(the beginning of the) last hurrah

05 Aug, 2024

I've been feeling weird about posting lately and overall burnt out on online interactions, so I'm writing under make_discoverable: false until I get out of this funk.

Rather than be annoyed with myself for being in a funk, I'm trying to think of it as part of my disappearing act cycle, in which I take social tasks off my growing to-do list temporarily to ease my anxiety and re-add them when the scarier tasks are complete. It happens regularly enough that I think I'm learning to ride it out rather than fight it.

(Still, if I owe you an email, I'm sorry for the delay...)

In offline news, my giant extended family had our annual reunion recently. It was a lot of fun, as usual! I think I drank my alcohol quota for the month in one weekend, and I didn't win any particularly cool prizes at the dice game, but I got to talk to second cousins I never interact with, had fun with the ones who I usually do interact with, and was entertained by the games the host family prepared.

Some highlights:

• I helped the host family prepare a Jeopardy-type game, and it worked well. I can't do many things but I can make a good Google Slides presentation with clickable elements!!!
• The couples game was a riot to watch – they had couples from my generation (my brother and his wife), our parents' generation, and our grandparents' generation, and it was funny seeing the different answers for questions like "what was your last Valentine's gift to her?" and "what's your pet name for him?".
• I brought some stickers I made and used it as a friendmaking device/a way to talk to the cousins I rarely interact with. My siblings are among the oldest in our generation, so I wonder if they think I am equally old and hard to approach/relate to?
  • Or just uncool, lol.
• Got to talk with C, a second cousin I find really sweet. She bonded with me and my sister when we played board games with her two reunions back. Now she's a teenager and not as bubbly as she was then, but it only took a bit of talking to get her out of her shell! She is still very sweet.
  • I have a soft spot for the shyer/more reserved cousins with geeky interests and try to make an effort to reach out to them, because I know I was a similar kid and would have had a hard time approaching my cousins if I didn't have my siblings to follow around.
• Last year, some of our cousins hung out in my + my sister's hotel room past the festivities and had a fun time just chatting. This year one of them, K, was particularly determined to recreate that, and I thought it was sweet that he was so enthused about hanging out with us.
• I also used the gym at the hotel we were staying at – not something I usually do! Who is she?

I'm looking forward to our beach trip later this month with some of the second cousins who hung out in our hotel room. My dad is also fond of his cousins (their fathers) and my mom gets along well with the mothers – two things that become rarer the larger a family is – which is why they pitched it to us. How great is it that we just happened to also jive with each other?

In the meantime, my trip to Melbourne begins tomorrow! After such a social trip, this solo one feels a little lonely. I've been looking forward to it for ages but now that I'm here, I'm anxious about it. I would get like this every time I'd pack to go back to college for the semester, but I'm surprised to find that it applies in this situation too. Maybe I just don't like being too far from my family?

Some of my cousins are college-aged and studying abroad themselves, and they seem to be having an overall great time. Of course, I don't know the finer details of their experience because we aren't close lmao, but I'm impressed and a little envious of how easily they (appear to) take to their new environment. There are a couple of things that might explain why they're such naturals in an area I struggled (I was two and a half years into college when I started feeling like myself!), but envy isn't rational. I just continue to be dumbfounded by how smart and capable and well-adjusted they seem – that's what good mental health looks like, I suppose.¹

This August is busy and full of travels. It feels like a last hurrah before I go back to my program, which I am really dreading. I submitted a couple of things late in the last module I completed, so they're marked as "incomplete" which is honestly fine with me, but my advisor said she'd talk to my last instructor to get them graded because... I don't know, honestly. I don't think it's necessary...? I would really rather take the L and move on because I did not like that instructor and she did not like me, but we'll see.

Anyway, I hope to try and start some work on my unit plans while visiting Melbourne's libraries, just so I associate my schoolwork with something more positive and enjoyable instead of the sour note my last module ended on. Fresh start!!! It's okay!!! We can try again!!! (← brainwashing myself)

Here is a mini media diary – things I've enjoyed in the past month or so:

• Books and comics: Flowers in the Attic, Animal Farm, Savaging the Dark, Miss Don't Touch Me
• TV and movies: May December (2023), Abbott Elementary (I just started, but I like it a lot!)
• Music: Never Ending Summer, The girl, so confusing version with lorde, Cozy

#daily #family