mekong red.

I closed my eyes to sleep and immediately I started thinking about that job application that I haven't filled out yet. When I tried to think about something else I started thinking about that masters programme that I can't decide on. Its going to be like this for a long time isn't it?

I finally slept 8 hours, even more I slept at 12 AM for perhaps the first time in over 6 months. I woke up at 8 am and I thought, wow, I don't feel tired at all. I looked in the mirror as I brushed my teeth and realised the bags under my eyes were significantly lighter.

I have a renewed sense of clarity about my life, if I can sleep for 8 hours and sleep before 1 AM I think I can stave off the melancholy and I can be human once more.

I feel so much more productive its insane. I could have been living like this the whole time??? I say this as if I'm getting excited and as if I didn't know this the whole time. I can already tell my sleep schedule will slip again.

Also something must be broken with my hypothalamus, my thermoregulation is all wrong, why the hell am I so cold all the time and then suddenly hot the next time?

In preparation for Vietnam, I bought myself a pencase and I really love it. It came in other designs but I thought the patchwork look had the most personality. I probably won't bring all these pens with me, especially not my Pilot E95, I think if I lost that I would lose my mind. Next week I'll probably go to a stationary store and look for a good sketchbook and some other things. I'm also going to the big post office in Ho Chi Minh City and am gonna send some post cards to some friends from university and the only friend I still talk to from secondary school. If you would like a post card, feel free to shoot me an email, it probably isn't that expensive I think, it is starting to add up though, I know more people than I thought...

I've returned back to the days of becoming impossibly tired in the evening and taking 10-20 minute naps which invariably condemn me to a night of staying up too late. Fine. Go ahead, fuck my shit up, its just my sleep schedule, nothing important.

I have a perpetual headache most days, only silenced at night, I notice more veins in my eyes and the bags under them are significantly darker. I'm shaving away years of my life and for what?

How much of this life do I really have to keep on living? The whole way through? Really? I still have this much more to go?

I'm tired, so tired. Maybe I need to get some sleep, maybe that will fix me.

I slept for 7 hours and I'm feeling better, yeah maybe I should go to bed earlier, I don't know what else I expected, this was the obvious solution.

I've been playing some animal crossing since the update came out but recently became overcome with decorating fatigue so I'm now playing the first Half Life. When I started playing it was day, then I turned around and it was dark. Good game I guess.

I've stopped worrying as much about taking so long to respond to DMs from friends and acquaintances when I realised that they also take days to respond. The more I come to realise that my personal struggles aren't unique to myself, the easier it gets to deal with them, shocking revelation, we are all human!!

My computer broke down recently. An entire drive of files, all the photos from my digital camera, all my games, 5 years worth of usage on this drive, all gone. I can reinstall them, but I don't know if I have it in me to reinstall a bunch of mods again.

I spent hours trying to figure out what was wrong, I reseated my gpu, dusted the hell of out of computer and only finally figured out that my SSD was just broken after like 5 hours. I really miss my photos, a lot of memories in there, that was the whole point of getting a digital camera, damn...

I haven't remembered any dreams in a while. I haven't done much of anything at all either. I do journal every other day, after I brush my teeth and before I have my coffee. On the other day I read a few pages of Orientalism. I want to finish it before I go to Vietnam next month. Other than that I've been watching The X Files. Scully and Mulder, what a pair.

I've lost a lot of motivation to do much of anything creative. I'm sure it'll come back, but of course it happens when I'm probably the most free I will be for the most of my adult life.

I met a stranger at a life drawing session and we exchanged instas, well he asked for mine. We bonded over a shared interest of anime and manga. I told him to read Monster and REAL. I should've told him to read Hirayasumi too, but I stopped myself and I don't know why.I find myself not speaking my mind enough, is it possible that maybe I think too much before I speak?

