Dasianity

i wrote love on my arm yesterday...


for To Write Love On Her Arms Day...

A personal realization that's added 202 words to my NaNo wordcount! This is coming straight from my novel, and spontaneously appeared in the middle of a lengthy description of one of my characters:

***
And now for a metafictional postmodern author’s note: at this point of the story I have 5687 words (that’s five thousand six hundred and eighty seven!) and it is nearing the end of the ninth of November. I have twenty one days left of this month including today, and 5687 subtracted from fifty thousand ( the length that my nano novel has to be) is 44, 313 or fourty four thousand three hundred and three words. NOW if I divide the remaining word count with how many days left I will have the recommended daily word count that will eventually let me reach the top. Let’s subtract one day for the sake of nerves, or as it’s better known for the margin of error. So 44, 313 divided by twenty is….

 

2,215.65!

 

That’s not too shabby AT ALL! I thought I’d never catch up. But it’s still totally possible! As long as I reach my daily word count and don’t pay attention to the nano expectations or other people’s numbers (or how I’m going to come up with .65 of a word every day for twenty days) everything will be absolutely wonderful!

 

</personal rant that has nothing to do with my story>
***

for the record, my whole story so far is written in this frantic loopy style. it's so much  fun :D
 

i was watching an old b&w movie the other night, and was struck by one of the singers (these wartime american movies are a lot like bollywood today - it was all about razzle dazzle and there had to be music!) her name is patty andrews of the andrews sisters:

this image is from their official site, patty is the one on the far right. maybe it's just my love of trivia or vintage stuff, but i just had to find out more about her. she's got this energy of being very comfortable with herself, glamorous and tomboyish at the same time, which fascinates me.

i think if she were around today she could definitely rise to fame as easily as she did then, even in a silly romantic comedy where she had a relatively small part, coming in to sing now and then, she had that x-factor that made me remember her. the andrews sisters were huge and around for ages, but this is the first i've really been exposed to them, which is pretty sad when you think about it.

so yeah, now i've got a new little personality to obsess over  :) not to mention that she'll be shamelessly written into my nano novel, which i've finally picked up again today :) it feels so bloody amazing to just write. hmm... i think i'll make a career out of it ;)

i'm done.

last english exam went... well, like an english exam. panic and cramming and some more panic, then three (two and a half, actually) gruelling hours, then... finishedness! that sweet, relieved feeling that yes indeed, no more exams for me :)

so that's it. i'm done putting effort into my B.A. i'm done. now all i have to do is chill until i find out my marks, which will probably be okay. hopefully!

i had a meeting just now for extra tutoring next year. wow, it sounds scary and like a lot of work... but i'm actually weirdly excited about it :) nerd, i am.

now i'm gonna go home and sleep... i didn't get my 12 hours last night.

my brother found a place. he's going to sign the lease tomorrow and he's out on the first of december.
nano went well yesterday, but since i got dragged out of bed this morning to go to the hairdresser and only got back a few hours ago, i haven't written anything today. (it takes ages because not only does she spend 1-2 hours on every client, there's three of us that go at once. *dies* )
all i want is sushi. i don't want to read postcolonial texts for friday's exam. i want to sleep.
my hair looks a bit weird now, but i like it. our hairdresser just made it all poofy with her hairdryer but once i gel it down it'll look less ... like a poof.
anyway, i'm just a bit grumpy now. but generally, i've been good. being in the moment and trying to enjoy what my life is like instead of comparing it to the vision in my head. presence is good for me :)
exams are so close to ending. i'm so close to the end of my B.A. the last fee payment is going out from my mom's account tomorrow. freedom is on the horizon...

NANO EDIT: i did end up getting a few words in, and now my story has over 5000 individual bits of language! yay! that's the highest word count i've ever devoted to a single story, (FIVE thousand TWO hundred and THREE words, to be exact ^_^) and i did it in two days! who cares if it's crap - it's my novel! :D

last night, i had a dream that i randomly kissed a friend of mine. it was one of those super-realistic dreams when you can feel the other person's mouth on yours, you know?

only this dream was SO realistic, it even came with an awkward conversation at the end! XD

only my brain would do that to me - i can't even dream without awkwardness! it's burned into my very unconscious!

observe! as normal pants...

 become poetry pants! ---->

and this is them on a fabulous model that i had to fly in from milan :D

she totally brushes her hair every day.

