Post-Birthday Syndrome
As Ted in HIMYM so aptly puts it in the episode “The Pineapple Incident”:
“I’m back, babydol!!“
The two-week absence is not what I had in mind. There was this entire plan I had laid out in front of me after my birthday, and it just seemed to have, well, disintegrated. Not to worry, however, because I am back, if only for tonight anyhow.
Post-birthday (or PBS, as I’d like to coin it) is not a good time in anyone’s life it would seem. From the bombarding text messages, emails and Facebook wall posts birthday morning, to the dissimilar scarcity of them all a few hours late – the birthday is, and will be annually for the rest of one’s life, the most superficial 24 hours of the year. So yeah, if you must know, I have counted up the number of people who actually love me. I came out with a grand total of… just kidding. Everybody loves me.
With that said, I’m glad to still be alive. Since the 5th, I haven’t really had anything newsworthy occurring in my life, although, St. Paddy’s Day was and is still worth an entire post on its own. My friends and I painted each other green, drank green alcohol and Guinness, of course, and make one hell of a mess of Grahamstown… so much so that it rained the entire following day. It was great fun, really.
I’m actually out of practice in respect to this blogging thing. My mind has just wandered off somewhere for a brief moment. It’s back now, but unfortunately it couldn’t find anything to say. Nor could my fingers find the perfect, poetic combination of keys to press to make this post the slightest bit interesting. Oh well, I need sleep anyway. I’ve drowsed at 4am every night since St. Paddy’s, and even the night before that when we had a fire drill, and me, a 1500-word essay due for Friday. I had to finish it before Thursday though – you’re truly retarded if you think you can do an entire essay inebriated. I barely had the courage to get out of bed and hand it in the following St. Paddy’s morning. I was so, so hungover.
But, all’s well that ends well, hey? True story. Until next time, hopefully sooner than two weeks…
- reddevilandy10
The Unsuspecting Half-Nighter
Time never ceases to slap you in the face over weekends. It scurries on by on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then happily sits on your face and feed on your fluids for the rest of the week. Sick bastard. My plain state of insomnolence is my bad though. I had three important tutorial write ups due for, well, in few hours time, which I continuously decided to ignore all weekend. Karma hey. Wow. Oh well, I still need to do two. The one SOB is dead and buried.
Anyhow, my friends and I had a braai earlier, to celebrate the collective unbooking of the “braised-club steak” in the dining hall, by far the worst cooked piece of meat anyone can imagine. They must cook the meat for a full day or something I swear – it’s as tough as the plate beneath it. We said screw that, and just like that started our new bi-weekly tradition. It was really great, but I’ve shirked this work all week and it didn’t help. Saturday I even went to the pool to have a little browning session. I’m such a bad student.
Just because I have an assload of work does not mean my blog gets no attention. Screw that. I’m looking forward to my favourite blogs and websites post featuring all the places I like to visit on the Internet that helps me procrastinate to the best of my abilities. It’s a must read. Oh, and I know I’ve promised this for a while – even though Craig and Carter are really killing me now – my favourite episodes review of HIMYM before I forget everything I meant to write in it.
But before I forget or worse, fall asleep and dribble all over my laptop, I need to kill the last two assignments for the evening. Until next time!
- reddevilandy10
Yeah… Trying to Sleep…
Insomnia hey. The sorry little bitch always sneaks up on you when you least need her. Such is life.
Lying in bed, with a 8.40 lecture in a few hours and a tutorial still untouched is not really my forte. No. It scares me to think how much procrastinating I have actually done this week. I scare myself. Granted, I took the initiative of finding some of the textbooks I need online, saving me and parents quite a sum, I still need about 20 more. Sad sad world.
Anyhow, the first week of real work begins this week! Yay! Super duper excited. Cough. Cough. Blerg.
Sorry, being positive nowadays is like using an umbrella in a lava shower – stupid.
Sigh.
I’ll be happier later, I promise. I just missed talking to my girls this weekend. Have no clue how they are and it’s getting to me, not in a good way. I hate my imagination.
