Introductions

I’d say they are due, as I don’t dabble in social media other than the real world. I am a post-grad, but I’d hate for that to define me. It has molded me, certainly, but so have a variety of factors. One of them, certainly, is living abroad. I haven’t lived at home (with my parents, that is) for over five years now, and every time I come back to their house I feel more and more like a guest. I’ve taken to asking for permission before I take a book out of the shelf, or turn the volume on the radio down. The fridge doesn’t contain the foods I enjoy eating on an everyday basis anymore, and whenever I come home my mum fills it with approximations of meals she remembers me liking a few years back. I suppose this is something most people experience as they move away from home, but this isn’t about my status as a special snowflake. Like many people, I have hair, I have increasingly wavering eyesight (something my studies have definitely had a hand in), I have dry skin, which, in spite of being an organ, behaves more and more like a tabloid set on divulging to people I don’t get as much sleep as my body requires. And, again, like a lot of people my age I actually enjoy taking care of all these things that cover me: I like experimenting with different foods, tonics, lotions, oils, anything fragrant and interesting and potentially contributory to positive changes in my skin and state of mind. I like finding out whether or not something works for me, and making notes on these things. – I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the form this introduction will take, because it is easiest to introduce yourself to an invisible audience by listing what you like, in a “you are what you like” kind of fashion. So what else do I like? I like makeup. Not for everyday wear, but I do like face-painting, making myself look like a dragon or drag queen or what have you. This started about four years ago, when I was doing my undergraduate studies and had a lot of time to waste on the internet. Like many girls, this is one obsession I get to blame mainly on youtube. Another thing I like to spend time on is cooking. This didn’t use to be the case a while ago: I spent my undergraduate years in Germany, and though organic food at reasonable prices was readily available, I just didn’t spend much time worrying about how to create intricate meals out of the combination of 5+ edible elements. Mainly, I threw dry stuff into a pan, added water, incorporated a few vegetables, because fibre (!) and sat on the bed (I had no table other than my desk, which served as bookshelf/rat-cage-holder) stuffing my face and lol’ing at the Simpsons. Probably sounds familiar to most of students. Or non-students, for that matter. Come to think of it, I don’t actually remember all that much from my undergrad studies other than a vague, blurry mix of sensations that could have technically taken place at any time. Sure, I can concentrate and maybe extract one or two specific memories from the blur, like meeting someone in town for coffee or idling on my bed with my feet in a rectangle of sunlight, but mostly it’s just one big warm sunny day involving both stress and enjoyment. It would be interesting to get an insight into how other people remember their past, and how it affects their relation to the present and perhaps the future. If anyone else feels like what they want from life, what drives them, is attaining, not a certain concrete goal (though some of those are nice to have) or status, but to get to a point where one is constantly immersed in a certain kind of atmosphere. I’ll try to explain: when I think back to the past, I become nostalgic, but this nostalgia is not directed at something specific I did; I do not become nostalgic for, say, the dance classes I took, or the people I hung out with at a certain period of time, or taking a camping trip. What I become nostalgic for is a feeling that I somehow connect with ‘the past’, and, as corny as it sounds, it is a kind of feeling similar to that of waking up early on a sunny day when you have the whole day in front of you and you get to choose what this day will be like. You’d probably think it would make more sense for me to revel in the future, then, and you’d probably be right. But that’s the annoying thing about nostalgia, it infiltrates your present mindset and draws you to the past, and because we’re all beings more or less conscious of our mortality, we prefer a state in which we are further away from death rather than closer to it. But I think I’ve diverged from the course of this post far enough... my mind does that a lot. It resembles a stray puppy more than anything else. Maybe a child in a supermarket. Anyway. Back to defining myself by listing things I appreciate. But what would such a list be without taking into account things I don’t like? I don’t like mushrooms. Of any kind. It has nothing to do with their seemingly hybrid nature. Nor, even, with their taste, weirdly enough. Mainly, it’s about how they look when cooked and sitting on my plate, cosily nestled in my food. It looks like a piece of zombie flesh, not that this makes any sense at all. Moving on. Another thing I dislike is vulgarity, and I suppose I’m not alone with that, though I imagine everyone’s concept of vulgarity will differ. I don’t think I’ll spend too much time on this topic, as it is something I enjoy complaining about occasionally, but rarely in written form. I’m not sure I’ve ever understood what compels people to write letters to magazines. Or attack people on social platforms. Unless they are being deliberately offensive and appear to be seeking a reaction of sorts, I don’t think most people upload content trying to provoke you into telling them they are stupid, or ugly, or fat, or of a sexual orientation that for some reason might not sit well with your view of the world. But I suppose all this belongs in a different post. So, wrapping this up because it is attaining ridiculous lengths: a last passion I will divulge here is writing. What a surprise this must come as. Anyway, I am about to finish my current MA, which is in philosophy, and to start another one next year, which will be in creative writing, something I hope this blog will help with, if only to get over the anxiety of shoving my writing into people’s faces and the possibility of rejection that goes with it. 

Finally, because this definitely deserves a “tl;dr”: I am a girl. I am a student. I am 24.

Sup.