Late July/Early August i. People I met/saw I went everywhere with my mom around UP by foot. I remember saying, "To be a freshie again," when I saw a girl with a white top and shorts with her mom at Cal Sec, OUR, and UHS. I also remember breaking down in UHS for reasons I can't quite remember. I stayed at my sister's condo [SM Mezza II] for the meantime because I didn't get to apply for a dorm slot. My mom had this one funny speech habit, saying "heh heh" almost daily that it was hard not to notice and remember. I remember being oddly guilt-ridden when I saw that Gelo lookalike. I also remember being guilty when I saw SM workers who had more serious problems than what I'd been steadily been building up as another toxic habit of uttering whatever denigrating comment about myself and my features pops into my head whenever I had thoughts of "not enough boobs," "never anyone's type," "I'm stupid, ugly, and lazy," "a person such as myself should not hope to maintain anything so precariously stupid and volatile as a marriage or relationship." [I don't know how I was so sure I could be a competent marriage counselor or that I was actually too deluded to think my fantasies and speculations could amount to anything but hack solutions to the "marriage equation," one size fits all] I met Christi Reyes from FCC one day and immediately recognized my lost Ate/twin and her also uncanny resemblance to Ariana Nicole Boycillo. I thought she was the most polite and chaste and prim Christian woman I've ever met, and when my mom told me I looked like her, with my sister agreeing, I couldn't help but be slightly offended, partly because of self-hatred [I am at worst, repulsed, and at best, neutral about my facial features], and partly because I do not want to come off as a prim and proper woman, even though I know that as a Christian I should appear and act and think pure thoughts. Not that I'm saying that I know for a fact that Christi has never had any rebellious, heretical, erotic, murderous, contradictory thoughts and actions. I am not saying that I think she is boring, but by saying that I feel like I'm partly lying because it's somewhat true. Somehow I think my facial features and modest appearance are off or boring and therefore, unsexy, or unattractive and unappealing to the opposite sex [or whatever orientation], which isn't really rational. This is just another nit. I can't help but be confirmed in my thoughts and feelings about my own physical appraisal when I see other versions of myself and see what I cannot be. I will never have nice defined eyebrows like Prof Audrey, nor will I have her thick lips. I won't have nice thin legs like Kate. I will never have "Kim"'s allure and fashion sense and confidence and jawline [or Ally's]. I will not look like a siren with perfect proportions. It's about time that I come to terms to this as early as now before I get my hands on any kind of income and plan to save up for a boob job. I don't know how this happened to me except seeing Prof Gerry a few days ago brought me back to Berkeley, writing that "Antefemenated" essay as a response to Nora Ephron's, and noting how I wasn't as consumed with my boobs as much as my noticeable calves. I'm not casting any blame on anyone. It's just that I've noted that when I had an obsession with Sabby, I was determined and/or fantasized about being the emo "Big Tiddy Goth GF" and watched porn with alternative girls in it, nose, boob piercings, tattoos, and the like. I also wanted to be dainty and skinny like Jea, because I thought that was his ideal. When I switched to Prof Mike I went in the opposite direction and strived and/or fumed at my incapacity to become a woman with a big bosom and big hips. I don't know how to end this little description of my current preoccupations except that I wish I didn't have to waste so much time wanting to become "ideal" in areas that I have very little control in. Speaking of ideals, my mom and I went to a host of sites around UP trying to find a roof over my head as I had just vacated Berkeley and my unusually short LOA. I vaguely remember being aware of how people tried to advertise their areas and homes [the big doll, cats, amalgams of people I know/knew]. My feet felt destroyed day after day of this trek. Not to say this is normal. I remembered Ariel who walked on knives but then I also thought how she got a HEA after a few paragraphs and how hopeless I felt when nothing looked up in my situation. I need to bat the entitlement out of me. I remember saying "shit just got real" and then waking up really late [or not on time] the day after. My parents are working hard and sacrificing their lives just so I can finish my last two years as an overstaying undergrad and I am still slightly angry that all of my gains have been taken away by some sick Avol. monster that feeds off my thoughts of hopelessness and suicidal/fantastical ideations. I know now how quickly I can succumb back to my old habits of wanting to get into a freak accident, because as sick as this sounds, even with being "watched" and supposedly "recovering," I feel as though everything has been for naught, and I can't actually write unless I am working for very reptilian old world "primal" motivations. I say I don't want money, and it's partly true and not. I want enough to be comfortable, and I genuinely do not want anyone and myself to have