I found myself listening to 'Modal Soul' by Nujabes through the proxy of someone else reacting to it on YouTube and I realised how long it had been since I had listened to one of my favourite albums. Memories flooded back into my brain, nothing but a blurred picture, no tether to neither time or space, familiar flashes of emotion merely hanging onto its context by a thin thread. I don't know when or where this memory took me to but I know that it wasn't here or today. My eyes watered a bit, but dried as I slowly listened until the songs ended. Good music, I said to myself, good music.

Days are beginning to melt again and I want desperately to find something to do or to escape from my own body. Sometimes I day dream that I'm floating, detached from my skin looking at myself from above, my hands push back against the weightless air and hit the ceiling of my room. My body still in the chair, my self floating in the air.

Another day wasted doing nothing, I can't even draw or write properly, I think about writing and drawing every hour except when I actually try or have time to do it and all of a sudden, nothing.

I need inspiration, I need something to light the coals beneath me, a candlelight in the darkness, I'm in a rut and I don't know how to fix it.

A friend asked me about a birthday party. I wanted to go yet I still waited three days to answer him back. Well, at least I replied.

I went outside in the back garden with nothing but socks, sandals, shorts, a t-shirt and a track jacket on me and I ate an ice cream bar in the cold, taking in the fresh air and basking in the clouded Sun. I asked someone who I hadn't met in probably a year to get some coffee and I felt accomplished.

I also visited the log again. Less pretty and it was cold as hell but it was nice walking.

I feel bad every day but I never feel bad for long, after all lunch and dinner exists and my morning coffee always tastes great. Its all a cycle, all days are all the same again, again, again.

I'm not afraid of talking politics and current events but I try to keep the blog connected to myself and my life, but this first week of 2026 has been far too busy for me to keep complaining about myself without at least mentioning it in passing.

America is exerting its violent hegemony on the global south and the imperial boomerang continues its barrage on the mainland. The Hitlerite immigration gestapo continues to kill innocent people and if every single one of these hogs felt the fire and brimstone of hell it still wouldn't be enough.

Fireworks crackle off outside and my window is facing the exact opposite of where all the fireworks are. Unexpectedly I feel a whirl in my stomach writing this as the cascade sounds off, in these few minutes a slight mien of loneliness is dispersed in the air.

2025, what a year huh? For the past few months I've been feeling like my life has been pretty stagnant but now looking back quite a lot has happened. Still somewhat surreal that I no longer have another semester or any exams come January, but all of the stress remains only transformed into a greater shadow that hangs over my future.

Things I'd like to do in 2026 is to write more and draw more, I started taking art more seriously this year and its been a lot of fun. For Christmas my brother gifted me with a drawing tablet (after I asked for it) and while I'm still adjusting to it, I'm sure I'll get a lot of use out of it. Writing wise, I didn't write much this year besides blog posts and the occasional thing or two, but for 2026 I want to write at least 2 (two) short stories. I also have an essay(?) that I started writing that I'd probably get done by the end of January but who knows if I'll put it on this website.

Besides that, another goal is to reach out to more people, online or in person and make more human connections. I like talking to people, being around other people, the only difficulty is actually creating the impetus to meet and get to know people. I like my solitude a little too much and I figure I need to get out of my comfort zone more.

I also need to fix my sleep schedule. Badly.

Other minor resolutions are to read more, watch more movies and go to some art galleries or something.

A lot of this year was spent coming into grips that things have changed and I am still going through changes.

I for a long time, did not want to think any deeper about my identity and sense of self because I was afraid of what I'd find, but this year I began to think. I'm still figuring things out but I think I know myself better just a little bit more.

I spent yesterday doing every ADHD test under the Sun and every test saying high probability was very interesting, though the questions were mostly the same so what else should I expect. The only question is what to do next? I only really suspected it last year, before that I thought it was just immutably unique shortcomings I have, coincidentally since the suspicion began, people around me started bringing attention to it to. Or perhaps I never noticed or gave any credence to it beforehand.

2025 I know more of what I am, perhaps 2026 I will be.

Thanks to all who read this and here's to another.