This is me, getting a life.

I've decided that if I want to get out of this rut in my life, I need to take some affirmative action. So for starters I am making a list (in itself something I like to do) of things that I feel I should/would like to do sometime in the near future.

Doing more stuff that you like and trying new stuff is generally acknowledged to help improve the way people feel and although everyone knows that I am a neophobe, I've got to the stage where I'm willing to try anything.

Now, you may be asking why I'm bothering to post this, but I would like to ask you lovely people to take a look at the list and maybe suggest either things to add, or ways to do stuff that's on there.

Here goes:

Stuff I have let lapse and would like to start up again:

* Enjoy Maths

* Photographs

Take

Edit

* Poetry/Prose

Read

Write

* Recreational walks

* Origami/crafting

New Stuff I would like to try/do:

* Buy and watch Guys and Dolls

* Buy a CoolBoard (If staying at Uni)

* Start to enjoy Programming

* Get properly and catastrophically hammered

* Go Bowling

* Go Ice Skating (?)

* Dye Hair

* Henna Tattoos

* Go to the Gym more

* Lose some weight

* Listen to more music (New Stuff?)

* Eat better/more (New Stuff?)

* Learn to drive

* Write comic for Mark to draw

* Get more sleep

* Find a new hobby

This list is in no particular order, and I would really appreciate any suggestions for prioritising the list, adding new ideas, or psyching myself up to actually do some of this stuff! Thanks peeps, love ya all.

Panic

I'm having a panic attack, and the only way to try and keep it vaguely under control is to be writing something like this.

I would be doing coursework, but just looking at that seems to make it worse: I can feel my head burning as though someone had just poured a mixture of boiling oil and burning tar into every crevice in my brain and watched as it seeped it's way through all my synapses and seared away any pretence I had to intelligence.

So instead I'm doing what I started this blog for - using it to stave off the wave of hysteria by writing a post and letting my obsession for decent grammar and content flow and take over my head. Unfortunately, when I'm in a state like this, what my mind thinks is good content and grammar is different to what I would normally consider checks those boxes. So apologies to anyone reading this who is wondering why it doesn't seem to make much sense.

This is one of the worst panic attacks I've had in ages, and it is making me feel very ill indeed. I went to bed ridiculously early last night because I thought that if I could get to sleep it might not come. I didn't get to sleep. It did come, and it has lingered on into this morning. You don't want to know how long this post is taking to write, it's quite hard to type when you're shaking harder than the last Pope.

I've been trying to think of a way to describe the way that I'm feeling at the minute, but I can't get the words out. They've been taken in the flood which washed away my coherent thoughts of work and calm and forced itself out of my system in tears and sweat and phlegm and mucus.

This has not been a good first week of my countdown, and I am feeling more and more disillusioned with everything. I still wake up every morning and am still around to pray it might be otherwise every evening. I had hoped that this might not be the case and the the decision would have been taken out of my hands, but it was quite a vain hope I suppose.

Deadline

I am giving myself 5 weeks, starting Monday 18th Jan, to sort stuff out, particularly my grades. If nothing improves, I plan to quit Uni and end this chapter of a somewhat unfulfilled and unsatisfactory life.

I really don't want to do this, but it is important to be realistic; I have found that looking back, as pragmatically as possible, over the last two years, and assessing the pros and cons of remaining a student, the negative feelings and outcomes of my time at Uni are outweighing the positive ones. This is particularly true of the last 6 weeks, and I feel that setting out a deadline of 5 weeks is a sensible period of time in which to try and straighten things out before making any sort of decision.

I should point out that this is not one of the negative cycles that I find myself in on a semi-regular basis, and I am in fact being as objective as possible about this. I intend to keep some sort of record of how each day passes so that when it comes to making the decision I will have a decently sized continuous data set to consider, as well as the general view of things up to the start of this period.

The Clock's ticking, I hope very much that things will be better by the end of February.

End of the Line.

I have tried being a good friend and relative, I've tried being sociable, I've tried to work hard enough to earn my place at this University and in people's company, but I have failed, and now have nothing else to give.

I don't want to play this game any more, or keep trying to stay afloat in the rapids of my life. The failures simply return again and again in rushing tides, causing more trouble or politely hidden exasperation like rocks to smash my head against: and I do exactly the same thing again later in the hope of rectifying earlier problems, though I know it won't. It becomes a compulsive vicious circle, a whirlpool which continues to make things progressively worse, but which I can't get out of.

There are plenty platitudes and 'reassurances': "But we love you" and "Well I'm still your friend" etc. made all the worse by the add-ons at the end where people explain that this is actually momentous because "We don't hang around with just anyone", or "I'm the sort of person that would definitely tell you to get lost if I didn't want you around". What nobody seems to realise that it is a natual human phenomenon for a naturally decent person to be charitable towards someone who wouldn't have a hope in hell of finding anyone who actually liked them. The chance to be magnanimous is something that a person's subconscious jumps at, giving them a feeling of righteousness and nobility, and let's face it, most people like to feel good about themselves don't they? I get that people don't realise that they're doing this, but if they sat down and really thought about it, it would become clear that a friendship with someone like me (whose main character traits are irresponsibility, failure and untrustworthiness), is totally inexplicable and a substantial waste of time

My least favourite platitude, however, has to be: "Just do your best". This is, in my opinion, one the most abhorrent phrases ever. Most people when it comes to exams etc. tend to try their best, but the thing is that their best at that particular time may not actually be their personal best, and may in fact be rubbish. I've spent my whole life being encouraged to do my best; not helped of course by the apparent expectation that my best will be pretty good, and have been working up to University, which now appears to have bested me.

I have been trying my best, and my best has just run out of steam, I have no more best to give, no more effort or energy to be expended on anything. As far as I can see, my life finished the day that I got my A-level results, that's what my life had been working up to, and that's where it stopped. That was hard enough towards the end, and now, I'm done, empty, finished. Other people's lives extended beyond work, and they developed other skills to help them deal with the aftermath of school, but I didn't. This leads me to conclude that I didn't need any other skills, as I wasn't designed to be going any further.

I shouldn't be here.

I will be making a decision about my future in the next couple of days, any job/CV writing ideas would be gratefully received.

From a friend

This is a poem written by my friend: when I read it I thought that it needed some tlc, but that it had some nice potential, and was a more optimistic take on things than the sort of stuff I have been writing and avoiding posting lately.

Under Construction

I’m tearing myself apart,
and pulling myself together.
But it’s harder than it looks,
and I know I could do better.

Trying to amend my faults,
and fix up all my woes.
And I know I just can’t stop,
until this feeling goes.

By M.W.D. Lewis 15/10/09