Mekong Red

You would not believe the day I had today.

For about 80% of the day I spent it doing nothing, I went to bed at 4 am last night so the whole day I was barely half awake just going through the motion when at around 7 pm my mother asks if I want to go to the local Vietnamese grocery store with her. Initially I said no, but feeling like I hadn't done much that day, I agreed to go.

The last thing I expected to happen is that I would have to administer CPR on the owner of the store after she collapsed at the front door and stopped breathing. I'd rather not get into details, but I'd like to say, for the first time ever doing CPR, I think I did an okay job, it truly is all thanks to the emergency ambulance dispatcher who guided me through it, but damn what a surreal thing to happen on such an unsuspecting day.

What an odd world we live in, I don't think this is the excitement I was quite meaning when I said I want a more exciting summer.

If you're wondering, she's fine. Or at least as fine as one could be from an event like this, matter fact when she refused to leave to the ambulance until she could lock up shop and that meant scanning all the remaining customers goods.

What an awkward conversation I had trying to make small talk with the EMT while the lady was calculating how much my mother's groceries cost.

I don't think I'll truly process this for a while so apologies for the light tone, on other news I finally completed the first volume of my journal.

I started journaling on October 2023, around the same time I started up this website. Both this website and my desire to journal came from a yearning in my heart to be creative. The reason it took me nearly two years to finish my first journal is because I was on and off for many times where studies got in the way, or I just plain forgot or didn't want to. This year, however I really picked up steam and have been regularly journaling except for the dark period of dissertation times and now I have finally completed it.

Time to start volume 2.

The last day of May ends off on the hottest day of the year (so far) and I spent it going on a walk around my neighbourhood.

There's something so freeing about walking around your neighbourhood with slides, sandals, or slippers, it sounds odd, but in a weird way it feels like I've disarmed myself, no airs are put on, just me in the concrete jungle, living life as it should be. That being said, London surprisingly has quite a lot of green. I can't say whether or not other cities have more or less green, but I've never felt it lacked green spaces, though there can always be more, and more variety too. A lot of open cut grass fields, we could use more spaces with more native plants and shrubbery.

It was a hot day, so I decided to walk around sunset, and I had no real place in mind so I wandered around aimlessly. London sometimes feels like two different places overlaid on top of one another. Within a 5 minute walking distance you will come across a gated community with cameras and a big tall fence, keeping inside grand houses with ornate architecture and antechambers. On the other side of the road will be ugly terraced-houses squeezed together, cracked pavement and trash line the street. Yet here its always alive, kids playing outside, the sweet smell of barbecue from somebodies garden on a sunny day's dusk, here there's culture, there's diversity, its what makes London, London!

The other side is all I've ever known but I can't help but feel like life here isn't all too bad. Would be nice to live in one of those houses though. And maybe they have fun too... Ah well, you've got what you got until you don't I suppose, I'm not complaining (most of the time).

I was going to go to a used bookstore but I decided against it after I couldn't quite get the timing to leave, so instead I went on a run outside following the momentum of already working up a sweat. I greatly underestimated just how much sun would be out there, I thought for sure the clouds wouldn't leave me hanging, but instead I nearly got cooked alive outside.

Anyways the run itself was a good one. A decent thirty minutes at a good pace, I did come in a little too hot for the first mile but hopefully I can start running more regularly to get better.

When I got home I couldn't help but notice I was running in my head how people had looked at me as I was running, and doing a run down of my own behaviour.

Each day passes I think I deviate further from the median human experience, I'm in my own head too much, I'm getting mired in the minutiae. Or maybe everyone else thinks about these things? To be honest, I don't know, my friends don't seem like they think about this, but neither do I show it. Maybe its all just façades talking to façades.

I need to turn going outside into a habit, I think that's the trick, habit-forming. I used to wake up and turn my computer on, but I started alternating between reading a book and writing in my journal after I get ready, but before I start my day and I think its doing dividends for my brain, just slowing down the day, ever so slightly makes the rest of the day better.

Anyways, something I've been thinking about is playing FFXIV again, since university began, I only really played maybe 20 hours per year and for the final year I didn't play at all, but with the insurmountable time that has now fallen into my lap, I figure, maybe I should start playing again?

I've been feeling moderately happy lately but in a bout of sadness coming out of the shower I began to look inwards at my life recently and I feel like nothing has changed and I'm just repeating my days in a cycle of mediocrity.

Summer hasn't even started yet and I feel like I'm wasting it in anticipation. I haven't gone outside in a while. It gets like this sometimes, my room is too much of a comfort, my bed, only a step away from my desk, is too inviting, the mindless short-form content scroll is too enticing. Things don't change, things they just don't change.

