WOW! It has been how long?

For a second there, I thought I left the internet for real. Nah, turns out when the whole world panics about the death of a platform, somehow everyone returns the next week like nothing’s happened. Despite migrating my followed content on my other platforms, I STILL ended up using Twitter the most in viewing online content.How could I stop? Everyone still uses that platform to some degree. Despite this, I did promise that Tumblr would be my new place for posts (clearly followed up on that order :P), and I still haven’t (and won’t) post another thing on that platform for god knows how long.

Sooo, how have I been (if that even matters to you)? 

I’ve been fine, I got through my first year of college at ASU, and overall I’m just been chilling with the inactivity. The most I ever post online is through my personal Instagram, which for obv reasons, I won’t be sharing. Besides that its been scroll, like, next platforn, scroll, like,... the usual.

It’s been sort of nice to be afk from the constant active schedule, especially when there are important things to worry about than being on social media. I honestly don’t know how some of y’all do it better, haha. 

How about the art? Where’s the art?

I really did leave the blog hanging with the doodle sharing. There’s still several pages of sketches there, but I haven’t really drawn in like... a year. Again, college had me on a chokehold, and will again once next semester begins, so I haven’t really done much creatively for awhile. I MIGHT, but I don’t promise. Social media for me, isn’t much of a priority than living for real life, which pretty much defines my reason for inactivity. Not that I don’t care about it, otherwise this account would’ve been deleted long ago.

Any new interests / miscellaneous section?

This is just to update y’all about my current interests and such. Pretty much realized through the past year that I don’t like Pokémon as much as I thought. During Gen 8, I made it an effort to become engulfed into the currents of the games, anime, media, etc... and honestly it was a hassle, and I hated it, especially on Twitter. I pretty much learned that the only thing I actually cared about were the various Pokémon themselves. Especially apparent from my ever-growing collection of plushes that I dedicate to once in a while. It’s a massive money waster, but god do I love it. My recent favorite is the Cult of the Lamb plush I had to order in under a minute before being sold out. That was a fun experience, and I know I’ve sneaked him into several ASU promotional material. Funny I mention that, because I haven’t really played video games either since college. 

If there is ONE thing I do have current interest in, that would be this one small show you may have heard of this show I’m not sure if you know this show so ill show you the show so you know its a little show called Bluey. I’ve been obsessed with this show since the end of my winter break, funny enough initial interest came from watching TikTok's of people (jokingly, I hope) to compete with 6 y/olds for Bluey plushes at Target. I guess i’ve liked too many of these posts for TikTok to start sharing full episodes on my page, and I've never been the same since. I’ve caught up with the series, and I gotta say it’s one of my favorite current pieces of animated media to come out as of late. Without saying too much, this show made me question many aspects of my life several times to where I could say I’ve actually learned how to better myself a bit. It’s crazy to me that a goddamn toddler program from Australia is actively teaching me morals at age 19, but here we are, I guess. 

Will there be Bluey in this blog? maybe, but I plan on posting Bluey related content on another blog @dsumpsbluey For now, my primary blog will share primarily Pokémon, art, and Pokémon art; not that I’m gatekeeping Bluey, but I got something planned for that other blog (plans, I’m totally great with those). Other than that, that’s pretty much it with what’s up with me. Sorry for being inactive for as long as I did, real life just caught up to me that’s all. Hopefully if you’re still reading this, you realize my current position of my blog. Just know that unless specified by me, this blog isn’t dead. Good day, or night, and until the next post.

Recap, 1st week. 17-23 April.

Well, I have a job now. Isn’t this great? No, it’s fucking not. Now I’m twice as worried as I was before and even more depressed, but I was promised a paycheck so that evens out nothing.

The way I acquired the job is actually quite peculiar. I have this friend, known him since high school, great person, we have same interests and stuff, problem is - we didn’t talk much for the past few years, he’s busy with work and I don’t like to bother people, especially when they have stuff to do, so I just didn’t, which is not very nice when you are friends. We hang out sometimes, talk for a little and then see each other for birthdays or something. But recently I reached out to all of the people that still considered me a friend, to rekindle relationships I’ve stupidly broken, and he was one of those people. We had a lovely chat, catching up on things and then, completely out of the blue, he offered me a job. That wasn’t a surprise for me, though, everyone I know is informed that I’m unemployed and looking for work opportunities but incredibly slowly and inefficiently.