i really really love my poetry pants to bits and pieces :) i absolutely love messing up old clothes. my next project will involve bleach and a stencil :O

i've been thinking of going blonde and had nearly decided to do so, until the appointment was made and it became clear that the hairdresser would try and talk me out of it. since i know myself well enough to foresee her persuasions being successful, i've decided to leave the blonde idea for a while.

i like the style i have now, but i'm yearning for a change. i don't know, maybe it's because i can see myself as a grown-up in the not-too-distant future and the upcoming summer holidays will be the last time i can really get away with doing something silly. a girl i know got the front part of her hair done pink, and it looks great. but yeah, i'm not *that* into pink! i can see myself with a black base and dark blue / violet bits, but then there are two problems. firstly, my natural hair is pretty light so the second black grows out it looks like i'm balding :[ secondly, i don't know if i'm quite goffik enough to really feel good about that hair every day.

so that's me, all run out of fun hair ideas. oh well, the appointment's in like two weeks so i've got some time to think of something.
EDIT: seeing as blonde is bad and black is bad, maybe i should just be really RED, mwahaha!

oh, and Brother Situation Delay Number One: he *says* he applied for his passport ages ago, but turns out he hadn't because he doesn't have the right ID book blah blah blah. anyway, mom was shockingly pro-active and went with him to home affairs today. four to six weeks, they say. he's now scheduled to leave in early january. okay, sure. we'll see. *skeptical face*

my mom still sounds like she's absolutely dead-set on putting him on a plane to macau. but she seems to have lightened up about his general annoyingness. doesn't look like she's mad at him anymore. but i still believe her when she says my brother's leaving. maybe it's silly to be this hopeful, but hey, beats being a grumpy pessimist... right? ;)


 

so the house has been tense as my brother is getting kicked out. my mom's kinda funny though, she's usually a complete softy so her general mood of being a hardass with my bro is occasionally interrupted by her smothering habits, and it sounds like this: "you can't just wander around jobless with no motivation in life and be a burden to me your whole life! you're 25 years old! by your age your father was already - what? you're hungry? aaaw, darling, do you want me to make you something?"

it's weird, i feel like we're divorcing him. he's completely zoned out and has stopped even pretending to go to college. he wants to go live with my dad (in macau) and apparently dad's more than happy to take him. so there have been many looong skype convo's related to this. bleh. stressful :(

so anyway, i've been distracting myself with planning for nanowrimo (my username over there's dasia.sparkles if anyone feels like adding me ^_^ ) and generally procrastinating studying for exams.

i've also been feeling crafty, so i'm doing a bit of a wardrobe make-over with some old clothes that i don't wear anymore. i've been researching a lot of craft ideas and now i've bookmarked so many online tutorials that with any luck i won't be bored during the summer holidays :)

exams loom. i know i'm fairly well prepared and studying won't be difficult. but man, why they gotta loom like that? o_o

so that's my life.

my mom has been threatening to kick my brother out for years, but now i think something's shifted... she might actually do it.

a woman from his college called today and said he'd failed all his assignments, had to pay a penalty of R9000 to re-do them before he could even begin to qualify for the year-end exhibition. naturally my mom wasn't impressed, but she's never impressed with what he's doing. but today... 

she told him (relatively calmly) that he had until this time next month to be living on his own. can it be? watch this space...

*fingers crossed for my own room*

so i've been thinking, since i've really enjoyed being on LJ, and since creativity, self-expression and stuffing the internet with angst is good for the soul, that maybe i should join up on other sites designed for these purposes.

i've wanted to put my scribbles on deviantart for a while, and fictionpress comes to mind (even though i'm still icky about people actually reading my own fiction O_O )

my only thing is that i don't want to set up the account(s), link everybody to them and then get over it and leave them idle. i hate leaving things idle and i hate visiting other people's idle accounts. so that's kinda casting doubt on the idea.

so should i? shouldn't i?

