Going on blogger is akin to walking in a ghost town

I remember when I first made a blog. It was in 2012, year 8, when everyone had one, our blog titles and urls named to reflect subtly our personality as much of possible.

 

You could see how the nature of modern social media affected our style of blogging-most people's posts were short, not really a 'post' in the sense it was simply a three sentence update of what happened in the last period of school that day. An inside joke, one funny period in class, a moment's worth of angst was what I typically came across on my dashboard, which was probably more geared towards a twitter account as opposed to a blog.

 

I'd say my decline in activity was primarily because I had nothing left to say. I'd shared everything I wanted to, and had nothing left to say. My position of anonymity limited what I could post about, lest my family somehow stumble across it and read into my ideas and thoughts, and then identify me from photos, or personal life events I blogged about. Anything recounted about my personal life was done with as distanced a voice as possible. This gave me a relatively 'niche' blog and once the things I wanted to say were said, there wasn't much else to talk about.

 

Whilst there would be longer posts, they were typically a few paragraphs long describing an event of sorts, or a rant. For this reason, my blog got something of a distinction amongst some my friends for having lengthy posts discussing ideas about self-identity, societal problems, the human being as a personality, so on so forth.

 

Scrolling down my dashboard-old blogs-long abandoned, turned to private, closed, scattered like litter on a sidewalk and I do think it's something of a reflection of my generation, arguably the first to have go through teenage years with the 'instant' nature of modern social media. Double tap, like, retweet, swipe left.

 

Elaborating upon the more 'twitter-esque' blogging styles of my schoolmates, I suppose that was what lead to the decline of collective activity amongst my cohort. Blogger is, by design, catered for long posts with detail- as reflected in the amount of different features one can have in a text body- standard bold, italics, hyperlinks and dot points. Your dashboard'll only let you read the first few lines of the post, before you have to click on it, and most people in my generation aren't too used to that on social media. The dashboard/walls/feeds on twitter, Instagram, Facebook and the such allow you to see everything all at once, and can do so because all the content on there is relatively short compared to that blogger is designed for longer posts. I think that utimately did not co operate too well with the 'one glance' nature of social media that the majority of my nation is used to.

 

I also do think the context of most of us at the time would have played a role- we were thirteen and angsty. We had 'issues' (which seemed like the biggest deal at the time) and we wanted to voice them. We wanted friends to know but not the 'entire world' that was facebook. So I suppose blogger provided a decent platform to do so. As we grew and openly laughed (but inwardly cringed) at what we said when we were thirteen or whatnot, we wanted some distance to the past. We had moved on.

Long time no see, to say at the very least

I haven't been here in a while. I guess I was, and still am, pretty focused on tying together my life;  organising health, fitness, studies. It's pretty difficult for me; I've never been one who's had all three aspects of that present simultaneously in life, it's always been "I'm healthy and studying, but unfit, " or "I'm fit and healthy but not studying," or "I'm studying but not fit nor healthy," so on, so forth.

Also the appeal of blogger wore off for a while. At the time, I was less familiar with the keyboard of my new phone. My old phone's keyboard had little left/right arrow keys to easily move between letters to correct the odd spelling mistake. The lack of this feature in my new one meant whenever I realised I spelt something incorrectly a few lines ago, I had to attempt to drag my finger near the exact letter.

The number of times the phone's screen 'cursor' thought I was pointing at a different letter, a few letters away? Frustratingly high. The way Samsung lays out their settings is very, very confusing for someone whose first Android was a Sony-Ericsson. Unnecessarily complicated, I didn't know how to utilise the swype keyboard nor the autofill until much later. So being left without arrow keys for fine corrections or an autofill/swype keyboard made for typing up long, thoughtful blog posts very difficult.

A decent amount of events have occurred in my private life but I guess I haven't written them down. My diary lays in my draw, unmarked for a good half year, similar to this blog.

I should keep up to date. I've missed a good year's worth of memories. Fleeting moments of angst, day to day nuances, what someone said to me on the train-small things like that should be recorded. They're what I experience on a daily basis and I think it is important I record such things, regardless of how trivial they are. It will be, in the future, my only link to the past, other then quickly-fading memories.