So I took his offer because I had nothing better and something had to be done about that. We agreed that I’ll come to the interview with him and his boss and will probably get the job just because they needed someone desperately to finish a deadline. And I went. It was horrible. Not the interview itself, things went smoothly, but I was panicking so hard I almost bailed out and ran away. I have anxiety and fear of responsibility which doesn’t help at all when you are trying to act naturally, being asked a lot of questions about yourself and trying not to bomb. I’ve managed, barely. Thankfully, my friend was there to support me and when it became clear that I’ve got the job, we were both really happy.

So, that thing happened on Friday, a week before this one and we’ve decided that I start working Tuesday, because of this year’s easter, so I was ready to do so before remembering that Tuesday was my husband’s birthday too. So, another interview, Skype this time, drinking with my friend on Saturday and Easter on Sunday, and, after all of that was done - my goddamn first day of work AND my husband’s birthday. That’s a lot for me. Heavy drinking was also involved, and a bit of sobbing about how shitty my life is and how unhappy I am, but that is the usual struggle.

Monday evening I went to the store, bought flowers and cake ingredients, smuggled them home without husband noticing and got down to business. I’ve baked a surprise birthday cake and announced the fact that I now have a job and the “party” went ok.

Tuesday was stressful. I was so anxious and confused that I can’t really remember the first half of the day but I figured things out as I went and at the end of the day was victorious, done everything my new boss wanted from me. The girl who worked there before me didn’t do a good job with materials she was supposed to write and translate, doing the same stuff for a month, and I was finished in one day, impressing not only my boss but myself too.

Wednesday was easier. I finally knew what I was doing, finished everything on that part of the project and was ready to tackle next thing. Oh, I have to mention, I work 9 hours a day, from home which is perfectly fine by me, the less I need to come out of my apartment the better.

So now, on the next step, I need to put everything I’ve done so far on our new website. I never did that before, completely new territory, I’m a little terrified. I’ve spent like half of the day trying to figure things out, did something, got my boss to check it and then did everything else he wanted to see there in less than an hour, almost losing my mind in the process. But it went great.

And then the Friday, the blessed day, the end of the week. I had to write a script for a video that we are supposed to film for our site and it was hard. I think I strained my brain a little, trying to push creative ideas out as fast as I could. And in the evening I had to go into our office to sign papers and show my body of work to the people, let them know who says what and finally meet some of my other colleagues. Excluding the fact that I fell on my ass while looking for a pen that fell on a floor, everything went ok. Afterward, we got a beer with my guy friend and discussed all that was going on.

The next day was supposed to be fun. Once a year people I know pretty well throw an anime expo in my city. It’s an awesome experience, I usually try not only to visit but also to cosplay and perform on stage because it’s a blast. This year I didn’t have time and all my friends that usually do that thing with me were busy so nothing happened in that department. I still went and had a relatively nice time. My friend who I now work with went too, his first time. Three of us: I, my BFF and my only close guy friend were together the whole time and were drinking from the moment we entered the expo. I met all the people I know and had an awesome chance to finally hang out with them, get hammered and do stupid shit which subsequently backfired. I got so drunk that I did some regrettable things and also got so sad that we had to leave early and didn’t have a chance to go to the after party. So my friends put me in the taxi and we went home. I spent the whole ride sobbing on my BFF’s shoulder about how bad of a person I am. I constantly feel like an imposter, like I’m fake, like I’m lying to everybody. I don’t know why am I doing anything and why do I try. And I was shocked by a number of people who wanted to see me, to talk to me, to be my friends again. I felt like shit. My BFF went to my apartment and we hang out for some time until I blacked out completely. Then she went home. I love her with all my heart, she deserves a better best friend. I was also sad that two of my most important people, my close friends, who will probably read this, couldn’t come to the expo but I’m also glad they didn’t see me like that. I feel guilty now for everything I’ve done.

Sunday-fun-day wasn’t fun. I didn’t have a hangover only because I now, being an adult and drinking on a regular, take percussions, ingesting electrolytes and a ton of water after getting drunk. Also charcoal tablets. I woke up feeling okay physically but wrecked emotionally, wrote to everyone who was around me for the last hour of the expo an apology and contacted my BFF about an after after party we wanted to go to. So we made plans, I actually made an effort to look decent and after putting on makeup and getting ready for like an hour and a half called a cab, went about a quarter of the way and got her text saying she’s not gonna go at all. Fuck, I was starting to look forward to spending this evening in the club with everyone from yesterday’s expo. But I wasn’t gonna go without her so we figured out that none of us drinking tonight which in a long run is a good thing. I spent the rest of the day home, doing minimal to none, maybe some housework and then went to bed.

