A place for Vase and Berry

Listen, I know that you may not trust me entirely on my belief that you are wonderful person with lots to offer the world. I get it. Depression does great damage to your self esteem. Trust me though that your grammar is actually quite good. I grade college essays as my job. I know poor grammar when I see it and grade it accordingly. You are better than most of my students who have grown up doing only English and who are about 5 years older than you. They don't care nearly as much as you do about what you are saying. You are quite talented and you have no need to question or wonder about it. Some day I will pass you a paragraph of an essay. You would be shocked.

So I do think that your English language ability is a talent. Photography may be a talent too. What you might want to do with that one is start to watch some YouTube videos about taking pictures. It is much more than "point and shoot". You also could look at some photography exhibits online. Maybe someone who photographs plants and flowers. It will be relaxing no matter what. You also might end up liking working with plants themselves a bit. Again, explore some YouTube videos, etc. when you get some spare moments (I know how rare they are) to just learn a bit more about plants. You are building up a list of things that you like so I wouldn't necessarily expect you to recognize a huge number of talents yet. 

Yes, the beginning and the end of the semester are hard with the end being harder than the beginning. I am right now entering our final month or so and it is brutal. But you are adding in moving which will make things more stressful. I totally agree that your mom is going to be harder to deal with until you get settled. Keep reminding yourself that she is exhausted and you are exhausted too. The more grace that you can grant both of you the easier that things will be.

It is always hard to live in the present. That is why I try to think about some moment each day where I really connect with the world. It helps to train my brain to do that. 

I am certain that your fear of dogs will continue. The key is to calm your heart a bit so that they can't sense that fear as much. I personally am not a fan of snakes. I had a student bring a really small one to class today in a small, open jar. I couldn't quite tell what it was until I got closer. People just kept looking in and saying, "How cute." Ugh. That was NOT a moment from today when I want to remember connecting to the world. But I very calmly said that as long as they didn't take the snake out and wrap it around their neck or hands (I had a student about 3 years ago do that) that I was okay.

Work on thinking of school as a safer place to be you than home. It will help it go faster and be a little more enjoyable.

So if many people are equally lacking in confidence and fake, then maybe you are doing better than you think. When you remember the fact that everyone is struggling then you realize you are part of a group. You also begin to see that your being kind to someone else who looks like they are feeling unconfident helps both you and them. You share kindness which makes you feel better and their struggle get seen by someone. Sometimes it is just "I saw how rough that teacher was to you today. I am sorry." Keep it really simple. 

It is lovely that you were able to go out and get some new wardrobes. I love that you will have some place that is yours for your things. It is a nice way of imagining the future apartment. It is also great to get some time alone as well. So there are good things to this move already.

The "what do you want to become" question is going to become a really regular one, I am afraid. It is just a dream question right now though. Just use your imagination entirely. Do you think that your parents would want you in a business doing math somewhere? Would you want to be working with science or plants or photography? Don't put a whole bunch of weight on it. I love that your parents aren't actually pushing a career onto you right now. You are much luckier in that regard than some of the other people that I talk to on Cups and elsewhere. It may be that your mom will become more focused on a certain career later, but you are blessed that she is only thinking about certain subjects right now. It can actually be worse. The key with careers is being really flexible about where you want to end up. So keep it in a "dream" mode right now. All of your answers sound great.

So sorry for the extra homework and sorting stuff, but I am glad that you were able to laugh some over memories with your parents. That will probably happen more often as you get ready to move and you discover more old things that you have forgotten about. 

You will figure out the bicycling when it happens. Focus on the present for now. 

You are also going to be alive in a year. It is painful, but you are making it along just fine. 

Yes, your depression is very much impacted by your mother or certain teachers saying things that confirm the already nasty voices that you have going. You have quite a bit to work through, but you are doing it. You are starting to realize that in many ways they are wrong. That makes their voices have less of an impact. That is what you are aiming for. 

I bet that your 7th grade English teacher still thinks highly of you and is still quite worthy of having in your corner and going to for advice sometimes. Always remember when you approach a teacher that sometimes they have just finished up with some other student that is taking their emotional energy at that moment. That is why they can seem abrupt or disinterested momentarily. It most certainly isn't you.

I noticed that you also mentioned an early liking for your history/English teacher this year if I am not mistaken. Those may actually be subjects that you also like more. Remember to continue to watch out for things that you are happier doing than other things.

You are right in feeling a little overwhelmed right now. You are still trying to figure out how to manage all of your new subjects and you are simultaneously getting ready to move. That would exhaust anyone. You are not being lazy. You are just searching for a bit of downtime in order to manage everything else. 

Yes, English grammar is very critical for my subject because it involves lots of essays where students need to convince me of something. It is hard to convince someone of anything without some solid grammar. It is also true in the business world. If you write a plan for a new business and everything is misspelled or not capitalized correctly then people aren't going to want to support your new business. So keep at it and keep learning. You have a good foundation.

So did I understand correctly that you got selected for the computer graphics class? If so, that is great. I can see that being something you might have more interest in. There are also lots of very respectable careers in that area. Teachers actually have it backwards - you should feel good about yourself if you got selected. Only a few people did so and that matters. If a large number did bad on the test then the test was hard. 

I hope that you had a good day of Saturday classes. I will be driving to visit my parents tomorrow so that should be good. 

