Bad Kids

In the past few months I've received a lot of abuse from a lot of 'brave' people (or maybe just one) via anonymous formspring questions over things that I've done and, as much as the things I've done are bad (which I am aware of), do I really deserve the abuse that I'm getting for them?

In life we're always told to avoid doing bad things, they give you a bad name and can spoil things for you in the future and that makes sense. It's logical and it plays things safe. I feel myself, yet, drawn to another message that society sends out: No-one's perfect. Everyone makes mistakes in life, some bigger than others and some that are more long-reaching than others, but just because people do bad things, does that make them a bad person? Not necessarily, in my eyes.

The title of this blog refers to a Lady Gaga song (from her new album Born This Way, if you're interested, buy it as soon as you can [/advertising]) that deals with the message that I'm talking about. Throughout the song, the lyrics tell of various things people have done (fans, specifically, this song was inspired by them and their experiences) that make them 'Bad Kids': 'My parents tried until they got divorced 'cause I ruined their lives', 'I chew gum and smoke in your face, I'm absurd' and 'I'm a selfish punk who really should be smacked' among other things are what make up a 'Bad Kid' in this context, but then the chorus preaches a message to these bad kids, one that's almost synonymous with my own:

'Don't feel insecure if you're heart is pure, you're still good to me if you're a bad kid'.

I came to interpret that as:
'You shouldn't feel ashamed or that you're a terrible person for the bad things that you've done. If you know you've done wrong, if you truly felt bad for doing it then that means you're not a bad person and you'll always be a good person to me, despite the fact you've done things that aren't right.'
To be honest, I wish that were a sentiment that more people carried, it's one that I try to carry with me whenever I can because I can sympathise with it. I only hope that the people that are, hypocritically perhaps, sending me abuse for doing bad things also see things in this way very soon because the abuse is becoming very tiresome to go through.

Jeremy

I miss you, I can't help it, even if we are mad at each other and probably won't talk for a good while. I never thought that things would turn out this way, not for one bit... I wasn't under the genuine impression that we'd last forever, no, I 'hoped' that we'd last for a long time, but young relationships rarely flourish into something long term. Putting the actual breakup aside, though, I still never thought it would get to the point where I couldn't physically bring myself to talk to you. What you said to me hurt, it really did, and I'm sorry if I hurt you, but I had to say it... if for not for myself and so I could get closure to everything, then for you, so that you know for future relationships.

Tonight, I thought, I had honest people that spoke to me and I had time. Your cuddles, your kisses, the cute smile you make but never show in pictures, the 'retard pacman' you made me be because you thought it was cute... our relationship wasn't all bad, I know it wasn't, and we had a lot of good times and good memories. The first time you stayed over at mine- I fell back into you and I was just laid there looking at you before I said 'I still like you'-, when you announced that we were together at that party- 'I'm going out with Aiden and I love him'- we did have good times and there were times when I was happy, I can't, won't and haven't denied that because I know it's true.

At the same time, though, it wasn't all good. I think I was more unhappy than I should've been, admittedly at times by my own doing. Times when you wouldn't reply to my messages or leave it until just after I got annoyed with you- it seemed to happen too often to be coincidence-, the bare minimum you'd do- not reciprocating feelings unless I asked why you didn't, not doing certain things until I pointed out that you didn't do them...and then, after that, you'd go back to not doing them- and a few other things. Whether you consciously realised it or not, you didn't treat me as I should've been treated and I tried to make you see that nicely while we were dating because, honestly, if I could have everything I wanted then I'd still want to be dating you and for both of us to be happy.

You say you warned me that you were bad in relationships, something I don't recall but I'll take your word for it... it doesn't mean that you shouldn't say 'sorry' for it and, really, that's the one thing I wanted when I even brought the subject up the other day: I just wanted a genuine apology from you.

I cared for you so much, Jeremy.

I cooked, cleaned, tidied, defended, groomed (not in a paedophilic way), cared, treated, cuddled, kissed and put my absolute everything into our relationship because I felt that strongly about it. After a lot of difficult and emotionally conflicted thinking, I reluctantly came to the choice of staying with you and decided that I shouldn't... not because I didn't care for you, because I still do, but because I didn't think you treated me right. There was a reason why I didn't just break up with you that morning, there was a reason I woke you up, cuddled and kissed you to death and then asked you to sit up: I cared. I knew, or thought, that I'd hurt you, and I didn't like that, and I still don't... but I couldn't help it.

And now it's come to this. I want to be friends but I don't want you to think that things were perfect between us, I want you to know what it was really like for me because there's a lot that I hid from you. I want you to know because you deserve to know the truth, because I should be able to tell you the truth, so it can help you with future relationships, so it could make any possibly friendship we had that much stronger for working through it... not a single part of me thought that it would blow over without a single harsh word exchanged but, at the same time, not a single part of me would think it would lead to what it did.

Blocked, rants, those messages, what happened at the Chinese, how I feel, I didn't want any of that when I opened up to you.

I still miss your arms around me and when you'd kiss my nose... I miss you, Jeremy.

Born This Way Review [Working Title Article]

I originally wrote this article to be published in my college's new magazine, Working Title, but the Editor felt that a paragraph (change to italic writing in this post, in case anyone's interested) could be cut out to make it shorter. This review was written about a month ago now but I've decided to post it on here (with a picture of my article's mock-up!) so that people can read the full thing, even though the amount taken out wasn't extensive.

The latest album from the meat-wearing powerhouse of pop, Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ was released on the 23^rd of May worldwide and, needless to say (especially for those who know me) I made sure I bought it the very day it came out and, honestly, I was very far from disappointed.

Starting with the most obvious thing, the cover art, we see Gaga depicted as half human, half motorcycle and not quite in the same way as Beyoncé was a few years ago, we’re talking about the full body works with her head between the handlebars. Quite unusual indeed but, really, what else did you expect from the woman who wears lobster hats and Kermit the frog? Jokes aside, though, this cover perfectly represents one of the ideas that the album should be listened with: Live constantly between reality and fantasy. With that in mind I put the CD in, turned the volume up and entered a world of unicorns, motorcycles and high fashion.