I bought my oldest sister a calendar for Christmas

The amount I have to say about my sisters never seems to decrease, does it?

This time I am talking about my oldest sister. My second oldest sister's gotten a lot of thought from me over the past few years and it's only recently that I've given my other sister the same amount and intensity of thought as my second oldest sister.

This is simply because because us two, there is less material to write about. She's never been as involved, had that much of a presence in my life.

In my younger years, she chose to spend more time with my second oldest sister. Not that much time the family, let alone me. Now that I am her age, I understand why she did that-add in some of the factors affecting her personality and the sort of home environment we (she?) grew up in, and I can draw out a complete picture explaining everything.

So I've never harbored the same type of hatred towards her as I did/do my second oldest. How can you hate someone's who's just never done anything to or with you? There's nothing to dislike.

Finally around to the title of this party-for Christmas I bought my sister a calender. It has twelve pictures of adorable puppies in it and my brother and I thought she would've loved it as she is an animal lover and basically has all responsibility for our family dog.

The other day I found it discarded in the small area where she sleeps when she does come back to visit the family, alongside bunched up wrapping paper and the little candy cane my brother bought her.

Hoping she had just forgotten it, I asked her if she was going to use it-if not, I would use it. She replied 'Oh soz. You can use if you want.'

It really upset me... I don't know. I suppose it was just the idea-I bought her something which I thought she'd like and use, and she just... dumped it there.

I suppose it's my yearning for a closer relationship with her-I've been getting closer to my second oldest sister and I was hoping this would've been something of a minor breakthrough. At least we could've talked about it for five minutes. She could've talked to me about different dog breeds. Stuck it in her rooms. Anything.

I'm a little sad.

Developing my voice in slam

I find that I haven't fully developed my own voice or style when it comes to slam.  I don't want to simply recite my poem. I want to perform it. Both ends of the spectrum differ greatly from the other. However there is a fine line separating reciting poetry and performing it. I struggle to find it.

The first poem I did was about my sister. It was one big apostrophe as I talked about in an earlier post (link here)

With that poem I did loud, anguished, indignant. Now I'm trying to write a poem on the influence my mother's occasionally erratic and frustrating behaviour on my development and attitude.

I could take the path I took with my old poem-loud, indignant, angry. The idea behind of the poem is similar-the actions of another family member and it's effects on my development throughout the years. It wouldn't (performance-wise) be difficult.

You see, I am a very out there with my emotions and thoughts. Talking about either of them isn't hard. Bringing out strong passionate emotions on either end of the scale and threading those emotions into my words is not difficult. I do it all the time.

However I want to challenge myself. I'm going to try taking a step away from a loud and out there approach. I'm going to try for a subtler take. What emotions will be threaded into my words and how that'll be done-I'm going to try soulful and reflective. I also have to be careful not to victimise myself-that's the easy thing to do. I'm going to try showing firmness and control in my performance; not hurt and victimised.

How it'll be done? That's where it gets hard. So far it's been nothing but difficult actually- I find I cannot bring myself to be calm, firm, reflective and soulful-lest not all at once-without turning the performance into a recital, because I soon start losing the 'subtle underlying, yet still incredibly important' emotions. It's personally difficult to maintain. Subtly with my emotions has never been my thing. 

Life at home update+school slam poetry

Well as my last post said, my relationship with my parents wasn't going too well and i really just took some time off to get some me-time. I still get a bit of a subconscious reminder to add "biological" when I refer to them, but I don't, simply because explaining why I do that to curious listeners is too time consuming.

It's calmed down a little I suppose. I'm more efficient around the house now. I'm punctual with my arrivals for dinner, waking up on time, exercising, cleaning up after myself.

Not for their sake, but rather for my own; developing habits which make me tardy on a daily basis are habits I'd hate to develop so I believe it best if I tried further consolidating my pre-existing good habits.

I also tried to open up to my second oldest sister because I wanted to get a closer relationship with her and that would require me letting some of defences down and making myself open and vulnerable at her mercy.

I tried talking to her about yet another argument I had with my family was she was out with her friends. I wasn't expecting advice or anything. I just wanted to open up, present the situation from my point of view.

