Honest Lies – Page 27 – "Okay, so I'm the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero."

Welcome! Honest Lies is the personal site of a 26 year old graduate electrical engineer living in the UK. Covering every day life, books and various other randomness. Read more about me and the site here.

I’m currently playing around with photo editing apps. I really want to get around to publishing my Snowden and some Japan or even Thailand posts…by now they won’t be as text heavy or descriptive as I like my travel logs to be but they will still be something. I have some nice enough photos, but its fun to play around to make them better. I’m not a good photographer and I know no amount of filtering will make me into one, and yet I can’t help but enjoy playing around and thinking they do improve with it.

I’ve finished my exams and with that the autumn semester comes to a close and the spring semester rapidly approaches. I had one exam and a coursework due last week. I didn’t really get stuck into the coursework until about a week before the deadline so I was pretty stressed out. Oh I had tried to get the coursework done sooner but it was so hard, every time I sat down to go through it I would only end up getting more confused. I kept thinking that I just needed to revise some more and then it would click, but soon I found that even having gone through the notes, the example sheets, the past exams, I still had no clue. Stressed out and full of despair (yes, things had gotten that dramatic) I turned to my father for help, and he kindly sat with me for four hours each night practically every night that week so that Sunday, right before the deadline I had it done. My report wasn’t the best and I foolishly thought I could fluff it out on Monday morning before handing it in. Of course, I actually overslept and ended up rushing to uni and handing it in 10 minutes before the deadline without much polishing up. Then the exam was Tuesday and I was feeling more confident about that. The past exam papers had been fairly straight forward. Alas the paper I got was weird and I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t. I felt angry and disappointed. I had worked so hard and for what? A terrible exam and a hasty coursework makes me nervous for this subject.

Of course, no time to rest. I had two exams this week and these were my weaker subjects. Seeing so my strong subject had gone to bits I was terrified. I ended up phoning my mom last Friday, Saturday and even Sunday because I needed so badly for someone to tell me it would be OK, that I could only do my best, that I just needed to try. You see, I’ve been struggling this semester. I’ve been slipping back into my old mentality of I’m just going to fail so why even try? This was especially true for these subjects. They were required business modules. And I wish I hadn’t been required to do them. I didn’t understand. The terminology was one thing, the main thing. And the exams were essay based and I hadn’t written essays in exams for a long time. Thankfully I found a book my dad had bought my sister a long time ago, and that had somehow fallen into my hands. How to pass exams every time. Most of it was patronising but the section on essays was invaluable. That and my fathers advice. Make key points. Use diagrams, tables and charts to help you remember. I tried my best to revise like that, even though it was so dull and frustrating I really struggled with it and I was always left with the feeling if hopelessness, that no matter what I did it wasn’t going in, it wasn’t enough.

So I had my exam on Tuesday which was half essays and half maths questions. It was a good paper but I stupidly forgot some key formulas. On Wednesday I had a pure essay exam- one and a half hours to write three essays. I put my calculator out in the exam anyway, just because it felt too weird to study without it close by. I followed the books advice and spent ten minutes whizzing through the questions jotting down a quick plan- all the key points I could remember before settling down and getting stuck into the questions. It was OK. The exam paper was good. I didn’t write enough for one question but I’d like to think the others were OK. Neither was as horrendous as I had been expecting, but neither were they good. I just hope I passed.

Its OK now. It feels great for them to be over. Today I lay in bed until well into the afternoon, warm and comfortable, enjoying not having the pressure to do anything or go anywhere. I wrapped myself in a bubble, not thinking of everything I still need to do for next semester and just letting myself relax.

I’m surprisingly calm. These pills must really be working because I have felt low, negative, worried (see:all those hours spent on the phone to my mom) but I’ve only had a proper panic attack one and a half times, and never in the exams. Unfortunately the flip side of the pills is that they affect my concentration and sleep, so in that way I’ve been tired and unfocused, but feeling calm helps me to stay relatively clear headed in the exams. To be able to tackle them without anxiety distracting me. Its good. I hope it shows on my marks. It would be too cruel that I felt like I coped on these exams in a way I never have before, just to….do badly. I won’t say fail.

Tomorrow its back to work. Got driving, and gotta get stuck into my thesis and job stuff too. I feel rather dazed, detached. I feel like I’m going to return to work tomorrow as if I’ve come back from another planet.

