Stuff.

I would like to address the entirety of the male population of the world.

Cool? Cool.

~ Lois

Sheep

At some point I really, really hope I will learn to form my own opinions of things. Being so easily swayed from what I think is probably hands down my biggest fault.

I should be more like this guy.

 

~ Lois

Wassagoinon

What indeed, Bret Michaels. What indeed ‘sa goin on.

All I have been able to talk about lately is uni work and I HATE IT, everything culminated in a big showdown between me and the printer last night where it took me an hour to not even finish printing a 20 page document so I just gave up and spent another two and a half hours doing it today.

I wish I was kidding, guys. Spatial awareness is not my strong point so figuring out how to print front and back eludes me.

Anyway, I got it done and then I went to Officeworks to get it bound after a long debate about whether to do it today or wait until tomorrow and do it at uni. Obviously because its due tomorrow and I am an awfully anxious person I did it today so I know its DONE. Also I’ve been working on my assignment that’s due Thursday and that seems to be going well so its okay, guys, I think we can do this.

I also had a ~revelation~ the other day when I was like “Aw, I wish I knew as much about TV as Nicola”. HEY SPOILERS I COULD IF I BOTHERED READING ABOUT IT. Just like I can’t get upset that I look bad if I was too lazy to put on makeup or wash my hair, and I can’t whine about being unfit if I choose not to exercise.

On that note, I went for a run today and didn’t want to kill myself, can you imagine. Protip interval training means you can run a little bit THEN WALK A LITTLE BIT and your chest doesn’t feel like its about to collapse in on itself if you don’t stop RIGHT. THIS. SECOND.

I also took today off volunteering so that I could finish this assignment, and I forgot how great days off are. You should see how clean my house is, because I had to be in it for an extended period of time. I hope I have two classes on one day next semester so that even with the internship I have a weekday off. Weekends don’t count for some reason. I don’t know. They should, shouldn’t they?

I have an internship interview soon and I hope they say yes so I can get started on this bad boy and then I will have time to do panto next semester and can significantly decrease the amount of time I will spend crying about my life by 70%.

ALSO ENGLAND WOOOOOO I totally keep forgetting and then I think about food that I can eat over there and I am full of joy and happiness. Even if I am missing Peter Panto and Christmas. I think if you tear up thinking about missing Christmas that is not a good sign for surviving Christmas away from your family. I mean look at my Christmas face

 Das sum pure joy right there.

Anyway guys STUFF IS GOOD and it seems to be working itself out with minimal input from me which will probably make me complacent later in life so maybe I should get on that. Actually I worked pretty hard on these assignments and my internship proposal and getting enough energy to get changed and go for a run today. I think I am going to make a cup of tea and finish eating the Royals that Louise left here last week. Biscuits, not people, you fools. TAKE THAT, RUN, IMMA EAT SOME CHOCOLATE.

PEACE OUT .

GTT: I told work ‘No.’

Hello laydees and laydee-like gentlemen.

Today I feel close to hysterical. As you know this has been a tough week for me, including Thursday when all I could do was sit on the couch and cry rather than go out and see Nicola perform and generally have a good time rather than a shit one.

Gif is apropro even though Artie, ugh.

Still, I’ve been thinking of myself as coping. I’ve got my schedule nicely written out and I keep referring back to it to remind myself of the time I have to complete work and socialise and reach my dreams. (The reaching of dreams is a more abstract one, it’s not actually written in my diary like ‘April 10th: Reach for the stars and every mountain higher’).

Yesterday my 2IC called me and asked me if I wanted to work today. I said no, for two reasons. Firstly, I had earmarked today for uni work and it’s important that I stay on top of things this year because they take me longer when I’m feeling like shit (ie, all of the times). Secondly, he has been messing me around for weeks with my roster, including yelling at me when I queried my lack of shifts and telling me I had no right to question it because I’m a casual. Up until that point I had been working five or six days in a row, despite my health issues, which my managers are well aware of, and always turning up on time and ready to work.

Basically, I am a great employee and they are really, really taking the piss by cutting my hours so heavily and not working with me because I have uni now.

