mekong red.

I resolved in my mind a week before the interview that I wouldn't find a good part time job this year and to instead focus on myself and maybe start looking at actual graduate schemes but after I thought I did so well in the interview, I began to have hope once more. Alas, it is not to be.

Spent the better half of the day applying to jobs, writing in my details that are inevitably going to be sold to a third party company after I finally called the store up two weeks post interview and they hit me with a rejection.

I also had a phone interview with a teaching assistant job that pushed me to the next stage and it really is a strange feeling to just suddenly lose confidence what you're saying and completely blank out mid sentence. I thought I had gotten a lot better at interviews, enough that something like this wouldn't happen but mid interview he hit me with a curve ball and I just couldn't think, I stopped talking, my heart rate skyrocketed and I felt like I was losing my mind. Luckily enough though he just thought the phone cut out and moved on. They asked for references which I think is easy enough, but I half-lied about one of my volunteering experiences in that I went once and then never again but decided to keep it in as if its a continuous thing. Maybe I can ask the friend who got me onto it to be the reference but I don't really know. I don't even know if I really have the time for any of this anymore. I just wanted some money before I went off to Vietnam in February but now I'm losing my mind instead of relaxing like I said I would.

At least a positive in this is that I remembered I said I should do more volunteering and so I might just do some either later this month or in January.

I've never made plans for myself because I believe in the spirit of spontaneity, but as it turns out spontaneity is a privilege that can only be afforded to those with the means to be so. Not even a year floating in ephemera and I already want out, my feet yearn to be planted in the ground.

I struggle greatly with commitment, I couldn't commit to a specialisation in my degree and I can't commit to a career. They say you need to have a plan B and a plan C, but I don't even have a plan A.

DAMN!

I'm laughing now, and in the most early 20s voice I can make I say,

"Fuck! My youth is ruined, my future is doomed!"

Nah, it'll probably be alright. I don't know the future, but in the 'Nothing Ever Happens' speculative universe where things are going to get relatively worse for the world, but locally worse for the most part, dependant on which party is elected and who's mayor, my life will probably find itself at some point, provided I keep trying. Or maybe we die. Or maybe, the revolution comes? I can't count on it, I just have to keep trying.

I'm being harsh on myself today but actually I'm the most productive I have been in a while yet I can't help but feel I can do more. For now, I'll relax, and hope instead of being productive in bursts, a sustained continuous effort can be maintained through time and finally, I can be free of whatever hole I've dug myself in.

Its December now, 2025 is nearly over and there's no snow to be seen. I miss the snow. It makes the cold worth it, otherwise its just a worse Autumn. 2025 was a bad year. Perhaps the worse I've been mentally, doing the dissertation was hell, but I thought graduation would make up for it. Since graduating however, I've just been falling. Its not too bad though, things could always be worse. I tell myself this every time I feel sad, I just can't let myself be comfortable with feeling bad, now I'm starting to think I'm just running away from my emotions. I'm sure its fine, things will sort themselves out with time. They'll have to. I'm too broke to do anything but wait.

I had a bad dream recently. It was bad because in this dream I was happy. And I was happy because I was not afraid to live and life was nicer. I woke up and for a second it was real, then the next it wasn't, and it was crushing.

For a few months I just couldn't do escapism, I hated feeling like I was running from my own life, when I should be trying to fix my problems, and stories where things are happy just reflected my own misery upon me. I tried to fix my problems, maybe I didn't try hard enough, but I didn't change anything. All that changed was that I got overwhelmed because nothing I could do mattered. Now I realise there is nothing to fix. Or at the very least nothing I can do to fix that isn't uprooting my whole sense of self. By depriving myself of pleasures, I'm not motivating myself to work harder, I'm just heaping more misery unto me. Its like sleep. If I go to sleep late, I might go and set an alarm early in the morning, sacrificing my sleep in hopes that by the next day, I'll be so tired I fall asleep early. Instead what happens is, I wake up tired, I go through my day tired, and then I become energised at night, all the way until I go to sleep at the same exact time as I did the day before. Nothing changes. Anyways, recently, I've been escaping.

I did an interview a week ago that I though went incredibly well (at least by my standards), but I still have yet to get a call back. If I don't get the job, and its looking more and more unlikely as each day passes, 2025 will be the year of unemployment. Know this however, I will make sure that this December is spent well.

I want to commit myself to writing fiction. More than what I usually write, more volume than I've written before, and actually finish the things I write. My obsidian is littered with abandoned stories with a few sentences to their untitled name.