The first thing I noted about the album, overall, after listening to it was that Gaga’s vocals are- for the most part- more natural, raw and untouched than her previous albums, something that makes the songs feel a lot more powerful and dramatic. Something else about the album that I noticed was that, unlike her previous work where the songs could be easily classified into ‘ballads’, ‘pop’, ‘dance’, ‘acoustic’ etc., the songs on Born This Way have very mixed genres. Distinct elements of rock (quite a lot, actually) are present alongside dance beats, classical instruments, jazz solos, mariachi bands, electro-pop themes; the entire album is this conglomeration of many different genres that, on paper, shouldn’t really work together at all…and yet, somehow, they all fit together and compliment each other extremely well on Born This Way.

The opening song, Marry The Night, makes a good introduction to the entire album. It starts off with a slow build up of dance layers with simple vocals before suddenly breaking out into a huge chorus, complete with traditional Gaga hooks and subtle guitar parts mixed in with heavy bass beats. Most of the songs on Born This Way carry out in the same format in that there’s a gradual build up to a spectacular chorus with the ‘sledge-hammering beats’ that the Lady herself promised there would be. The songs themselves all have different themes to them as well ranging from Religion (always controversial but- not forgetting- a big part of any part-Italian Catholic’s life) which is a theme in songs like Born This Way, Judas and Bloody Mary, to Identity (Bad Kids, Hair, Born This Way) and Equality (Americano and Scheiße).

The whole album is a lot darker and different than anything that Gaga has released previously, I felt, and the songs themselves are hugely symbolic and interpretive of, not just the world around us right now, but this idea that throughout life you can be reborn and constantly change until you’re comfortable with yourself. A great listen and fantastic food for thought, Born This Way is an album I’d recommend to anyone without a doubt, its hybrid genres and infectious lyrics make its audience practically universal and at a very affordable price. Don’t just take my word for it, though, experience the ‘cultural baptism’ that’s taken over the world for yourself, I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed.

Anger

One of the seven deadly sins (more commonly known as 'Wrath'), Anger's something that no-one can escape in their lives no matter how tranquil and serene they claim to be. Anger, by my definition, is the body's overflow system for all the multiple factors in our lives that cause us negativity that we can't do anything about; stress; annoyance; despair; depression; all the emotions that get us down. All of them leave behind remnants in our minds that are distilled, purified and collected in a psychological bottle that, eventually, overflows. When this overflow occurs, this is shown as an outward reaction of anger towards something or someone.
Everyone has different sized bottles though (no innuendo intended) and, consequently, everyone's overflow point is different and, as every person is an individual in their own right, the resultant angry reaction is also different. On one extreme, it can take something very minor for one person to then have a violent outburst towards a person, but on the opposing end of the scale it could take decades of anger for one person to result in but a minor rant. Everybody's different.
My own personal view is that it's completely natural and even healthy to get rid of this anger overflow because, if you don't, it can put your body under unnecessary stress and have a lot of long and short term effects (long term being premature hair loss, short term being illness in some cases). Ever one to contradict my own advice though, I find myself getting ever closer towards (if not already past) my overflow point but annoyingly unable to express my anger in a satisfying way. What's annoying me is multifactorial and, also, rather personal, and I'm hoping that in time I can resolve what's annoying me...though that doesn't do anything to vent my anger out.
I've never been a properly violent person. Of course, among friends, you have a level of jokey violence and I'm rather fond of my sadistic humour but that's just it; it's not serious violence in the slightest. What I think I'd love to do most is to just have a huge, angry rant and finally get some answers to what's bothering me, though I'd be slightly scared of doing that at the risk of taking things too far and pushing people away from me- something I really don't want to do, especially as the result of anger.
In many ways, anger is a bad thing but I think people forget that it's also a good thing to have in life. Like it or not, it's a part of the human spectrum of emotions that we're all capable of and eventually feel and it can give people a lot of peace to vent their anger out in a good way, it can be satisfying and actually give people some peace. Conversely, it can also bring about physical violence and it's never a nice thing to feel, it makes people impulsive and distorts the thought process, but the good inevitable comes with the bad in life. It's how you choose to view things and how you act with them that matters most.
I'd like to think that I can handle my anger in a good way, a safe way but, realistically, I just think I'm someone that bottles it up far too much and doesn't properly vent it out at all. Maybe one day it'll come back to bite me, maybe one day I'll just snap and all this build up rage will rain down on someone that really doesn't deserve it (in which instance, I apologise profusely in advance to this person). Hopefully I'll find a good way to get rid of the deadly sin inside of me (that sounds a little too religious for my liking, but I didn't want to just write out 'anger' again) but I don't think I'll be keeping everything inside for too long, it's getting to be a rather big pain, I mean this in both in the annoyance sense and the hurtful sense. As silly as it sounds, it hurts to be as angry as I sometimes feel, I want to just cry; I find crying to be this immensely wonderful emotional drain, you harbour no (or I harbour no) negative feelings after crying, then there's this interim time of neutrality before you go back to feeling relatively happy again...but I just can't cry. After some personal events, I seem to lack the ability to cry unless death's present...and I really wouldn't want someone to die just so I can shed tears.
So it seems I'll have to ponder and think, experiment and find my own way to get rid of the overflow in my life, I just hope it happens sooner rather than later.

The Beach

Breathe in...and out...in...and out...