So, even though the money would be nice, because (see above) I am getting pretty much no work, I just said no. And it felt great! I’m so used to just bending over backwards to help people and do as they ask and normally what happens is that I care too much and then they chew me up and spit me out with not so much as a thank you (again, see above).

I feel even better about the decision today because I feel like death warmed up and oh my god if this exhaustion doesn’t stop soon I may need to go back on anti-depressants because already things are starting to seem like they’re just not worth it.

I guess the happy point of this post is that I have decided my mental health is more important than my managers at work, which is important and good.

~ Lois

PS.

catchups n dat

Soooo I haven’t posted for almost a month, whats been happening with you? I haven’t been doing much because its been holidays and I am taking the opportunity to be amazingly lazy while I can. Chris’ partay happened a few weeks ago and that was mostly fun, then I went to Two Rocks, then the next weekend I went down south. So I am excited to not do anything this weekend except movies and pizza (Y)

I just went grocery shopping and didn’t have enough money to pay for groceries so that was a low point. I know I’ve been all “Ugh I have no money” for a while but I always thought I had ENOUGH money and apparently I do not. Bit of a downer. Actually, its a total downer, because I’m not a frivolous spender at all. If I was buying new clothes every month or something it would be different, or I just didn’t have enough money to go out for dinner, but its actually not having money for groceries, and that is super depressing. I should be more like this guy.

(a long post about) Dreamz

Hello.

It’s been almost a month since I’ve updated. My excuse is that I’ve been perfectly happy so I haven’t needed to find reasons to be so. That’s not entirely true, but we’ll go with it.

Aly’s updated on most of the exciting things we’ve been up to (it’s convenient sharing 98% of your experiences with another person, especially one who is more diligent with recaps), so I’m just going to talk about things I’ve been doing which have been directly related to taking steps to ACHIEVE MY DREAMZ.

Dreamz are a funny thing, and I’ve been struggling with coming to terms with mine for ages. A while ago when Lois posted that excellent and emotionally honest post about her relationship with her parents, and we all said that we would do similar posts about the obstacles in our own lives. I had planned to write one about The Restrictions of Potential, or something. It’s basically a HUGE white person problem, but I do believe that it’s been holding me back, so I’m gonna talk about it, and if we could all forget about starvation and AIDS and slavery for a little while so we can pretend that my issues matter, that would be great.

My Parents

Ok, I’m sorry to post this here, because it’s not very happy, but it is something I’ve realised and now feel a little better about. Counts, right?

You know when you’re little, probably between the ages of 7 and 10 and you suddenly realise your parents aren’t perfect? Well, I recently had a similar kind of realisation. I realised I have totally lost respect for my parents. Nothing they say to me anymore means anything because they consistently pull me down and make me feel worthless.

I know what you’re thinking, it’s a white girl whine, right? Maybe it is. Maybe I’m too sensitive. But that doesn’t change the fact that my self esteem gets damaged regularly (weekly, if not daily) by my parents. They are part of the reason I hate the way I look and entirely the reason I feel like a failure even though I’m actually very good at the things I do.

The first time I remember my mum making me feel bad about myself was when I was about seven. I was a chubby kid, starting from that age. I remember my mum talking to me before we went to a birthday party and telling me to stay away from the food. She didn’t explain about calories and how energy is burned, which a seven year old can definitely understand in general terms. She just told me to stay away from the food. I wasn’t allowed it.

So I did for a little while, but it was a birthday party and I was seven, so I ended up near the table with my friends, eating things. My mum walked up and physically dragged me away. I didn’t even understand why and I was humiliated. After that incident she started trying to get me to eat less at dinners and whatnot by kicking me under the table if she thought I’d had enough or by dragging me away from food if it was a standing up type of event.

So when I hit my teens and had money of my own, I ate junk covertly. I know the calories I ate aren’t my mother’s fault. But I feel the guilt I felt and the need to binge because I was never, ever allowed to eat that stuff at home or when I was with my family was. My already slightly heavy weight ballooned and I got quite overweight. Then at the end of year ten I did Weight Watchers and lost 25kg over the next year.