On Tuesday its back to lectures too. Everything continues to happen quickly. I am coping though. Just.

I wasn’t expecting to discover I was a prince or to be given a million pounds. I know what makes me so furious all of a sudden. Because I think she’s lying.

– The Invisible Ones, Stef Penney

I read The Tenderness of Wolves and was totally overwhelmed by it: I loved it so, so much. I was thus keen to dive into Stef Penney’s other works. Which was just this. Alas. I was majorly let down by this book. To be fair, the blurb does warn that it’s very different compared to The Tenderness of Wolves, and maybe I should have taken heed. Reasons this book didn’t work for me:

a) Ray was a horrible, creepy man. Being self-aware didn’t change that.

b) Most of the characters were a bit…off. I loved JJ but that was about it. Probably Ray’s creepiness tainting things, granted, as the book was largely from his perspective.

c) Any and all romance was awkward as hell. How could an author who made me cry with barely-a-hug in The Tenderness of Wolves write such awkward romance here?

d) I could see why the author chose to have such a big twist at the end, obviously lots of books have big twists, but this one felt straight out of Days of Our Lives. It was surprising, sure, but I felt let down. The story tried so hard to be clever and twisty that it lost touch with reality. A simpler ending, and resolution to the Rose Janko Mystery, may have been more obvious, but I think the author certainly has the writing talent to have made it quite powerful anyway. See: Tana French’s Faithful Place for a story where the crime is quite straightforward, but is explored in such a way that it is no less shocking as something more complex or devious.

The end left a bitter aftertaste, and made me feel like I’d wasted my time. I had to think it through quite a lot for it to make sense and again, it only does in a very soap opera-ish way. This was a long book and I really was interested, I could even handle the off characters, if only it came together better.

I was so ready to love this author. And now The Tenderness of Wolves is tainted for me too. I find myself questioning my love for it- was it also this over the top? Were the characters also this hateful? (Except JJ of course. What a sweetheart). Just as like in The Tenderness of Wolves though, here the writing was beautiful. And it was as fascinating reading about Gypsy culture just as about life in the colonies. But this story didn’t work for me at all. And Ray needs a restraining order. Disappointed.

Audio book notes: The audiobook was fantastic. In fact, I think it made the book more interesting than it actually was.

I’ve been trying to get into yoga lately. I tried so many breathing exercises and what not for my anxiety, but I found I’d get bored and distracted and it wouldn’t help. I thought that doing something whilst focusing my breathing may be the ticket. Which is why I decided to try Yoga. It seemed like the sort of thing that would aid relaxation, and which could be learnt without going to a class and learnt cheaply – no fancy work out clothes or gym memberships or equipment. I didn’t even have an exercise mat and little ambition other than to relax, so I loved the Yoga With Adriene night time video. It was simple and I could do it on my bed before I went to sleep, to ground myself and try to settle my anxiety. I didn’t find it made any major difference to my sleeping, but I still enjoyed having those few minutes of feeling settled. And after hours hunched over revision it felt good to stretch out. Of course there’s only so many times you can do the same thing…

I now have an exercise mat, courtesy of my parents for Christmas, and so I feel like pushing myself now. I’m quick to take things up and drop them so I won’t push myself too much, but I want to try and learn more. I’m going to stick with Yoga With Adriene, as I find her videos easy to understand and I like her…presence? Attitude? That kind of positivity that doesn’t cross over into cheesy or patronising, but makes you feel good. I have also been looking through her beginners’ videos and videos on the various poses which are great for getting to grips with it. I’m thinking of slowly working my way through her various workouts and see what happens. The night time one remains my favourite but I’m also going to try some of the more challenging ones. I may also have a poke around YouTube and amazon to see what else there is. I’m definitely not going to a class: I don’t have that kind of money or confidence.

I want to find something that makes me feel good and helps my anxiety, not just relying on pills you know?

I just hope I don’t break/strain/hurt myself. My body is not used to being stretched in the ways yoga demands…

“There’s an innocence I possess but you, you keep snatching it away. Even from the smallest openings”

Only a few hours left of this year. Less than two. Time passes so quickly. I remember being 15 years old and thinking about the way I wouldn’t be alive after I turned 18. 6 years later and I’m still alive, I’m still here, clinging on. I finished school, now I’m about to finish university. It feels strange and more than a little scary – I’ve never seriously thought about what comes next, cannot imagine a life without exams and coursework and lectures. I still don’t have a job anyway- but I have plenty of rejections, and a couple of failed interviews to show for my efforts. I’m at home and my dad is taking care of me and my sister is here, a little because of me but mostly because her boyfriend isn’t at their home and she wants company. My sister and my father and I went to the zoo on boxing day and we saw snow leopards. It was fun. Christmas itself was boring.