... i'm still in two minds about it, clearly ^_^

in other news, i'm actually doing things before the minute before they're due! yay for common sense!

i'm at varsity, and i'm bored with writing my boring essay.

so instead i've been looking out from the computer lab into the main library, watching a nun make photocopies. one guy stands on a ladder (his upper body in the ceiling) while three guys look solemnly on, an idle team of supervisors.

a cute guy just sat down at the computer next to mine. he doesn't seem too busy. i could talk to him, but i won't. he's not cute enough to go through the effort of actually talking to him. there are two types of cute guys who sit next to me in these types of situations: the ones that aren't cute enough to talk to, and the ones that are too cute to talk to.
tralala.

when i grow up and have lots of money, i'm gonna buy everything in The Fainting Room!

seriously, this place has such gorgeously killer corsets, it's just a goffik dream come true. :D

pet society WILL NOT LOAD. i am going crazy.

i'm feeling restless and sleeping a lot. i've also run out of inspirational books to read, which is bumming me out because i don't get that temporary mind-relief.

i've been playing waaay too much bubble town, so when i close my eyes i see bubbles.

i have two essays due next week. there's like three fuckin weeks left of this year. oh em jee. doesn't that just freak you out?

so now i'm wandering around the internet and eating a lot of cereal and drinking a lot of coffee and waiting on the world to change.

there is nothing very terrible about being me.

maybe i think about it too much.

i was journalling yesterday (not much more than automatic writing) and i was struck by the line "i don't want to die, but i don't feel up to living."

i don't want to die, but i don't feel up to living.

i don't see myself as a very productive person, but i do get around to getting things done. i put a lot of energy into feeling guilty about procrastinating. in fact, sometimes it feels like all i ever do is feel guilty. i put things off because it seems so overwhelmingly impossible to do them. but my fear of what will happen if i don't do things eventually builds up so that i force myself to start, and somehow it gets done.

i think my university has incredibly low standards for marking. it's the only way i can rationalise why i get decent marks. it can't possibly be because i'm good at writing essays. no, i couldn't possibly have earned it.

these are the last few weeks of my undergrad degree. a part of me is freaking out, while another part is a little indignant that these few weeks appear so ordinary. to be honest, i never believed that i could finish my degree and graduate. no, i couldn't possibly be that smart or diligent. i always assumed that there would come a point where the work would be too much to handle or too complex to understand. there would come a point where i gave up. i couldn't possibly do a whole degree properly.

i'm the girl who breaks things, and doesn't know what to say, and feels lost and confused when she should be together and optimistic. i'm the most childish, naive, clueless 21 year old on the planet.

i took a week off varsity to get over the flu, and i'm going back tomorrow. i know it's irrational but i'm so scared. i'm scared of having to explain myself and ask for extensions on work and generally do the varsity thing. i'm scared of people paying attention to me and asking where i was. technically i'm feeling better but i'm still rather drained and fatigued, and i don't want to deal with anything. rationally i know i'll be fine, but a big part of me just wants to hide in my bed until forever.

i don't know how to change myself so that i'll feel up to living. i want to. i want to have energy and enthusiasm for my life. i just don't know how.

i want to have faith in myself.

my left arm feels weird, like the bone is itchy or something. i guess i slept on it funny. sooo annoying.

also, i haven't been able to log into my favourite time-killing game, pet society (on facebook), for three freakin' days. grr.

i'm REALLY bored of being an invalid, but i don't have the energy to do anything yet. taking my last antibiotic tomorrow morning, and hopefully this aweful paracetemol taste will be vanquished from my tongue. until then... blehehehe. >.<

i'm still sick with flu. i've had a fever pretty much non-stop since friday, and i haven't been able to eat anything since then. i don't look anorexic yet, which is just a bummer. :P

i'm on anibiotics though, which are making me feel less zombie-like. yay for the power of pills!

in my zen state of sickness (you know, when you don't have the energy to really care or get angry at stuff) i've had a couple of realizations:

my life, as far as lives go, is pretty meaningless. now that i'm practically a grown up, i'm not okay with that anymore.

i spend most of my energy feeling guilty for not doing things i intend to do (which is mostly unrealistic stuff like 'read 6 months of anthro this weekend'). i have an unfinished story which i meant to enter into the english department's fiction contest. i've been meaning to enter that contest every year since i started varsity. but if i don't enter, then i don't run the risk of failing. is my ego that fragile? apparently.

deep down, i don't actually believe that i can have the life i want. but i want to be free of that kind of pointless, destructive thinking.