Peace!
Ten Days To Go
Oh well. Woke this morning with another insomnia riddled headache. It’s making me think that I have a sleeping disorder. Sigh. I think a few recent events are directly correlated to my lack of shut-eye these past two weeks…
I’m into my last ten days stay in Cape Town until April. I’m pretty joyless about leaving, although there are things I would love to get away from, there are things that I wish I could take with. Distance does strange things to people, even ones who have an invincible friendship, but even that is tested. I leave, I come back and nothing looks, feels or sounds the same anymore. It’s odd. Last time I came home, I got sick almost immediately. Things just never stay the same, but being away from something going through a transformation of sorts is even more shocking once reunited.
There’s a list of things I need to do before I go back, the most important? Sorting this situation with my interest out. If I don’t, I’ll probably just end up failing first semester, something I cannot do this year. I think all the friends need to get together and say what’s on their minds too, after all, they had plenty to say a few evenings ago.
Anyhow, I’m just filling my day with some literature of my own, I suppose. Until next time,
- reddevilandy10
A Canary in a Cage
Originally created on the 20th December 2010.
BEWARE: This post may offend some sensitive readers. You have been warned. Reader discretion is advised.
As the apparent insomnia takes over me, after I thought that I was shit tired, I lay here, typing, about random shit that comes to mind. The scary part? Sometimes, the shit I come up with when I’m intoxicated or increasingly tired makes more sense than when I’m fully operational.
I’m starting to believe more and more than humans are like mosquitoes: blood-sucking, annoying, obnoxious insects that you can’t rid bar slapping them with a shoe. More often than not, they fly away from that too. They live to piss you off some other time – usually about ten minutes later in fact.
I just killed one. Hooray! Die you arrogant asshole!
Anyhow, I’m pretty much stuck in this place, surrounded by blood-suckers of all kinds – not just humans or mosquitoes. Blood-sucking thoughts and feelings, hindrances and annoyances, past mistakes and future worries. Shit, I’m as mentally free as a canary in a cage. It’s freaking me out.
The Transient Beings
Apologies for my erratic and somewhat morbid post earlier. After a bit of, well, “movie watching” I guess you could call it, I feel a bit calmer. The Time Traveler’s Wife is such an emotionally confusing story about this man who has a genetic anomaly that causes him to time travel in and out of his lover’s life at uncontrollable intervals. How insane is that? It’s insane how one’s mind works in the sense that after watching a movie, or experiencing a situation worse than our own, one becomes almost numb to the effects of the real world. Escapism, might one call it. If anything, the movie helped me to take my mind off my life and concentrate on how bad (or frankly, how much better) my life could be. There’s one difference between the protagonists and me, however: they have found love.
If there’s one main lesson, or moral of the story if you will, to be learnt in this story, it’s that life and love may seem ephemeral, but they are actually constant. Situations may change, life may be taken, love may provide its challenges, but if it is real, nothing can stop it. Not even time traveling and (spoiler alert) being shot by your own father-in-law, albeit by accident.
Unfortunately, one byproduct of watching movies early in the morning is the insomnia accompanied with it. I can’t sleep now. I’m not even tired. Yeah, sure enough my laptop is burning a hole through my leg and my back feels as though it’s about to snap itself from the angle I’m sitting in, I’m not sleeping. Instead, I’m here, typing, in my blog, once again. I hope this becomes a habit.
At least, this is the one thing I can always do that makes me feel good about myself. Watching romantic movies, the other.
- reddevilandy10
Graft. Sleep. Mare. Repeat.
It has just gone five in the morning. The birds are chirping outside… probably wondering why the hell I am still awake, and the sky has gone that dirty blue colour which must mean that it’s about to welcome the sun pretty soon. God, isn’t that the story of my life here. Either I’m awake getting totally mindless or I’m mindless trying to stay awake.
Speaking of minds, mine has been molestered by journalism tonight.
I have just finished what I deem to be the worst piece of writing I have ever written, on a subject I am really quite passionate about, Bafana Bafana, but I just didn’t feel it. I could not make it good. I just couldn’t. I feel like such a fail.