The mantra in my head played out in time to the waves that diffused out along the beach. Consistently and unwaivering, they rolled along the beach until there was nothing more of them to roll out, throwing a cluster of foamy bubbles along the sand in an attempt to hold their place before being dragged back- once more- to the deeper depths to where they came from. The sound of waves against the beach is an usual, yet fascinating, sound for me. You hear the sound of one wave hitting the shore-the satisfying audial mix between a 'woosh' and a 'crash' as the waves make impact- but you hear this one wave hit the shore at every single point on the shore. It attacks from the left, right, front, other end of the beach, any and all directions but each one sounds different and they all harmonise together to make this short symphony that always comes back for an encore.
Nothing else can be heard aside from the waves, the beach is earily quiet as I sit on the sand, my knees pulled close to my chest. Beneath my feet I can feel the sand; its miniscule, grainy existence working alongside others of its kind to support me upon it. It's the only thing that keeps me in place at the minute but the only thing keeping it in place is itself.
I hate the sand when I'm trying to relax. The grains get everywere and anywhere, no matter what you do or how careful you are. It's nice otherwise, though. Fortunately for my feet, it gains heat easily, so I can never be that cold if I'm sat on a natural radiator. I can never be too warm, either...the sea always brings in a cool breeze towards me, caressing my arms and neck gently, tussling my hair around playfully, making it feel like I'm both alone and yet with company- company I don't have to return pleasantries with but can just co-exist with. Company that smells. Salty and yet fresh- nothing like the air freshners- with a kind of pureness that only something foreign to all human contact can have, it feels slightly cleansing as I breathe it in and out.
I don't even know why I'm here. The beach is usually a place I go when I'm stressed, a place to calm down and let the things that have been building up in me dissipate and go away- I'd never let them out for fear of hurting people. This time, though, I don't know why I'm stressed or if I even am stressed...I just feel like I need to be here. Things in my life lately just seem to be builing up just to die back down again, only then to build back up. In that respect, maybe my life is like the waves on the sea... I think I'll just stay here until I can face things back home again...

Breathe in... and out...in...and out...

Stories

Recently I heard a song entitled 'The Story' on Grey's Anatomy (YouTube it if you like, I highly recommend it, especially when sung by Sara Ramirez) and the lyrics really struck a chord (excuse the musical pun) with me from just a few lines:
'All of these lines across my face, tell you the story of who I am. So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am' and, later on:
'You see the smile that's on my mouth, it's hiding the worlds that don't come out,and all of our friends who think that I'm blessed, they don't know my head is a mess.'
If not just for the wonderful way that they were sung, those lyrics really resonated with me and I began to think about their meaning for me.

The first line that I quoted reminded me of a time when I felt very self conscious, more so than I do now. I can recall constantly feeling exposed and hating myself, looking in the mirror and wanting anything but what I saw staring back at me and I can remember my heart pounding, both out of fear and nerves, when I looked at myself one day and saw that on my sides I had purple lines; purple lines that had gotten drastically bigger since I'd last looked. I'd seen them on my sister when she was pregnant, I knew that they were stretch marks and, for me, it was the defining point in my life where I went into overdrive with losing weight. Through overly restrictive eating plans, exhausting exercise programmes and whatever weight-loss tricks I could research, out of pure fear not to look at those marks again I worked myself to insane extents (I'd have one small meal a day, exercise non-stop for 5 hours and do an hour in the morning before school) to the point where I did have the kind of body that I'd dreamt of having for so long.

One day I was out with my Mum and she bought me a jacket, one that was meant to be tight fitting and when I wore it for the first time I felt nervous of what people might say to me- it was certainly different to anything else I'd worn before- but all I got were surprised reactions of people that were, literally, amazed at the weight I'd lost. Inside, though, I still felt like that scared person that needed to lose weight, so that's what I kept on doing. My parents and my form tutor (separate occasions) had both sat me down and said they thought I had a problem, though I didn't believe I did. From my point of view, I was perfectly justified to lose weight given how I thought I looked. Eventually, I stopped pushing myself to lose weight like I was doing, though, when I look back I still don't properly recall what it was that made me or helped me to stop. Lately, I'm not sure if it's a problem that's completely gone but, when I heard that line in The Story it made me think for a while about this whole thing.

The 'lines across my face' are the stretch marks on my body and, as I've shown above, just those marks alone 'tell you the story of who I am [...] and how I got to where I am' and, for me, it's a very personal story that made me relate to the second quoted set of lyrics I posted. Despite the happiness that people saw in me, the smile that I had when they complimented me on how much weight I'd lost, in my head I was always thinking that I could be better, I should be better, that what I was right now was still wrong. For a very long time, no-one knew how I felt or how strong my desire to change myself was, though I'm just glad in the end that some people did notice and said something to me...I may have been less than gracious at the time about it, but the help of people around you is something that I've come to appreciate greatly in life because not everyone gives it, unfortunately.

The lines on my body, although are now clear and no longer purple, will always be there as a reminder to me; a reminder of what I can do to myself (both with weight gain and loss), the emotional things I went through, the events that happened but, most importantly, they're a part of me that tells a story... one story of the many that I'll come to have in my life.

Chain Reactions

When one event triggers, directly, another event that then goes on, repeatedly, to trigger a series of events, we call this a chain reaction. In a physical sense, this could be a chemical reaction or a system of objects triggered through force consideration into acting in a certain way upon each other. We take most of these for granted in life but, if for some reason, one of these chains were to be broken then the results could be highly undesired. Take, for example, the chain reactions in the body. So many reactions occur in the body as a result of one another and each one has a vital role, if one of them were to slip up then it could throw an unknown multitude of things into chaos. So, for the examples I've encountered at least, physical chain reactions breaking can bring chaos...though I don't doubt that this is true for every case.

Emotionally, I believe, chain reactions can also occur. In my life I've noticed, in myself, a large amount of insecurity and self-doubt in my many areas of my life, particularly my confidence. It's resulted in me being caught up in, what I think, is an emotional chain reaction and it seems to stem from insecurities about myself. I would message someone online, for whatever reason I had at the time, but would- quite frequently- receive no reply. So, if it were a message to which I needed a reply or confirmation of reading, I would send a second message to ask if the first message had been read. With very little to react to from the other person, I started to get the impression that they were annoyed by my messages. This was the first link in my emotional chain. From this, I began to worry that from their annoyance they would then start to dislike me, from there I then worried that they would want nothing to do with my if I carried on. In some form of a vicious cycle, these last few thoughts led me to send further messages in fear of losing someone I care about.