I fell off big time updating my website because whenever I get the idea to update my website I begin to despise my website in its current state and that by updating it there'll be undue attention on it despite its unfinished state. Though visual studio code has made it easier than before, now I don't want to push unfinished changes whereas on neocities itself, I had to.

I fell off blog posts too because somehow I decided that I should only write something when I feel in a certain mood or think I have something profound to say, but to be honest I miss talking about nothing.

In an attempt to push back at my own pretention and my own need of perfection, I'm going to talk about my day, where nothing happened, reminiscent of my early blog posts.

Life in the sports world is not going well for me. At first sports became my primary distraction and fixation during the pandemic. Isolated from my communities at school and in my area, I brought myself into a community that I needn't share spatial barriers with, and that I could find camaraderie even in spite of our poor performance. As a child I used to despise football, but over time I came to understand it for the beautiful game that it is and its intrinsic nature as a part of working class community

Littered all around London you can find football cages that act as third spaces for young children and teens to socialise and play; at lunchbreak, bags act as goals and even trash, like crunched up water bottles act as the ball, football is an endemic form of entertainment to the hearts of people of the world because its simplicity is what makes it so accessible.

I think I've outgrown these areas, but back then they meant something special, and maybe they still do, I wouldn't really know, it'd be ridiculous to call myself old at 22 (but it is funny) but I think as you go into your 20s you might be surprised at how quickly things go past you.

I was thinking of changing my "journal" page to just "writing" because I now don't really care for making a distinction between thought out pieces of writing and mindless ramblings because it seems that everything that I write nowadays comes out as mindless rambling. If I do turn it to a "writing" page, it opens up more for me cause I do have a lot to say that's more than just what I feel about myself, maybe I'd expand this or something IDK.

Anyways, Arsenal lost the Champions league semi-final and our rivals Tottenham won a trophy. In 2020, I think this would cause genuine heartbreak, but over the years as I've become more occupied with other things, sports has taken a backseat, and probably for the best. There were times where watching us lose ruined my day and caused genuine physical pain in my heart, yet when we won, it felt like fireworks erupted inside and even the worst of days became great. Now, I choose to care less. That doesn't mean I don't care at all but I celebrate the wins to a lesser degree, but I can quickly move past the losses.

In news relating to my actual day, I received my REAL vol. 8 and Hirayasumi vol. 4 books in the mail today and I've been trying to get better at drawing anatomy, with mixed progress. Mostly because I can't put my foot down and make a conceited effort to practice and only draw when I feel compelled to yet then feel inadequate at my skills or lack thereof. I also finally finished the layout of my fountain pen page and have created a manga page, but have yet to think of how I want to lay it out. Speaking of my website and neocities in general, I kinda haven't interfaced outside of my own bubble much really, there's a lot of great stuff here, maybe I'll start trying to be better at that.

Today was a productive day :)

I'm in danger of monotony creeping into my life, I'm just not doing anything. I feel like I'm letting myself down.

I dont know myself any more. I cant predict what I'm feeling or going to feel in the next couple of minutes let alone weeks or even years. I'm lost to myself, I've been quick to anger recently, I wake up and feel annoyed at the world, and things that I'd brush off seem to linger. But some days, I'm happy, and the slightest chuckles cascade into a cacophony of laughter at such simple and delightful things. Maybe I've always been like this and only now am I doing some self reflection or maybe I've changed.

I think its a way for my brain to break up the monotony. I'm not doing much of anything and if I'm not doing anything to change it, it decides to change within myself.

I don't know when I started to refer to my brain as a separate being from myself, as if, somehow its not part of what makes me, and entirely what makes me think. And yet it feels inextricably removed from myself.

I wish I understood myself better, how easier life would be with more clarity, both with myself, and the direction I'm going in.

Okay, *now* I'm really done with university. Although these past few days I've done no studying at all, now that all my exams are over, my mind is fully free to fail or succeed.

I want to enjoy this summer, but I also don't want to waste this summer either, so I'm drafting things that I must do in order for this summer to be a productive one

• Finish Outer Wilds, Death Stranding, Pentiment, Monkey Island, Psychonauts, Persona 5 Royal, Tactical Breach Wizards, Spiritfarer, Citizen Sleeper and maybe Elden Ring
• Start writing a novel, write a short story, or just write more in general
• Learn how to use colours
• Learn at least one song on the piano
• Get my Vietnamese reading, writing, speaking and listening skills to a non-embarrassing level
• Don't go in overdraft again
• Make a new friend
• Talk to an old friend
• Go to an art gallery
• Volunteer for something
• Become a person that makes small talk with strangers
• DO NOT DIE

If 3/4th of this list is ticked off, I can consider it a productive summer.