She didn't really listen to me I guess; she heard, but she didn't really listen, and there is a difference between the two. Anyways beforehand she didn't seem too interested in hearing what I had to say.

Then when I actually got to talk to her, reaching out, hoping for comfort, hoping or be listened to and comprehended, not just listened to-(there's a difference between the two, y'know?) it was incredibly disappointing.

Yet when the moment came, and I just told her a little bit about the argument with my parents and I was about to explain how I always felt so misunderstood and disregarded, she simply said "well, that's kinda just your fault, isn't it?"

At that point, I just realised, that no matter how hard I would try, whilst me sister and I could go out and talk like old friends, given our mental development in recent years which has bought our mental ages closer than ever, the overall basis of our relationship was still weak.

The way she treated me growing up, how she'd always put me down to make herself feel better, intimidating me into silence, everything- what she did, most of its been lost to memory. The way she made me feel, anguish, upset, self-doubt- I won't forget that.

So after it happened, I penned a small performance poetry piece about it for my upcoming school slam poetry.

On the day of the actual performance that was yesterday, I was a little nervous because I realised two things.

The first was that I had developed an accent. The accent had arisen out of watching a large amount of American slam poetry; slam poetry is still overall a small underground thing in Australia. So when I spoke to perform, I had developed an incredibly poor American-Australian blend.

The second was, because I had left the poem to the last minute, the passion in my performance and the likelyhood of forgetting my lines had a relationship of direct variation.

Upon arriving I noticed there was a music stand so my second problem was gone.

My stupid accent was strong and to took me a few lines to attempt to turn it around.

I don't know... I think the underlying basis of my sister's poor treatment has always been... there in my brain. Yet I've never really considered it due to the fact I was simply too young to really comprehend or think about it when most of it happened, it just lead to a lot of pent up anger, frustration and indignation in my head.

So when I actually got to perform, I guess you could say, at least for me, it was really a performance fifteen years in the making as I just let out fifteen years of-excuse my unrefined language- shit.

All in all I think I just yelled for three minutes and about a quarter way through the play I felt tears beginning to well up. Toward halfway through the performance they were flowing freely down my cheeks and in my final few lines I had to take a momentary break for a breath.

However what I overall think matters is that it was really the first time I opened up about my sister and I in such detail and it feels really good to have really explored and thought about our relationship in such an interesting way.

Afterwards my friends told me I was incredibly brave to have opened up about it in such a way and apparently my performance was emotionally touching enough to make some people cry. I hope they cried because they felt my pain and not because my performance was bad. Fortunately it seems like it is because of the former.

Slam poetry itself seems interesting and I want to attend a few preformances to have a taste of it; I am considering dabbling in it a little bit.

It's so easy to you know, just STOP things

Things drift in and out of your life. That's how life works. It keeps moving, even if you don't. Sometimes you don't have a say in the changes. Things like puberty and death and inevitable.

Some things, you do. Extracurricular activities and friendship are some things where you are given a choice to pursue them or not.

I am finding, as I progress through life- the temptation from the lack of effort it takes to stop something which could be considered an extracurricular. Just like that.

You see, most of us are all part of the rat race, a cog in the machine called capitalism which rules most modernised countries. You know what can happen when you're treated a bit like a machine with the same mundane, boring timetable day after day? You turn into a machine. You think like a machine. You operate on a day to day basis, even when you're not working, like a machine. Emotionless. Just get the work done. Then turn off until you're needed again.

I find that as one's mentality gets increasingly mechanised, it's very possible for one to simply stop things which they don't absolutely have to do (unlike jobs; otherwise how would they sustain themselves?)

For instance, once I quit my various sports for variety of reasons- injuries (leading to reluctant parents,) being deemed medically unfit and simply timetable clashes, I just stopped all forms of optional physical activity.

Of course now as I pay the price for not exercising regularly (decreased fitness and weight gain,) I declare exercise a necessary part of life. However, it doesn't just have to be exercise I refer to- could be anything out of one's regular work/school timetable- hobbies, friendships.

Sometimes I think people are so tired and under stimulated day after day, week after week, a nine to five job being so exhausting yet boring simultaneously. So when they come home, they simply drag their feet around as they eat dinner, and drag into work requirements, and drag themselves to bed, until they are awoken next morning.

