Give away something which I no longer need: 1/50

Today I found a stack of fifty loose manuscript papers in my locker. I bought it back in year eight for music, but I barely found any use for them, not being the most dedicated music student.

I gave it to two friends who are music students who share the stack amongst themselves. They are going to put the manuscript paper to much better use than I did.

The epitome of Hannah, gif edition

My temper and I

My temper is not something I hide about myself or have any shame about. It's a part of my personality and I've grown to simply acknowledge it.

What I do hide, what I do feel shame about are the actions I do, the words I say, the things I harm-whether physical or emotional-whilst my temper takes over me.

It's frightening sometimes. You're aware you're angry. You're equally aware of what you're doing/saying. You're aware that your reaction is too harsh for whatever the person did to anger you (in most situations.)

But you don't care. This person or thing did something wrong and you're angry. You will show them that and make them feel something-usually guilt or fear. And nothing can stop you.

What makes it worse is that I don't get punished for my temper. I get punished by my temper and I have to live with the consequences. Whatever trouble I get in, was all set up by me. Self-inflicted.

Generally speaking, nobody punishes you for getting angry and when they do, it's not that harsh. What people start rolling out the harsh punishments for what you did whilst you were angry.

I've destroyed at least one good friendship, one which I still haven't repaired properly. I can only hope time had healed it-it has been four years-and should we meet again, we shall be able to converse freely.

I lost my temper and slapped her across the face-hard. My punishment was the immediate termination of our friendship and her friends ostracised me, not that I would blame them. I also saw her carrying an ice pack around her cheek for the rest of day-red and hot, just like my outburst, which would follow me, weighing down on my shoulders, for the next one and a half years.

This incident doesn't haunt me in the way it used to. Now, I recognise it as one of the final few face slaps before I first started taking measures against angry outbursts.

Most of the time I lose my temper, I feel dismayed, hurt and guilty for my actions as soon as I snap out of it. Most of the time, I'm so dismayed that I could do such an action to my friend that I immediately withdraw and place myself in mental quarantine to prevent myself from hurting them anymore.

"Were my actions justified?"

At least 70% of the time the answer is no, so I thereafter amplify feelings of guilt and sadness as punishment. So it's very self-destructive, because in most situations, I always give myself a bad time after, allowing it to dwell in me in hopes I do not do it again. But if that's what it takes to stop me hurting people-especially my friends-so be it.

I've had a very on-off relationship with acknowledging  my temper throughout my life, and I've taken different approaches to either manage or hide it. In recent months I've been doing less hiding and more managing.

One of the most successful management techniques I've been trying to implement is delaying my reaction in favour of discussion.

So I'll be angry, and I'll show that. But I try not do or say anything in retaliation. What I do instead is try to stimulate conversation with whoever angered me. Why did they act the way they did, say the things they said?

If I find their actions justified and I agree, my temper dies down. If I don't agree, then I'll react accordingly. Hopefully the few moments of discussion I had with whoever, or whatever angered me, calmed me down enough to produce a justifiable reaction.

After every outburst I have, I always evaluate it. Who, what, when, where and, why? From there, I can find ways to improve myself and my reactions.

However, something I'm careful about is to not completely push my reactions and temper aside in favour of being completely civil and subdued all the time. 

Sometimes people cross the line so much, do something so offensive and harmful, I don't need any time to negotiate my own reaction. I know which ones they are, because I don't feel any guilt after.

Sometimes, people are genuine jerks, and they genuinely deserve my outburst as a result of their harmful actions and words.

Thanks sister

My sister got me a solar powered sunflower which flaps it's leaves up and down, in time with the stem and flower rocking side to side, all whilst proclaiming "life's a bitch."

Assassins Creed players be like

"Imma walk behind this group of the highest ranking soldiers carrying this body and ain't nobody gonna see me"

"Are you a virgin?"

Is a question I've been asked before, immediately followed up by "what's your number?"

I found out that what this girl was asking me was whether I was sexually active, and how many people I had had sex with.

We were talking about sex. My attitudes to it was a little more liberal than hers, so I'm guessing she asked me "are you a virgin? What's your number?" because she was expecting only someone who could have had sex before, could have had such liberal, easy-going views on it.

Truth is, I'm not sure if I have liberal views on the entirety of sex. I'm fact, I don't even know the exact definition of "sex," and the more I try to seek answers, the more confusing the social concept of "keeping one's virginity" and just virginity as a whole, becomes.

Growing up, I was told, socially, that you were a virgin until the moment you had sex. What "sex" was, was something between a man and a woman. A penis was repeatedly thrusted inside a vaginal opening. The moment the penis entered, both the man and the woman had lost their virginity.

Growing up, I heard more definitions.

"It's an act of love between two people."

"The thing a man and a woman do when they want to make babies and probably ruin their lives."

And the old "when a penis is thrust repeatedly into a vaginal opening."

Those the definitions are the must common ones I have heard. I find fault in all three of them.

This blog post is turning out to be really lengthy, a good, hearty discussion with myself. For this reason, I will split it up. In the next post, I will explain my faults with the common definitions that I hear.

Unexpected niceness from one of my sisters

On Saturday afternoon, my sister walked into my room, announcing that she had something for me, and she hoped I didn't have it already. I immediately thought of Assassin's Creed merchandise or games, but was still pleasantly surprised when my sister presented me with this.

"I saw it, thought you might've liked it. I know most of your earrings aren't very delicate and petite-looking, a bit like you (the sarcastic tone was very strong) but, well, I thought you deserved something nice for making into a three unit maths class at tutoring.

After, she insisted I try them on, swap then around- did it look better in this ear? Or this ear? Did I like them?

Yes, I like them and how you made sure I liked them, and that they suited me, but I like the fact that you acknowledged my achievements nicely more, because that's a bit of a rarity in this family.

Thanks.

Unexpected actions

No less than three weeks ago, my ex-boyfriend came onto my afternoon train.

He stepped on and I immediately sat upright, hands on hips, crossed my legs and stared at him until he walked out of my line of sight.

I was suprised, not by his actions- we are not longer involved in each other's lives and he can go on whatever train be wants- but rather my own.

I do not want to go into too much detail about the whole situation between us two because it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but we ended our relationship on a bad note. Primarily due to his choices to breach my trust, and take the breakup to public social media.

After the breakup, I erased him out of my life, with no post-breakup feelings. In retrospect, it was because I wasn't that into him- I liked him, and spending time with him-walking home together after the train and whatnot. However, not enough to invest any emotions into our relationship-hence the lack of post-breakup feelings (eg. Sadness, anger etc.)

So my spontaneous reaction to his presence-stare him down until he was out of my line of sight-surprised me.

I think it's because alongside losing our relationship, we lost our pre-existing friendship. We'd been friends for about four years-year 5-liking each other on and off since the beginning of high school- but both of us too scared to make a move.

We didn't have a regular form of communication, like social media, for I was on none. However, on the occasional event or whatever that made him late, he would catch my train, seek me out, and we'd start talking.

His appearances would be completely random. Sometimes I wouldn't see him for half a year, other times, a few weeks.

However, every time we saw each other, no matter how long it had been, it was like just yesterday we had been talking. It was all very loose and easy going. I didn't expect or look forward to him, but it was a pleasant surprise every time I saw him. We had that sort of friendship. I have very few of those.

And I'm guessing, the way our friendship ended on a bad note when it didn't have to (should he not've taken the breakup to social media, it would've been different) left me bitter. And I never registered that bitterness until the very moment I was reminded of him.