Once summer comes to its end, I have committed myself to getting a job, not a graduate one (I don't want to dive in to a life of wage labour just yet), but probably something in retail or customer service so that I have enough money for when I go to Vietnam by myself in January. I'm planning to travel across the country for a whole month before my family flies in as well and then we'll head to our grandparent's home in time for Tết. The rest of the month, who knows, and then back to London in around March or something.

This point in time is the real crossroad of my early adulthood. I've had my fun, now I must choose, a career with my Bachelors, or pursue a masters. The third option is pursuing my creative dreams, but some days I feel it cannot happen in isolation and other days I feel it can only happen if I throw everything aside and go for it whole-heartedly. I don't know man, I don't know.

If I pursue a masters, I really don't know what I'd want to go for. The last thing I want to do is repeat the mistake I made three years ago and pick a degree I began to despise in the final year, but at least postgraduate is only one year here. The only masters course that's really been caught in my mind is Anthropology. I find the study of humanity and culture really fascinating and I think it'd be something that I could really enjoy. The only crux is, if I do lose passion here, I'm mired in even deeper waters than a simple Bachelors in Biology.

In regards to a career, I think its a question of what career can I tolerate the longest? Ever since I became lost, I think I've discovered something about myself. My mind is a lot more volatile than I previously thought, and it yearns deeply to pursue the path that makes me the most happy. But what makes me happy doesn't correlate well with what lines my pockets and keeps me alive and fed, so the question is, how far am I willing to compromise my happiness for my wellbeing?

The more I think about thinking of my future, the more bleak it feels. I'll try and think less of it and hopefully stumble myself into a better life.

(24/05/25 UPDATE: The more I think about it, the more I want to do it, the insidious algorithm put professor John Friedman, an anthropology professor who's course was made redundant, in my sights. and his responses to people asking in regards to a career prospects with anthropology inspirited me. What I learn might not push me towards a greater job opportunities, but it will enlighten my soul with knowledge and isn't that what universities are originally supposed to be about? I do fear that I will balk at the thought of being broke for the rest of my life at the sight of my first job rejection so perhaps I will need to mull this over, I do have like a year to figure things out after all.)

I daydream far too much for someone who has much work to do. In my daydreams, I often think about the future, and in this future I have already achieved all my goals. Its fun to think about this, to pine for a better life, but while I'm sating myself with delusions, there's a reality and a present that I am walking away from and each time I dream, I feel a piece of myself peeling away along with my future, neglecting my present self, left stuck in time, forever dreaming of what I want to be, but never moving forward.

I've declared it. A war against day-dreaming.

No more shall I be shackled from my future by my own mind, every time I start thinking about my future, it'll be about action! Plans to achieve that future rather than the imaginations of a false one.

But... maybe later, I've still got to do these exams.

Though I have been labouring under the delusion that university is over, I still have two exams in exactly 10 and 12 days. To be honest, I've stopped caring all too much, or at least I am in intense negotiations with my brain to stop caring about these exams and just do revision without any stress or pressure.

It becomes more difficult however, when you open up your OneNote and realise that not only have you only attended six lectures total for both modules across the whole semester, all the weeks you did attend have effectively zero notes.

I thought, okay, I watch two lecture recordings and make notes every day and that gives me surplus time to practice previous essay questions.

May 1st goes by like a blur. No work done.

May 2nd, I realise I need to lock in, I start to feel the pressure, but I successfully suppress it and try to nonchalantly (but studiously) watch previous lecture recordings. When did my phone appear in my hand and when did Northernlion get onto my second monitor?

Things aren't working as they should. Look, I know I said I don't care anymore, but that doesn't mean I want a bad grade. I need a new strategy, and OneNote just ain't cutting it, I spend the better half of the day figuring out how to rudimentarily use obsidian to study with.

I decide the lecture recordings aren't worth it and use the slides to revise, they basically just read off it anyways.

It worked! I actually got work done, and it's so much easier! I can assign definitions to words, and hover over them to see them, the UI is so much better and everything just looks less cluttered and so much more cleaner, where the hell was this, all the years before? This is when I find it? On the last two exams of my university career?

I'd like to get back into writing again, and I mean creative writing rather than inane ramblings plucked from the dome. Maybe once this university thing is truly done for good, I'll give it an honest go. I want to write a novel before I die, at least one. Not that I plan on dying, but you know.