This robot lifestyle can push hobbies and friendship away in favour of simply resting and doing nothing. Sometimes with hobbies and friendships, you must make an active effort to sustain them. Keep talking to each other. Keep coming back to the hobby. As I said before, the temptation of simply stopping something over time is a very big one which takes up less effort than maintaining it

Much like the robot analogy I used earlier, people can simply be so emotionless after all of this. A frame of a person, but empty inside, no enrichment to their life.

A way one could escape this hell hole of repetition and boredom would be to find your passion. Opposed to something you simply 'like,' you do not drop or stop doing whatever you're passionate about as easily as you would with something you simply 'like.'

Unfortunately that's easier said then done. Some people come across their passion early in life, and find a way to integrate it into their life, some making a living out of it. They are the lucky ones.

Some aren't so lucky, and never quite find their passion. They might find things they like- no don't get me wrong, you can still sustain something they enjoy outside of their work just well as they would their passion- but I simply believe passions are harder to drop. You can also wind down with have things you truly enjoy, but are perhaps not a hundred percent passionate about.

I suppose if you have a family, that would one's stimulus out of work. You have children/s you should love with your heart and soul, as well as (in most cases) a partner that you're sticking with for life. Being a parent is a 24/7 job for a good two decades or so and I'd imagine that'd be quite a big thing out of work.

Another measure against turning into a robot out of work is to find small joys everywhere.

Volunteer. Smile at and thank people. Stimulate yourself with a good, trusted circle of friends who you can have sincere, provocative discussions with, yet also pull lewd faces at each other across the street/classroom/office/whatever. Find beauty and joy in everything. Do whatever.

Once you find something you truly enjoy, or are passionate about, it's much harder to stop doing it. That's because you enjoy it for whatever reason you do, and you won't want to lose out that easily. You have a reason to uphold the friendship or hobby; something to fight for should your relations with this friendship out hobby comes under threat.

I don't think I've found my true passion yet, but I've been trying to stimulate my life outside school. I have started socialising with people from my local high school at the library. I meditate and I've picked up reading again. (Reading is unfortunately something else which I simply stopped in high school.) As it is spring, I have also been spending more time in my garden, removing weeds and checking all of my plants are budding, adding mulch where necessary.

I find that these enrichments make my daily life a lot more enjoyable, outside of my daily cycle of school and work.

This week in English classes

Our teacher held a number of class preparations for yearly exams using exam papers from previous years, under exam conditions.

My relationship with 'English' as a subject has varied throughout the years. In primary school, English was simply reading comprehension and writing easy things like expositions and narratives. Being an avid reader from a young age, English came naturally to me, and I excelled in it.

In high school, the focus in 'English' as a subject changes. In primary school, it was simple things like similes and comprehension in primary school, where my thirst for reading gave me an edge.

Throughout high school, the amount of books I read slowly decreased. I do not know why. I just... stopped, sometimes going months without reading a book.

This negatively impacted my life. Books, I find, make you a better writer as you are exposed to different author's styles of writing and telling a story. It also broadens your horizon, introducing you to new ideas. All these effects make you a well-learnt, a well-read, a well-educated person.

Anyways, due to my decreased book reading, I lost my natural flair for writing, struggling to write a good essay. Whilst I could write it correctly, following all the basic criteria, it did not come to me with the natural ease writing used to. 

My essays were-and still are- rather crude in comparison to those who truly excel in English. It is not well-written. Sure, it does follow textbook standards for essay writing, touching upon the points with quotes to reinforce my points and whatnot, but it lacks the sophistication and edge one recognises in an essay written by someone who truly understands the essay topic inside out.

I also did not get my mind enriched as much as I used to, due to my decline in book reading. I have not been exposed to many great ideas or scenarios unlike one who is well-read.

Anyways, the tests the teacher gave us- two were written responses to a few questions about a poem, and one was am essay response to a question about "Macbeth."

I surprised myself by doing well- my essay was actually kind of plumped out and nicely filled in, like one written by one who truly understood the text. The poems were within my aptitude.

