whiteadelphi

/squints at Russia's new TOS Agreement for LJ

/squints hard

...yeah.  I'm out.  For the few people who still go here. 

Y'all can catch me on Tumblr, though, at plothooksinc.    I mean I would say you can catch me on Dreamwidth because that's where I'm posting from, but this is the first entry I've written here in years, so...

Apart from random plagiarists, my last couple of weeks have been sort of nonexistent. That's because UG gave me his stupid cold infection thingy from the convention he went to, and the tail end of it kinda makes you float through the week with the vaguest sense of existing. You sort of answer a tag and then wonder what you did for the last three hours...

I'm improving now. I'm also putting off telling work I'm better because I'm lazy.

Some other stuff that's going on with me:

1) I'm still working as a transcriptionist. They've strengthened communications between the typists, which is a bonus.

2) I'm now also technically the producer for a video game company.

3) Closely aligned with 2) is the fact that UG has decided he hates working for the government and has started programming video games with a mutual friend of ours in the hopes he can make a living out of something he actually enjoys, but wants someone to take care of the administrative side of things.

4) He's also going to give me Adobe Premier if I would be willing to create his promotional videos. I deferred that request on to ZZ because she'd be better at it, but I think I still get the software. >_>

5) I have about seven half-finished AMVs sitting on my computer. I will one day finish one.

6) I am ragequitting the One Piece anime for a little while. this gif may give you a clue as to why. Along with this picture. (She's also saying the words "I'm all messy" here.  Nothing like seeing your favourite character, who is a strong and well rounded individual, reduced to nothing but a pair of breasts and terrible innuendo, right?)

7) I am still greatly enjoying RP, though given the pictures in (6) are sadly nothing new it's playing havoc with my interest at times.  I'm not as hooked into it as I used to be, but it's still fun.

I still don't have a great deal to say on blogs but I'm trying to think of things.  Ask me to write about something and I probably will.  Though I will say I feel a lot more cheerful about things of late for reasons I ..find hilarious.  I don't know, has anyone else had an epiphany as the result of something a character says in a video game?  But I needed to find more things hilarious anyway, so I'm down with this. |D

Hope everyone else is doing okay.

The last little while has been somewhat annoying.  Sort of dropped out of existence due to trying to combat some heavy duty insomnia of the kind that won't let you sleep more than two or three hours in a night (and on one special occasion, 83 whole minutes, thanks body), and while that often meant I would fall asleep for a couple hours in the afternoon as well, there is something singularly unproductive and useless about a life in which you spend a small portion of your time sleeping and the majority of the rest of it trying to sleep.  I've had this kind before, just never so badly; I figured all I needed to do was wait it out.

Several months later, I now manage a healthy sleeping night of 9pm to 4-5am and am kind of okay with this, and trying to pick up the dregs of what passes for my social life now.  Ahahah.  Ahah. Some time soon would be healthy, given insomnia -> depression and loneliness -> depression, and I found in one of my more recent forays out into town (which I'd abandoned seeing for months on end) my agoraphobia had started creeping back in, too.

Well, fuck that. B|

Anyway.

I'm switching from Adelaide uni to Open Education again, because I.  Uh.  Well, apart from health issues?  I just don't have the mental strength for it, apparently.  That is to say:  I learn fine, and I have a brilliant mind, and I can debate issues with the best of them.  (I had huge fun with Anthropology.)  Buuut the first time I had to give a presentation on my own, I got triggered into a massive anxiety attack and that.  Was actually one of the last times I went back in the semester.  Because my brain was too busy screaming AUGH PEOPLE DX and I couldn't face it.

Which makes me feel pretty pathetic, because this wasn't a problem six years ago.  But it sure as hell is now.  I guess I've been sliding in this direction since the last year at the club, when events and revelations cut my ego off at the knees and I've spent so much time ever since second guessing my every move and convincing myself I'm someone people would prefer not to be around.  Which is stupid, because logically if this were the case I wouldn't have people attempting to drag me out for my own good on a regular basis.