It's no news to me that I take things to heart, read too much into things and often assume the worst possible scenarios, it's probably a combination of these qualities that has led me to the slight paranoia/fear towards the end of my chain. What's the best thing to do in a situation like this, though? I highly doubt that letting things run their course will go well, so then the logical conclusion would be so somehow break the chain I've fallen into...but how? If you're stuck somewhere because of your insecurities and your doubts in a place that will only lead to bad things, what can you do to save yourself? It would be convenient, really, for someone else- a friend, perhaps- to help you break your chain, though not everyone has that.

The best conclusion I can ponder for the predicament I find myself in is not an easy one by any means...but is, I feel, the best one that a person can have if they have only themselves in this situation: To have willpower. Have willpower and try to break your own chain, as strange as you may come across to others for what you say or do, if at the end of it you end up not repeating the same mistakes that you did before or thought you were bound to, then you'll have achieved something that you can be both proud of and more sure that you won't do them again. It's often very difficult to not hide yourself in regrets, despite how much I've come out of my shell in the past year at college I know I'm very much still self conscious and unconfident, but if you truly want something enough then you'll find the willpower in you to do what you need to do in order to avoid the worst. It seems that, emotionally, breaking a chain seems to be the better thing to do, contrary to the physical kind.

Boundaries

Boundaries can take on a variety of forms, mostly physical and emotional, and they can apply to many situations and for many reasons. People may set physical boundaries to protect themselves or others, to make themselves feel more comfortable or secure, whereas emotional boundaries may be set in order to emotionally protect people from harm. What happens when these boundaries are crossed though?

If you cross a physical boundary you may be chastised or you may be physically in danger, if you break someone's emotional barriers then you may offend a person extremely, hurt them emotionally or- potentially- put yourself in physical danger. Of course, this is all situation dependent and also depends on the nature of the person in question whose boundaries have been intruded upon.

What got me thinking about this was an event that happened to me last night. Me and my parents had gone to a family friend's house because she was having a party for her current partner's birthday; there was alcohol and towards the back end of the night I was rather drunk. I had not anticipated what was to happen next, but both my physical and emotional barriers were intruded upon by a man in his late thirties that took a hug- an act that to me is completely benevolent and innocent, an act that I would do to anyone and everyone- and groped me, touched me inappropriately and asked me to return his advances. At first all I could do was just ask him to stop, a night of vodka tends to leave one's head cloudy, but he didn't, so I had to physically push him off of me and tell him that I was in a happy relationship and wouldn't cheat. At the time I felt indifferent over what had just happened, all I wanted to do was sleep and keep the contents of my stomach in my stomach. Today, though, it's all started to sink in.
Physically, he crossed a boundary and touched me in an inappropriate way that I felt uncomfortable with. The act itself, however, also crossed emotional bondaries that, even now, I'm still registering.

I feel violated, like someone has invaded me without permission and taken something from me, but at the same time I feel like I'm the one that's done something wrong, like I've cheated on my boyfriend and betrayed his trust despite the fact that I logically understand that I've not cheated on him. Just very recently, I concluded that I feel like- and this is a terribly blunt way to put it but nothing else quite describes it as brutally well as I feel it- a whore, I feel physically dirty in an emotional sense. What can I do to make this go away? I've honestly not got a clue. A sense of duty came across me today, though, and I felt that my boyfriend had a right to know about the incident. I told him what had happened and, honestly, I expected him to be mad at me and even consider breaking up with me, but he didn't. He said that it was good that I told him but that, if I hadn't, he wouldn't have held it against me. I can't vouch for his emotions but a part of me thinks that he was just glad I was okay. Not in any way did he think that I had cheated, not in any way was he mad at me...and yet the feelings I had still persisted.

This leads me to think that, when you cross boundaries, you risk causing-in a sense- trauma to someone that can last for a while. Trauma seems a very strong way to word how my mind is but, when you look at it, is it not just an extremely mild form of it? Despite what every logical instinct tells me, despite what reality has told me, my mindset has refused to change and is in a worse state rather than a better one.

Boundaries, then, could be seen as a very important protective device that people have developed over time to stop themselves being damaged or thrown out of their comfort zone to a point where they don't feel safe, where they feel vi0lated, prostituted and like they've done wrong. Once this device has been breached and someone does, for instance, feel how I do, how do they then stop feeling like this? My suspicious is that, as with all wounds, time is the best healer and that, over time, I will stop feeling how I do and just look at what happened as an unfortunate event and try my best to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Until then, though, I think I'll be a lot more careful about how much I drink and whom I hug under such circumstances.

Pathways In Life

It's a biological imperative that, within a species, variation exists. Variation, consequently, means that some people are better suited to certain things in life than others due to natural variation from person to person in aspects such as charisma, intellect, strength, obedience and a plethora of various other personality traits that make up a person. To survive in our organised human society it's become a necessary part of life to get a job and work in order to support the lives we lead but, annoyingly, despite there being all of this variation between people- people that originally make these jobs available- the requirements for jobs tend to, on the whole, don't seem to have much variation to them.

From a young age we're now told to have a very clear idea of what we want to do with our lives, so clear that we must know what qualifications (thus courses, places to study said courses as well as other training it might require) we need in order to get to that job in our lives. I can clearly recall in Year 9 at high school being asked to choose what GCSE subjects we wanted to do in Year 10 and having this immense pressure to choose subjects suited to our ideal careers because they mattered so much and were the first step towards them. For 13-14 year old kids (barely teenagers) this is a truly unfair weight to place upon them but, unfortunately, this weight doesn't let up in high school. Further pressure is placed on students through the next two years of their education to consider carefully their next steps into higher education; what type of course; what course specifically; how to apply; when to apply, all the while still placing on a pressure that seems to scream 'If you mess this up, you will live a terrible life'.

