This website looks like it's been abandoned

Well, it's not like I have anything better left to do.

Life has been very topsy-turvy.

You know how I mentioned here that I would go to university and I would hopefully start writing more often?

Yeah, that was the last post here for a reason.

tl;dr: my brain is fucked, my body is fucked, college is fucked, and because that's forcing me to drop out, i'm also fucked.

Tertiary education is important.

It's been the thing people do when they've gone through primary and secondary education, but they feel like somewhere, their questions about a particular field have been left unanswered; a path not taken, a door not opened.

One goes to university/college (I'll use the terms interchangably because for undergraduate studies, there's not too much difference in my country) because there's so much more still left to learn; so many more people still left to meet, and work with; so many more things to create, before you participate in society just to keep long-lived inrastructure afloat, to kee the gears turning.

College is that safe space where you can lay your hands on mechanical calculators and see what happens when you divide by zero.

College is that safe space where you can take an empty coke bottle, pump water through it while having an s-shaped pipe attached to its neck and see whether the water being pumped turns the pipe clockwise or counter-clockwise.

College is that safe space where you can decide to go to an empty ground at 3 AM with nothing but binoculars, and lie down to see a meteor shower.

College is that safe space where you can benchmark a computer by running a blender render of dubious origins just for fun.

College is that safe space where you can just walk into a lecture hall you never registered for, sit for an entire lecture, be the most receptive student (or just laze around in the back) and nobody would give a shit; because everyone's an adult and is in that lecture hall to learn something new.

College is that safe space, where you have control over who you are, who you wish to be and how you wish to get there.

At least, that's what I thought.

I was wrong.

As it turns out, for some reason in life you need to maximise a number that often comes in paper form; for that, you need to work under a person; for that, you need to have a piece of paper; for that piece of paper, you go to college, which is for some reason even stricter about everything despite us being adults and obviously being there because we want to.

I don't understand it, and I was having extreme difficulty managing myself in this situation.

I always knew I had trouble in situations people called "easy" if they even thought about it at all instead of breezing through it without noticing; I knew I had experiences that didn't match my peers.

That didn't prepare me for how broken I supposedly am.

here's a list of things i've been told need to be addressed, and I don't know how much longer the list will grow in the future:

That's more word-vomit than i'm willing to tolerate from psychiatrists, so long story short: my body and brain are apparently wired to fuck me over and take others down with me.

Now, I understand where all these diagnosees come from; I've been stuck inside my head all my life, so I know my experiences and what I thought and felt going through them more than some person sitting in a hospital trying to understand people through 5 minute appointments or 5 month tests with nothing in between. However,

I refuse to accept them.

I refuse to let my fingers disobey me. I refuse to let my legs make me fall whenever they feel like it. I refuse to let a loud cafe overwhelm my mind and make me melt down when other people are doing just fine. I refuse to let my discomfort dictate how long I do a task for (that includes writing stuff to post here). I refuse to let my conflicting needs destroy my life, and maybe i'll also stop harming those around me. I refuse to accept that i'm any less of a human than others, simply because I currently lack things others have.

That's great and all, Ash, but how do you translate this to everyday life?

I know, that can be difficult.

I'm spending the new year's eve alone, in a cafe full of people; my friends have all gone home, because they have lives to go back to.

I have yet to build my own, and it feels like i'm in a corner of despair within this overly-expensive overly-crowded place. But that ain't stopping me; I need to be able to create some hope, if only as a middle finger to life, to show it I'm still in control of this broken, dying ship.

<rant>

All my life, I've always tried to circumvent school, a la Mark Twain:

I have never let my schooling come in the way of my education.

I have always tried to make it so that a piece of paper (my report card, or my notebook) isn't needed to define me, and that my actions speak for themselves.

Life is a cruel mistress, because now I only have a small chance of completing college by using a piece of paper (a learning disability certificate) to define me, and leave me at the mercy of the administration bodies that run these institutions.

it's as if life found the one thing that drove me to continue living life (having control over myself and my actions), and found the perfect way to fuck me over.

I don't want to be a part of this. I don't want a piece of paper defining who I am and what I can or can't do, no matter the cost.

I don't care if it makes me unproductive. I don't care if it makes me inconsistent. I don't care if it makes me unemployable.

I am who I am, and I have a right to live. I will make space for myself if people can't find space for me.

</rant>

that was quite the tangent. oh well, back to more practical matters.

on Themes

I do the yearly theme thing I found in a CGPGrey video once. Last year, my theme was love; I had difficulty putting myself over others, difficulty saying no, and I had difficulty accepting that college wasn't being what I wanted it to be.

So I had decided that my theme was gonna be for me to understand myself, and for me to learn to accept myself the way I am, and for me to love myself.

This year has been quite the rollercoaster, and things have mostly been going down. I have constantly been extremely negative about myself, my abilities, and my outlook on life in general.

I'm writing this to bring me back to the right path.

Because nobody can accept me unless I accept myself.

I am a problematic student. I am the slow learner. I am the clumsy kid. I am the angry kid. I am a difficult person to be with. I am broken.

And that's okay.

However, none of those are within my control.

If I wish to have control over my life, I need to learn to have control over everything about myself.

So, that has decided the next year's theme for me: the Year of Skills.

I will learn to be a better writer.
I will learn to be a better learner.
I will learn to be a better host.
I will learn to be a better guest.
I will learn to be a better programmer, if only to write code for myself.
I will learn to be a better repair-person, if only to satisfy my wish to follow permacomputing.
I will learn to be a better communicator.
I will learn to be a human.

I will learn. and I will be better.

Until next time,
Adios.



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