Such is life.  The other part of it, I think, is that I should probably own up to the fact that yes, as a matter of fact, I do function best under the influence of high stress or trauma.  And when there is an absence of either, I just ghost through the system.  I suppose Claw Guy was probably correct (if putting it badly) when he said years ago (...akfadfa a decade ago now) that I love to surround myself in trauma.  I don't.  But I'm never more on top of my game than when I am.  Said a career counsellor a little more recently, you get off on stress.  I can hear it in your voice.  ...okay, yep. 

So careerwise.  Temping always appealed to me because I was thrown in at the deep end of a job and I would enjoy it until everything calmed down and then I' dstart hating it.  I'd eventually get to the point of not being able to face going to work because nothing was going wrong.

...don't get me started on how the most fun I've ever had in the last twenty years was putting my life in danger or living by the seat of my pants when there were no guarantees.  It's this side of me that probably meant I could carry the club as long as I did, because hey.  13 years of having no clue where the next rent cheque was going to come from, and I did it every time.   (But clearly enjoying stress also has a shelf life, because you can see how the joy of dealing with the club dwindled year after year.  Honestly, I really should have let it close in 2006 when we were evicted.  But that also triggered the fuck you, wanna bet!? reaction, so there you go.  But that's another story.)

Soooooo...how do I stay on top of my game when absolutely nothing is going wrong?  When there is no stress?  When my existence and the world's events appear to be mutually exclusive?  Becuase most people, I understand, are meant to become anxious and depressed when they're under buckets of stress and relax when their life is going smoothly.  Not the other way round.

Anyway, it's a knotted mess in here, I guess.  I'll just own up to the fact that I have some serious anxiety and depression going on (which is also why I never update anymore, because pfft, really, it's easy to convince yourself people would go "Why are you telling us this?  We don't care." And so why should you care?  Well.  Actually, even if nobody does, it's my journal.  I'm just gonna reclaim it and write what I want to, 'kay.)  I don't have a lot of faith in humanity, because I'm tired of friends just sort of vanishing on me, but yes.  That's a two way street and I should be there for them, too.  (Though word to some of you, guys:  I love you and all, and I know I haven't been in touch lately, but uh.  I have a phone and you have its number, and if I'm always the one that's called you maybe you should give it a whirl in the other direction some time.)

Most days I am just tired of life and of living and am sort of just tapping my fingers at the days going past.  Sometimes I remember that's a bad thing, but then I don't know how to fix it.  I'm anti-social but I'm lonely, and I need human contact but I despise it a lot.  I'm just a big bundle of contradictions and hypocrisies right now. 

* Right here was some other stuff I wrote, but I cut it, because your eyes are probably glazing already.

Also, I need my writing muse back.   But it's sort of wavering on the edges there.  At least i got started on Zai again.

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Oh and hey, I rambled about stuff instead of just popping in and going "HI I EXIST" again.  WELP.  Here's the tl;dr version.  I've forgotten how to be strong.  I'm trying to work out how to fix this, but I'm coming up blank.  But I'll do it eventually.  In the meantime, have a wall of text.

Hilariously, I'm meant to be the best man at a wedding in another two months.  This requires me standing up and giving a speech to a bunch of people I don't know, right? 

8|

I wrote three pages of Zaibatsu Project today.

Just sayin'.

I think I may be cursed with university. Not that I'm dropping out, but certainly there are factors contributing to make this as difficult as possible.

Went on antidepressants a few weeks ago to try and combat my horrible moods enough to continue going, and got hit with a nailbat-load of side effects. In fact, all the problems I usually associate with extreme thyroxine withdrawal: freezing cold, fatigue, and the bleakest desire to just sort of sit there and die. Kinda sucks.

But we've ruled thyroxine out, because my levels test came back fine. Annnd so we're looking at other factors and...

...the doctor said it very offhandedly, but he might have a point.

( Cut for TMI )

* Nobody in Japanese turned up with the required reader for Japanese, though this may well have to do with the fact that the copy centre doesn't open until 9.30.  As a result, entire class booted out at 9.30 to go buy it. 

* This required queueing up with everyone else in other early classes who had obviously met with the same problem.

* Queueing should be made into a national sport.