I’m currently bored at home, with too much to do and too little motivation, and feeling trapped. I’ve been at home too long. My mother and my sister keep fighting. My father and my mother keep fighting. I don’t know why I thought coming home for two weeks is a good idea. Why I thought it would help me to feel better by being here. The atmosphere in the house is tense, very still but not in a calm manner – in a fragile manner, anticipatory, waiting to be interrupted, always watching over your shoulder, always ready to turn the music up louder and pretend that it isn’t happening again. Still.

Summary: Christmas was not bad, boring. University is not bad, boring, difficult, I’m still sick of it. Revision is only just happening, and I may hand my coursework in late for the first time this January. I haven’t been to work for a while and I cannot decide if I miss it. I still feel tired and sad, and so so anxious.

2015.

I doubt anything will be different.

Post Title: Onitsuka Chihiro - Innocence, Onitsuka Chihiro - Innocence

Travel

I caught my best friend on Saturday. We went for brunch – sandwiches and juice at a homemade cafe. Very delicious. And it was only for a couple of hours but it was brilliant to catch up with her. I am so, so glad that she still considers me a friend. I was so worried about her outgrowing me, but in those few hours it was as if we had only seen each other yesterday, as if there hadn’t been months of silence. Ok, there were a couple of awkward moments. But mostly it was just great. I felt relaxed and happy, which is such a rare and precious feeling at the moment.

One interesting thing we discussed was our classmates from high school and where they are now. It is amazing how far people don’t go from home. Even my sister is living right next door to our parents really. And even I although I talk big about wanting to live abroad, as I apply for jobs I find myself seeking ones close to my parents location. When I was younger I didn’t get on with my parents, and I found being home made me feel trapped. I had my head in the clouds – dreaming of going far away, dreaming of different places where it won’t matter if I’m the odd one out, because it would be expected. There is still a part of me that thinks like that. I do still want to travel. But as I get older my relationship with my parents gets better and I like going home, even if it is frustrating in some ways. I also become more aware of my parents aging, and I think about how horrible it was to be so far away from my grandmother when she died, and how little closure there is when you can’t be there, and I don’t want that. I am aware of my parents aging and I also want to be there for them as they do so, to make the most of it. Which is terribly morbid, isn’t it? It feels terrible to think like this – it feels uncomfortable and scary to think of that inevitable end. Yet, time passes so quickly.

I am also aware that there is a part of me that needs to be close to home, that actually doesn’t cope so well with independence. In many ways I struggle with change and I do have a lot of anxiety around it. I found immigrating to the UK hard, I found spending a year abroad in Malaysia hard. There is a part of me that wants the excitement and learning experience of going abroad. I do still want that feeling I had in Malaysia, or whenever I travel – of it not mattering what mistakes you make, because it won’t last, it won’t be forever. It will be a year, two years. Not long. Not like immigrating, where every mistake, everything that makes you stand out, makes you feel desperately embarrassed and frustrated with yourself. That’s what you have to remember when you feel scared of travelling, it could always be immigrating. At least there is an expiry date. At least, that is how it is for me.

I also look at the locations of the companies I apply to and seek out Cape Town, South Africa in them and dream of going back and reconnecting with whatever it was I lost when we immigrated away from SA. Then the fear hits of never being able to reconnect, and I shy away. I want to go there, I tell myself, but would I really have that much courage?

Ultimately though, I just find myself wanting the comfort and familiarity of being close to home. Home not as in a place, I want to clarify. Not the UK. I still feel alienated from this country, uncomfortable calling it my home. But home as in my parents’ house, my parents, my sister, my cat, my old room and my old things. I can understand sticking close to home. Anyway, I can at least be grateful that when we immigrated my father chose a lovely area of the UK to move us too. There could be worse places to be tied to.

It feels presumptuous to talk of travelling already though, when I don’t have work yet. I feel naughty looking at the location pages of company websites and letting my mind wonder. It feels wrong to think of the future like this, as if you really have that much power over it, as if it isn’t like anything could happen next.

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