The reality of it, though, is that most kids- a fair amount of adults, for that matter- have no idea what kind of career they want to pursue in life, let alone what courses they'd need to go through in order to get there. So these people- a few people I know fall into this category- go on to do either whatever courses they feel like doing or ones that they feel will give them the best prospects for a job once they've completed them. These people, I find smart, because they're working to give themselves the best chances they can despite not knowing anything specific about what they want to do.

The job driven world that we're living in now and the youth of today seems to be, for the most part, like trying to put two completely different jigsaw pieces together and- today- it dawned on me that in today's world there are seemingly so many opportunities but just as many closed doors. Someone I know has been at college and they've worked hard for a year and a half, gritting their teeth and bearing with it as best as they can despite disliking it. Instead of throwing in the towel and just getting a job, they decided to apply to a different course in September only to find out that because he dropped out of college as late as he did that they're reluctant to accept him. This person can be very committed when they want to be and they're also quite intelligent, why is it then that for perservering with a college they don't like and still wanting to do well for themselves by applying for another course their reward is a turned down offer? To me it's not fair and it doesn't make sense. Will this person continue to, yet again, apply for more courses to improve their future applications? I certainly hope so but, honestly, I could very easily see why they'd be opposed to doing that.

It seems that whatever you want to do you need to be the best at everything and have insanely high qualifications to match unrealistic standards. Even then, if you do have the qualifications, comes the annoying and petty thing that is past experience. Given the current economic climate, there are few jobs that won't accept you on without experience but, if you're fresh from education, you don't have any...so where are you going to get experience from if nowhere's hiring you because you don't have experience?

It's as if the world's standards are set at a certain point, a fixed point, and with so much variation in people, variation in how well they perform, what they want to do, if they even know what they want to do, I think it's insanely unfair to set uniform requirements for people. In the effort to gain good, hard working employees and continually raise the standard of work, the working world is alienating the next generation from being able to support themselves at all and, obviously, this will not end well.

I only hope that, in time, things start to become easier on the job-front in life because, if it didn't, then the person that I mentioned above may end up losing their fighting spirit towards making way in the working world. To me, if even one person loses the will to work because of unfair standards, then that's a travesty that should be on every governmental official's mind when they make radical changes to the education system that pressures people into considering their lives in 10, 20 or even 40 years when they've barely lived even a quarter of it by average life expectations.

Emotional Flagellant

Last Friday I went to the coast for 5 days with my Mum, Dad and my Boyfriend for my first holiday in a long while and, honestly, I enjoyed it completely. Usually on my holidays we end up having one family argument or another, the weather's bad or another unfortunate event happens to come our way to stop me enjoying my holiday completely but this time was different. I can honestly say that from start to finish I enjoyed myself...and that's where my problem starts.

In life we come across many theories of how the world works in a cosmic sense. We have the karma theory (that good deeds are rewarded with good events or good 'karma', while bad deeds are rewarded with bad karma) and the idea of 'balance' (where good and bad events happen complementary to another to keep a neutral balance in the world). Logically I believe that neither of these theories are true, however the side of me that has faith likes to believe at least partially in both of these theories. By the karmic theory, my good holiday was a reward for good deeds I had done in the past, however by the balance theory I am now due a bad event happening to counteract my good holiday.

As silly as my mind is and as irrational as it sounds, earlier today I ended up working myself up into a paranoid mood where I was convinced that something truly awful was going to happen to me because I'd enjoyed myself on my holiday. In the past, I've felt that whenever I've had a string of good events that they've then been followed immediately by bad ones that have brought me back down from any happy high I may have been in at the time. This happened last month when certain events that I'm not at liberty to discuss unfolded. So I've become irrational and paranoid that bad things are going to happen to me, I expect badness in my life whenever I have good things. Is this really a way to live? I didn't think so...and yet at the same time, my fear of losing people or things close to me stopped me from relinquishing this dread that bad things would happen.

Upon further thinking in the bath- as all great thinkers work well in the bath, you should know- I mused that, in a way, I'm a bit of an emotional flagellant in this scenario. For those of you who are unaware of what a flagellant is, a flagellant is a person that physically injures themselves in the hopes that God will take pity on them and bring them fortune. In this scenario I'm emotionally hurting myself, inducing paranoid spells where I'm almost yearning for bad things to happen so that I can once again resume with the good that I want in my life, and that my God here is the theory of cosmic balance. Basically, in a way, I was making myself feel bad so that I could have the universe take pity on me and let me go back to having good things.

Don't we all have these superstitious/religious/spiritual beliefs about the world that hold us back at times, though? Surely I can't be the only one? Whether it's religion, zodiac signs, spirits watching over you, old wives tales or even my friends karma and balance, we all harbour some belief or another...but why do we do it? If we can so easily classify them as 'superstitious' therefore not real then why do we still believe in them? Is it through fear or hope (the thought of what if...what if they actually are real?) or maybe it's a desire to control the uncontrollable? In the world so many random things happen in random ways to random people at random times in random spaces, maybe it's a desire to seek some kind of control (maybe a desire fueled by fear? A fear of not having control?) over these events that leads us to create superstitious systems such as Karma and balance and what, furthermore, allows us to at least partially believe them despite our logical minds telling us they cannot be true.

So what if I were to disregard my paranoia and my fear and go on, starting tomorrow, boldy proclaiming whenever I were happy and enjoying every minute of it. If something bad then happened, would that prove the balance theory? Would it just be eerie coincidence? What if, conversely, nothing bad happened at all, does that disprove the balance theory?
Maybe there needs to be no proof at all, the emotional comfort that these superstitions provide to so many people justifies their existence enough. For me, at least, I think that it can be both a hinderance and an aid at times because, like now, I'm expecting bad things to come my way but, if the situation were at the other end of the spectrum, then it would leave me content that good things would come my way once more.

