hello..! things have been bad lately. I have not been feeling good. this post will be about several things that have been happening with me. read on..!...... if you dare..!
I finished my semester. I found out my grades, they're an A and a B. Which is great! i was expecting worse. i also finished grading things. i was very late and the grading at the end wasnt the best but im glad i finished it. but things have been bad in other ways. first, I have made no progress on my research projects. i do not want to do anything. my advisor wants to meet with me tomorrow and i dont know why. i feel horrible. i need to talk with professors about advising, i need to sign up for my classes next semester, form my research committee, and apply for jobs and PHD programs. this all takes a lot of work, and i do not want to do any work. I should also be a teaching-assistant for the summer semester which starts in six days and i have not yet been contacted about who my professor/class will be. i received and signed the offer letter, but this is worrying.
besides that, i was thinking about the 8-hour work-day. if i want to be the best in the world, i need to work more than eight hours a day. but lately i have been thinking about how much i do not want to do work. how can i be the best in the world with a work ethic like this? this led me to thinking about, the thing,...you know the thing that circulates on twitter a lot among trans women, its an image thats like a timeline and it shows the progression "gifted kid -> burnt out loser -> trans girl" or something. obviously this doesnt apply to me bcuz i was in the trans girl stage like half a decade before the burnt out loser stage, but ive been hoping this burnt-out feeling isnt just my entire life now.
like, you know how many people say "im gonna get a job for a few years then go back to school to finish my PHD or masters" and then they get cozy in their job and then never go back to school? this happens to so many people its like, i know three people this applies to. its just cuz things are so difficult. in general. why dont i just try and get a normal job and make a lot of money (or even just a regular amount of money you know...) or even, why dont i just get a phd at my current school. i definitely dont need to apply to anywhere crazy. idk.
but im not going to do that. i know i will feel very bad with myself if i dont get a phd at the worlds best location. i need to do it. it matters a lot to me, so im going to make it happen. i just feel very bad at the current time, i know i wont feel bad forever. but i dont know why i feel bad, and what i can do to make myself feel better..! arrghhhhhhhhh......
all this moping has got me thinking about little witch academia. here's a (non-spoiler theres no spoilers here well theres a little spoilers i guess but it wont affect your enjoyment of the show or anything) little section on little witch academia. theres this girl named akko kagari whos the main character and she started doing magic right at the start of the show, shes like 16 or whatever. shes magically inept, she cant do a single spell. her rival is this rich girl named diana cavendish. ok so diana SUCKS shes mean and preppy and thinks shes better than anyone else. she gets her own fancy room cuz shes rich and gets her own heated shower and fine linens and everything. akko hates her because diana is like Magic Conservative and wants magic to be based on tradition and wants magic to be done the same way its always been done, while akko wants it to be new and exciting.
one thing i love a lot about little witch academia is that diana is always better than akko in magic. diana is shown putting a lot of dedicated effort into learning magic, she's shown studying tomes and practicing in her room, and she's had magic lessons since she was a young child, and she's very focused and always spends her time wisely. Akko also puts in a lot of effort, but shes not having a lot of success because (1) she just started out and (2) she has trouble focusing on practice even though she really really wants to. there's also other reasons they differ in magical abilities but you should watch the show since im avoiding spoilers.
why am i talking about this? its because, like... how much would it suck for akko to be better at magic than the girl who has put in a million more hours of effort into it? diana has shown to be fluent in a dead language and she knows some spells better than the teachers, but its not something that comes naturally to her. she has a bookshelf of textbooks and stuff and shes constantly reading them, so of course she should be better at magic, right. akko cant sit still long enough to read a book, so her practice with magic is more similar to throwing herself at a wall over and over, waiting for the magic to come to her. a big message of the show is that akko should try and do things HER way instead of trying to copy the traditional method, and its sweet and all but i love how akko is just not as good at magic as diana is. Akko is shown to be better at SOME areas like transformation spells (since her idol was super good at them and she wants to be like her idol) and diana is NOT good at those types of spells because they're the most unserious gimmick-y kind of magic, definitely not something an astute high-class witch should be practicing!
when i look at my current situation, i kind of like how much im... idk, how im kind of not doing good in school right now, and how im having opportunities slip by me. its like, "if i put in the effort, i could fix my current situation..! of COURSE im failing right now, im just not serious enough..! i need to be like diana and really put in the effort, really try and make things better for myself, and then i'll be able to succeed!!!" i know its a weird way of thinking, since diana definitely had a tremendous amount of luck in being born in a rich environment and at least having the genes that allow her to sit and read a book to learn stuff, compared with akko who is very incapable of learning in that way.
my roommate and i also watched a little bit of yugioh GX, and theres this part where like, one of the bad guys challenges one of the good guys to a duel. The bad guy destroys the good guy's deck and the good guys like "aaarghh! how will i win now!!" and then still goes to the tournament. then its revealed the good guy actually had five other decks, each one themed after a different playstyle, and then he chose a deck that was specifically built to counter the bad guy's deck. so of course he wins, its not even a fair competition, the good guy destroys the bad guy completely. and the bad guys like "nooooo..this isnt fair..!" but this is the same thing ive been talking about with the little witch academia. im GLAD the good guy won in this situation, he's taking this duel a lot more seriously than the bad guy who waltzes into the arena with only one deck. the guy who puts more effort into winning should be the one who wins, regardless of how good or bad they are. there's other shows similar to this, where i really hope the bad guy wins because they've obviously put a lot more effort into winning compared to the good guy who we're supposed to be cheering for.
so thats all i wanted to say on this topic. i have got to get more serious. i have a problem (that i;ll probably talk more about in a future blog post) where im too focused around routines and the infinity. here's my issue: lets say i want to start working out. i'll say "i should wake up early tomorrow to work out". then i'll say "but i wont always be able to wake up early; some times i'll need to sleep in because i wont get a lot of sleep". and then i'll end with "i should never work out because there will be some times i won't be able to wake up early". my problem is i keep thinking in terms of very long time frames; i wont start habits if i know i cant keep them FOREVER without fail. im trying to fix this but i dont know how. any ways i dont want to write any more so thanx for reading... GOOP BYE...
- Sophie