Ranting

I’ve realised that slowly i’m transitioning from a physical diary to electronic journalling. Whether or not this is down to me losing the key to my diary i don’t know.

I don’t know how i’m feeling today. It’s been a long day and sometimes things just don’t go the way you want them. I’ve just gotten out of two back to back 2 hour classes with minimal breaks, and i’m in that weird state of being mentally drained and sad, where you just want to curl into a ball on your bed and do nothing but stare at a wall.

I think a bit of it may be boyfriend frustrations. We’re going to see a show later and seeing as i just got out of class, i really didn’t want to have to go all the way home and then come back into town. So i told him that earlier, and asked if he wanted to get some dinner with me before the show.

However because he’s hungover and hasn’t gotten dressed so far today, he would rather ignore that and inconvenience me to go all the way to his (which, may i add, is even further away that my house is) before coming back into town. It’s little things like that that annoy me about him sometimes. I really did want to go to dinner with him

And the way if he’s on his phone and i’m trying to talk to him, he will sometimes just flat out ignore me. And there’s no way i believe that he’s just that tuned out that he actually can’t hear me. He can hear me. He just chooses to ignore me. And the way he’ll often pull out his phone while we’re eating in a restaurant. That pisses me off.

Jesus, and the way he doesn’t own like ANY bathroom products! LITERALLY ALL HE OWNS IS A TOOTHBRUSH, TOOTHPASTE AND SHAVING CREAM! He ran out of shower gel a couple of weeks ago so he was just using the antibacterial hand soap that was in the bathroom. I reckon he’d still be using it if i hadn’t bought him some new body wash. Plus his bathroom is always horribly dirty. It frustrates me that he looks after himself so poorly and doesn’t make any sort of effort towards his appearance. Especially when i try so goddamn hard on mine.

I didn’t intend for this to be a boyfriend rant, and i’m glad that no one reads this blog because i certainly wouldn’t want anyone to hear me bitching about him. In all honesty i’m probably going to have a similar rant when i find my diary key. It’s difficult though, because while i would normally talk to my friends about this sort of annoyances, i’m reluctant to with this topic because i want them to like him, and when people only hear the negatives about a relationship, they start to dislike him. And i really want my friends to like him.

I know i should probably talk to him about these things that are bothering me, but i don’t want him to think that i’m trying to control his life too much.

Dealing with Disappointment

Today has been one of those days where the sadness of disappointment has all but crippled me. For some context, during the summer my theatre society opened up the position of wardrobe manager for our extensive costume and prop store. Being a massive fan of costumes and cosplay, i was so excited and applied for it straight away. I spent the rest of the summer thinking about it and the way i would organise everything, and just generally being so pumped to potentially get the position.

However today i found out that they gave the role to someone else, and the excitement that i had been building up for 4 months came crashing down around me.

The thing with disappointment is it’s one of those things you’re desperate to get past, and you can see ahead in the future where everything is better, but you can’t quite get there yet. Not to sound like i’m having too much of a pity party, but disappointment is a feeling that i’m all too familiar with (particularly when it comes to the theatre society…not that i’m bitter). While experiencing this emotion sucks, i have learnt some tips to help deal with being disappointed.

1. Comfort food. When the first wave of disappointment hits, nothing feels better than pity chocolate. Let yourself eat some junk food without feeling guilty about it. In the wise words of Remus Lupin ‘Eat. You’ll feel better.’
2. Accept whatever has gone wrong and caused you to feel disappointed, and let yourself feel sad about it.
3. Don’t get crushed under the tsunami of disappointment and sadness. While it’s important to let yourself be sad about things, don’t let it stew in your mind until it’s all you can think about and all of a sudden you find yourself in a nest of duvet covers consumed by all your failures and surrounded by sweet wrappers. Trust me, it’s not a good look.
4. Don’t think you’re a failure. Whatever has gone wrong in this instance does not encapsulate your value, talents and worth as a person. Taking a step back from the situation to see how this fits into the big picture can be a good thing. Perspective is your friend.
5. Take all the disappointment you’re feeling and channel it into becoming better. No matter the situation, feeling disappointed should make you want to improve. Didn’t beat your track record? Train harder. Too anxious to talk at the checkout? That’s okay, try again next time. Didn’t get a position of wardrobe manager you wanted? Fine, but you can bet your ass i’m fired up to get sewing and show everyone how amazing the costumes i make are gonna be.

While this is in no way a guaranteed plan to overcome the depressing feeling of disappointment, hopefully someone will be able to take at least one helpful tip from the things that have taken me 20 years to figure out.

Getting Started

Starting something new is always hard. Be it a new job, new school, new story, nothing is a difficult as figuring out how you want to begin. But once you get past those awkward first impressions? Well then you’re on a roll, you’ve got some momentum to keep going.

Having just started my second year at university, this concept applies particularly well. My first year at uni was fantastic, but you can’t escape the awkwardness that comes with the combined factors of being a fresher and with being me. Frankly my memories of the first few weeks of being a fresher are a blurry whirlwind of awkwardly asking strangers the same three questions –

1. What uni are you at?
2. What are you studying?
3. What halls are you in?

…as you can imagine these questions don’t lead to the most captivating of conversations. More often than not they just resulted in me nodding my head before sheepishly shuffling off in search of another drink and another stranger to repeat those three questions to.

Going into my second year, i’m rather hoping that i’ve gotten all the awkwardness of starting something new out of the way, leaving me free to document the rest of my uni days here stress free and without any embarrassing encounters.

But let’s be honest, that’s probably just wishful thinking.

– A