FICTION IS A LIE

The honest truth: I have no idea but this is the first time in a while that things have been so unclear to me-- I am usually a girl with some kind of organization, some kind of plan.

2022 was really busy but also really depressing. I just looked back at my calendar and I'm always so shocked that I, like, DID ANYTHING because I can never remember what happened!

All year long, I worked from home until the last minute--( Read more...Collapse )

Please don't hesitate to comment if you see this. Otherwise, I won't know who is still trying to be on here or who has abandoned LJ.

Wow and hello. I do no expect anyone to be following me here but if you weirdly happen to be, welcome. I wish I could say I was diligently documenting the last few years-- and I have been, offline-- but I always felt like LJ has always been the cradle of my deepest thoughts. I started this LJ way back in high school and here I am now, in 2023, almost 40 years old and experiencing for the first REAL time, a true midlife crisis. The last 3 years were such a struggle for me. Any energy I had, spent pacing for a long career was nearly used up. So, here I am returning to my "roots" and trying to journal on a platform which is for lack of better term, based.

Just came back from a very reflective 5 days home, mainly for my mom's birthday. It was really hot in Manila, up to 44 deg and so that was weirdly hard on me. Spent the time with a low grade migraine. But also got a lot of ideas and really should list them down. Some of the time spend there was tough-- before I moved, I put everything in order and in storage and after four months, I come back and my mom went through all of my stuff. Part of me knows that I neglected to be strict abou it. But I thought my organization made it clear that there was a system where I knew where everything was. But I came back and it was shot all to hell. My mom is always curious, not to mention she doesn't have many boundaries. It wasn't like she was going to take anything, she just wanted to see what kind of stuff I had-- it's tough to explain but it's kind of like being simultaneously territorial and proprietary, I dunno. But bottomline was that I couldn't find anything and it was very frustrating in the end.

Ten days since the last entry and right now I am using this log entry post as a warm up for actual writing I have to do today. This week is the first week that my Ethics class is going into full independent study and E-learning mode and so there is much writing ahead of me. However, I have been doing a lot of writing, a combination of academic, role-play and fiction writing. I'm still having a hard time balancing stuff without completely resigning to staying in all day. In Singapore, travel takes a while because you traverse across a whole country. I can't complain when going 5 km in Manila takes an hour. I'm in a period when I'm trying to learn how to maximize my time, even while traveling.

Ok, updates! I can't sleep because I was reading manga and I kind of strayed into psychological manga but ended up in Junji Ito territory, then I re-read Monster, one of my personal favorites and I burned through 18 volumes until it was literally 3-4 AM and after that I just had a hard time sleeping. Also, the kopi at kopitiam? SO cheap and so good and it is black, BLACK like demon's blood. I should write about it sometime.

Speaking of writing: there has been plenty of that going on! I even went as far as posting on AO3-- so. As promised, I have not finished a WIP before end of Feb but posted 2 brand new ones, co-written by my eternal Julie. It is role-play-ish but we've been writing together for so long (roughly 12 years on and off) that we don't even take roles, we just write full plotty tags. And it is PRINCE OF TENNIS, why??? Because I am returning to my roots, LOL. But if anyone is interested, it is a medical drama, canon-ish, FUTURE AU and it is cute and also dark: http://archiveofourown.org/series/664244

Other than that, I am ALSO trying to "get back to my thang" art wise. Stay tuned. I don't even if I am fully satisfied with where I post them but I will figure that out soon.

This week I spent writing like crazy, probably 80-20 in favor of personal work. It feels pretty good because prior to this, it wasn't flowing out as much as I would want. I always have ideas and I always write them down and then I stare at the list willing myself to start any of them, any of those ideas. Anyway, thanks to school and its hundreds of manipulative, academic prompts, I actually have been writing a lot-- and then I get distracted and I RP.

Yes, that's right. I HAVE BEEN WRITING FANFIC AND ROLEPLAYING and I will now admit that it has been Prince of Tennis. So I've come back to my roots. Livejournal and Prince of Tennis like it's 2003. Amen.

- a Les Amis Assassins AU, E/R, of course.

- A post-Gravity Falls gen where Mabel and Dipper confront high school in a very 80's comedy way.

- A Clint/Coulson AU where Clint is on death row and the government takes him out once in a while to do their dirty work before he is recruited into SHIELD.

- A Clint/Coulson whose plot is failing me now but for some reason it's almost 20K words LONG??????

- My HP Maurauders AU, A Different House, including a million and a half notes about timelines, developments, characters notes.

- ParaNorman future fic, starring Lee Pace as grown-up Norman and Seth Rogen as grown-up Neal.

