Blubber.

I want to sew my own mouth shut, so I won’t have to eat anymore. With assessment rolling in, all I find myself doing (amidst the chiong-ing of projects and collating contextual nonsense) is shoving food down my throat.

I can’t explain it. It’s just that when I eat good food, I feel so full of boundless joy and relief, and its such a comforting feeling to be filled with a nutritious hearty meal.

However, I haven’t had time to go jogging like I used to, so all the hearty meals of every late night in school is starting to show around my waist, and it’s bumming me out. I don’t fit in so many of my clothes, and I hate how unfit I have become.

I want to break every mirror in my house, right after I cut my own skin off and slice off my excess junk from my waist and legs. Seriously, what is the deal with me and food? I look at other people who don’t exercise and eat every damn thing they want, and they can’t put on a single gram. Me? I have to replace sweet drinks with water, 2 litres of it, I have to have cups of fruits and vegetables every day, I don’t eat chilli, mustard, mayo, ketchup with ANYTHING just so I can cut the extra calories, and I usually have to give half my meal to Dzaki. What kind of a life is that?

I know its so ignorant of me to complain about having too much to eat, but seriously, it brings me to tears when i think about how badly my eating has become. Yes, starving millions in third world countries, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, because I have too much to eat. Believe me, if I could sew my mouth shut, I would. But I can’t.

I just can’t.

Nineteen.

One year past eighteen, 2 years to twenty-one. What an awkward place to be.

I’ve been so confused lately, and I don’t know what to do.

Well, technically I know what to do, but I don’t know where to start.

I want to pursue my artistic career, and yet I want to put it off a little while longer, so I can still keep my eyes closed for a little while longer.

Is that wrong?

(tastes like burning~)

Bittersweet.

The first week of Year 3 is over. 1 down, 28 more to go.

Gee, that was fast. I haven’t exactly done anything, but many things have happened. I’m taking a printmaking elective, I got a kitten, I have studio space, and I still have doubts.

Can a person be happy and upset at the same time?

Like the word bittersweet. ‘Bitter’ and ‘sweet’ are two different tastes altogether, and yet, when you put them together, they form a word that describes ‘arousing pleasure tinged with sadness or pain’, and personally, one of the most beautiful words in the English language.

That’s how some things are, to me. When I feel like I’m prepared to fall into a dizzying well of depression and a state of sadness from which I cannot be rescued, there is a warmth that lifts me from this spell, and yet, ever so often I crave the cold again.

It’s two things at once, you and me. No matter how many things we agree upon, there’s always something that drives us nuts. But that’s what I love. That frustration of being with you, it reminds me of what I was without you, and reminds me of what a difficult person I am (and what difficult people we are).

I love you, and I love being with you, because it reminds me that I’m alive.

Love is not some shell of comfort that people find to crawl inside of, and rest in peace. No, love is so much more. And I don’t plan on giving that up any time soon.

Worry.

You worry about too many things.
You worry about getting the right grades.
You worry about making enough friends in school.
About making the right friends in school.
About eating lunch alone, because the clique doesn’t want you around.
You worry about your weight.
You worry about the way you look, and what you wear,
what you can buy, and what you can’t,
you worry if you’ll ever afford the things you want,
you worry if you’ll even get a job that let’s you save,
you worry about your time, for other things, like hobbies.

You worry about every learning how to knit a full sweater, by the time you’re old enough to have the time to knit one.

You worry if you’ll be alone when that day comes.

You’re in art school.
You worry if you’ll make a career out of your art.
Your opinions. Your views. Your expressive career as an artist.
You worry people won’t like your work.
You don’t worry about people judging your work, because you already know they will.

You worry about how your mother is going to continue working for as long as you are studying, and for as long as she can do what she does.
You worry about how you’re going to support her in the near future, let’s say 5 years? 10 years?
Now you worry that the time will come when you have to support her.
You worry,  day and night.

You worry about your life, your loved ones’ lives,
Your existence.
And it completely wears you down.

Everybody says Oh, don’t worry. Just take it easy and things will happen on their own.
But experience tells you otherwise,
plus, you’re deathly afraid you’ll fail so terribly, that your entire world will collapse before your eyes.
You worry you’re worrying too much.

And you worry you won’t stop worrying.

And everybody just expects so much of you, and asks so many things of you, it’s overwhelming.

They want you to do things, they want you to be responsible, and mature.

They want you to be stronger, and not be so sensitive.

They think its so easy to stop your thoughts, but it isn’t. They don’t understand. They can’t understand what you’re going through.

