I just know a “traditional” job is not for me—for example, pharmacy, especially the common ones; hospital pharmacy and community pharmacy. My ideal career path is one where I move from one field to another. It's probably stupid, but I just want to try a lot of things. I want to be a lot of things, you know, like that Sylvia Plath quote. 

Thursday, April 24. 

I got sad today, I haven't been sad in a while. I mean, I have been sad here and there, but I haven't actually been really sad—if you get what I mean. My eyes got really teary and I shed a tear or two, but I didn't cry. No. 

I can't talk about all the things that made me upset, but I will talk about part of it, because that's why I'm typing this anyway. My exams finished today and I saw videos of people talking about how excited they were to be done and I just couldn't be excited about it. I kept thinking, I didn't deserve to be excited. 

In my head, it was like, these people probably worked hard (or not) for these exams, so they deserve to be happy, I don't deserve to be. I didn't work hard for it. 

The whole thing made me even more upset when I realised that this is how I always think. I started wondering why I can't just not think like that. I had that thought, the the thought that most people warn you about; “why can't I just be like other people?”, “why am I not like other people?”. 

It happened again when I was in a gathering of people and all I kept thinking about was why I didn't deserve to laugh like these people and how—somehow—I and these people are not the same. They deserve to laugh and do all those things, but I am somehow excluded from it. 

It was a very isolating thought, and exhausting. I'm tired, but I can't sleep, so I'm typing this instead. I'm having this violent urge to change my life, to be a better person, to laugh more, to be happy—I was happy these last few days (the Easter break). I'm happiest when I'm not writing exams in this school and the weight of my results isn't crushing me. 

Quite honestly, I wish I didn't care, I wish I didn't tie my entire self worth to a grade I claim not to care about. I wish I don't get so tired easily and I did things more. I wish I wasn't so scared and underestimate myself so much. 

I miss someone I used to talk to, but I don't talk to them anymore and I probably never will, because I told them I never want to talk to them. It was necessary though, that friendship was not going anywhere. 

I still think about this conversation though, they said they were going to respect my wishes and not talk to me, but they couldn't respect my wishes and be a better friend to me. Toh. 

I wonder if I will put everything I just typed right now in this newsletter, I feel so vulnerable right now. I applied for a job today on a whim, I doubt I will get any reply. 

I'm not exactly looking for a job, I just thought I had the right qualifications for what they were looking for and decided to go for it. I was having a headache then and I was trying not to think about my just concluded exams and the results. 

I applied for something else and I want it really bad, I might cry when I see the acceptance mail in my inbox, but I fear that, like with everything else that I wanted badly, I might not get it or I might get it, and because I've spent too much time wanting it, I wouldn't know what to do with it now that I have it. I just really want it. I want it so bad. They should pick me. 

I'm getting really tired now, I think I want to sleep now. I just want to never get anxious ever again. I just want to be happy. Maybe not happy all the time, because “that’s not possible”, but happiness with little sadness, not big sadness. 

Sigh. 

Friday, April 25. 

All I've done today is sleep and sneeze a lot, now I have a runny nose. I actually just decided to sleep because of the way I was feeling, I was feeling sick. 

The only interesting thing I did today during my “sleep-wake up-scroll through my phone a little-sleep” cycle was read an essay on perfectionism (which I will link in the appropriate section), and it was really timely because I was working on something in the morning and I was feeling really upset because I wasn't getting it. 

There's a line from the essay that says something like,“I must be a master or nothing at all”, and I really felt it. I want to be really good at something, if not, I don't want to do it at all. It's not enough that I do something, I must go all in and be great.

Another interesting thing I came across was on Substack, it was a comment talking about how we are doing things in extremism these days. There's never a middle ground, it's either this or that, black or white. 

It was in response to a note where someone talked about how she didn't want to delete Instagram and she actually enjoyed posting stuff on Instagram. 

The comment reminded me of a thought I had one time about how people keep talking about how you should delete social media and go offline completely, but what if you don't want to? That you actually like documenting your life on a 3×3 grid? That you love watching TikTok and GRWMs? or talking about your job on LinkedIn? And posting everything you eat on Instagram? What's so bad about that? 

These days, it's either you're anti social media and completely off it or you're doom scrolling and brain rotting, no in between. 

I read a Substack where someone said we should try writing book reviews with a pen and paper, and if I'm being honest, I can't think of a worse punishment than that. I don't like writing with a pen and paper. If it were up to me, I would write all my school notes on my phone or laptops. 

