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update, finally
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Not-a-web-Developer committed Dec 31, 2023
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<title>This website looks like it's been abandoned</title></head>

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<br><div id="page-content"><h1 id="this-website-looks-like-its-been-abandoned">This website looks like it's been abandoned</h1>
<p>Well, it's not like I have anything better left to do.</p>
<h2 id="life-has-been-very-topsy-turvy">Life has been very topsy-turvy.</h2>
<p>You know how I mentioned <a href="/2022/October/teeny.md">here</a> that I would go to university and I would hopefully start writing more often?</p>
<p>Yeah, that was the last post here for a reason.</p>
<p>tl;dr: my brain is fucked, my body is fucked, college is fucked, and because that's forcing me to drop out, i'm also fucked.</p>
<h2 id="tertiary-education-is-important">Tertiary education is important.</h2>
<p>It's been the thing people do when they've gone through primary and secondary education, but they feel like somewhere, their questions about a particular field have been left unanswered; a path not taken, a door not opened.</p>
<p>One goes to university/college (I'll use the terms interchangably because for undergraduate studies, there's not too much difference in my country) because there's so much more still left to learn; so many more people still left to meet, and work with; so many more things to create, before you participate in society just to keep long-lived inrastructure afloat, to kee the gears turning.</p>
<p>College is that safe space where you can lay your hands on mechanical calculators and see what happens when you divide by zero.</p>
<p>College is that safe space where you can take an empty coke bottle, pump water through it while having an s-shaped pipe attached to its neck and see whether the water being pumped turns the pipe clockwise or counter-clockwise.</p>
<p>College is that safe space where you can decide to go to an empty ground at 3 AM with nothing but binoculars, and lie down to see a meteor shower.</p>
<p>College is that safe space where you can benchmark a computer by running a blender render of <em>dubious origins</em> just for fun.</p>
<p>College is that safe space where you can just walk into a lecture hall you never registered for, sit for an entire lecture, be the most receptive student (or just laze around in the back) and nobody would give a shit; because everyone's an adult and is in that lecture hall to learn something new.</p>
<p>College is that safe space, where you have control over who you are, who you wish to be and how you wish to get there.</p>
<p>At least, that's what I thought.</p>
<h2 id="i-was-wrong">I was wrong.</h2>
<p>As it turns out, for some reason in life you need to maximise a number that often comes in paper form; for that, you need to work under a person; for that, you need to have a piece of paper; for that piece of paper, you go to college, which is for some reason even stricter about <em>everything</em> despite us being adults and obviously being there because we want to.</p>
<p>I don't understand it, and I was having extreme difficulty managing myself in this situation.</p>
<p>I always knew I had trouble in situations people called "easy" if they even thought about it at all instead of breezing through it without noticing; I knew I had experiences that didn't match my peers.</p>
<h3 id="that-didnt-prepare-me-for-how-broken-i-supposedly-am">That didn't prepare me for how broken I supposedly am.</h3>
<p>here's a list of things i've been told need to be addressed, and I don't know how much longer the list will grow in the future:</p>
<ul>
<li>ADHD</li>
<li>Autism (didn't know both could happen simultaneously, but it explains the contradictory behaviour and needs)</li>
<li>dysgraphia (explains my trouble with writing and why I had to put in a disproportionate amount of effort to try to learn to play the piano, when music theory, composition and arrangement came easily to me)</li>
<li>dyspraxia (explains my broken sense of proprioception, my awkward balance, my non-existent muscle tone since birth, why I keep getting injured all the time, and why said injuries simply refuse to heal in a reasonable amount of time</li>
<li>cluster-b personality, with diagnosis for ASPD pending (explains why I can describe myself as "inconsistent and anti-people")</li>
</ul>
<p>That's more word-vomit than i'm willing to tolerate from psychiatrists, so long story short: my body and brain are apparently wired to fuck me over and take others down with me.</p>
<p>Now, I understand where all these diagnosees come from; I've been stuck inside my head all my life, so I know my experiences and what I thought and felt going through them more than some person sitting in a hospital trying to understand people through 5 minute appointments or 5 month tests with nothing in between. However,</p>
<h2 id="i-refuse-to-accept-them">I refuse to accept them.</h2>
<p>I refuse to let my fingers disobey me.