They want so many things of you, your whole life, that you’ve never had the chance to ask yourself what you truly want for yourself.

There are so many things in the way, you don’t know how you’re going to get through the next week alive.
And this is just your holidays.

You will never, never stop worrying. And that only crushes you a little more each time you think about it.

What are you supposed to do?

Leadership, my ass.

My Artist Mentor gave me the contact of a gallery in Manila.
They contacted the curator who came back to me really fast.
She asked for the dates for which I will be in Manila.

I haven’t replied the curator, because I haven’t booked my tickets.
I haven’t booked my tickets, because I haven’t got my dates.
I haven’t got my dates, because I don’t know when Mo is free to meet me in Manila.
I don’t know when Mo is free to meet me in Manila, because I don’t know when Mo is free.
I don’t know when Mo is free, because She replies very slow by email (too ex to call her).
She replies very slow by email, because there is a rotational blackout in her town.
And I don’t know why there is a rotational blackout in her town.

Oh dear God, please save me. My brain is going to explode.

It shouldn’t be called ‘Leadership in Art Practice’. It should be renamed ‘Independent Direction In an Overseas Transfer of Intellect and Counsel’.

Or, I.D.I.O.T.I.C. for short.

Never good enough.

Due to the unfortunate incidence of cockroaches, high humidity levels and dust, I will never have the room I dream of. I have to share my things, share my space and share my life. I’m slowly beginning to realize I am a very private person, and would love so much as to have my very own house, studio, home. I want a place where I can block the world out, and build my own world. Where nobody can enter, unless they promise to be understanding and forgiving of my space, because my space is an expression of my mind.

As of now, my mind – my thoughts- are shared, are public, and are not entirely mine. And it pains me to continue this way.

But I must, I must empty myself over the next year or so, because only then can I fill myself with the freedom: the freedom of post-graduation, of beginning my working life or continuing my studies, or simply the freedom of a life as a young adult. Contrary to popular belief, I take my life very seriously, and I hope I will not lose my way, because I’ve just realized that I’m living my dream, a dream I’ve had since I was three, to study art and build what I wanted, so people could see what I saw.

But man. Where do I go from here?

19 stops.

Over the sea and far away
She’s waiting like an iceberg
Waiting to change
But she’s cold inside
She wants to be like the water

All the muscles tighten in her face
Buries her soul in one embrace
They’re one and the same
Just like water

The fire fades away
Most of everyday
Is full of tired excuses
But it’s to hard to say
I wish it were simple
But we give up easily
You’re close enough to see that
You’re on the other side of the world to me

On comes the panic light
Holding on with fingers and feelings alike
But the time has come
To move along

Can you help me
Can you let me go
And can you still love me
When you can’t see me anymore

Someday I’ll soar.

It’s a gentle kind of depression. I’m so thankful for everything I’ve been given, and so angry about everything that has been taken away. I feel like I’m ready for the next stage of my life, when the truth is I’m not even close. I feel complete, and yet, I feel like half of me is trapped under the weight of a car in a traffic accident and I can’t escape because part of me is left behind. I feel torn into two, and yet, I feel a strange kind of resolve. I love being alone, but I absolutely hate being lonely. There is a difference, you know. Sometimes all people need is themselves. But not me. I need so many things, too many things. So much that it drives me absolutely MAD that I don’t have them all. I feel trapped in my own thoughts, and it takes a lot to pull me out of it (but it’s not happening. I’m being pulled in even more every day I’m alone).

one grand passion.

Thank you, Jenny Holzer.

–

The fact that I can find the time to blog a tiny post almost every day must mean something. Am I not doing enough homework, or am I purposely putting it off till the last minute? Has a part of me fallen into the trap of “Oh, you’ve done well enough so far. Time to take it easy”

Remember the story about the Tortoise and the Hare? I don’t want to be the hare.

I cannot become the hare. I will not fall asleep under the tree near the finishing line. I refuse to. This blogging thing is to release stuff (equivalent to talking to yourself) (but I don’t talk to myself) (much) to get things off my chest.

1 history essay
3 landscape drawings
1 portfolio thingie (for PP)
143059834 digital art daily assignments
1 sculpture final

By monday. Really?

The Wrong Alice.

I never used to be this anti-school and anti-homework. I never used to care what people thought. I used to be braver, stronger. I used to write more often, and sketch more often. I’ve lost my drive. I’ve lost my muchness, haven’t I?

For all I know, I could be the wrong Julie.