I’ve gotten to the point in my life where handing things in is just the bare essentials I need to keep alive. So that’s what I do. I graft. I hand in. I go sleep.
I can’t believe it’s a 9am hand in though. How shitty is that? That means I can’t even have a proper sleep now. I may as well have a damn movie marathon until the sun really does decide to rise.
Sigh. Life sucks so much right now.
I hope tomorrow will be better. If I have a shitty afternoon, I’m definitely maring in the evening! It’s going to be insane. I promise you that.
- reddevilandy10
Untitled: Post #114
I swear, I feel like life is just sucking everything from me. Tripping my feet, kicking the shit out of me and leaving me on he ground to bleed…
After three paracetamol tablets, countless swigs of milk and four hours of laying in bed, I’m still awake. And I don’t want to be awake.
I guess Wednesday is carrying on… I had a really shitty day yesterday. I did absolutely no work, but at least my English is half done. My journ though… God, my journ is giving me nightmares. I honestly have no clue about my article direction or content. I’ll be amazed if I pass it. Thank God this exam counts 70%. My ass will definitely be on the line there.
Anyway, I just needed to get a few things off my chest in the hopes of a peaceful sleep. Somehow I just can’t pass out tonight. Stress maybe? I’m worried out of my skin, that’s for sure. I just really want to come back here next year. My biggest fear is being told I can’t. That will be more than I can take I think. Much more…
PS: It was one of my friends’ birthday’s today (well, yesterday actually), which I missed as he is in Cape Town. So Dean, I’d like to extend a happy birthday message to you on my blog too. “Life starts at 20,” they say, and my God are they right. The best is yet to come! Enjoy it.
- reddevilandy10
Update: Post 58
The past few weeks has seen me study more than I can vaguely recall, going on random “BP Runs” in the quest to kill the 2 a.m. hunger syndrome and totally neglect the one thing that’s actually the most constant in my life — my blog.
I feel pretty damn sick for not posting anything in the past two weeks. That’s not something I want to do again, I mean after all, JMS2 requires that I post at least once a day should I pass. Speaking of passing… I wrote two exams so far: Linguistics and English. Did they go well, you ask? Well, to tell you the truth, I have no idea how they were. I’m just thoroughly glad that they’re over now.
This week, with two exams left, I write psychology on Thursday with JMS (Journalism) on Saturday — the last day I spend in Grahamstown for six very long weeks. The weird thing is though, I’m really going to miss all the people, the atmosphere and the constant panicking of work not completed on deadline. It’s growing on me, and I don’t think I can move to UCT next year even if I wanted to. I am a Rhodent now.
Anyway, on a more random note, I’m playing “night owl” again. Tonight’s one of those when you just cannot sleep regardless of your efforts. I really need to start studying tomorrow though. It’s not just psych I’m worried about too. JMS is going to be probably the toughest exam I will write to date. I hope I end up eating those words. But yeah, tomorrow evening I’m meeting up with a friend of mine. A possible “Cougar Monday” mare taking place tomorrow, well, I might as well make the most of it — it will be the final time I go out in Grahamstown this semester. Really excited to spend some time with her too, I know she needs a good friend more than ever right now.
I’ve yet to plan my first week back in Cape Town though. My friends and I definitely need to sort out the itinerary for that! It is going to be a truly epic vacation!
Well, untill tomorrow (I hope) have a good one all!! I feel the gentle embrace of the sandman’s spell coming on. Nap time!
- reddevilandy10
Sunset to Sunrise
An all-nighter successfully negotiated: There is no better feeling at university. The sheer joy, relief and pleasure culminating at one point – the “hand in.”
I needed to complete an English and linguistics essay in one night, and did it. As well as being wired to the core, I’m elated, proverbially “floating on air” if you will. These were basically the final two assignments of term. I am free.