As a general rule, then, maybe the most exact thing I can say about superstitions is what I've said about religion for a while now: Whether they're true or not, they give people faith in their lives that they otherwise lack and in some way it helps them to function better. Not everyone needs it, but some do more than others, so for them it's a good thing to have in life.

Fear

It spreads through your body quickly or slowly, never in between. Like an ice cube in your stomach, it radiates a cold numbness through your entire body, creating a lump at the back of your throat and a sense of vertigo; everything spinning around you despite not moving at all. As if it were happening to someone else, you seem to leave your body, hovering between one being and another as the reality-ironically, given your sense of escapism- sets in your mind. Maybe the reason your perspective on the world changes is because you don't want to accept the reality of your situation? Point aside, it's a feeling that I've become far too familiar with in the past few months, to the point where I can articulate it all too well, as previously done.

What's causing my fear right now, I'm afraid, I'm not at liberty to discuss. In my own self pitying cloud of fearful sadness, though, I sat alone in my room and thought about what had made me become so fearful and why, exactly, it was happening. Admittedly, in the past, I've been far from saintly and have, as I'm sure everyone has, done things that I'm far less than proud of...but does that mean I have to pay the consequences and sit in fear for an undefined amount of time until something, again, bad happens that makes me suffer again? I may not be the injured party in what I've had a hand in and I'm aware of that...but when does it stop? Where's the line that says 'Enough is enough, you've paid your dues'? Personally, I think I've at least met that line and, with what I've found out, could end up far beyond it.

Retribution is a strange thing though. Whether you've paid for what you've done or not depends entirely on who you ask and, for some, the debt may never be repaid whereas, for others, it may have been made up for a long time ago. In my own life, I try to apply a 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' policy, so I usually try to be lenient with people. One person can never truly understand how remorseful another is (or isn't, as the case may be) over a situation, but I like to have faith in people and- even if they've done wrong to me- try to see the best. That may be slightly naive of me...and I'd have to agree, but I think that everyone deserves the chance to do right by something they've done wrong...even if it turns out that they don't want to do right by it.

What does all this mean about my fear though? I'm not quite sure...this blog was mainly just a way to get down my thoughts and feelings. I don't know if anyone properly reads these, but it's when I feel like this that I just want help. Just a few years ago things were so easy, there were no fears of this magnitude, of the kind that I have now, that's the innocence of youth that we all lose eventually: That the world actually becomes dangerous. After a while, there's no-one to protect us, no-one to stop us making the mistakes that bring fear-inspiring danger to our doorsteps. It's to combat this, perhaps, that my naive mind decides to be so forgiving to others...in the hope that maybe someone will extend the same favour back to me. Call it what you will, stupidity, hope, all I know is that it's the one thing- sometimes- that keeps me going: The thought that someone out there might offer the same leniency towards me.

Memories

For a long time now I've been pestered by my Mother to get rid of some of the books that have, over my years of incessant buying, mounted up from being in the bottom of one cupboard to being halfway up said cupboard, a cupboard above my bed and under the wardrobe in the next room. Today, however, she made me fill an entire box full of books for me to get rid of and, honestly, I found it really difficult to throw away any of them. When I read a book so many things factor into what's brought up when I think about it or read it again. The place I was when I read it, the things I thought as I became engrossed in the story, events happening around me, even the music I listened to all play a part in my memories of reading a book. For example: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I rented it from the high school library and I read it every morning in the staff room of my Mum's workplace while listening to Tsukiko Amano. As a result, whenever I think of the Da Vinci Code, I get a musty, rich smell that only library books can have, I can feel the hard, leather seating beneath me, I can hear the soprano tones of a J-Rock artist singing about losing a loved one. For me, every single book thrown away was like a memory, a document of at least one moment in my life, that I was losing. Really, though, all the books themselves are is a trigger for my mind. The memories exist in my head entirely, there isn't a part of those books that co-exists with my mind...so why was I so reluctant to get rid of them? It didn't take me long, once arriving to this question, to come to the conclusion that I was afraid. The reason I didn't want to get rid of my books is because I was afraid of forgetting. My fear is that if I get rid of my books then I'll be getting rid of a way to remember what I might otherwise forget and, if I forget everything, I fear that might mean I'm losing myself. When I thought more, though, I began to realise that this is a more common fear than I first thought. In our lives, sometimes without realising it, we accumulate objects that we place meaning or memory to. If you decorate an apartment with a roomate or partner, receive a gift, make something special or even take pictures, what you're doing creates a memory of an event and, in the cases mentioned above, it's more often than not that you don't get rid of them...at least for a very long while. It's a compulsion that we, as human beings, have: To collect and put memories to things and it's my belief, now, that it may be because we know, deep down, that one day we're going to forget everything if we don't have a way of remembering things. The human brain is an amazing organ that processes information we're not even aware of and it can recall so much more than we first think...but that doesn't stop a person feeling debilitated if they can't consciously remember an event. What can I do about it though? Realistically, I can't keep accumulating things throughout my life...at least not at the rate I currently am, I'd have no room in any house! A part of growing up, though, is maybe to look back on parts of your life and draw a conclusion to them. I may have a lot of memories attached to each of my books...but that was so many years ago now, maybe the best thing to do is to look back on that part of my life as, generally, one that I enjoyed and move on to bigger and better things. There's no doubt that I'll have more things worth remembering and it doesn't mean I value the memories I already have any less, but it would make more sense to bring a close to one chapter in my life, clear the metaphorical table and let it become cluttered once more by this brand new chapter in my life. Who knows what it could bring?

