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Friday, 02 October 2009

goodbye... hello.

I know it's a bit disgusting how long it's been since I've posted here, and even worse, how long it's been since I've last visited this topic. Remember when I said my diary was running out? Like... two years ago? I had 4 pages left?

Well I just finished those pages.

So how do I actually feel? I don't know. I felt a lot of pressure to write something worthwhile in there, but after a while, I could feel myself rambling as always. Now I'm realizing, though, that it's the point of my diary to be able to ramble on about nothing. No one reads it (besides me). Who's going to judge my rambling, even if it is the very last entry of my diary? I think in a couple of years, I will wonder why there's such a huge gap between the last three entries, and I will barely notice the lack of content in my last entry.

But now, for the first time ever, I'm allowing a glance into my inner workings... here is part of my last, slightly copped-out, slightly forced, but definitely typical entry in my 6-yr chronicle (read: autobiography source material).

Hopefully not too cheesy. And hopefully I can make it happen.

Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Psy?

This week was a lesson in psychology ...

here's a taste: Today I learned that television really does numb emotion. (I just never thought I would want to use it for that purpose.)

Wednesday, 04 March 2009

Jour?

Today, I realized that it sucks to be a journalist powerless to the whims of sources, audiences, editors, and publications.

Do I really want to spend weeks, months, or even YEARS researching an article, only to have my byline placed under a huge headline that I completely disagree with?
Do I want to lend my journalistic work to certain publications, and then be prohibited from submitting it to other publications with larger and/or more concerned viewership?
Do I want to disappoint the people who so kindly opened up their lives for me to write about?

Well, I don't. I guess I'm still trying to figure out what parts of the whole jour experience will override the shittiness that inevitably accompanies it.

Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Stlog Post #002a

Part A: "Growing Up"

What a cliche. I think any remotely introspective kid will think critically about the process of growing up at least once in his/her life.

And yet, I feel like it's become a central part-- or recurring motif, if you will-- of my life story. Not just the sunny, "I'm a big girl now!" kind of growing up though. I mean the demolishing of pillars, rebuilding of philosophies sort of growing up. Hey, no one ever said the Industrial Revolution was pretty. Oh sure, there's been stories written about the beauty and glory of innovation, but there's been just as many stories of ugliness. My friends, this stlog post is about the ugliness.

So, according to my brilliant Personality Psychology professor who gives the most interesting but not always the most informative lectures, life stories are what give our lives unity, coherence and meaning. I've gotten into the habit of thinking of my life in terms of stories. This is partially because of the classes I've been taking lately (the aforementioned psych class, and dramaturgy in sociology), but I think mostly because I've chronicled my life more thoroughly than most. I mean, what do you expect from a girl with 3 blogs, 2 diaries, a journal, and wrote non-news-related newspaper columns for a year in high school?

Oftentimes, I come across a feeling, or I pen a thought, that seems all too familiar. Sometimes, it's just a faint sense of dejavu that I ignore and let pass on. Other times, I can literally flip back a couple dozen pages and see that I have actually penned the same thought X months ago. Whenever this happens, I feel frustrated with myself. How did I get back into this situation? Why didn't I learn the first time? What's the point of all my sadness and anger if it's not gonna stop me from going through it all again?

One of the things I am most proud of is my ability to know myself. I was probably 12 when I started to write down truths that I believed to be my core principles -- "I cannot go a day without some form of music-- singing, humming, or dancing." "When I'm being earnest, I start to sound angry." "I hate politics." Some of these have held unwaveringly true (in those 7-8 'long' years since I first wrote them down). Others, not as much. Sometimes I will dismiss one without much thought--after all, I was still in middle school at that point. But more than often, the dismantling of one of those sentences can visibly shake me. It's no surprise that these experiences are scary, and that for weeks on end I feel lost and conflicted, and mostly confused. And I remember that so many of my angstiest parts of life were in retrospect, simply transition periods. Either I was reinventing myself, or I had simply lost sight of myself and was finding my way back.

And so, in contradiction to what I've prided myself on for so long (and still do), I find in these situations that I simply have no idea who I am. And these are, without a doubt, the most difficult times in my life.

...... to be continued . . . .

Monday, 16 February 2009

How to exploit worthlessness

So I'm sitting here (almost on a daily basis), feeling slightly guilty about not writing as much as I thought I would, when I started to write again. (Terrible sentence).

And I think about how I used to blog once a day, and then once a week, and then once a month, and then I sort of stopped. And of course, back in the day, my daily posts were pretty worthless. I would probably mention one fickle event of the day that provided me with some sense of entertainment, or that I vainly thought would provide others with entertainment, and then say something silly and maybe randomly cApiTaLize a couple letters. Then I started blogging once a week, and it would usually be about one specific event during the week, or a couple thoughts that I saved up for my weekly catharsis (but who has time to store and release thoughts like this anymore?). Then I started blogging once a month, and the post would usually be pretty good, sort of a culmination of the things I'd been pondering for the past month.

But of course, by that point, I was feeling quite self conscious about my musings and constantly wondered when I would get to the point where they were worth posting.

So I guess I'm sort of lamenting the days where I used to post about a couple silly things that happened to me every day (... and lamenting the loss of my short term ability, and thus, my ability to do so...) where my posts would pretty much be worthless but at least once in a while I would stumble upon something truly interesting, as in, a true expression of the human condition, and since I was so used to posting every day, there would be no hesitation in blogging about it.

This worthlessness paradoxically enabled me to put my worthy thoughts down in a way that the pressure of all-groundbreaking posts could not. Similarly, the worthless things I do every day (like constantly refreshing my 2 email accounts and Facebook, which I always have open...) don't seem as bad when I realize that at least once in a while something awesome happens, like me getting a special offer because I'm an obsessive refresher and saw the email 1 second after it got sent (thank you, Gmail, for making my compulsions so obvious). And all the worthless things I do have some sort of hidden benefit where I legitimate the silly actions by eventually coming upon something worthwhile, that I otherwise would have missed. And therefore I've found a way to exploit my own propensity for worthless things.

In other news, how does my Mac always know when I make a spelling error, no matter what program or text box I'm typing in? It's pretty awesome if you think about it. Which I do. All the time.