Not so shabby for a first work week I guess.

life update # 7

Not gonna be much of a life update, I just wanted to reflect on something that’s been on my mind lately.

I’ve felt a disconnect between reality and what’s in my brain regarding my intelligence. I know that I have a bad memory, and sometimes I do/say some dumb stuff at work and IRL. E.G. Sometimes I’ll say something, but then immediately remember more details of the topic moments after, and now the thing I said makes me look like a dumbass because it sounds ignorant, or it’s something that I should (and do already) know the answer to.

So for a while I just thought that I was dumb. But here’s the thing: I’ve spent time around actual legitimately dumb people before. And not in a mean way, I can just tell that they’re not smart, and they live their life accordingly, so it’s really no big deal. But given this, I know I’m not dumb-dumb, because I know that I’m smarter than people that are actually dumb. And yet, I still do dumb things that really make my question how smart I am.

I think my stupidity comes from my bad memory. I have such a hard time recalling information -- at work, things that were briefed to me a couple of weeks ago are lost in a fog and it sometimes takes me hours to subconsciously recall important conversations. Or, sometimes information is presented to me earlier in the day, and appears in a separate scenario later, and I just can’t piece two and two together. I feel that this is an issue because it seems that none of my co-workers are affected by this - things that takes me forever to think of are caught nearly twice as fast by someone else.

I also have a hard time retaining information. For example, trying to solve a complex ledger problem at work literally makes my head hurt. No matter how long I take I just can’t focus long enough on the problem for it to make sense to me. This may be a tougher example, but another member on my team actively takes on the same problems that gives me hell and manages to get through it all. I don’t know what I can do to improve any of this.

I think the cause of my bad memory is that I’m so anxious all the time. For example, sometimes I get triggers that reminds me of a cringey moment - maybe I said some dumb embarrassing thing at work, or even if I make a comment in a group chat and get completely ignored. These moments play over and over again in my brain, and cause me psychological and physical discomfort throughout the day. The only thing that brings me peace is if I forget about these moments - forget about these triggers so that I won’t suffer through the replays anymore.

But if forgetting these memories bring me relief, then it’s easier for my brain to forget other things too. Like important things for work, or an active hunk of information to solve a problem. I feel that my brain thinks that if I retain too much stimulation, then I’d get overwhelmed when triggers happen, so over time it’s trained itself to only focus on a small handful of things at a time and easily let go of them so I can be at peace.

Maybe this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever thunk?? I don’t know, I’m probably just making excuses for why I’m not as successful as I’d like to be. But I think that my past depression and anxiety definitely has something to do with it. Once when I was a kid (maybe 7ish or 8) some guy at DisneyWorld screamed at me, and everybody turned to look at me and muttered in disapproval (or so I remember). That scenario tortured me for literally years on and off, and I still vividly remember it to this day. Now as an adult, embarrassing/cringey things might torture me for 1-2 days at most, but then I forget about it and move on. But I used to have really good memory when I was a kid, E.G. throughout middle school and high school I could glance at my class schedules once and have it memorized, and I used to challenge myself to memorizing bizarre facts about Greek Mythology. Now, I can barely remember facts about any of my friends, even though they’ve repeated those facts to me over some period of time.

This frustrates me because I feel like I’m slowly losing my mind. It makes me feel sad that my memory is so poor, because even though it’s easy to forget the bad times, it’s also easier to forget all the good times I’ve had too. There’s things that I desperately want to remember, like a new friend’s favorite cake or details about their family, but they’re all just mush to me. And every time I ask them to repeat themselves, it makes me seem like I don’t care, like it’s not important information. Now that I actually have made some friends, it’s extremely important to me that I make them feel appreciated and treasured. I just feel that I can’t do that to my full potential when I have half a brain in my head.

Leon Fontaine_The Best Life_Update November 09, 2017

College Life

1st year of Med School, horrifying and yet so wonderful. The life I live now is more drastic and full of life compared to my lazy life I left Riyadh. Missing My fam but that is compensated. Torn apart between two different worlds, between my fam in Riyadh and my fam over here.