august entries ----------------------------
weather: partly cloudy, 15c.
highlight: hanging out with my girlfriend :).
.29
i cleaned my room some more after writing my entry for yesterday, mostly to do with my clothes.
relative to the rest of my family i have a very small amount of space for clothes. they have at least a dresser and some closet space, while i only have a dresser, and the smallest dresser out of all of them. but i also just don't have as many clothes in comparison to my family, so it was a logistical choice.
or rather, i have a small pool of clothes that i like wearing. so i just... don't need that much space to store clothes i'll never wear.
until yesterday my dresser was overflowing with clothes because i dreaded having to go through and sort out the ones i want and the ones i don't. but somehow i managed the motivation, and now i at least have the clothes i intend to keep and the clothes i plan to put away in a list.
in other news, i get to hang out with my girlfriend today for the first time in a while, so i'm looking forward to that. i've been using our meeting time as a sort of deadline for my cleaning, even though it's not like she's gonna see my room. but the motivation works all the same.
weather: rainy, 24c.
highlight: got my room in working order.
.28
i did some cleaning of my room, just enough for me to be able to do things in it without tripping over things or having to push large piles of stuff to make room for more large piles of stuff.
today is my first day back where everything felt closer to being normal. it was nice. i prefer things this way.
when i first came back the fridge was almost completely empty. my family subsisted on things we bought before the trip until my mom was okay enough to drive on her own. today she went grocery shopping and our fridge was packed in an instant.
it's a privlege to have this much food. and it's a privlege to not have noticed it sooner. i don't come from the best family but at least i never have to worry about my next meal. that fact alone makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
weather: sunny, 16c.
highlight: back in my home country.
.27
i'm finally back in my home country, which is to say i've been very busy preparing to move, moving, and then unwinding from moving across the world. but i'm back now. the air is cooler here and it's easier to just...exist. school is starting soon as well. all in all i'm happy to be getting back into my usual rhythm.
shorter entry cause i'm still tired (and jetlagged) from travel and need to conserve my energy for more important things. site updates will probably slow for a bit, i realize upon using this site on my home computer that the proportions look off on a bigger screen, so i'm gonna have to fix that before anything else.
weather: sunny, 32c.
highlight: couldn't sleep... can you call that a highlight?
.17
in trying to find more information about the origins of grave of the fireflies i've come across a number of different discussions online about the film, and it baffles me how someone could miss the point of a movie by so much. grave of the fireflies is an anti-war movie. it's autobiographical — seita and setsuko were real people, not characters created for the film. that much was clear to me from just watching it.
it's jarring to me when people criticize the 14 year old boy living in a war for not being able to effectively take care of his younger sister (which... he shouldn't have to do anyway? because he's still a child himself? it's almost like this huge responsibility was pushed onto him because of the war and his inability to care for his sister effectively is supposed to illustrate how innocent lives are changed forever, if not outright taken, as a result of war), or the aunt for having to put the well-being of her own family before her in-laws. as if the theme of the movie isn't that otherwise kind people are turned selfish and unlike themselves within a war.
i had more to write but i can't think of a way to phrase it in a way that properly gets my point across. but i pity people who think every story has to have an antagonist character that they can pin every bad happening in the movie on.
weather: sunny, 31c.
highlight: watched grave of the fireflies.
.16
i haven't been able to add a ton of new entries recently. i've been busy, but even then there hasn't been all that much i can write about. most days could be summed up in about one or two sentences —— i went here and bought this or i stayed home and did that —— which wouldn't make for particularly interesting entries. or it would just be repeats of things i've written about; grief over my ex and my old friends.
i know this is my space to write about my thoughts and feelings. but i feel like somehow if i write about them it's only preventing me from moving forward. as long as everything stays in my head things are less real. but if i type them out it's proof that i'm still hurting just as much as i was before.
i don't want to hurt anymore. i've hurt enough. i've been hurt enough. i want to love but even in love i'm constantly reminded of how many times i've been hurt.
weather: rainy, 29c.
highlight: things were quiet.
