You wasted life; why wouldn't you waste the afterlife?

When I'm trying to make a decision in my life, I spend a lot of nights staying up late trying to figure out what I want to do. I send long-winded emails to my mother, which are basically constructed of not much more than my inner dialogue written into a letter. I guess this is what I use my blog for too, but when I need constructive feedback, I always talk to my parents. But for this decision, I need as much advice from as many people as I can get.

I've figured out that no matter when you're trying to decide something, there really isn't any wrong decision to make when you go through a thorough thought process. Whatever choice you make, you need to stick to and learn how to make it work. Maybe you feel you made the wrong choice and you want to backtrack and take the other route. I think this is just as adequate, because there is no mystery behind the first door and you know for certain what you should be doing. In essence, any path you choose will be right if you take the time to read the map.

So anyway, I have become very interested in the idea of working in advertising. Mostly in graphic design. Basically I want a career that will let me be creative but pay my bills. Together with my sound knowledge, I could be part of both conception and execution as far as making ads go. I could be a one-stop shop.

Great, so I know what I want to do. But I need to take a path to get there. I have two options.

• The Certificate in Visual Design, specializing in Photography at the UofC. This is going to take two years. I only take courses specific to the program and it will cost around $5000. 
• Bachelors in Communication degree, specializing in Information Design at MRU. This is four years and will be closer to $24000. A lot more courses, about 30% being General Education.

Looking at these two programs, I have to find which will benefit me in a number of ways. Getting into the career I want is going to rely more on the way I present my work than the specific level of education I have. A degree versus a certificate will not make or break my resume. I need to build a stellar portfolio. I need the education to give me the ability to do so.

The UofC course will provide all the knowledge I need for creation. Photoshop, photography, and writing courses will be most effective in my ability to generate good work. 

The MRU program will give me a chance to study things outside of the box, which have the potential to give me great inspiration in the future and generally provides a well rounded education. 

However, I would like to do a lot of travelling in the near future which would mean it would take me a lot longer to complete my degree. There are no photography courses in the MRU program. The communications courses are described very thoroughly on the website so I don't know what kinds of graphic design knowledge is taught, (Photoshop, theory, printing etc.)

Also, there is a chance that the MRU program has closed for application for the fall intake for this year, which  could pose a problem because I would like to start my education right away. Going for a degree would give me the opportunity to study abroad. Although I suppose this isn't necessary if I plan to go on a working holiday regardless. I would be considered a full time student and would get to partake in all the perks the status provides. I don't know yet if this is the case with the UofC program, although it's doubtful. The UofC courses will not be valued for credit, and will thus not be transferable should I pursue a degree in the future. Going to MRU, I can apply the General Education courses to any future degrees I may wish to acquire in my middle-age.

The SAIT program that would be relevant to what I want to study requires a portfolio application, which I am not capable of yet, and the applications are closed. I suppose I could complete the UofC certificate and go to SAIT afterwards if I think I need it. But again, the benefit of the general education courses would not be included.

I may be putting too much importance on the general courses. They would be a lot more homework but they would almost certainly be beneficial to my understanding of the world and in critical thinking. I could just as well take courses like these for fun, if it were possible at MRU or UofC. 

Every day I think about all these points and before I go to bed, I end up leaning towards one more than the other. And this changes every night.

I want to fuck everyone in the world.

I don't know if this is relevant to anything but I like to record my realizations.

I've never actually kissed anyone while I was sober.

This really only serves to further reveal what a fuck-up I've been.

It's kind of funny in a sick way too, I suppose.

I am so dirty on the inside.

Fuck in the fire and we'll spread all the ashes around.

I think I'm losing my grip

but I can still make a fist

You know I still got my one good arm

 that I can beat myself up with

Why can't you turn and face me?

You fucking disappoint me.

I am gonna come all over you.

Stupor is a motionless, apathetic state in which one is oblivious or does not react to external stimuli. A sufferer is almost entirely unresponsive and only responds to base stimuli such as pain.  Individuals in this state make little or no eye contact with others and may be mute and rigid. One might remain in one position for a long period of time, and then go directly to another position immediately after the first position. A person only appears to be conscious as the eyes are open and follow surrounding objects.