We peer marked these tests, and my marker, Madison, volunteered to read my response out to the class. The teacher did not ask for volunteers, Madison took it upon herself to do so. As she did, I received a few looks of "woah" from my fellow classmates, and it made me happy. It had been a few years since anything like this has happened.

Given the overall positive response I had to the tests, maybe my English skills are salvageable.

I am scared of being a boring adult

It is an unwritten custom amongst our school that the year twelves will have one muck-up assembly towards the end of term three.

In this assembly, they simply have fun- in the past, this has varied from beach balls being thrown around, school songs being sung at an unattainably fast and high pitch, Thriller dance mobs.

There is also an annual video, with teachers (principal and deputy included) lip-syncing, dancing(albeit not at a professional level), and generally messing around, to a song of the year twelve's choice. This year, it was Taylor Swift's Shake it off.

There are some teachers who the school has grown to love, and know will always appear in these annual videos.

Some looked a little stiff in the video, but they participated at the very least. There are also some teachers who I know will never go within one hundred metres metres of that stuff.

That got me thinking: would I do that? If I was an adult teacher? If students approached me, asking me to let my hair down and mess around to some annoying pop song, would I?

If you ask me now, at age fifteen, of course I would. But would I, in my late twenties or older, do that?

Of course I would like to say that future me would, because I like to think aspects of my personality that I like- such as my ability to let go and be a little shameless and somewhat daring (from time to time) will stay with me for life.

Especially because I, as a person, am not very good at bringing out the in my by myself- I need a person, an event, any triggers- to bring out this fun in me.

I realise, that as I grow up and learn how to adult, I will definitely face problems. There will be setbacks, dilemmas, painful realisations. Blood, sweat and tears.

I am frightened not by the prospects of these challenges, but the effects they may have on me. How my character will manage them, and how my character may be altered from these future challenges.

I know I may face an uphill battle. Some of my health problems are incurable. I have a fiery temper. I have an over-inflated ego, yet possess no talent to have anything worthy of appraisal. The ability to truly go out of my way for things provided they interest me, contrasting my tendency to completely discard something that I abhor. (I believe my business studies report is overdue by approximately one month, and I skipped a day off school to hide in the textiles room and finish my garment-seven harrowing hours.)

I have learnt over the course of my life that these aspects of my personality are neither positive not negative. They are a double edged sword, to be handled carefully.

Managed correctly, I know I will be on top of my game. Managed incorrectly- I dare not imagine. I have had particular aspects of my personality affect my life negatively in the past. (Which, had I properly managed it, could've had a positive effect.) The idea of all my traits turning on me is not a pleasant one.

They may change me into a cynical woman, jaded. They might strip me of my ability to let go and have a little fun from time to time. Good old, childish fun.

I do not know if I will have children. I lean towards the idea of not having them. But should I, I do not want an imposing, cynical parent- possibly future me- raising them. My temper could snap at them. My ego could push their achievements and what should be their moments of pride down. I want them- all children as a matter of fact- to grow up in a vibrant, supportive and loving household.

I've heard inspirational quotes about how you can be resilient and remain unaffected by change. Maya Angelou (may she rest in peace,) a strong woman I look up to, supposedly once said "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

I know that right now, I can stick to that phrase. I know that I am not emotionally strong, but I do know I am resilient, and I pride myself on that. I cannot easily say that future me will. I do not know her yet, yet everything I do will have a part in her formation, which is why I am trying to build a future me who I won't hate.

I just don't want to be a boring adult.

"I'm your mum, so I care for you"

First off, you're NOT my mum. You are someone who does everything a mum does, except for parent well and provide support-other than financial, because real mothers provide support in more ways than just paying my tuition fees.

Real mums care about their daughter's emotional, physical and social well being, some things that you don't.

If you cared for me, I would've been in a much better place than I am right now. But I am not.

You did not care my physical health growing up, so now I must deal with the consequences as I was too naive to do so myself when I was younger.

I am not using this as an excuse for being overweight. I acknowledge that I am overweight. I try to lead a healthy lifestyle. I have lost approximately four to five kilograms, without your assistance in the past five months, and I am ever proud of that. I simply acknowledge that it was you who started it all, and now I must deal with the consequences.