I refuse to let my legs make me fall whenever they feel like it.
I refuse to let a loud cafe overwhelm my mind and make me melt down when other people are doing just fine.
I refuse to let my discomfort dictate how long I do a task for (that includes writing stuff to post here).
I refuse to let my conflicting needs destroy my life, and maybe i'll also stop harming those around me.
I refuse to accept that i'm any less of a human than others, simply because I currently lack things others have.</p>
<h2 id="thats-great-and-all-ash-but-how-do-you-translate-this-to-everyday-life">That's great and all, Ash, but how do you translate this to everyday life?</h2>
<p>I know, that can be difficult.</p>
<p>I'm spending the new year's eve alone, in a cafe full of people; my friends have all gone home, because they have lives to go back to.</p>
<p>I have yet to build my own, and it feels like i'm in a corner of despair within this overly-expensive overly-crowded place. But that ain't stopping me; I need to be able to create some hope, if only as a middle finger to life, to show it I'm still in control of this broken, dying ship.</p>
<h3 id="rant">&lt;rant&gt;</h3>
<p>All my life, I've always tried to circumvent school, a la Mark Twain:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have never let my schooling come in the way of my education.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I have always tried to make it so that a piece of paper (my report card, or my notebook) isn't needed to define me, and that my actions speak for themselves.</p>
<p>Life is a cruel mistress, because now I only have a small chance of completing college by using a piece of paper (a learning disability certificate) to define me, and leave me at the mercy of the administration bodies that run these institutions.</p>
<p>it's as if life found the one thing that drove me to continue living life (having control over myself and my actions), and found the perfect way to fuck me over.</p>
<p>I don't want to be a part of this. I don't want a piece of paper defining who I am and what I can or can't do, no matter the cost.</p>
<p>I don't care if it makes me unproductive. I don't care if it makes me inconsistent. I don't care if it makes me unemployable.</p>
<p>I am who I am, and I have a right to live. I will make space for myself if people can't find space for me.</p>
<p>&lt;/rant&gt;</p>
<p>that was quite the tangent. oh well, back to more practical matters.</p>
<h2 id="on-themes">on Themes</h2>
<p>I do the yearly theme thing I found in a CGPGrey video once. Last year, my theme was love; I had difficulty putting myself over others, difficulty saying no, and I had difficulty accepting that college wasn't being what I wanted it to be. </p>
<p>So I had decided that my theme was gonna be for me to understand myself, and for me to learn to accept myself the way I am, and for me to love myself.</p>
<p>This year has been quite the rollercoaster, and things have mostly been going down. I have constantly been extremely negative about myself, my abilities, and my outlook on life in general.</p>
<p>I'm writing this to bring me back to the right path.</p>
<p>Because nobody can accept me unless I accept myself.</p>
<p>I am a problematic student. I am the slow learner. I am the clumsy kid. I am the angry kid. I am a difficult person to be with. I am broken.</p>
<p>And that's okay.</p>
<h3 id="however-none-of-those-are-within-my-control">However, none of those are within my control.</h3>
<p>If I wish to have control over my life, I need to learn to have control over <em>everything</em> about myself.</p>
<p>So, that has decided the next year's theme for me: the Year of Skills.</p>
<p>I will learn to be a better writer. <br>
I will learn to be a better learner. <br>
I will learn to be a better host. <br>
I will learn to be a better guest. <br>
I will learn to be a better programmer, if only to write code for myself. <br>
I will learn to be a better repair-person, if only to satisfy my wish to follow permacomputing. <br>
I will learn to be a better communicator. <br>
I will learn to be a human.</p>
<p>I will learn. and I will be better. <br><br></p>
<p>Until next time, <br>
Adios.</p>
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