* For instance, during the 80 minute break between my Japanese class and an Anthropology lecture, I (a) queued to buy some biscuits, (b) queued to use the ATM, (c) queued to use the bathroom, (d) queued to pick up the rest of my readers, and (e) oops, never mind.  Out of time.  

* Anthropology lecture was interesting.

* What I could hear of it, anyway.  Also, I really, really need glasses.  /squints at the slides down front

* This teaches me that I should get there early and go sit down the front somewhere.

* Or possibly just buy glasses. 

* Then I queued at the bookstore to pick up my remaining textbooks.

* That was painfully long.

* And painfully expensive.

* But at least I got to stare at a book called Hungover Owls for a good five minutes.

* Hungover.  Owls.

* Okay then.  Not much I can say to that.

* Then I bought a tuna sandwich, lamented the weight of my backpack, and holed up in the library to write hiragana over and over.  

* I have to learn those suckers by Thursday.

* Hungover.  Goddamned.  Owls.

* History lecture was harder to hear than the Anthropology one.  Even with the doors closed.

* This was possibly due to the fact that an entire lecture's worth of students were lurking right outside said doors.

* Today, I couldn't hear either of the lectures well, but at least they get put up online.  So I've downloaded them to listen to all over again.

* Which makes me wonder whether it's worth going to these lectures in person before I get my glasses.

* Tempting, but I'll be good.

* Mostly.

* I mean come on!  How often do you see owls go barcrawling?

*  Or ...barswooping, as the case may be.

*  ...oh yeah.  Then I went home. 8|

So yes, I got home and I should do a whole pile of readings, but first I naturally looked up drunken birds.  drunkenowls.tumblr.com, eh.  8|a 

I am tired but satisfied.  Whether or not I'll be any good at any of this is still up in the air.

So I'm sort of waking up on a metaphoric level and finally feeling the desire to re-engage with the world in general. Uh, probably not a huge surprise to anyone, but the lack of posting on LJ has just been a side effect of a pretty huge withdrawal from just about everything ever.

It's the main reason I decided going to university next year would be a damn good idea. And in attempting to arrange this, I found out that I have done my psyche some pretty nasty damage, apparently. e_e But in the name of trying to post here again (without the constant pessimistic voice saying "Don't bother, nobody is interested," thanks, self-esteem), lemme just explain a little further.

( Aka: how deciding to go to university landed me in therapy. 8| )

Haha, in trying to actually process and explain how I feel tonight, I actually had this conversation with Shira that just about covers it:

( Which I will cut, but )

Yeah. I keep meaning to write up an entry on how going to sit for this STAT test actually ended me up in therapy for only vaguely related reasons. @_@ I will get on to that. And post more. Honest.

...to bring this news to anyone who may be interested:

Manga creator Nobuhiro Watsuki will be resuming his Rurouni Kenshin series for a brief run starting in the June issue of Shueisha’s Jump Square magazine, which will ship on May 2, 2012. The magazine’s advertising describes the samurai manga’s return as a “reboot,” although the magazine may not be using the term with the English denotation in mind. More details will be in upcoming issues of Jump Square.

RK fever is certainly sweeping the land, isn't it? I'm kind of curious as to what he could actually be doing with this, given Ruroken is kind of a complete story on its own.

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Due to LiveJournal's recent dickery and lack of professionalism, chances are high that I'm leaving the site. I've already created Dreamwidth accounts for this journal and two others and one for zaibatsuproject, but I am not using them yet. I'm giving two weeks to see if LJ will actually listen to the complaints raised about their new changes, or at least address why they won't be addressing complaints in a professional manner.

The new commenting changes have crippled most RP communities on LJ, so that's why my RP accounts might end up moving. LJ's attitude about the thousands of protests they're receiving is what's making me consider moving. I'm sort of hoping LJ backtracks a little to give us a workaround, which is why I'm still here at all, because a workaround would kind of...be an improvement on both the changes and the attitude. Also, I'm old and decrepit and hate change, so it's depressing that I'm thinking a move is the best thing to do right now. 8|

I'll let you know if I do go. In the meantime, have a good Christmas.