Shades Of Grey

This morning someone held together two pieces of a broken sellotape dispenser to form a '69' shape and then said to me 'I need to grow up, don't I?' and my instant reaction was 'No, you're fine just as you are' but, I began to think, that for him to even ask that question then he must think differently towards himself in that aspect than I do. The conclusion, then, that everyone holds different opinions on different things is nothing new at all until you begin to look at opinions on different things in different situations. If we look more closely at my real life example, growing up, then there are so many levels of interpretation to what 'growing up' actually is. To some it's an age, to others it's a mindset, for some people it may be taking responsibility or independence in your life and, for the person mentioned above, it may be thinking with a mind that's in the gutter a bit less often. Listing examples of what qualifies 'growing up' is a relatively easy task though, the hard part comes at when people think or feel qualified to have 'grown up'. If it's a very distinct, clear point like turning a certain age, then you can set as a rule that you're now grown up...but do you feel grown up? Do others think that you've grown up? If you substitute the situation for the other conditions listed previously, then the list of questions just keeps going on and ultimately circles around the point of 'How can someone judge whether someone has grown up or not?' and the answer that I came up with is that, for the most part, you really can't. Like with a lot of situations in life (morality, in particular, has a good scope for this) the answers come in shades of grey with, sometimes, one being no more right than another or with no-one being able to distinguish what option may be better than another. If so many things exist in the world in shades of indistinguishable grey, then why do we seek so often to draw clear, distinct lines that force us to choose black or white of our options? The law, in particular, is flawed in this aspect, I believe, because although it seeks to do justice and be fair to everyone, every person and every case is completely different and has so many factors to consider that the distinct line between black and white can often become extremely unfair to many people. What solution would I suggest for this? I honestly don't know, but on a larger scale of life I would probably have to say this: In the world there exists many shades of grey, many uncertain decisions and questions in life that give you answers that answer nothing certain for you. In those situations, sometimes you've got to make a choice and neither are your preferred option. Whatever you do, after thinking long and hard about it, choose the option that you'll have no regrets about. If that means not making a choice at all, then so be it, but the way I see things is that if you have doubts or uncertainties over your choice then through life you're going to fill with so many regrets that the grey choices around you will only get darker until you can't see the lighter end of the spectrum. So be considerate to yourself, be smart and love the life you live, you might only have one depending on your outlook.

History - We learn from the past so as to not repeat its mistakes

It's a phrase that I've heard a lot in my life, whether rephrased or implied metaphorically, I've always thought that it's a lesson that holds true for everyone and that applies on many levels: If we learn from the things we have done in the past, we can avoid making the same mistakes again. The part of my interpretation that brought about this particular post was that it 'applies on many levels' because this week I managed to hopefully look at the past and stop myself making mistakes that would bring me a lot of disappointment. Once again, just to forwarn, I'm talking about my love life. In the past two relationships I've had (what I would probably call my only two other relationships) they have been with people that have seen me a very extensive amount and whom have been very talkative with me online or via text. The social interaction was good, I never shied away from it for the most part, and I became very used to it and comfortable with it. Obviously, given that they're former relationships, things didn't last and now, in the present, I find myself with someone who has a different level of communication with me. We don't see each other as much as my past relationships, nor do we talk online as much, and for a while this slightly bothered me and led me to message him to the point where I was worried that I was becoming annoying. The other night, though, I had an epiphany about the whole situation and realised something: It's not that he was interacting with me on a low maintenance level... it's that I was just too used to a high maintenance level. It began to dawn on me, as I thought on things, that the amount that we talk and the amount that we see each other is, although reduced due to certain events, actually very reasonable. If I text or message, he'll reply if I really need him to and- if it's not urgent- he'll reply in his own time. In a week we might see each other for at least 3 days and next week we're going away for a week (with family), so it's not like I'm deprived of seeing him on any level and it's this realisation that led me to the conclusion above: I've become too used to seeing my partners a lot. How this links into 'learning from the past' might not seem clear at first but, to me, the realisation in itself was learning from my past because, for all I know, the reason why those relationships ended could be because I saw my partners too much. It's very easily done to end up seeing someone so much you start to dislike them, we've all done it. This lesson I've learnt from my past, I hope, will let me make things better in my present because I know now that all I need to do is learn to relax a little bit with my relationship. Things won't crumble or fall if I don't see or talk to someone every day of the week, which is probably another good lesson for me to learn through all of this. I'm not under the assumption that if I change this one thing that I've found 'the one' or anything, that'd be a bit unrealistic and hard to determine, but I've got no doubts that if I change this one thing then I could be very happy for quite a while with him...and I know that wouldn't be a bad thing at all to me :)

Constants And Change

It's an irrefutable fact that, in life, things change. Your surroundings, your friends (both who they are and what they're like), your family, even your own body (both inside and out). It seems that the one thing in our lives we can't change is the fact that there is change. Change is, ironically, the constant in our lives.
What got me thinking about constants to our lives was the fact that there was so much change going on around me. I'm the kind of person that likes to have some control over my life, some kind of routine that keeps me grounded and gives me some sense of security over my life, and lately there's been a dramatically huge lack of that. Turbulent changes, events and experience have rocked the air cabin of my life and, although I still feel very much on course, it feels like my faith in the world has been shaken more than slightly. In my search to feel better about what I was doing I started to think about my life and try and find any comforting constants in there that I could seek refuge in. Of course, there were many things that had stayed the same in my life (I go to college, I come home, I go to regular, timetabled lessons etc.) but, for some reason, none of these situational constants seemed to be enough for me, as if I needed something big to make up for all of the constant change in my life and the changes that I know are going to happen later on in the year. Once it gets to September at college again, the number of friends I have is going to plummet drastically from around 14 to 4. Granted, most of these people that are leaving aren't going to university so I'll still get to see them but, within college, things are going to become quite lonely and it's going to take a lot of effort outside of college to still get to see all of the friends I want to. Whether I'd be able to handle that, I don't quite know, but that's the reality of what I'd have to do.
Coming back from my tangent, however, I found that the best constant in my life was in the form of a friend at college whom I've grown very close to this year who is also going to be at college next year. This may not be the epically gigantic constant that I was looking for in my life but, as I've learned many times from maths, constants can be very small or very large but, at the end of the day, no matter what happens they're still there. So although my constant isn't quite as gargantuan in magnitude as I had searched for, I think that the friend I have is exactly the constant I need. Someone that's going to be there, whom I can talk to and confide in, have a good laugh with and even bitch to about my problems. The same goes vice versa for her, of course, but at the end of the day what better constant in your life could there be apart from one good friend that you love?
As a message to everyone out there, something I try to do with my posts, I think the lesson here would be one that many people have heard before but never really taken on board: Often in life, if you look hard enough, you'll find that the thing you want most is often right in front of you and you completely miss it. In my search for a constant I ended up missing out on the one I already had, I don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon!