Numb is the new High.

I miss people a lot. I feel pretty isolated where I am right now, but I do it to myself so it doesn't make feel bad. Just really far. I miss my family a lot. I really start to notice when I haven't talked to them in a while. I miss my friends. I notice when I drink alone and feel nothing but horrible. I texted a friend in Vancouver to make an attempt at being social. We were supposed to hang out yesterday, but it was snowing so I bailed. I was supposed to do some things today too, but the rain is really messing with my head and I don't want to leave my apartment. Instead I've emailed my resume out about 20 times. Now I have three places to go tomorrow in efforts of finding a job that can make me enough money to live for the next while.

Thoughts about killing myself have subsided but I still can't answer the question of why I even bother existing. My father has somehow coordinated just the necessary combination of words to get me out of a lull. Now I face a new problem. I know I can do anything I want. But I don't really know what I want to do. My interests are all over the place. I love art and I love science and I'm trying to unlock the combination to please my love of money.

I'm going to write a song one of these days. Just to see what it would sound like if I could. I think I need to learn music theory a little better first but it's holding me back. I think I'll try it without learning first.

I really miss a lot of people in my life but most of all I just miss being happy.

Every day is exactly the same.

"Acedia (also accidie or accedie, from Latin acedĭa, and this from Greek ἀκηδία, negligence) describes a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one's position or condition in the world. It can lead to a state of being unable to perform one's duties in life. Its spiritual overtones make it related to but distinct from depression. Acedia was originally noted as a problem among monks and other ascetics who maintained a solitary life."

My dad called me today for the first time in a month. Normally I wouldn't care but he usually calls once a week so it's really been bothering me. In my mental state, everything is magnified in terms of it's horror and ability to aggravate my anxiety. I think there could be something not so ordinary about the way my mind operates and can't relax without being destructive. I did some research on how I could go about pursuing a session with a psychologist who might know if I'm actually a freak or just a sad fucking loser. I got really frustrated with the entire process and gave up and convinced myself I'm fine and normal. But there's dark thoughts every day now. 

I told my father I thought I needed to see a psychiatrist and he laughed before he asked if there was actually something serious going on that I might need one for. I hesitated, and pondered if I should really disclose how I think about dying constantly. How I fantasize about my own demise even though I haven't got the desire to truly pursue killing myself. How I cross the street and hope I get plowed by a van or when I see a bridge, I see myself falling over the side. It's just there in my head and I want it out. I decided to keep it inside and neglected to tell him about my new affinity for razor blades. I said I hated being in my head. He asked me if my menstrual cycle was coordinated with my bad feelings and I realized the conversation was over. He did tell me my feelings were normal and he knows what I'm going through. I so want for this to be true. I don't like feeling this bad. I want this to be normal and I want to be happy but there's nothing for me right now. I just want to be dead and come back in a year or two. But it doesn't work like that so I'll just live for now.

If I would have killed myself in the past, I would be dead right now. So I might as well do anything I want, since I might as well be dead. This concept was helping for a while, before I figured I might as well do nothing too.

- There's something really beautiful and uplifting about the way the

 phrase, 'I'm going to kill myself someday' rolls around in my brain. 

Waste away the evening in the afternoon.

"In the 1970s, a relatively popular alternative cancer treatment was a specialized form of talk therapy, based on the idea that cancer was caused by a bad attitude. People with a "cancer personality"—depressed, repressed, self-loathing, and afraid to express their emotions—were believed to have manifested cancer through subconscious desire. Some psychotherapists said that treatment to change the patient's outlook on life would cure the cancer. Among other effects, this belief allows society to blame the victim for having caused the cancer (by "wanting" it) or having prevented its cure (by not becoming a sufficiently happy, fearless, and loving person).  It also increases patients' anxiety, as they incorrectly believe that natural emotions of sadness, anger or fear shorten their lives. The idea was excoriated by the notoriously outspoken Susan Sontag, who published Illness as Metaphor while recovering from treatment for breast cancer in 1978. Although the original idea is now generally regarded as nonsense, the idea partly persists in a reduced form with a widespread, but incorrect, belief that deliberately cultivating a habit of positive thinking will increase survival. This notion is particularly strong in breast cancer culture."