.12
today i felt happy that i got to wake up and have a comfortable chat with my girlfriend. and then i realized how embarassing it is to be so incredibly greatful for things that i shouldn't have to feel greatful for.
it's good to be greatful. i don't mean to sound like i'm entitled to certain kinds of behavior from someone just because they're my partner, because i think what you can and can't expect from a partner is a lot more nuanced than that. but i hate when i catch myself being greatful about them doing what should be the bare minimum for me. it feels like a bitter reminder of how i let myself be treated so poorly to the point where the bare minimum feels like a reward.
i'm reminded, mostly, of my ex. she ghosted me at around this time last year, so maybe that's why thoughts about her have been lingering in my brain all of the sudden.
i'm reminded of her and how she would sometimes not message me for days on end because she was "busy". maybe she was, or maybe she wasn't. the point is not in how hypothetically busy she was or wasn't, but that it takes seconds out of someone's day to check in and respond to their messages, and she didn't do that. but she somehow always found the time to respond to messages when it was about the things she liked...
every time she responded and we finally got to have a single conversation it always felt like a fight against keeping her interest. getting her attention for just a few more precious seconds. i could feel it in my chest when i said the wrong thing and it made her lose interest. when i realized i lost that chance because of my own inability to be good for her again.
i'm greatful. i'm greatful for my girlfriend and the fact that they talk to me every day. i'm greatful that i get to talk about things that they might not be interested in but i am. i'm greatful that i don't feel like i have to fight for their attention, that a response to every message feels like a guarantee, rather than a privilege. i'm greatful but i shouldn't have to be. not this much.
weather: rainy, 28c.
highlight: ate some good noodles.
.10
sometimes i wake up from dreams that i don't want to end. light, fuzzy little things. and i try so desperately to fall back asleep afterwards just to live in that moment for a little longer. sometimes it works, today it didn't.
admittedly today's dream wasn't as bad as other ones i've had that i want to go back to. i just hate how real fiction feels in a dream.
weather: sunny, 33c.
highlight: did some cleaning.
.09
it's been just a little cooler ever since it rained a few days ago. not having to have the air conditioner on all the time is always welcome.
but in spending most of the day with the windows open made me realize how much i prefer silence. i've been wanting to close the windows not because i want to turn on the air conditioning but to block out the noise from the outside. the cars driving past or the birds cawing in the distance or the neighbors chatting in the street. it's all very nice in theory but in practice it's just. too much.
but people are naturally loud. that's not something i can force others to change. i wear headphones a lot to combat the sound.
i've been working a lot on improving the site too. i want it to have more depth than being a single-page blog. i have an index already and an about page is on the way. trying to think of unique grid layouts for every page takes a long time. trying to then make them work takes even longer, but the end result is always worth it.
weather: downpour, 26c.
highlight: reflecting on things.
.07
all my life i've been overweight, and the the majority of it i grew up feeling nothing but shame and humiliation towards my body. it was my mother that instilled the feelings in me first, the belief that i am ugly because of my weight, that clothing would look bad on me simply because of the shape of my body. society soon echoed a similar notion; that my overwightness was a direct cause of my own laziness, and that i am subhuman because of it.
i, as a child and early teenager, tried and failed multiple times to lose weight. dieting, exercise. i could never keep up the habit and i would never see results, but every time i had my daily weigh-ins i grew more and more anxious about the number on the scale getting bigger. so i chose to disconnect. i remember my first two or so years of high school were spent wearing t-shirts, hoodies, and sweatpants that were multiple sizes too big for me. anything to hide the body that others labeled as disgusting.
going shopping for clothes was always a crushing experience. i'd grab items i thought were cute only to not be able to fit into them, and in those moments it felt as if the store or the clothes or the people outside of the changeroom stall were all mocking me for ever believing i could wear something pretty. prettiness was reserved for thin people, not me.
