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.

Strange

Today as I was sitting in Japanese class I looked over at the desk in front of me and saw a little notepad with the 4minute and beast logos on it. When the girl came back I caught her attention and asked if she was a fan of kpop.

So today I talked to someone about kpop, for what must be the first time since I got into it. It was surreal listening to her talk about the concerts she has been to and all her friends who are into it too, or will happily listen to her talk about it. Now I kinda feel like crying. I wonder what it is like to be part of a group of fans of something, rather than always be on the outside looking in. Unable to fit in. I will always be a little envious of those little groups. I wonder what its like to not feel embarrassed about your hobbies, like the music I listen to and the dramas I watch are anything to be ashamed about. I don’t know when I learned to be ashamed of these things, or why. Just I know I will never be able to ask that girl to tell me more about the clubs she goes to, and the things she does. It won’t feel right. I’m used to keeping these things to myself by now. I’ve long gotten used to being alone, and somewhere along the line I began to enjoy it. It’s more comfortable this way.

I remember that time I went to the anime club meeting, and how awful I felt afterwards. How little I enjoyed being there. I feel like that now. At least I managed the conversation with this girl. At least I somehow managed to pull it off. It felt so strange to say those names out loud. Man, I don’t know why I asked her if she was a kpop fan. Why did I do that?

  • Listening To: MISS A - lips
  • mood: anxious

ten

“Why did my happiness disappear at once? Nobody answered. And nobody will answer.”

Korean drama TEN has to be the best crime series I’ve seen in a while. Dark and moody, it doesn’t shy away from the sort of horrific crimes that other shows are often too tame to depict. The first episode was an hour long special that felt like watching a movie. At first I was bored and I thought I had it all figured out, but of course I didn’t. The ending hit me hard, and I ended up in tears. Its been a long time since a drama or movie left me feeling so devastated. The drama is beautifully shot, with a wonderful OST and surprisingly good acting. I liked all the characters and wanted to know more of them. The second episode was more creepy than the first, but I still ended up heart broken and in tears.

Sadly as the episodes went on I lost that emotional connection with it. I still loved it, the crimes were still well thought out, the show was still beautiful to look at and the OST was still carefully chosen and always appropriate. But somehow the later episodes just didn’t connect like the first two. And the cracks began to show- mainly a problem a lot of these shows have, in setting up amazing characters and yet…never quite fleshing them out. Taunting viewers with snippets, bits and pieces, but never quite following up. Well, I lie. They shoved all the back story into the very last episode. Which was jarring to say the least. There were definitely some issues with pacing towards the end.

And I ended up feeling let down by Ji Hoon’s back story and the reason behind how he is. I loved his somewhat unstable nature- “the monster who hunts monsters”- and to see it all reduced to the classic cliché of well, you’ll see. I hate that cliché, or rather I hate the way it is used. I am now halfway through the last episode and can’t bring myself to finish it. I do still hope there is a second season though. This is one series very worthy of it. And maybe the characters will be better developed over time.

(Really, I just want something on the level of the first episode. That episode came very close to being perfect.)

memai

I went home on the weekend. Well, on Friday night. Skipped the second part of my Friday afternoon lecture so I could get an early bus and not have to rush around. Of course I was still late and didn’t get the early bus, and the next bus came late so I ended up running to the train station with my anaemia and my heavy bags but I managed to print out my tickets and run down to the platform and get on my train. Felt like dying, and there was no place to sit, and I was frankly a little miserable but I was going home. My dad picked up from the train station and we went grocery shopping (where I went crazy getting my dad to buy all the things I wanted to eat XD) before heading home. I had been woken up at 6:20am on Friday morning because of a fire alarm so by the time I got home I was exhausted. And also cold because it was really warm last week here at uni, but of course it was freezing at home. And I did not bring nearly enough clothes, not even a coat D:

On Saturday I somehow ended up at Old Trafford, freezing cold and exhausted, to watch my sister zipwire across the stadium. Not even joking. I was miserable, but it was her birthday and she had fun so I can’t complain too much. It was my first time being there too, and it was pretty cool. Amazing how big it is. Afterwards headed home and just did some work, chilled out a bit. And then spent the majority of Sunday baking. Mixed up some cake for my sister because I can’t bake carrot cake to save my life, and made butter cream icing for the first time which was surprisingly good. We sang happy birthday to her, complete with lighting up candles for her to blow out, and then ate cake. Then it became a bit hectic as I had to pack and go back again. The journey was quite and didn’t involve quite so much rushing, thankfully.

It was a good weekend. I paid for the time off though as I had to stay up until 1am on Sunday finishing off coursework due Monday, and then on Monday spent the break between morning lectures and afternoon lectures polishing up said coursework, rushing to library to print it off and ended up handing in the coursework 5 minutes before the deadline D: But it was good to go home and to relax and to eat nice things and to see my cat.