so i'm trying to forgive myself for letting myself down in the past. as i'm resting because of my illness (and i don't think i've ever slept so much in my life) i'm re-evaluating what's important to me. i've also been slowly de-cluttering my space, which makes me feel calmer when i look around. i've taken down the vision board i've had since first year, and i've taken all the pictures and put them in a kind of 'happy-thoughts box' that i can look through when i want some inspiration. i'd realised that seeing the board when i was in a bad mood just make me feel worse, reminding me how far i have to go to accomplish my goals. with the box, i get to choose to look at it when i'm already in a good mood. i feel like i'm offering a purer energy this way. :)

i've been pondering why i've been sick so much this year. perhaps i'm just sick of varsity, the stress and the daily grind of bus commuting, dreadful lecturers (especially anthro this semester. GOSH.) and the neverending pile of reading and writing to trudge through.

don't get me wrong, i love where i study and all my friends there, i even find the work occasionally enjoyable, and i know how lucky i am to get this opportunity at all. it's just, like, enough already.

so i've been entertaining the (crazy! unrealistic! ridiculous!) idea of taking a year off. and it's not that i want to be a bum for a year. i'd work with my mom, obviously, but i'd have time. sigh, time. time to read, write, draw, gym, get my driving lessons... time to think, and yes, time to sleep! the freedom to wake up and decide what i'm going to do with my day is what i crave. maybe that's unrealistic. maybe i'll waste a year sleeping, getting fat and having cabin fever. maybe.

but i can dream, can't i?

i'm considering it. it feels really really good to just consider that i can take a different path in my life than the one logic set out for me.

i've always been a lonely person.

i'm attracted to people who will perpetuate that loneliness.

the last few weeks i've been withdrawing more and more.

i want to connect but i'm afraid...afraid i'll lose myself.

it's safer to feel lonely. at least this is pain i'm accustomed to.

i don't want to tell anyone how i feel. i can't. i don't know. (even typing this is hard, even though it doesn't count. doesn't make a difference.)

it's all just a blur and a mess and i don't want to deal with it right now.

pity i can't take a break from being myself.

it would be nice if i could stop this. then everything would be silent and everybody would stop wanting wanting wanting from me. wanting things i can't give.

wanting me to be real.

i can't.

i've tried
and i've cried

and i can't.

you will waste a lot of time on the internet today.
you will crave another fortune cookie after this one.
this is your third fortune cookie, isn't it?

i should REALLY stop torturing myself with online window shopping when i have virtually no spending money.

i really shouldn't even consider buying this dress:





which i found here. feel free to steal it from me because i shouldn't be buying it.

so. pretty.

so i had this essay for monday. that's today. and i kinda meant to do it sunday night. but i didn't. so i kinda meant to wake up early this morning and do it. but my phone switched off and the alarm didn't go off (no, really!) so i didn't. i went to hand claire's in (she wanted to spend the day with her daughter so i offered to give it in when i gave in mine. watcha gonna do?)

so i kinda meant to do it this afternoon and give it in tomorrow. but i took a 3 hour nap instead. so i kinda meant to do it tonight. but the survivor finale was on.

oh and WTF, sabc3?! they suck. they showed the whole damn last episode and when the final tribal council came on they skipped it and cut straight to the reunion!! grrr! seriously, they cut out the best part of the season, when the jury asks the dirty hungry final three difficult questions. so it was like "and now the jury gets to ask tricky quest - AND HERE'S THE WINNER! wow we didn't see that dramatic finale coming, how do you feel?" lame, sabc3. lame.

so back to this essay. i kinda mean to do it tonight, then go in tomorrow morning and hand it in, spend the day researching my other essay. but. i. don't. want. to.

and besides the Bus Rapid Transit system starts  tomorrow, and what if i get caught in the middle of taxi drivers striking and being psycho assholes? what if i DIE. i don't wanna die. for fuck's sake, i may as well die for english.

so the new plan is that i kinda mean to write it tomorrow. blah. but i should probably get it out of the way now. blah bleh blah.

i've been watching a lot of  neon genesis evangelion, which is seriously getting in the way of my manic delusion of actually getting shit done in this week off varsity. it's a run-of-the-mill scifi anime series. it's really fun because last time i watched it i was 16, and so into the drama, taking it all so seriously. there are some unintentionally hilarious bits of cliche overkill - dramatic silences that last waaay too long, jazzy pomo internal monologues and the like.

i really don't care about this essay.

i'd rather lie in bed until i fall unconscious.

down? me? never.