when i finally would find something that fits, i would buy it. not because it's comfortable or i liked the design or it matched my other clothes, because it fit, no matter how much i disliked certain aspects of the design. and as a result i ended up with a lot of clothes i don't wear just because it fit in the changeroom stall. my mother would nag me for wasting her money on clothes i don't wear, and i'd feel bad all the same.
i look back on these memories with a sort of bittersweetness to it all. bitter because i should've never felt so bad about my growing body so young, bitter to the world for making me think that my vessel was something to be changed to their liking, bitter, somewhat, towards my mother for passing her own insecurities onto me. and sweet because i'm proud of myself for not thinking like that anymore.
i'm not sure what sparked the change in me, but i suppose at some point i came to the conclusion that if i cannot change my body then the least i could do is love it regardless. but shifting the way i thought about myself and my body took a long, long time. several years, probably. and i, probably, still have several more years to go. but i'm happy with the way i think about my body now. i think i look pretty. i have curves and i'm soft and i don't think being fat is a bad thing. it's a descriptor, not an insult, and it's not something i look to change about myself.
the biggest marker of my progress has been being able to go shopping for clothes without ending the trip hating myself. it's quite the opposite now, i enjoy doing it, something a younger version myself would've called me a liar for saying; it's fun being able to try on clothing without being paranoid about being "too big", it's nice being able to refuse an item that i don't like even if it fits me.
admittedly i still like the oversized look and i still hate shorts, but these preferances aren't because i feel i have no choice but to feel this way—no choice but to hide my body with clothing. i like oversized clothing because i like having wiggle room and dislike the feeling of things stuck to my body (i also dislike things like gloves and hats, to better illustrate my point). i hate shorts because i don't like when i can feel everything that comes into contact with my legs.
but it's nice to finally have the confidence to be picky about what i do and do not wear. and it's nice to finally be able to dress in a way that describes me, instead of what i think is expected of me.
which is a long way to say that i bought a nice pair of light-blue jeans and two interest related graphic t-shirts yesterday that i've only had the chance to talk about now. i'm looking forward to wearing them soon.
weather: rainy to sunny, 30c.
highlight: coffee-related troubles.
.06
i always noticed how awful i felt after drinking coffee. i had nausea, headaches, heart palpitations, even start physically shaking if i was especially unlucky.
though i like the taste of coffee i usually only drink it during special occasions. which is usually just to help keep me focused when i study (based on research i read that concluded students remembered things better after drinking coffee than not) or to pair with some other treat, like a donut.
i think at some point i had just assumed feeling bad was just a part of drinking coffee, but after looking it up a bit ago it turns out i'm probably just more sensitive to caffine than the average person. which is interesting! i didn't know people could be more or less sensitive to caffine in this way. though i guess it isn't strange when you think about it.
learning about that reminded me of other times i thought feeling bad was just apart of the standard eating experience. like how i thought feeling internally itchy (and sometimes nauseous) after eating watermelon was normal until my friends pointed out i'm probably just allergic to watermelon. or how drinking soda is apparently not a very painful experience to most people?
it makes me wonder how many other people are living under the assumption that the things they experience are normal simply because it's normal to them. i think it's interesting to think about, or maybe i'm just a little weird.
weather: sunny, 35c.
highlight: watched summer wars.
.04
when i first watched summer wars when i was too young to understand the meaning behind the film. all i remembered was flashy action between fun looking creatures. but in rewatching it today, i was surprised by the fact that a movie with an anti ai and pro human connection message was made so long ago.
i think summer wars is unique in that the fight isn't against an ai that wants revenge against humanity or anything like that. rather the ai is simply doing what is was programmed to do, which at the very core is harmful to humanity, much like the generative ai of today.
the main characters win with the power of community and connection, something the ai doesn't have. there's beauty in that, i think.