Alas, I don’t know why but I’ve somehow ended up with a stupid cold. Most likely from being inappropriately dressed in cold weather at Old Trafford, which makes me feel like such a dumb manga heroine. You know those ones who get the flu from like getting caught in the slightest drizzle? Yeah.  I’ve been lying down for the past 6 hours watching OB GYN doctors on my laptop Its not a good drama, but its addictive as hell and its serving as a nice distraction. I feel like passing out. I’m dizzy and my head hurts and I generally feel quite sorry for myself. Coping with illness is not something I am good at. I should probably do my work now though so I can get into bed. I think I need an early night.

The one where I can never seem to say the right thing

I’m so sick of embarrassing myself with the things I say and do. I just, I can be such an idiot. I function best with a backspace, you know? And I feel like there is a whole list of social rules that I do not know, and constantly trample on. All the little underlying meanings to what people say and do are totally lost on me. And don’t get me started on how much I hate small talk. Small talk has to be the most baffling thing on the planet. How does a single “How are you?” lead to a conversation?  :/  And then, even things like asking for help in labs is so anxiety inducing and I usually end up feeling embarrassed and miserable afterwards.

I am constantly left feeling like an idiot, regretting saying and doing the things that I do. Wishing I’d said or done differently, thinking of all the things I should have said or done when its too late. And I know I make a big deal out of small things, but I can’t shake the feeling that all these small things are adding up in peoples mind to form a really bad impression. I bet people think I’m a little weird. I don’t want them to think that, obviously. I really do hate interacting with people. It makes me want to curl up in bed and never leave.

Also, it gets old very quickly being one of around 10 girls on my course. I stand out so much already that I feel like I should be pretty and clever and social so that I stand out in the best way. :/ I wish more girls did engineering. Why don’t more girls want to do engineering?

  • Listening To: Kozi - Promenade
  • mood: anxious

But if I can cope with all the sadness I think I can become a little stronger.I have climbed many walls, so I don’t want to lose anymore.(x)

Tonight I booked my train tickets to go home next week. I’m looking forward to it a ridiculous amount. I’m so bogged down with work right now that a little break would be nice. Well, I’ll probably be lugging my laptop back so I can work at home so I guess its more being able to work in my own room, and fending off my cat trying to sit on my textbooks. Things like that. It really does feel like its been ages since I’ve been home. This semester has been so hectic that time just seems to have slipped by without even noticing. Yet ,I feel like I’ve not done much at all. I’m so busy with lectures and labs and course works (aka lab report after lab report after lab report) that I haven’t even had time, no, more like motivation or energy, to do any revision yet. This is worrying.

I got my marks for semester 1 back recently. Well, most of them. Still waiting for one of them. For the most part they are, not going to lie, really good and I am honestly shocked that I managed to pull it off. I even managed to pass communications and computer engineering. Sadly got my lowest mark thus far on Circuits and Fields, although the paper was really awful so I’m glad just to have passed. I was happy when I got my marks, then the worry settled in and it hasn’t quite left- having good marks for the first semester puts a lot of pressure on me now to continue to maintain these standards. And as for circuits and fields, I am on the fields part of the module and if I don’t do well on that I’m screwed.

There are certain things I want, things I can’t say because I’m so scared of jinxing it, that really depend on me getting good marks. I thought I’d failed my first semester but I haven’t and now I’ve started to hope and allow myself to dream of achieving these things and its honestly a little scary. Because you know, no revision being done. Still a major chance of my fucking everything up if I mess up this semester. Also: I have grown to realize that failing my A levels has made me really scared of failure. Which is good because it gives me MOTIVATION and DETERMINATION and all those lovely words but at the same time it gets tiring to be putting myself under this much pressure. It’s like there’s a part of myself constantly going have to do more, this isn’t enough, have to do more, still not good enough, will never be good enough, how dare you relax when there are THINGS to DO.  Perhaps this university business has finally started to do things to my sanity.

I wouldn’t say I’m stressed. But I am busy. I wish I could blog more, and I could write more interesting entries, but I find that university saps at my motivation to blog. I’m churning out so much coursework right now that a) I don’t want to write any more and b) I am very much in “technical report” standard when it comes to writing. It makes me a bit idk- annoyed? sad? worried? – to think about how much my degree takes from me. And yet still it never feels like enough, no matter what I do. And when I don’t do anything I feel guilty about it as if I’m not allowed a little bit of time to myself. I don’t know when I became this way.

I wanna go home. :( Probably going to start counting down the days soon!

  • Listening To: ICONIQ - Change Myself
  • mood: restless

Tags

baking book quote books Budapest cats christmas copenhagen denmark dramas driving exams family feelings finances first year fish food foundation year fourth year friends goals health Japan japanese job stuff korea kpop malaysia monthly book roundup music no poo peak district pets randomness school scotland second year sister third year travel university university musings walking and hiking work yorkshire

Categories

Archives

Blogroll