Grahamstown today has never felt so metronomic, so intricately balanced. As the students dash about to hand in last minute work, the lecturers and professors frantically mark away before the exams begin. The iciness in the air, compensated for by glorious warmth from the sun. The caffeine and high blood sugar levels counteracting my tendency to fall asleep in random places today. Everything relies on everything.
I guess you could just say that I’m in a good mood today, that later, I look forward to florid dreaming in my bed. But, I guess, for once, I’m just looking at life from a Romantic perspective. That’s not to say I never do, that’s to say I don’t do often enough.
One tutorial today, in about half an hour, linguistics to hand in, and afterward, the world be my oyster and I, the cute little otter.
Onward!
- reddevilandy10
9 Days To Cape Town
Unbelievable. Seven weeks have just passed by in a matter of, what feels like, seven days. Soon, I’ll be on a bus traveling back home to Cape Town. I seriously can’t wait.
For the first time in a while I actually have some free time to update my blog. I’ve been knee-deep in assignments, tests and tutorials that need to be completed on the instant. It’s great though. I somehow feed off the challenge of handing in my work on time after doing it the hour before hand (hyperbole) or not even handing it in at all (lie)!
Last night, I struggled to fall asleep. I lay away in bed from about one in the morning to four without so much as a wink. This morning, I woke at 7.40 to have breakfast and after stumbling outside was met with the most bone-chilling, skin-tightening, teeth-chattering wind I have felt in ages. It was freezing. But gorgeous. I can’t remember how it feels to be cold – 90% of the time it is 30 degrees and above here. And that would have been perfect but the nearest beach is an hour-and-a-half further east.
By the way, happy St. Paddy’s Day everyone!
I’m probably going to get my lazy ass out of bed and do some washing, but readers, enjoy your day!
Much love.
reddevilandy10
Nightmares
It seems that recently, the night time hasn’t been the best period of the day for me. There’s something about the dark, that malignant tinge in the air nowadays, I can’t sleep with it around. I’m probably jus imagining this, I hope.
I haven’t been able to sleep either. My head feels like a tumble dryer… All my thoughts tossing over each other. I don’t know why I feel so anxious, so… uneasy. I can’t explain how I feel. All I know is, it’s horrible.
Sweet Sea Air
Today seems like one of those particular days in the Mother City when everything is governed by the weather. Here in Cape Town, those days come around quite often – we tend to have some really unstable weather during the year. Anyone that can predict our weather correctly, ultimately becomes a hero with bragging rights to match, allowing you to endlessly laugh at your friends who decided to slap on a pair of board shorts and flip-flops during a full-on thunderstorm with the wind enough to turn you into a featherless pigeon. Now, to say that I’m one of these supernatural people would be a total lie, but no one on the entire planet experienced what we did last night. That must have been the longest, windiest, most violent thunderstorm I have ever been through. At one particular moment (half past six in the morning, I think) I thought lightning had actually hit the roof! I got the fright of my life, probably took a few years off my life expectancy too. Well, it started at about 01h00 and is actually still going (guess this is what they mean when they say the “calm before the storm…continues”), albeit a much placid storm compared to its former self.
Having been unable to sleep for the best part of last night, I decided to go through my poetry collection I used to keep as a high school student. Basically the reason I got such a crappy Maths mark during the year, I kept writing poetry in class. Hey, don’t you judge me! You know you hated that class too! Anyway, this one particular poem I wrote, was during an insomnia-affected night. I decided to get up, open my windows and sit under the window sill with a notepad and pen. And what I experienced that night compared to last, were stark contrasts indeed. Instead, this beautiful night was testament to how Cape Town summer nights, usually are. Enjoy!
“Sweet sea air” by reddevilandy10
The sweet sea air
trickles across the land
from the reaches of the ocean.
It brings soft serenity
to the stuttering sleeper
and tickles the senses
with its gorgeous fragrance
of nighttime flowers.
How blessed am I,
to fill my lungs with you
full to the brim of my soul
replenishing my drowsy spirit.
Buoyed, I am afloat
upon timeless visions
where no constraints are known
no boundaries were ever measured.
Freed by your very breath
I am, oh sweet sea air,
forever in your debt.
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