millions rotting in the bank for no reason other than hoarding. I say I don't want relationships, but that's just another self-defense mechanism. It's really obvious, and single people think the grass is greener, always. The grass on my turf is dry because I let it. [Superdry shirt dude in Metro UPTC] Not because someone doesn't want me. I don't want to be like this when I'm 25. I somehow ended up in a yellow house near UP Hotel which proved to be very homey and nice, despite my former inclinations to not want to stay anywhere but Acacia. My roommate Jam has proven to be someone I can respect more than I can respect myself. She's a chairperson of her org in BAA and she sleeps five hours a night, survives—and thrives—without caffeine, and get this, she's only a second year. She's only a year younger than me but I look back at what I was doing when I was twenty, obsessing over my professor and thinking of racy inappropriate thoughts while in his classroom as I looked at his back whenever he wrote on the whiteboard. Explains a lot of my fantasies, to be honest. I don't think he's a butter face. His body, his built, in particular, I happened to latch on to—the visuals. I'm sorry for saying that. I don't know why I'm apologizing for being honest. Jam's going to be weirded out about my obsessions/infatuations [former, dormant, whatever], if she knows [or at least I think everyone already knows]. I also met Tita Alma Cruz, the madam of the house, and her son Rico. I remember walking into their room late in the night because I was thirsty and I didn't have the water container, and I thought I saw both of them in the bed watching TV. I promptly panicked and said sorry too many times to count. I didn't want to feel like I've intruded on something. [I even saw a cat with a leash in the kitchen which was a bit funny to me in the moment]. I remembered some kind of cognitive dissonance when I remembered how I thought I would be fine with Prof Mike being a mama's boy as I said to Prof Audrey on April 12. Not that I think anything is wrong with people who are particularly close to their parents and happen to be unmarried and live with them. I just remembered my mom saying to me how mama's boys can't really make decisions on their own because they follow and listen to their mothers more often than they prioritize their families or marriage (?). If there ever was an equivalent to my projected future of a lonely spinster lady with 10 cats, it's either the stereotype that unmarried men are dependent mama's boys, or that they are gay and do not want to adhere to the expected norm of marriage with a woman that will produce grand children. Or they are man children, or jobless basement dwellers who watch porn for hours at a time with their waifus. I also remember sending Isabella a diatribe made up of verses pointing to single hood's privileges and benefits at the NISMED ground floor lobby after my mom watched Crazy Rich Asians, which I already saw.  I also met Ate Bella first, who vaguely resembles someone I think I should know but I currently don't remember. Ate Jaena, who told me her name is spelled like in Lopez Jaena's. Ate Lolita "Hiling" Salipot reminds me a lot of Ate Lina/Lita [I really can't tell if my brain is just to stubborn to present all these variations of people's names that could be the right spelling and only end up confusing me more] from Kamia, and she'd offered to have her kapatid take care of my laundry needs, just as Ate Lina/Lita got my laundry done and delivered. ii. Absurd premises and self defense mechanisms  "How to castrate women" and by women I mean myself [yesterday's question to my mom at Metro as I found myself head-hopping to various points in the past when I could re-experience what it was like to be in a virtual erotic romance with roleplay partner/s. I don't want to have to pretend that I don't have some acute but dormant "she's being in denial and/or repressing it" infatuation with Prof Mike, which I think is some obvious bluff that everyone perceptive enough can call [bull s.]. It's not a surprise that whoever is looking at me and analyzing my facial expressions through my laptop camera could pinpoint to the pathetic "Dumaguete Writer's Workshop" response I whispered when I saw Prof Audrey's post about a pub [something from Prof. Paolo's cat picture and "where did the midyear break go"]. I guess I do not want to be vulnerable and have all these chinks in my armor that everyone can use against me, which is an obvious description of every single person on Earth who has lived and/or living. I don't know why I decided to start writing about this one incident when I could be writing about technique and future goals and self-betterment. I don't want to think of myself as shallow—some part of me still thinks that wanting companionship and romance is stupid and futile—and it's a mind cage [remembered a cat in a cage the day my mom and sister and I watched Fast and Furious/Hobbes and Shaw and that guy in Rodic's UP who wore a shirt that said something like "No one but our own minds can set us free" ] that I've always gravitated back to ever since I learned that getting all those accolades in high school and grade school did not make me feel fulfilled [and to some extent, being a self-professed Christian]. iii. Failure First week August: So much failure this week I don't know where to begin. On one hand