People say these things and think it's a one-size-fits-all, they will say, “drop your phone and connect with the people around you”, but if you don't want to and the people you genuinely care about are on the phone? Toh. 

Another thing I want to say is, people are always saying, “not everything is for the internet” in response to other people's content, but who are you to decide that for them? 

You're probably the only one thinking about it like that because of your type of person. I'm not saying people should post sensitive information on the internet, but whatever people want to talk about or post is really up to them. 

Social media isn't the problem, it's just how you use it, and I know some people might say, “oh, but the apps are designed to keep you addicted”, and to that I will say, “that’s where weekly/monthly/daily social media detox comes in”. Too much of everything is bad (I think) and it also applies to the internet too. 

💕 Something new I learned this week: 

• A word: Bordeaux. It's a city in France and it's also a name for a wine that's made in… Bordeaux. I don't know why I thought a Bordeaux was like a shop? I don't know, really. 

• Tu me manques. It's french for “I miss you”, but that's just the English translation. It literally means “you are missing from me”, and that's just devastating. 

• There's a difference between an em dash and em dash, apparently. Good news is, I've been used the em dash correctly and I've always known when people used the en dash in place of the em dash, they were probably doing something wrong, but I just thought that it was another way of using it, but it's just another thing all along. 

💕 Something that brought me joy this week: 

TikTok. 

💕 Something I'm looking forward to: 

• Well, I applied for a number of things, so fingers crossed I get them. 

• An event. Something something capitalism and networking and career. I'm just really excited to learn and see what it is about. 

💕 What I'm most grateful for this week: 

• Money. 

Books.

I just finished reading Blue Hunger by Viola Di Grado. It started off great, and by “started off”, I mean the first 50 pages. You get to page 50 and realise that the story is terrible and totally different from what's in the synopsis. I gave it a 1 star out of 5 stars. 

Synopsis (Blue Hunger by Viola Di Grado):

An electrifying descent from loneliness and grief into obsessive, all-consuming love, by an Italian literary star.

When Xu bites Ruben, when she has her in her teeth, naked and bad on top of her, everything is good. In their skyscraper apartment, overlooking Shanghai’s blue-tinged, pulsating nightlife, they swallow the little yellow pills that will make all things dangerous feel safe.

In abandoned factories and dilapidated slaughterhouses, Xu pushes Ruben to extremes of pleasure and pain that she has never experienced before, to a place where language breaks down and passion becomes consumption.

Blue Hunger asks how we create our identities and how we escape them; it is a fever-dream of a novel, propulsive and uncanny, that demolishes all taboos.

Articles, blog posts, essays, and everything else in between. 

🌻 This Particular Fish Will Fly

Excerpts:

• Her mother was supposed to be a pharmacist. That was the dream. She had written it in her school-leaver’s autograph book: To become a pharmacist and wear fine clothes. Amen. But then her father died, and dreams became too expensive. She married Adanna’s father instead. He wasn’t her first choice. He wasn’t even her third. But he was kind, and kind men were rare in that part of Abia. So she folded her dreams like old wrappers and tucked them into the bottom drawer of her life.

• It wasn’t the first time she had done something impulsive. People didn’t understand how she could be so reckless. But she didn’t care. The world was a machine designed to grind you down, and she was done pretending she could fit inside it. Done pretending that everyone was meant to swallow their dreams just because they were born into a system rigged to starve them.

🌻 your perfectionism will not save you.

Excerpts:

• mistakes have always felt fatal to me. i am not someone who is moved easily but when i am, i become almost compulsive about that thing. i am that way about my work. i don’t care about the fact that i can’t ride a bike (don’t look at me like that, i can feel your judgement all the way from here) or that i’m horrid at maths. i do care about excelling at the things i choose for myself. it’s why i keep starting to paint and then stopping. i must be a master or nothing at all. i’m a writer. who am i if i can’t even do that believably?

• sure, your perfectionism might make you exceptional but it will certainly always make you miserable. i think you deserve more than that. may you never sit alone in the dark with only your cruelty to keep you company. may you cloak yourself in the same kindness you so readily lavish upon others.

Gather round. 

💕 My internet footprint. 

Did I mention that I started a podcast? It will mostly be for book reviews and wrap ups for now. 🙈

That's it. Before I go, newsletters are on Saturdays now. I hope you had a wonderful week. 

Bye x.