Your love's not what I need, so don't give it to me.

I finally think I've pulled myself out of a really bad mental slump. Regardless of whether I completely have or not, I'm gonna write a list of things that I have to look forward to in my life. No crappy metaphors, just genuine occurrences that will make me glad I'm alive. To you, this may seem really contrived but it needs to be here.

• I have nice skin, a decent bone structure and a pleasant colour in my eyes. I'm not ugly now and I won't be if I take care of myself. I could get to be perfect if I wanted to and it wouldn't take too long. 

• I'm smart. I have a wealth of knowledge that is usable to become whatever I want. It's okay that I'm not where I want to be right now. All I really have is time. But I must not waste it. There's a lot I want to do and these things don't need to be done in any specific arrangement. I need to just get them done any way I can and any way that feels right to me.

• I can move where I like. In no time, I'll be back in Calgary. I'll save my money, learn something new, and get to travel like I always wanted. If I can live through one more year, I can do it.

• I might be a little lonely right now, but I can always work and improve my social behaviour with time. I don't feel like going out every day and meeting new friends and that's okay. It's better to have some friends who will stay forever than too many to forget. It's fewer people to leave behind anyway.

• Despicable Me 2 is coming out in 2013. I need to see it.

• In May, I get to see two of my favourite bands from the floor with one of my greatest friends.

• In April, I get to see Sleigh Bells. The last time I saw them was at Sasquatch, and I was on M that a guy I liked gave me. If I could recreate the experience anywhere close to the original, anything that could happen to me up to that point would be worth it.

• I can play guitar pretty half decent when I take the time to learn on it. 

• I can learn songs on piano pretty quickly too.

• There's always going to be great new music to listen to. All I have to do is find it.

• Summer in Vancouver is coming. It will be grand and I'll be happy everyday.

• I am most certainly capable of doing great things.

• My mum is taking me to Grand Cayman where I'll celebrate my birthday and I'll get to see Houston in the summer too.

Go on; cut a little bit deeper.

I would be so much more into camping if it looked like this.

Let's find out what it's like to be dead.

I've been preparing a new workout/diet plan. I hope to start next week, but I like to get every bit in order before I start so I don't crash head first into failure. In preparation, I've been drinking a lot more water, eating more vegetables and weaning off sweets. For whatever reason, I weighed myself this morning for the first time in three weeks, hoping for 119 but expecting 120. Instead, I saw 113 flash up at me and I checked it three more times to see if it was an error. But every time I weighed, I saw that precious number I haven't seen since high school. I put away the scale and checked my image in the mirror. I don't look or feel thinner but I turned and gazed at my spine; every vertebrae poking out like little teeth under my skin. Then the ends of my ribs, rippling down the edges of my back. I spent a long time trying to get myself to this point before but I stopped the obsessive pursuit long ago. Honestly, I am disgusted with myself by how happy seeing that number made me. The person I was back then is happy to see where I am now and that I got here in a healthy manner. But I realized that I will always have a part of me that wants to be thinner and see bones sticking out. I'm always going to see fat on myself that no one else sees. I'm going to drown that girl inside of me by being healthy and getting fit.

Slide.

It's kind of starting to seem like all I do is wait for things to happen.
Waiting for the delivery of a new pretty ring to put in my septum.
Waiting for a care package in the mail from my mother.
Waiting for September when I get to be close to everything again.
Waiting for a call-back for a single job I've applied to this week.
I'm so impatient and unfocused.
My mind concentrates on things far ahead of it's time.
And my body moves much too slow.
At least I got that haircut I needed today.
Now I can wait for my hair to grow.

I know you try so hard but you can't even win,

you gotta try a little harder; you're the comeback kid.

Penny for my thoughts? No, I'll sell 'em for a dollar.