I've become more capable of "respawning" quicker and I have less breakdowns, but being subject to the exact depth of my non-knowledge in Philippine lit. and how to write under pressure felt like someone indeed literally shot me in the head, but slowly. I don't think any masochist on any levels of the spectrum of "I can take it" or "Stop it, this isn't funny, fuck you," especially in academia and university, can handle being put in their place. I don't know if it's because I've partly resigned myself to a spinster's way of life that I've lost any hope in my future [not that I'm saying spinsters do not have worthwhile lives; in fact, there are some days when the question just pops into my head along the thought of, "Why does everything have to be about a love life?"] Why am I studying just so I can marry? Is that really my sole purpose in life? Why are all of my goals hinged on someone else's happiness? Other people have so politely reminded me that they, too, feel ugly and, I've noted, some of them could never hope to "pass" Redpillers/Braincels/Beauty industry standards or even make it to "relationship material" standards. I know rationally that my value as a woman isn't in my "sexual market value" or relationship potential; it's just really hard to shake off the remaining debris from my old habit of wanting to measure up to some imaginary love interest's yardstick and failing, and missing out on whatever people in relationships have. Realistically, if I were to purify my motivations, it would take more time and deliberate effort especially now that I'm recovering with the help of medication and an experience/growth mindset. I can't help but be ashamed and chastised by my inner voice saying that I'm the only one like this, like I'm the only one who wants to look attractive, have a fulfilling career, experience love and intimacy, all while that same inner voice says I should snuff all of those out and become a detached and calm task-doer and fulfiller, so my future self can benefit.  "So much failure this week" feelings partly stemming from rereading all my past essays and journal entries and stories when I still had some sense of organization, planning, and creativity. I don't know how to make anything pleasing anymore. Something about this is worrying me and my mom basically said it's all in my head, which is true, and that I should ask God for help every day. I am not being intentionally snarky again. It's just that I listened to some old songs on my Samsung phone dating back to 2013 and I felt absolutely no frisson whatsoever. I can't appreciate poems anymore. Stories don't hold my interest. People's conversations stopped being interesting. I don't know if this has anything to do with avolition or dysthymia or my not exercising physically enough. Forcing myself to stare at people and thinking about their lives or my speculations about their lives doesn't really do anything to feed my creativity. My logical self thinks I need to head back to the library and find some kind of new source or muse in the form of books like Some Are Smarter Than Others, because I do not want to be a self-serving bitch who only writes bad erotica and "spec-fic" anymore. I'd had this recurring thought that if someone with my particular brain and experiences were to experience actual monetary poverty and physical hunger, coupled with being watched all the time and observed, or the autistic schizotypal mind, they would probably not withstand weeks of my "reality," [I'd imagined that guy in Comm 3 dressed in slippers and looked like a solitary Pinoy version of Kafka who'd said he was an introvert for his semester starting short description] Or they could go in the opposite direction and actually thrive. I don't know if there is anyone out there like me who has been in a situation like this where I have entered into a social contract where everyone plays into my delusions and, with some plausible deniability "magic," manage to keep me going whereas I would have already stumbled or completely finished a Richard Dawkins book and fully agreed with everything, enough for me to go through an actual suicide attempt. Repressing desire means losing the will to please (?). I haven't even started writing anything for my classes, or actual studying. What makes me think I can automatically create something resembling or attempting/juvenile art without some kind of manic enthusiasm caused by very specific brain chemical interactions and levels going haywire. I am not currently striving to earn money for my writing, so there goes a monetary pull to master. I'm not trying to get published in paying international magazines which I thought were gatekeepers with a much keener eye for stories that deserve to be picked out of thousands in the slush pile. Art for art's sake is awfully narcissistic to me now, even as I can't help but fixate on all my inadequacies. What kind of writing I will produce this sem remains to be seen. I'd have to study actual syntax so I know what I "sound" like as I break established rules. I am ashamed to say I don't know the individual names of the many writing tools and constructions I use randomly and unintentionally for some effect I cannot claim to say I intentionally wanted to be there. I don't know what I'm doing and where to begin, despite hoarding thousands of ebooks and ranking them based on their Goodreads stars.