workin'

I spent a lot of time working. My twitter is mostly just me complaining about having to read or write another essay. I think education is one of those things I love to complain about but also love to do. But this term I am trying to do less complaining and more focussing because that should = productivity am I right?

I realised, at some point in the long slog of a morning spent in the library, that I am quite good at working. Not the outcome or the retention or the speed, or necessarily the focus, but the process of sitting down nd doing it, I think I can ace (most of the time).
SO I figured, because shit is gonna get studious soon nd u all seem to be working hard, I'd list a few things that help make a day in the library a lil more fun!
1) changing working space (lol, I can't sit for more than 2 hours in one place, it clears my head and re-centres my focus)
2) getting out before working (i always walk to a library somewhere in town because it makes me feel like I've gone to work thus somewhat accomplished)
3) drink water (not because its important but because it means u can procrastinate by weeing)
4) work in time slots (my friends think this is weird but I work, and have always worked, in hour time slots, meaning like total focus-no-phone-no-talking for an hour, then like a 10 min break, then a proper break after 2 hours, it makes me feel in control (!) and also means I don't take breaks when its not!! time!!)
5) music!!! (gets u in the zone, blocks the world out–I love bach cello suite 1, penguin cafe orchestra, the general classical radios on Spotify, or alpha concentration waves on youtube lol)
6) find ur place (over a conversation at lunch we decided our happy places to work were: in my room at 6am on essay crises days (feels so studious and hidden) and the radcliffe camera at night–find urs!)
7) cafes (working in cafes feels like a treat but ur also getting shit done!! but take headphones!! and leave ur friends at home!!)
8) work alone (or with really studious people) (at school it used to drive me mad because i'd just wanna focus, nd that just wasn't gonna happen)
9) working when ur too tired is the. most. point.less. thing. (u migh as well be drunk. go to bed.)
10) working drunk (unsurprisingly) doesn't work
11) complaining about how much work you have to do is super cathartic (nd probs really annoying for ur friends!!!) so do it to me any time
12) you can always do more so learn when to say fuck it and go to the pub!
13) find a peng view, because at least then u can procrastinate productively
14) if ur phone is that tempting hide it. I put mine in my bathroom when I am manically writing essays and it. works.
15) sun (working in the sun is just. peng. obvs not always possible but when it is, soak in those rays)

I hope all is well. This week has got progressively better, Sunday was a shit show, but since then the days have been good. I'm practising a new philosophy thinking in the moment. Yeh super basic but I find myself stressing about stuff that's happening 8 weeks away nd it just isn't healthy. I'm also trying to fight unnecessary thoughts. I inherently and irrationally worry about the most banal things (like what are we gonna have for dinner! do i have enough friends! what am i doing tonight!) nd its not chill. So here we are. Continuing January with a zen mentality.
Hope you are all well nd studying is going okay! lol!
(wow 2 blogposts in less than a week whats happened!!!)

january

Some nice scenez out the library windows I have been stuck behind for endless hours.

Its a bright fresh January morning. It is this weather in which Oxford looks the most magical. 

The return has been good and strange. I feel at home and as though I belong which is good, and necessary and relieving. I didn't know how would feel when I came back and was nervous to leave comforts and my cat.

But it feels like I never left.  

In the past 6 days I have: sat my first exam, been out 3 times, read for and written 2 essays (lol not fun–turns out u can't condense the reading for the causes of the collapse of the Roman empire into 6 hours!), handed in 2 appalling essays, had a mint tutorial on gender nd politics, gossiped, watched a lot of drama unfold, drank a lot of coffee and laughed a lot and listened to penguin cafe orchestra on repeat. 

I suppose when I think of it in those terms, my anxiety and fatigue appear justifiable. We all laugh that we spend 90% of our time complaining about Oxford, despite the fact we a) actually love it nd b) chose to be here. I mean what did we expect. But sometimes it does feel ruthless. Cramming 11 essays into 8 weeks, making u write them prior to any teaching, giving u so much work that everything you hand in is actually just shit. Its such a microcosm nd a beautiful bubble, but still a bubble. I'm struggling to understand how these two worlds fit together, how to establish some coherence between normality and intensity. And also to fight the pervading imposter syndrome, the endless voice that you're not clever enough, that you shouldn't actually be here. But alas, I am. So fuck it. 

Maybe its January, maybe its hormones, maybe its just life, but my brain has been on overdrive recently. The only thing that makes me think I'm not enjoying myself is me questioning whether I'm enjoying myself. Its found on no sense of unhappiness or loneliness or dejection, its just my brain thinking "am I enjoying this?" to the point where I question whether I am. I fucking wish it'd shut up sometimes! I think I'm feeling a lot more on edge than I have in a long time nd maybe its getting a bit too much. I can feel it in my shoulders. 

Its that mentality where u think: if I could just relax this would be amazing. But the relaxation isn't happening. Ugh. 

But really this city is beautiful nd I'm so lucky and challenged and the people r so interesting and clever and its magical. 

I just need to find some means of relaxation. Getting my brain to stop worrying. Because there's nothing structural to worry about.

"nobody is in love with me and everything is still soft and warm"–trista mateer (got some thoughts on love but we'll save them, enough existentialising for one day)

feeling things

This is entirely a narcissistic record of self-documentation.
I thought I was content with remembering 2018 and its happiness internally, telling the tales of its sun and its peace and its adventure orally and through the golden memories locked away.
But then, irrationally, I had a panic that I wouldn't remember it as such.
This site has become, more than ever, a diary. A record of emotions and headspaces, a place to remember how I was feeling when I'm sad or happy or nostalgic.
And thus, it seems only right, when I am locked away in the library or suffering the dullness of January (currently!) to flick to the instant gratifying memory of 2018 and remember happiness does exist.

SO, in a brief and unexciting dialect.
2018 was magical, I dream of eternally remembering it as such. Of its achievements and surpassed goals and new people and new countries and peace and so much fun and endless laughter and fun and accomplishment and self-love and independence and friends and new homes and new families and stimulation and rigour and fear and wow.
It was the best. The summer was euphoric, the months preceding challenging but rewarding, grudging but growing, and the months after full of newness and excitement and routine and everything I had craved.
SO that's it. That's how I want to remember it. Stilled in an epoch of peace, sat on a Corsican beach, book in hand and radiating sun soothing. Caught in a Parisian park, eating baguettes and feeling at home in my company. Captured in days in bed tired but content, nights dancing, laughing, weeks blurred in happiness, tea with friends, in just being.

I am now hovering in the liminal space between festivities and return to uni. Its sort of unsettling and a bit disorientating.
I've been feeling especially emotional recently, irrationally so.
Everything makes me want to cry or feel, its not a sadness, just a very emotional sense of being. I haven't been in touch with this poignancy for a long ol' while so I am sort of confused nd a bit concerned about how I'll cope alone, u know?
Will I still want to cry when my mum buys me a turtleneck because she knew I wanted one or when I think about family evenings in front of the fire or when I look at my to do list or I just feel emotions. Fuck I probably need to stop crying so much.
knowing when to let myself feel...knowing when to let the feeling go (thank u @ambivalentlyyours for always providing the answers)
Anyway, so I really just wanted to remember how I was feeling, and sometimes typing offers more catharsis than writing. I feel emotional and different and fragile and anxious and small, but 2018 was sick nd January is always hard.