I don't know how my mind gets to these places. It's already 3am and I don't know why I'm still up. I can't listen to music, it's swaying my emotions in a dangerous way. All I can do is listen to myself suck on this apple core. I wonder how far I would go to become a vegetable. My own mind pulls me inwardly so infinitely that I don't even feel human. My body is like some marionette and my brain pulls the strings in all the wrong ways. I think my time on Earth is so meaningless but people make it unfair to think that way. But I don't think I'm a person. Like I was wired wrong. Like I might not be human and like I came from a faraway planet. I don't think my family is real. I don't think what my grandfather is doing is generally acceptable but for some reason, it will all be fine. (Ask me about this if you're curious, I won't be writing it here.) I don't think I like as many of my friends as I thought I did.   Maybe I should start smoking cigarettes or spending all hours of the night in a club. Maybe I need to get a boyfriend like the one my father wants for me. I'm feeling really weak but I think it's wrong because I'm not as soft and squishy as my genetic makeup makes me to be. I've never cared what anyone thought of me and I'll hold onto that forever. I will write and cuss and whine until I'm dead. Until I'm buried in a grave, but not a coffin because I won't be afraid of the earth.  

Come on, you know you like little girls.

This year, I have a lot of things to do. 2011 was kind of a write-off and that depresses me. I did hardly anything with my diploma that I paid a lot of money and time to achieve. I need to get things going. 2012 cannot be another waste of time for me. I cannot live a life of quiet desperation. It's killing me. I feel like I'm always just on the verge of ending it but I can't because I would hurt my family too much. But one day in time, I'm going to be so drunk or so high that I won't care and it'll be done. But that day, I hope, is years away. And every day I live through puts me closer. So I need to get as much as I can done before then. This is my to do list for 2012.

• Start working/interning as a sound editor in film.
• Get a job that makes me enough money to go on a vacation soon.
• Swim in the ocean when it's warm enough. Waste time on the beach.
• Move out of Vancouver.
• Decide if I want to go to school again.
• Try sex again to see if I still hate it. 
• Try sex with a female to see if I'll hate that too.
• Get at least one tattoo.
• Paint.
• Play guitar.
• Get my body to a point that makes me happy.
• Start rock climbing. Scuba diving. Snowboarding. Martial arts.
• Achieve fluency in Swedish.

 This blog officially only serves to display my constant descent and reemergence from utter madness.

Please take your hand away.

People are fucking awful.
Living is awful.
Working is awful.
Talking to people is awful.
New jobs are awful.
Dying, getting old and dementia are god-fucking awful.

But pain is good.
Tattoos are good.
Drinking is good.
Family is mostly good.
Moving around is good.

Staying in one spot for too long is horrible.
Meeting new people is bad.
Bills are the worst.
Money's evil.
But money is good.

Being happy is good.
Being happy for a long time is great but doesn't happen.
Death is perfect but I'm alive.

I just got back from visiting my Uncle. We all went for dinner at the house he bought in Courtenay. Now if you've ever gone to someone's home for the first time after they've bought it, you have to take "the tour". They could have bought it five years ago but if you've never been there before, the minute you step foot in that house, you have to see every fucking room and corner of it. What a crock of shit. "Look at our basement, look at our garage, this door goes outside, now look at all our fucking property." All I hear is "Look what I can afford. Look at my spouse. You must assume I have a great job. Look at what my money can buy, look at what an adult I am." Whatever.

The last time I saw my Uncle was at my cousin's house three months before. He drank my vodka without asking. So when I visited him last night, I drank his entire bottle of Malibu rum. Fuck him.

 I couldn't go to sleep because I was getting the spins when I closed my eyes. I flipped on the tv and it was on a cable news channel from the States. On the screen were bright red letters spelling BREAKING NEWS and in the top right corner was the word LIVE. A proper woman in a taupe-coloured pants suit was interviewing an odd-looking girl and behind the two women, you could see the charred black remnants of what was probably a house. The girl wouldn't have been so strange looking had you seen her in the mall or walking down Granville, but next to the professionally primped, blonde bobbed interviewer, she looked like an escaped asylum inmate. Her choppy, raven-black haircut was probably done by a friend in some basement salon but it wouldn't have surprised me if it was done by a child with safety scissors.  She had more metal rings in her face than I was capable of counting in my state of inebriation. Her dark eye makeup was running down her face on beads of sweat, which was understandably odd since she was being interviewed on a major network. Why didn't someone fix this chick's makeup before putting her on television? I turned up the volume and listened to the woman introduce and question the creature standing next to her.

