November

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Recovering is more difficult than I thought it would be.... the pain is getting better but I'm still very physically weak. It's extremely disturbing to me. I can feel I'm not at normal lung power - I can't pull my usual act of talking and talking without taking a breath, I can't be loud and project, I cant run and skip and dance around my friends. They have to carry my new rolling backpack up stairs for me. It feels like I lost a big chunk of myself, and I'm really hoping it comes back soon. I'm usually a very durable person who heals very quickly, so I'm optimistic. But still weirded out for the time being.

Its been a little over a week since I deflated and it both feels like I should be over it already and like I'm still in the middle of an emergency. I just don't have the time to do things like take a break for very long. I spent 3 days in the hospital, 3 days at home, and then immediately had to go back to school. My research advisor keeps telling me I should be taking it easy, but it's hard to sit back and relax while deadlines pile up and midterms are constantly breathing down your neck. And I'm so *paranoid* now...I panic every time I feel a pain in my back or chest or side which is quite often because I'm still healing from getting stabbed in the lungs with a giant tube. I keep feeling as though everything will suddenly collapse again and I'll be stuck back in the hospital and stabbed with more tubes and pumped with more drugs so I don't start freaking out about being filled with tubes. IDK. I've always had such a strong trust in my health that it feels like now anything's possible. Maybe the universe will send me brain cancer next!

I guess there's not much else I can do other than just suck it up and wait to recover more. I appreciate that there's been plenty of people in my life who have shown concern over the past few days, and want to make sure I'm doing okay. I know that even in the worst case scenarios, I won't have to go through everything by myself. I'll rest my body as much as possible and try to focus on my work where I can, and hopefully I'll be back up to full speed soon enough. And if not, I'll find a way to adapt. I refuse to stay down for very long.

Also, check out my sick xray!

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It's been a while since I've made any updates....I keep being unable to find a way to fix my website (all the elements get muddled up upon zooming in or out) and it makes me a little irrationally angry whenever I look at it. But I have a little extra time on my hands right now, and thought I should make an update. The most pressing one on my mind right now is the reason I have some free time to begin with....my lung collapsed T_T I just got back from the hospital yesterday after I had to spend about three days in there while they reinflated me like a balloon. I didn't even do anything to make it collapse, literally just sat in a weird position in a car on the way to a punk show with some friends. According to the doctors, people built like tim burton characters tend to experience these at random. so thats fun. its also suspected that i had one or two copllapsed lungs before this, but they were less intense and i just healed them on my own with my epic powers of durability. so. a little traumatized by that. but at least now i get to spend some time at home!

After I got back from my internship this summer, I've been pretty busy. My remaining summer was pretty chill and spent with friends, but I'm doing soooo much for school right now. I'm working on a thesis (which i should talk about on the science blog), trying to get through a few statmech classes, working my industry job, and still applying for phds. I was also about to head to DC for this cool work conference next week, but thanks to my awesome exploding lungs I'm not allowed on planes for a few weeks. I also feel a little down because I realized my gpa sucks pretty bad for someone trying to get into graduate school, but I might as well try and see how it goes. I think I should have a full time job with the industry company once I graduate, so I can always take up that offer for a few years before I try again.

I've also been trying to stay socially active, but it's a little difficult. I find that although I'm an extrovert, I'm a pretty judgy person, so although I like to go out and meet a lot of people, I'm usually not interested in talking to them ever again lol. And I have my own bucketloads of issues with humans, so I never really let that much of Myself show around the people that I do like being around. I'm kind of trying to change that though, and might even focus on that in 2024. Right now I'm trying to figure out what to do with a crush that I have. They're really cool, and also obsessed with mcr, and funny and sweet and I like spending time with them. But at the same time....I'm graduating in a year so idk how hard I should really be going into this. If they even like me back. bghghghhgh

Whatever the case, I'll try to update this a little more often, since it's not as fun to just make broad sweeping statements about my life in general. Please let me know if you know how to position elements like a normal website and I'll seethe less whenever I'm on here. And wish my lungs luck on healing!

September

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im back home!!!! my last week went by pretty fast but it was pretty uneventful (ill talk more about my work on the science blog). i actually still cant drive, so my parents had to drive all the way to pick me up yesterday. its a seven hour trip one way, and i got kicked out of the unit that day, so we ended up spending the night in the hotel so they didnt have to drive fourteen hours in one go. im glad to be out of that unit, it was an in-law thing in the backyard of these people who are VERY rich and VERY conservative. and yet they could not spare much for the unit, so i was stuck for 10 weeks on a gross stained couch with a shoddily built house filled with ants and spiders with no air conditioning. and the rent was so expensive!!!

i did quite like the bay area though, i think ill probably miss exploring even if im glad to be out of that unit. i was not at all sad to see it go as we drove away this morning to head home. its been nice to see my parents again - i think we generally get along a lot better now that im moved out most of the time for school and stuff, so hopefully everything stays fine while im here for the next three weeks before the new quarter starts. im excited to see my best friend again! im planning to hang out with her a lot :) i have another good friend here too that i hope to see some, but hes been a little elusive as of late. either way. IM HOME. THANK GOD.

