Mekong Red

Blog

The rigours of university are getting to me. My degree requires a lot out of me physically which I can manage but then I get home and have to deal with the daunting realisation of a backlog of work that I face, deadlines in the coming weeks, and lest I forget a second semester, birthed from hell itself, looming over me from the near future 10x worse than my current predicament.

All this work and for what? A degree I no longer have any love in, to work in an industry I will only begrudgingly tolerate?

If I want something more from life, something has to change. Once university is behind me I think I'll have to do some great introspection about what's next. For now, I'll continue to complain about deadlines and dissertations.

On Wednesday the day started off pretty good. Mid lecture I bought tickets for a Ichiko Aoba live show!! I've never been to a concert or a live show or anything of that nature so I wanted my experience to be a good one and bought a seat on the second row.

Even though I told myself I need to save money until the beginning of next year, Ichiko Aoba might be the one person who I need to see live before I die.

After the lecture was over, I went to a farm about 2 hours away from London for a university project. I thought we'd just be there for half an hour yet somehow it turned into two hours and ended up missing the train which only comes round once every hour.

Atleast I got some reading done, I'm still stuck on the same book I've been reading since September. I've been making steady progress but I definitely aren't reaching my 20 books for 2024 goal.

Today wasn't any kinder, three hours spent out in the cold with an empty stomach.

I'm so tired I can't think, but I need to get this out of the way so my bad if writing quality peters off around here I'm not even thinking I'm just typing, see you next time bye.

Every day for this past week, I've woken up with a headache. I go to bed at 3 AM and I wake up at 11 AM, and while I get my 8 hours, they feel dirty. Like I've cheated myself out of rest and in retaliation my head pays the price.

It was reading week last week which meant no lectures. No lectures means no schedule and no schedule means I slip back into bad habits.

Its funny, this bed of mine which I love has brought me such misery yet I can't live without it. When I first came back from my trip in September I slept at 11 PM and woke up at 7 AM. It was beautiful rising with the sun. It didn't last more than a week. Now I don't know when I'll get that back.

When lectures start up tomorrow, I'll get up early, but I won't be awake.

I went to a careers guidance appointment today, and it was pretty helpful when it came to showing me what I could do with my degree but really, most of it just the advisor pulling up a graduate job and me saying, yeah I could work that job, but I wouldn't love it. Don't get me wrong, I can eke out a living with a job that I tolerate, but if I don't pursue my passions, it might be sooner rather than later a crash out of grand proportions.

Once I finished, I walked to a park near my uni campus for around an hour listening to Ichiko Aoba, invoking some good old 2019 nostalgia when I first found her and I did the same thing but at a park near my sixth-form.

My Blue giant omnibus came in today, volumes 1 and 2 and I'm really excited, blue giant is a great manga about a high school student who encounters jazz music and his journey along the way as music guides his path forward.

I have to admit it, I am slice of life pilled, I am. Silver spoon, space brothers, something about the sweet mundanity of reality entices me, not that I don't love a good fantasy or action, but the grounded, human story is what I love most.

I've always wanted to watch more movies but I never get around to watching them.

Recently my brother came back from his trip to Japan and brought back with him an art book about the making of the latest Slam Dunk movie 'The First Slam Dunk'.

As a big fan of Takehiko Inoue's work, I of course was excited to have it, but I still had yet to watch the movie. A few days ago, while I had free time, I seized the chance to load up The First Slam Dunk and spend my two hours watching it.

Its been a long time since I cried tears of joy, if ever honestly. Less so a wracking sob and more so beading tears rolling down my faces with a smile. Not that I didn't also cry when things got sad. Things do get sad.

The story beats, the animation, the temporal perspective changes, the pivots between the characters. Its a beautiful thing I have to admit. I love art, I truly do.