  "I'm here in Buffalo, New York with a story about a young woman who is being acclaimed as a hero for saving her neighbour Gloria Steban from a devastating house fire just one hour ago. That young woman is Camilla..." The interviewer leaned towards the left ear of the girl and whispered, "What's your last name, dear? It isn't showing up on the teleprompter..."
  "It's just Camilla. I don't want my last name on tv." The girl's lips burst the words out with force. She obviously did not want to be on television whatsoever. The interviewer shifted uncomfortably following the girl's remark, then turned to the camera and continued with her story..
  "Right... Camilla here lived in the basement suite of the property that once stood directly behind me. As you can see, the home is burnt to a rubble, and the cause of the fire is yet to be known. Police are on the scene and have implicated that this fire may be the product of an arsonist who has been ravaging this area, this being the fourth fire in three months. Gloria Steban lived on the ground floor of the home and was trapped in her bedroom as the fire consumed the house. As Camilla rushed out of the house, she fought through flames and debris to save her terrified neighbour from certain death. Now Camilla, America wants to know how you mustered up the courage to march your way through a nightmarish inferno to save a woman's life? I assume you're very good friends with Ms Steban."
  The interviewer faced Camilla in anticipation of her response. She had lit a cigarette and was casually smoking throughout the interviewer's introduction. The woman was visibly unnerved by Camilla's cavalier air.
  "No, I'm not. I'm not courageous either, it was really more out of sheer annoyance that I beat my way onto her floor to get her out and to quit her incessant screaming."
  The interviewer gawked at the girl, with her mouth wide open. She half-expected the girl to giggle and explain it was a joke, but her face didn't crack. Then she wondered if maybe this girl was just as insane as she looked.
  "Interesting. I contend you must indeed have a great deal of bravery for risking your life to save a woman you don't know so well. We need more heros like you in this world."
  Camilla exhaled her drag of smoke into the interviewer's face and answered again.
  "Lady, I ain't a hero. Her shrieking was aggravating me. I got her out of there so she'd shut her goddamn mouth." Camilla pulled in another breath of her cigarette and puffed it out towards the sky. "I really would have let the bitch burn."
  By this point, the interviewer was overflowing with agitation and could barely formulate a proper response to the girl's curt revelation. Who does this little cunt think she is? Is she goddamn retarded? The woman wanted to grab Camilla by the throat and scream "Listen, you ungrateful bitch, I'm here at 1am to do this bloody story so the least you could do is not swear on my live newscast."
  But the camera was still rolling and as I watched the wheels turn in the woman's head she said "I'm sorry Camilla, that's all the time we had for this story. Thank you for fulfilling your duty as a member of the humankind. Good night America." Camilla had turned on her heel and started walking away before the interviewer had even finished closing her bewildering segment. A sullen exclamation of "Fuck off" was the last thing heard from Camilla before the view went dark and a coloured test pattern appeared on the screen.

  I didn't even bother checking what else might have been on tv. I shut it off and closed my eyes to see that the spins had gone away. I kept them closed and before I drifted off to sleep I decided that if I were ever caught in a house fire, I would not save anyone but myself.

People Lie All The Time.

I really hope the world ends this year because I cannot handle life.
I hope you like your new friends and they're as nice as your old ones were.
I do not think I'm the same person after a bottle of white wine.
God, I used to be such a pretty girl.
But then I ruined everything.
I don't know how I kicked the habit, but damn it, I want it back.
I feel simply weak when what made me weakest is gone.
After all this time, I still never got strong.
Now every time my armor breaks,
I put new metal in my face.

A Thousand Details

Christmas Wish List

• These art prints from society6

• Spirit hood
• Aerial silk lessons
• Set of juggling balls