iTonic

I haven’t slept much the past week and I’m experiencing head pains. Migraines from fatigue, not a pleasant surprise, especially when you get them during the day when you’re not even that tired. It’s like my body is telling me to rest, but I can’t.

Two art projects, one due last Thursday, and one last Tuesday. I put so much effort into my paintings, I lose sleep, and I find myself incoherent in trying to explain myself. No big deal, right?

But, it’s bothering me that I can’t catch up on sleep. I have the time, but I can’t fall asleep as easily, despite my fatigue. For the past days, I’ve been trying to just sleep, but I always wake up. Like now. I’m awake, but I went to bed at 7:44 pm. Perhaps, trying to sleep earlier is worsening the situation because my body treats it like a nap. I wake up, as if it’s a routine nap, but no. This can’t be, my naps happen a specific times during the week, and I’ve never had this problem of being so screwed over in my sleep schedule.

If I were to put emotion into this problem, I don’t know how it would explain anything. So, how am I feeling right now? Worried about not getting into that one class that’s PREREQUISITE for basically all the classes I can take next quarter. Annoyed that while I’m working my ass off, I still get bitched at for one thing or another, while other people get rewarded for doing minimal effort work or for doing nothing at all. I don’t even mind if my hard work goes unnoticed, but to be punished for it? I’m so confused, why am I trying so hard. This goes for school and work, and it happens in little tidbits and builds up. I’m tired already, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep up this optimistic persona.

Why bother trying to be optimistic anymore, right? I don’t want to be another complaining person. Perhaps, the strongest people are those that just take it as it is. Whether it be the punishment for the best effort, and watching the undeserved get their rewards, or the self-induced insomnia due to this effort… it could all be blamed on me.

I try too hard, especially when I don’t have to. It seems to only hurt me, emotionally and physically, but it doesn’t mean I won’t stop trying. I just need to rest. I feel that a good night’s sleep could correct everything. When I’m tired, I still have energy to be the optimistic one, but when I’m this tired, I don’t have the energy to pick myself up anymore. It’s complicated, there’s no middle ground.

Just tired.

Posted by Toni at 1:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yes.

Posted by Toni at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tried to sleep at around 3:30 AM, but ended up tossing and turning for an hour, so I got up and studied for my mandarin test. For some reason, I was wide awake, and I stayed wide awake.

I didn’t even get much sleep the night before, and was a little bit frightened as to why I was feeling restless.

I looked outside to see a hazy, but beautiful, sunrise. I’ve always wanted to go running to the gym in this weather in the morning. How many times has this opportunity presented itself? Countless times during the summer, but I never got to it.

It’s a Monday, I haven’t worked out in 4 days, and why the hell not.

So, off I go, running to the gym. Who knew it opened at 5:30 AM. It was so nice, to feel like the only one to witness the morning emerge.

It was a nice change in pace to workout at Rimac. Less people, maybe 6 adults and 2 other students in the weight room. Ahh, how relaxing, how quiet.

I love this post-workout feeling. Accomplished, proud, and just all-around positive. Last night was pretty disappointing in more ways than one, but as long as vent in a healthy manner, it’s all good.

On a separate note, I get to present my website today! My project is basically one whole bundle of image mapping, but IT WORKS. 3 years of fail in the html realm, but this WORKS. I just hope it functions in the computer lab. I don’t know what computer we’re using to present…

Posted by Toni at 7:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had a very peculiar dream two nights ago. I was in a strange hall that seemed to go on forever, back and forth. The walls were glass, with bright red pillars separating the 10 x 10 ft panes. The ceilings had the basic structure of any other ceiling, support beams and all, but they were also bright red. The floor was some expensive wood painted red and glossed over the have it reflect some light that glowed from the ceiling, but from I remember, there weren’t any lights? When you looked down either way of the hallway, the ends would merge into a bright red dot, giving off the impression that there was a light at the end of the halls. If there was an end.

I was in a group of 4 other people my age. At first, I thought I was on a tour. The leader of the group, I don’t remember quite much. But she said that we were here to be trained for a mission. We stopped walking, and I looked to my side in the glass panes to see parallel hallways lined up horizontally. Except, they were dark.

The leader said we had to kill somebody, and next thing I know, I’m the “leader”. But the group vanished, and I was alone. The lights dim, the wooden structures turn to cement (still bright red), and there are 3 of me, dressed in red suits, slicked back hair into high ponytails, and high-heeled boots. And I think they were wearing make-up, they had eye-liner that resembled one of my managers at work, Stephanie.

I had to kill them, for some reason or another. I decapitated one of them, but once I detached her head, it just floated there, spun around in place as if there was a string from the top of her head attached to the ceiling. Her body just collapsed and vanish. The other me, I threw through the glass panes, and she just lay there. The third me just stood there and stared at me angrily, fists clenched, but didn’t move.

I don’t know what happened, but there was a voice telling me to kill them, and I looked down. I was wearing red like them. I looked up, then woke up.

I didn’t think much of it, but it was probably the most exciting dream I’ve had in the past month.

Posted by Toni at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Usually, I feel like an idiot when people have something deep and meaningful to say about the world around them. But other times, I feel a little bit embarrassed for them, a little bit sad that they can’t enjoy simplistic things, that they have to sense a higher level of meaning in order to accept it on their so-called “intellectual” level.

Why people try so hard to come off as intelligent, is no riddle. We all want to impress, and we all have our dignity and pride to protect, or in some cases, to force upon others so as to recognize their brilliance. A joy to be around egocentric people, isn’t it?

Even now, I’m doing it, I’m talking about this as if I know all about it. And I feel like the worst sort of hypocrite. I wish I could go on, feeling like I don’t have to impress, but it’s what drives me most of the time. It’s what messes me up, too.

For art, one person walked into my room and exclaimed that he could understand my point of view. I don’t understand what he means. I look at my paintings, and even I don’t get any sort of reflective viewpoint. I don’t get it. Maybe there is something, that I don’t see, but others can. Or maybe they’re lying to me, and only saying they “see” something because they think it was my intention for anyone viewing them to “see” something. Art makes no sense, and I don’t think anyone will ever grasp it completely. To me, it’s like the concept of god or religion, it’s something no one can completely understand, something that will have an unsolvable mystery to it.

I don’t know what prompted this entry. A mix of disappointment, sadness, yet relief and happiness. Things will improve. What ‘things’? I have no idea, just enjoy that statement as it is, there is no deeper meaning hiding underneath it.

Posted by Toni at 8:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)