For two years I was a healthy weight and then my hormones went insane, my period stopped and I started gaining like crazy again. After  doing Weight Watchers I have a very clear idea of how calories/kilojoules and energy input and output works, so it was definitely not me. I worked out constantly and I ate only healthy food and made my portions smaller and smaller, but I kept gaining. My mother made all sorts of comments to me about trying to lose the weight, and whenever I pointed out I was trying the answer was always the same. “Obviously not hard enough” is a hard thing to hear from your mum.

Then last year I was diagnosed with my pituitary adinoma. My mother came with me to the initial consultation and one of the first questions I asked was ‘Is this affecting my weight?’ and my endocrinologist said that it definitely was, and that once I was medicated it would probably help.

I was so relieved. This, I thought, will at least get my mum off my back about being overweight. Then, a couple of months after I was diagnosed I got quite serious depression. The last thing I could think about was exercising and I only ate when I could be bothered and then it was whatever was easy. So I gained again, about 10kg.

I have only just come out of the fog which is depression and started feeling like myself again, a full year after I first felt like killing myself. I’ve started working out regularly (5-6 times a week) and I’m counting calories again. Lo and behold, I’m losing (a little bit of) weight for the first time in six years.

My mother knows I’ve had depression (more about that below) and yet she has never let up about my appearance. And it is that. She’s not worried about my health. She’s worried about having a fat daughter and how that reflects on her. Her comments are always ‘You look fat in that’ or ‘You’d look better if you lost some weight’. My favourite is ‘You looked so good when you first went to uni’ (ie, when I was still thin). My self esteem has really suffered due to it.

My illness is another thing my mother is ashamed of me for. If I’m having a sick day, and they’re common, I will inevitably be asked why I’m lying around the house, or why I didn’t get out of bed until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. When I answer “I’m nauseous/I have a headache/I’m not feeling up to leaving the house/I need a day to recover” or any such reply I will get told that I should try harder. Initially I was just confused. I didn’t understand how she could ask me to try harder to not have a brain tumour. Then I realised that she was embarrassed by me. It’s not about how I feel, it’s about my being seen (by god knows who) as a productive member of society.

A good proof of this happened actually only this week. My mum was having some people over and she was cleaning around the house. I was getting ready to go to work and she called up to me, “I’m just going to hide your medications in the cupboard”. I currently keep my meds on the counter in the main bathroom of the house, where it’s easy for me to take them. My mum was hiding them so people she was having over didn’t see them and ask questions.

Personally, I don’t understand. I’m not ashamed of my condition, in fact I’m happy to share it because it’s such a weird one. I think it’s good for people to hear about illnesses that manifest as one thing (hormone problems) and turn out to be something serious. They might get themselves checked out next time there’s something small and slightly weird happening with them.

Unfortunately my parents are also the kind of people who think depression isn’t an actual illness. My favourite comment of my mother’s is ‘I know you’re suffering from a little bit of depression but ….’ after which statement she’ll proceed to list the things which she thinks I am doing wrong because of my depression. It’s very hard to deal with such prominent people in your life thinking you’re being silly and moody when you literally can’t get yourself out of the funk you are in. I’ve ignored it the best I can. The worst is when I have tried to point it out to them and they have played the ‘We’re your parents, we understand this better than you do’ card. It’s impossible to get past that and explain to them that no, they don’t know better and that I have doctors telling me these things.

The final thing I want to write about now is my love of theater and the arts. I’ve been performing since I was about six. I just love it, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. Since going to uni I’ve shown really solid skills in management of the arts especially, through Panto. I’m good at what I do and I love it, yet I still get comments from my dad of “I wish you were good at something useful”. He’s an engineer, without a creative bone in his body, so he doesn’t get it. I understand that. I’ve never expected them to understand the love of the theater and music I have. What I would expect though, is their support.

A couple of months ago we were putting on a show. I hadn’t told my parents the dates, since they always make such a big deal about how much they hate the shows (they don’t understand them, again fine with me, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea). We were having a family dinner, my cousin and his girlfriend were over, and my mum turns to me and goes “What are the dates for panto?”. I told her, confused as to why she wanted them and then she said “This is the last one we’re coming to, just so you know”. I was thoroughly confused. If she doesn’t want to come, she doesn’t have to. I said this to her and added that I found her comment a little hurtful because our group works very hard on the shows and there’s no reason to put them down just because she doesn’t enjoy them and there was this tense silence at the table like I’d just screamed “Go jump off a bridge” at the top of my lungs.

