LustingforNightmares

tumbleweed
2021-10-13 14:33:10 (UTC)

what shall i do with my day?????? (spoiler: i did not come up with an answer)

"署名給" by Misi Ke [this was difficult to look up... no idea what it translates too. It might be "Dear..." according to a Youtube video. I think one of the radicals, the one in the middle and on top, is related to "woman" but I'm not even sure if that's right lmao. I couldn't find any translations for the lyrics either. I can only understand when she says "I'm sorry"]

October 13, 2021 Wednesday 2:37 PM

I have a lot to think about, but if I were to think about nothing, there would be no consequences to be honest. I guess "wasted time" and "squandered youth" could potentially be consequences, but those are so abstract and diffuse that I have difficulty perceiving their magnitude.

My head hurts and has been hurting for a long time now. Maybe almost a week? Maybe more? Always hard to tell. I haven't taken Tylenol in a couple days because you're not supposed to take it for more than 3-4 days to avoid getting rebound headaches. Besides, I'm trying to take care of my body and avoid putting my kidneys through the same rough treatment I gave my liver, lmao.

The headache makes simple things pretty exhausting, but I've been mostly keeping up with stuff. Doing the bare minimum, which is extremely bare given my undeniable lack of responsibilities.

I finally worked up the bravery to e-mail my ~liason~ about the China situation. Visa process is still not done, but I only have to finish one thing and she hasn't answered my question regarding how to finish that step. Again, I have to remind myself that, not only have they kept me in the dark about the happenings, but they haven't really rushed me at all through this process or provided much guidance beyond some papers. I didn't even know I could hire someone to handle this stuff for me! If I'd known that, I would've done it, because this has been a pain to figure out on my own.

Anyway I've e-mailed her. I need to know how long I'm stuck here. Is it indefinite? Should I give up and find another job? How can they just leave me hanging like this? (It's a reputable company too, it's been around for half a century so I'm not really worried about it being a scam. Besides, they haven't taken literally any of my money, and have in fact given me a course for free when it would usually cost a few hundred dollars)

The thing that really kicked me in the butt was the interview I had yesterday. I spoke to these two librarians who work for the public library in the city across the river. I applied for a part-time (28 hrs/week actually, so like 3/4 time, said the lady, and it pays ok—pays better than any job I've had so far). They informed me that the job would last until April.

To be honest, the job sounds fun and the interviewers were really easy to get along with. I think I'd be quite happy there. There's just a couple glaring issues—April is far away. I'd be working for 6 months as a Library Assistant while living in my hometown.

The scary thing to imagine—is that I'd be stuck here for that long. The idea that I might be bound here by a job is extremely distressing and makes the reality of my situation a lot more clear to me. I know something for certain: I can't stay here for that long. I can't live at home until April, wasting away and being lonely.

Every day I wake up and the day feels empty and I have to fill it somehow. Sometimes I waste my time, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I do productive things that don't actually mean anything in the long run. I go on long jogs and I buy groceries and practice piano, but that doesn't actually push me towards a future. It's just a way to not feel useless.

I'm playing house, the annoying parts and all (that is—staying on hold with various businesses while I try my best to figure out the bureaucratic side of life; currently, that means I'm trying to navigate this whole rear-ending situation with my car; it's been painful and frustrating, even though the people who have been helping me are quite nice and patient; I'm like a dog snapping at my cone or something, I feel restless and blind and... a word for injured, but not quite that).

I need to get out of here. But I don't know where to go or whether I'm even allowed to go? I want that library job, but do I want it at the cost of feeling stagnated?

I went to the periodontist yesterday (long story but I've been having tooth trouble too; I honestly feel cursed, but I think it's more that I've been putting off a laundry list of health and life issues for so long that, now, with my infinite free time, everything is breaking down and dissolving; although I suppose that doesn't explain the car stuff. In any case, the ghost haunting me is not a poltergeist, just a little shit).

The doctor was a guy from Japan. He was very friendly and chatty. He told me he used to work as a bioengineer, but he realized he hated the labwork; it felt isolating. So he moved to Boston and became a cartoonist. But that didn't pay the bills, I guess, so then he went to school for periodontics and here we are. He has two young children.

We ended up chatting quite a bit. He told me to try moving to Japan, that it was a very friendly country (and I got pretty excited about that, which makes me realize that I perhaps have been wanting to go to Japan for a while; at the same time, I really don't want to go at all—to experience the culture shock of it all, the strict social etiquette and the types of discrimination I am not used to. I might like the art and the folklore and music, but inundating myself in all the domestic positives and negatives? With Russia or China it was different, I think, because I was never particularly interested in either country until after I started studying it. It's not that I'm afraid of ruining some internalized perfect image of Japan in my head, it's more that, actually, I think I'm a bit more aware of the cultural differences, enough to be afraid; I think I became the same way with Russia over time, thinking suddenly about the way I might have to protect myself emotionally and physically in a place I don't recognize. And I'm sure the growing reality of China will give me the same sort of fear as I go on too, but right now I don't know enough to be scared or wary. I'm in the honeymoon phase of it, I suppose.

Anyway, despite my pretty shallow knowledge of Japan's negative/positive aspects, I'm still interested in going, even thinking I might belong there even less than I belong somewhere like Russia. In Russia, I might blend in if I'm quiet and I don't look around too much, but in Japan it is much harder to hide my face.)

And we talked about sci fi and webtoons and drawing stories. He almost took out his phone to show me his art, but then stopped himself, saying, "I'm getting distracted." When he tapped on my teeth, he said, "Excuse me."

I liked him a lot!!

Anyway, I wonder what I can do with my day. My head hurts, I am cold, I feel empty, I'm on my period, and the sky is white. I'm almost caught up with the Noragami manga, which is sad. After chapter 92, it's going to be harder to find translations, I think. Plus I'll have to start waiting months upon months. Really sad—I really, really like the story and the characters. I've never really enjoyed a manga or comic like this before (well, I've enjoyed webtoons like this, but that feels like a distinctly different medium, even if they're both sequential visual storytelling).

Maybe I should read a book or something. Instead, I'm reading this 90,000 veritable novel of a Fanfiction, a sort of opposite Noragami AU where Yato is instead a demon. It's really good so far, I'm about 8 or so chapters in. I tend to note the sort of trends that go on in different fandoms' fanfiction writings, and it feels like Noragami writes a lot of angst (not surprising) and there's also, proportionally speaking, quite a lot of really long works.

Then again, I've been looking exclusively at the Hiyori/Yato tag and there are only about 20 pages worth of fics (that's about a quarter of the total number of Noragami fanfictions).

Okay I really have to pee, so I guess I'll go now. What will I do with the rest of the day?




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