- Rectitude, which is a fic I was writing about Sulu.

- I FOUND A Peter/Gwen/Harry fic??? That I completely forgot about!!?

- A TMNT/ATLA CROSSOVER FIC??? Oh my god, my conceited brain just wanted turtles who were also benders.

- A Kingsman AU of the BBC Merlin where the immortal Merlin founded the Kingsman and he was waiting for Arthur to come up and become Arthur and also he had to deal with all these Camelot assholes.

And I also cannot believe that the first fic that I am probably going to post on my AO3 in so long is a self-indulgent Code Black fic about Angus and Mario.

Tuesday is my first day of school every week, so Saturday until I leave around 4 for campus is usually left for me to spiral through anywhere from loneliness to anxiety. But since I've picked up Livejournal again lately, I've also been sifting through old entries and posts! There was a time circa 2010 where I drew so much and so well but it was also when I was in the throes of fandom. These days, I am a fan of things but I haven't been involved in so much fandom lately, just on the fringe as a fan of things. Frankly, I haven't been indulging in as much drawing of fanart but maybe it's the key to my full enjoyment? I'll have to do it to find out.

Last Sunday, I had a lovely brunch with my friend Juliette, it was very indulgent and very out of our budget but it was also just the thing to helping us feel a bit more human in this transient space we are both in at the moment. We have similar situations-- I'm lucky enough to have money to study and she is working as a paid intern but we are not by any means wealthy or have money to blow. So what to do when you live in a city where enjoyment depends so much on mobile and monetary mobility.

So, if anyone is reading this on their feed...what are you doing these days? I started LJ when I was a high school freshman and carried on until 2015. Are you married? Do you have kids? Are you in fandoms? Are you sharing your fandoms? Are you balancing this with a career? Have you made your interests part of your career? I would love to know.

Sunday night. Sitting at my desk where I wanna be. But wait, this post isn't going to be a downer but when you're a sociable woman of means, with a circle of friends and everyone just wants to keep going out and doing this and that and running all over the city, sometimes you have to put your foot down and say, hey. Listen. Sometimes a hoe just wants to sleep early.

Today I went to brunch, I went to get an ëxpress"mani+pedi (which is when they just clean up your nails without any of spa frills) and got sidelined doing a little shopping and went with a friend to pick up something she left at another friend's apartment...that's about 1.5 things more than my daily no more than 2 daily upheavals quota. On a Sunday. And it was fun! But also tiring. There were many conversations about how people interact, stereotyping, "male feminists", how unfair is unfair and other topics that can only be brought about by cheap Tiger beer.

The day before was also tiring in a way: we went swimming and went to dinner at my aunt and uncle's house before heading back. My uncle is about 3 weeks clear of some major brain surgery and he's up and about, healing well, which is great but he says he's so bored and starved for things to do so he's basically cooking and walking everyday, trying to reorganize the house and raise a preteen who is increasingly crankier by the day. I better invite him out to some museum or gallery or something before he explodes.

I also went to a workshop at the National Library for an art journaling workshop which was really nice, actually! And anyway, it was free, and forced me to draw. Which is always good.

Today's class in Interdisciplinary Thinking was so frustrating! On top of that I feel a little brain dead and somewhat tired as my sleep schedule continues to be fucked and I can never turn my brain off. Still, as usual today we opened class with a movie that we generally use as a case study (since my professor finds it boring to use regular/real cases-- so sad) as a launching pad for the day's ask, which is we break down the variables involved in problem solving: problem, problem space, stakeholder perspective, context, thinking methodology and the like and have a lively debate keeping those aspects in mind.

My first general issue is that when we use movies and try to keep only that information in mind, we never truly have a complete picture of the problem. There's not enough information, not to mention characters are only multidimensional to a point.

My second general issue is a lack of understanding of the context. We are in Singapore, in Asia, where the problem solving mechanics are vastly different from the context of the problem. So in the realm of confronting an issue happening in, say, Boston, early 2000s, rough neighborhood, child abduction case, is frustratingly argued within an ethics mindset not suited to it. Although the mental stretch is fine for an interdisciplinary thought exercise, I was afraid that the topic was ill-suited; I wish my professor would've chosen a case set in an education setting at least (Waiting for Superman, Dead Poet's Society, The Emperor's Club or something), then we can talk in the realm of our interest (We're all taking our Master in Education Management).

Anyway, it helps that I'm writing about this because I can straighten out my thoughts. At the very least, it was incredible helpful to go through the motions of actually identifying key points of the argument so we could reach the actual point of finding a solution.