August

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ive had a very good, very busy weekend! its my last week in the bay area since i move back home next saturday, so i wanted to make the most of my last oportunity to have some fun up here. i took the train to a lesbian day party at a bar in san fransisco where i met up with some friends ive made. it was really interesting, ive never been to a day party before, and despite being a pretty big dyke im not always super involved in irl queer spaces. im not sure ive ever been around so many other gay girls at once, it was awesome! saw multiple girls making out which made me a little emotional since im used to my sexuality having to be hidden and making me unsafe. ive been actually hatecrimed before, ive had to be careful in public with past girlfriends, and it was nice to know that there are placed lesbians can feel totally comfortable with pda like that :)

after the day party we got to a restaurant for dinner and a pregame....except i did not know that was in the plans and had inhaled a bunch of mcdonalds before i met up with everyone so i got a wonderful combination of black coffee and wine. it was still nice to be able to talk to everyone properly without having to shout over music to be heard and there is now a really really funny visual of a bunch of scientists all drinking wine at dinner discussing homestuck characters. may have found my niche of people here. after that we went to a lesbian bar which i also found really cool for the same reasons. it was a strip night so i got to see a bunch of gay stripper girls and throw money in the air so 10/10 no notes

we left at like midnight and the trains stopped and my friends didnt exactly want to drive me all the way back to my apartment so i ended up crashing at their place in this little nook theyve made. much more comfy than the couch i was expecting to be passing out on. they made me some coffee in the morning and we talked a bit before i took the train back to san fransico to go to an aquarium with my crush....who canceled on me. its not her fault!! she got sick the night before and obviously i dont want to force her to wander around a bunch when shes not feeling good, but still was kind of dissapointed. i get the feeling she at least wanted to go, she sent me the makeup she had planned to do for it because she had been so excited. is that platonic? maybe? i think it is. i chose a very complicated crush to have... shes questioning if shes aromantic or not since shes never really had a crush before, so who even knows if shes even capable of liking people in the first place, let alone liking girls. ive never had a crush on a straight girl before, but i guess theres a first time for everything.

anyways, the aquarium itself was small but it was very pretty - i liked walking around the water tunnels and looking at all the fish swimming overhead. the water made patterns on everything below it, and it was really nice and peaceful if you could manage to ignore the children screaming their heads off the entire time. after i finished the aquarium i spent a while on the pier just looking at the ocean and the boats, and then wandered around a little bit. i got some cool scorpian earrings from one store, and did a little more window shopping after getting some ice cream. i started feeling pretty wiped at some point since i still didnt sleep GREAT before and ive been Out for over 24 hours, so i took a train back home and rotted into the couch for a little while. its sunday evening now and i have another week of work awaiting me, but im glad that i had a fun weekend and got a bit of a break in before the final push.

08252023

im soooooo tired of tumblr and social media....i feel like it used to be a place i could be more "myself" but i ended up creating a bit of a persona within the circles i got into and now im stuck in the same situations i find myself in in real life. im naturally a very bubbly and extroverted person so i can put out a good first impression, but then i feel pressured to act that way forever. it gets to the point where if i try to act serious or enforce a boundary it feels very harsh when compared to the attitude everyone is used to.

it doesnt help that a lot of the time my real personality IS quite harsh. my actual emotional range is pretty volatile and i get bored and impatient really easily. i have a mask on that constantly shows my shiny and sparkly side, but internally it feels like im just rocketing around. i meet someone and immediately get up in their business, and then they say something boring and i Want to immediately drop it and leave but thats Rude so now im stuck talking to them. sometimes im fine and then get hit with a rush of digust for people and it feels painful to keep interacting with everyone. before i got good at self control, i would drop and become rude really fast. even some of my good moods arent good around people - i get into moods where think its extremely entertaining to annoy people and be as dramatic as possible. its something i usually conceal these days, especially when most of the people i interact with are ~career conntections~ but internally. i am a cat knocking shit off your desk to watch you get mad. obviously this is a really really bad way to make and keep friends and i do like people most of the time, so its just kind of an unfortunate fact that i must often hide large aspects of my personality. people always say be yourself until your true self is genuinely pretty unpleasant to be around.

its not really self hatred.... i have a pretty good self image and theres plenty of things about me that i like. i just know that at my core, a lot of my instincts and quirks are pretty incompatible with getting along with people. it would be easier if i could live my life with everyone disliking me, but. there are plenty of people that i do like to hang around, even if i do have to put on a bit of an act for them. my goal is to try to figure out ways of staying silly and cartoonish but allowed to drop the act and be taken seriously sometimes. in the meantime, i dont think very many people will ever even see these words and theres nothing stopping me from bitching alone in this corner. i just wish humans didnt have so many rules for how you have to act to be allowed to take part in society!!!!

08242023

I don't actually have a lot to say right now, just trying to get this up and running. I do find it funny I spend nine hours at work trying hard to procrastinate coding and using the computer and then I go home to code and use the computer these days. It's about the principle of it all.