I just don’t get it. Surely I should be able to express my dislike of something someone has said to me. I did it in a calm and reasonable tone. I wasn’t crying or hysterical. It’s just another way they make me feel bad about myself. It’s constant. “I’m going to rehearsal” is always met with “Ugh panto” or similar. You don’t get it? Fine. You don’t like it? Fine. It makes me happy and I’m actually good at it, and you’re my parents. Deal with it and give me a bit of support. Saying nothing at all would be better than what you’re doing now.

You’ll notice my father hasn’t featured that much in this. It’s not because he’s any better, he still makes comments, he’s just a distant father, so his comments tend to come through my mum. He’ll sometimes make them to me, but anything she says has come from him too.

So yeah, that’s how I feel. About two weeks ago I came to the realisation that I have lost all respect for them and since then their barbs haven’t stung. It’s sad that I no longer care what my parents think of me, but at the same time it’s good. I feel like I can move on now and be the person I want to be without worrying about them.

~ Lois

One down!

So my first exam was alright. One question made me go o.O and one was a bit iffy but I think I did okay. Now I just need to ace theology tomorrow, then I have a whole day before Culture & Society, then ages until Music in Theatre. HOORAH, near completion!

December is going  to be crazy busy so I’m just chilling the eff out playing games on my phone as much as I can now. What of it.

We should hang out sometime, guys!

Dear Emmanuel

I thought I should introduce you guys to a nice game we started playing called Dear Emmanuel. One day, Chris mentioned that World Vision or whomever sent him a colouring book to send to his sponsor child (Emmanuel) and it had three lines for him to write a message in the front. The whole crux of the conversation was “What do you write to an 8 year old in *insert city I forget*?”, but we started throwing around “ideas” and the whole game was born. I’m pretty sure Chris said something like “What can I even say? ‘Dear Emmanuel. My girlfriend hasn’t replied to my text and its been like three hours!'” and now its a fun new variation on #whitepeopleproblems. Of course, sometimes someone will do a reply from Emmanuel which makes it even more obvious how ridiculous we’re being. A fun example from this week:

Dear Emmanuel. There was no cheese on special at Coles this week! Can you believe I had to pay $9 for a kilo of cheese?

Dear Emily, what is cheese?

I mean REALLY. I don’t have any reason to complain that my work are being dicks or my new job trial is paying me the minimum wage or that I spend too much on groceries every week. They are all fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things, because I have a job and money for food and a lovely little house and more than enough clothes and delightful friends. Which is mooooore than enough, really.

In Your Face

At karaoke last night my loathing for the human race was concentrated for one woman.

Friends of ours were dueting ‘Music of the Night’ and Dan accidentally started a tone down from where he should have been because of nerves and got himself into that loop where he couldn’t figure out how to get back to the tune. Whatever! It’s karaoke! It doesn’t matter!

This woman who was at the bar walked up to the stage area and stood on the edge of it making slicing motions across her throat at him, telling him to shut up. It’s a tiny bar and it wasn’t busy. Everyone could see what she was doing and it was humiliating for him.

I was so angry. Our whole group was but no one was doing anything about it, so I stood up and walked over to her. I stood between her and the stage and said “That’s our friend and you’re being really insensitive.” She said “He sounds shit”, so I repeated myself. Then her friend came over and started sticking up for her and telling me that their group was sick of our group ‘getting all the songs’ and they wanted to get up and sing.

We were the first people to arrive at the bar. It’s understandable that we would get a lot of songs early on.

But that’s beside the point. I said “I don’t care” to both of them, and walked away because the song had finished. It only occurred to me later that I had sort of picked a fight with a woman in a bar, and how dumb that was. But I guess that’s me. I can’t stand to see people hurt, especially when they’re putting themselves out on a limb.

Anyway, I just thought that was an interesting facet of my personality.

~ Lois