Even now, you do not understand my polycystic ovarian syndrome- you do not understand why I must cut down my on carbohydrates. If you cared about me, you would've listened when I told you about my insulin resistance. You would've listened when the doctor told you about it.

"Exercise is important." Indeed it is, guardian. But watching my food intake is also important, because of my insulin resistance. You did not listen, or attempt to understand.

"I don't care about all that carbohydrate and calorie intake. All I care about is you exercise. Now go and eat your bread, rice and pasta."

Well... that's not caring for me then. That's called selective listening. Listen to the exercise component. Don't listen to the diet component.

It has been about a year since I was disowned as a daughter

I cannot remember the exact date, but I remember it was the holidays between term three and four. I got disowned as a daughter and as far as I'm concerned, that still stands.

I'm fine with it though; growing up, my mum and I weren't close and she didn't really express any feelings of love (or whatever that concept is) to me. So I do not really recognise any love in our relationship.

In the future, I might hold my head in my hands and sigh about how my mother WAS showing me love-I just didn't recognise it (a lot of people tell me this). I don't care. I am in the 'now.' Right now, I don't feel any love, so I will say there is none.

So getting disowned was not, and one year later, is not, a ground-breaking change. The woman I call my 'mother' (for the sheer purpose of convenience) is simply a woman who feeds me, clothes me and pays for my lifestyle, and that is about it. A guardian, if you will say. But not a mother.

I do not turn to her for personal advice. I do not confide in her as a daughter. I do not (never have) tell her I love her- how can I if it might be a lie?

For me, it wasn't much of an emotional change, to know the woman whose vagina I shot out of no longer considered me as one of her own.

As I made my own food and washed my own clothes and packed my own bags, I realised I didn't care.

I did not, and do not feel like anything changed between us when she told me I was not her daughter any more.

A scary thought just came to me

It's very possible to live years of your life without touching anything live and natural.

Does that not scare you? Show you how disconnected we have grown from nature? And even those who do have the opportunity to immerse themselves into nature, often do not, pushing it aside in favour of work.

Personally, I do, because I have a pet dog, enjoy gardening and sit on grass during recess and lunch, should the weather allow. But it's so easy for anyone to live without touching anything live and natural (other than themselves and another human. But even with that, it's so easy to not touch another human for years at all, even when you're in the midst of many of them.)

I wake up, stepping on the laquered wooden floor and prepare for school. I brush my teeth, put on my uniform-nothing live or natural. Going downstairs, I step my feet on tiles grab my food and water, and soon leave for school wearing shoes on pavement.

My entire commute to school takes me through an urban environment, where I do not touch anything live and natural, other than humans. The chicken in my sandwich has been dead for a while.

School. I sit on the grass during morning and recess, but I could just as easily have not. I don't when the weather is not pleasant.

My commute home is just the same as it was in the morning-urban environment, no contact with live natural things.

When I was younger, I would play outside after dinner-this meant I could be barefoot on grass, but work does not permit that anymore. Instead, I go upstairs to work. Then I sleep. The cycle repeats.

Now that I think about it, I'm not that I'm touch with anything live and natural at all. My gardening takes place mainly on the weekends, and I only see my dog on the weekend.

It's scary isn't it? It's possible for humans to live years without touching anything live and natural.

What have we come to? Will this disconnection from nature harm us at all in the long run?

Currently writing a list of fifty things which make me happy

I'm currently on number forty-one. I've realised a few things along the way.

When I started, words and scenarios were flowing. It got slower in the early thirties. Not because it's hard to make me happy, but sometimes, when the feeling of "happy," can come accompanied with so many other feelings, that "happy" gets drowned and pushed aside in favour of all the other emotions.

I had to sift through events, scenarios, memories which bought positive emotions, and distinguish which ones came with happiness, and which ones just came with positive feelings.

Not only that, but "happy" can come in many forms. For instance, sometimes I'm happy when lots of things are happening all at once and everything is fast paced. Yet meditation and slowing things down also makes me happy. It really depends on the situation. Sometimes a certain thing is welcomed in some scenarios and not welcomed in the next.