Pressure

In chemistry this week we've been looking at Equilibrium in reactions. An equilibrium reaction is one that acts in both directions until a point where both the forward and backward reactions are equal (until an 'Equilibrium' is achieved). Certain factors can affect equilibrium such as temperature, pressure or concentration that cause the equilibrium to shift to counteract the change it experiences (this, as a side note, is called Chatalier's Principle). One thing that rung with me, in my strange quest to compare my life or the events in it to whatever I can in a strange metaphor, was the action of pressure on an equilibrium reaction. When you increase the pressure on one side of an equilibrium reaction, it causes the equilibrium to shift and (in the example we were doing) more product from the reaction is formed.
My life lately seems to be increasing in pressure. The workload that I have never stops increasing, the demands of my work are becoming greater as time runs short to exams and concepts for work aren't clicking into place, there's drama among my friends at times and, recently, my boyfriend's been kicked out of college so it's going to become an effort on both sides to see each other. So all of this is having an emotional impact on me and, honestly, the other day I was prepared to just give up and drop everything because I'd had enough. Enough of college, enough of a life where I seem to do nothing but work, I wanted out.
Somewhere in my head, though, I knew better. As much as I wanted out, as much as I knew I wanted to just drop everything, I knew that this was just a part of what I had to go through to get to where I want to be in life. Sometimes the road in life is difficult and there'll be a lot of times where you just want to give in and go in a different, easier direction. As easy as that direction might be, though, it might not be the one that'll lead you to your dreams. If I had quit college then I would've been very, very, VERY unlikely to ever achieve my dreams of Medicine. So, if for no other reason than that aspiration, I decided to grit my teeth, whine, bitch and moan all I liked but, ultimately, just get on with it.
How does that relate in the slightest to equilibrium and pressure, you ask? Well, for me, to do what I had to do, I had to shift the equilibrium in my life. Lately I've been putting in a decent amount of effort into everything and getting a decent amount back, but lately (and for the next few months, thanks to exams) I'm going to have to put in a hell of a lot more effort to see minimal instant rewards. I'm going to have to shift the equilibrium of my life in order to cope with what I'm doing and be happy. It won't be easy, I'm not under any illusion that it will be, but bolster on I shall until I reach my dynamic equilibrium and I'm getting as good as I'm giving. When that day comes, I'm sure that all of my hard work will have been well worth it and I'm sure that can go for everyone if you persevere for long enough at something you really want.

'I Love You'

Three small words. I - To mean oneself. You - To mean someone other than oneself. Love - This is where it gets complicated.
In life you'll experience a lot of love in a lot of different ways. Love of objects (e.g. food, tv, film, books), love of friends, love of family, love of situations or feelings. The most difficult or awkward love to come across is the kind that has been written about for centuries, distilled through the years into plays, songs, art, sculpture: The romantic feeling of love towards a single person.
In my experience thus far (my rather limited experience, I feel I should point out) I've come to find that each one of my relationships has made me feel differently both at the time and afterwards when I look back upon them. The reasons why we love can be dependent entirely on the circumstances in our lives at the time. For me, perhaps a motivating reason is the fact that there are so very few people that I can love, up until late high school there really were no options or choices for me. So it's always on my mind that I may end up being in a relationship purely because I can...I don't doubt for a moment that I may have done this at some point.
The turning point in this methodology is college. I've yet to be at college a whole year but already I've found a surprising amount of interest expressed towards me, more than I was comfortable with at times. Naturally I dealt with it, though, and I became used to the situations I found myself in and, after a time, I found myself in a relationship with someone that I've liked for a longer time than he probably realises.
It's officially been a month today. Things are going well, nothing tremendously ground breaking has happened, I think things are nice though. I've never properly taken things slow before but I'm enjoying it, it's making me appreciate the relationship a lot more. That aside, though, the feelings that I have towards him are starting to mount up to the point where I think I want to say the titular statement of this post. We've said it multiple times when once drunk (hardly counts) and we've said it in Japanese (doesn't really count) but the difficulty I face is saying it in English when sober...and it's not because I can't say it, the part that I'm worried about is: Should I say it?
Perhaps I'm scared to say it, perhaps I'm just worried it's too soon, but there's a part of me that's holding back from saying those words to him because I don't want to scare him off. Maybe that's silly of me to think, maybe it's more likely that he'll not say it back, how am I to know?
All I know at the minute is that we both feel strongly for each other and we both have felt for each other for some time, though after a month does that really merit 'I love you'? Is it really a month though? Obviously I can't speak for him, but I know that I've had feelings for him since September, so does it count as six months for me? If that's then the case then it would count as seven months for me but only...two (maybe) for him? So am I ready before him?

Confusion. I'm confused. For once I think this is a situation that I can't really draw a clear conclusion to. Given how pretty much everything I've based my points on is based on pure feeling or speculation about another person's feelings, maybe the best course of action is to just take things as they come until an answer presents itself. Surely, in time, things will become more clear and I'll have my answer. Whether that answer is good or bad, is unknown, but I know which of the two I would prefer if given the choice.

-Aiden