Something I was surprised by was my lack of material things that were on the list. There are materialistic things in the list, like candles and the giver of life Assassin's Creed.

However, things which I generally buy when I am going out and I've come to associate myself with-like earrings and shoes-somehow didn't pop into my mind once over the month it's taken me to write forty one things which make me happy.

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.

"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.

Giraffe killing at Copenhagen zoo

A few days ago I was reading some articles from the Sydney morning herald. One struck out particularly well to me, about the recent killing of a giraffe at a Danish zoo, Copenhagen zoo. (Read it here)

I had heard about this controversial killing earlier that day, and my immediate reaction was: what the hell? Lions eat giraffe and all sorts of other animals. It is natural and acceptable. But killing a giraffe from the zoo. An eighteen month old giraffe from a zoo suppose to nourish and give the giraffe a nice life, not kill him and feed him to a lion.

Copenhagen zoo's decline from another zoo to take the giraffe in, pleas from animal rights activists to think humanely and spare the giraffe further irritated me.

However on further reading, I discovered the giraffe was inbred, and after that, I understood Copenhagen zoo's decision.

Inbred animals guys. Inbred.

As we all know, the lack of variety in the gene pool poses a risk to the giraffe's health and lifestyle, and if allowed to reproduce, furthers the issues from inbreeding.

Inbreeding increases the susceptibility of a population to suffer significant losses (sometimes too big to recover from)should a disease attack said population.

This is due to a lack of variety in the genes of said population. If the genetic combination of most of the population is very, very similar, the disease has less variety, less 'different-ness' and resistance to fight against.

Think of it like this: if a robber ransacks a street of varied houses, it'll be significantly harder than robbing a street of those council-made, identical housing with identical layouts inside.

Why? Because on the street with varied houses, the door locations are different. The types of locks are different. The floorboards squeak differently. The rooms are in different places. Some houses may have security systems installed and a ferocious looking doberman at the front porch.

However, with identical houses, the robber knows the lock, knows the layout, knows everything because its all the same.

The analogy seemed clever when I first thought of it

Increased mortality rate with decreased fertility rate (two common issues associated with inbreeding,) increasingly justify Copenhagen zoo's reasoning to kill the giraffe.

Increase the population of animals, but make them more vulnerable to possible future diseases and illnesses? That's rather counterproductive, is it not? Especially taking the fact the giraffe was from a breeding program.

Obviously these programs are designed to repopulate, and revive wilting population numbers. It goes without saying that using a genetically inferior creature to repopulate isn't the cleverest idea.

Asides from the actual killing which stirred up        lots of controversy, the skinning and feeding of the giraffe was carried out during visiting hours in front of visitors. It was deemed "too graphic," or "too confronting."

Well, it's natural. Lions-

Newsflash: After years of speculation, a breakthrough has been made in the scientific community; lions eat MEAT. RAW MEAT. WITH BLOOD AND GUTS EVERYWHERE. NO SIGNS OF COOKING UTENSILS OR OVENS/GRILLS TO BE FOUND, HOWEVER, ASHES SUSPECTED TO A RESULT OF GIRAFFE COOKING HAS BEEN FOUND NEAR NUMEROUS LION PRIDES.

The double standards are ridiculous. So when humans eat meat and remove the skin before eating, shall we blindfold ourselves to protect our eyes from the confronting image of a DEAD ANIMAL RIGHT IN FRONT OF US? (wow, shield your children's eyes too, it might disturb them.)As we eat it, shall we cut the meat blindly with a knife? For then we are blindfolded, not looking at the extremely confronting image of a dead animal being eaten in front of us.

There was a phrase somewhere in one of the articles I read, saying something along the lines of "no-one would've batted an eyelid, had it been a pig."

It sounds hypocritical and rude. Unfortunately, it also sounds very human. Think about it. Thousands of animals are exploited yearly. Animals packed inhumanely into tight cages, used only for the human benefit, with not a second thought given the quality of life for those poor animals.

Yet there is not a collective backlash from the general public. With animal rights activists, yes, but with ordinary civilians, we don't care. Just as long as the exploited animal isn't "cute" or "fluffy" or "exotic," then it isn't given a second thought.