@bestVase7265 i'm sorry i couldn't come on here yesterday. i was really exhausted after school and came and slept. after i woke up in the evening, my mother made me clean the shelf kinda things under my table. i was feeling really unwell but i still had to do it. and eww it was so gross. i had all kinds of waste in there, chalk powder, wheat flour, waste paper and what not. it was so dirty that i cleaned it all evening but i'm still not done so i need to do the rest today. anyway, i'm trying to get to you first today and then i need to do the cleaning work and my homework.

english language ability is a talent? how come? umm yeah maybe photography is more than point and shoot, maybe i need to hold the phone properly and steadily at a proper distance and maybe i need to adjust the brightness or focus sometimes and maybe i need to fine the right time and lighting to take photos in. and maybe i need a little patience especially when my photos are turning out bad. but that's all i need, that's quite basic and there's nothing special that i need. umm yeah i can watch youtube videos about it and i have watched videos about photography because and i usually get bored by those. and it's usually roo much information to remember too so i forget it by the time i actually go to take photos.

i hear you about the beginning and end of a semester being hard. for me, it's mostly just the beginning of the academic year and the end of it. our academic year is divided into two terms (1st term from april-oct and 2nd term from oct-march). yes, the beginning of the 1st term is hard because everything is new and unpredictable and you need to get to know new teacher and so on, and end of the 1st term is fairly hard because of stressful exams, but the beginning of the 2nd term is just fine, there's nothing new and we're more or less used to things. the one time that is really hard is the end of the 2nd term that is the end of the school year, because it's quite an emotional thing being done with the year and also we have exams.

and yes, moving makes everything more stressful. to tell you honestly, it's keeping me really busy as i have to help my mother and sort through my things and i also have to do homework and find time for cups because i love being on here. lol, yeah, i am so exhausted and so is my mother. she's yelling loads but i think i'm dealing with it fine. me looking forward to having my own room and stuff makes the problems and yelling seem worth it.

you know what, i am not a fan on of snakes either. i have never had any bad incidents with them or anything but they still scare me. honestly the only time i saw a snake other than in a zoo was once during a trip with my parents in 2021. and i was so scared. i'm sorry you had to deal with someone bringing a snake in class the other day. i really wonder why someone would do that though. is it even allowed? hehe i dont think snakes are cute. anyway, i'm glad you could deal with that calmly.

mmm sadly i dont believe school is any safer than home. there are too many bad things that can happen in school and it doesnt feel safe.

when it comes to being kind to someone, i think i can do it by helping someone out if i can, but saying something like "I saw how rough that teacher was to you today. I am sorry." would be a bit too much and i'm worried people might take it the wrong way. i am also someone who doesn't talk to people much unless it's absolutely necessary and just silently observes everything around me. the only person i talk to much is my so-called friend. so it'd be really weird if i ever did talk to anyone like that or talk to them about anything other than something important to be discussed like a project. and people could also take it the wrong way, as i said before. so just being quiet and not saying anything unless necessary just feels safer, unless i am with my so-called friend of the time.

haha i really look forward to having my own wardrobe and own room. i probably will also have more freedom. for example, my mother told me that just until we move, i should be going to bed early so that she can get some sleep and doesnt get sick. she told me that after moving there, i can go to bed when i want, and that she'll go to bed when she's done with her work and that she won't wait for me. in a way. that's a good thing because it also means that she will have nothing to if i sleep after school too. but then i also know that i shouldn't be going to bed too late. so i think i need to make myself a timetable that i can stick too. okay, so know that i'm a night person and on school days i need to get up at 6. i will be sleeping a bit after school too after we move there. so by when do you think should i try to go to bed before a school day? what about before a non school day? like if i wanted i could be staying up till 1 am on any day and my mother won't say anything, but then i dont think that would be good for my body.

and i also realized having my own room might also help me study better. i've told you how my mother sometimes comes in and disturbs me during my study or break time and then it messes up everything. if i'd have my own room though she would have no reason to unexpectedly come and sit in my room. she could still be coming in lots of times to check in on me but she might not sit for much. i'd probably also be able to strech around more during my breaks if i'd have a room to myself.

i dont get the point of imagining what i am going to become when i grow up from now on. but yeah, lets not think about it too much and let it be in dream mode. i am definitely extremely lucky that my parents arent pushing a career onto me at least not right now. my mother might do that in the future, you never know, but i'm glas she's not saying anything now. and also about my father, although he did tell me about what he wanted me to become, he later also told me not to take it too seriously or worry about it. he says that every parent has some kind of a dream at the back of their minds, but it doesnt necessarily have to come true and i dont have to stress about it. i'm feeling super lucky about this hehe!

some of the old things i have done are good to laugh about but surely not everything. i am definitely discovering lots of old things that i have forgotten about, and some of them i honestly wish i wouldnt have to discover, like the yucky gross mess in the shelf under my study table. it disgusts me to clean that. luckily though i've been able to combletely clean out that shelf, throw half the stuff away and neatly pack up what i do want to keep. while i was cleaning it, i also discovered some papers and stuff i had written things on when i was 12. back then one day i had drawn out how i would place everything if i had my own room some time. now that i am getting my own room, i know i can't place things like that. we're really going to think about it and have to work it out. because the room although isnt too small, its weirdly shaped and the switch boards are also in really weird places so it's gonna be tricky to properly place all my things in it, my study table, wardrobe, bed, bookshelf and a small table. we cant really plan it from now, we need to go there on the 20th with all our things and see what fits where.

hmm i wonder why you think i will be alive in a year? like yeah, the idea of having my own room and stuff makes a little more hopeful and i dont have that extreme a desire to die just yet, but i dont exactly want to live either....

i need to go now. will will get to your other message another day. i might not be able to come on here much this week though.

@bestVase7265 hello there. lemme get back to you now hehe. this will be a really long post hehe.

(responding to your message starting "Yes, your depression is very much impacted by your mother or certain teachers saying things that confirm the already nasty voices that you have going.")

i agree that it has a huge impact. hmm yes, i am trying to realise that they are wrong but sometimes it's hard.

and you know something about the 8th grade english teacher, my so-called friend and i saw her in the corridor in the lunch break the other day when we were going to the washroom and my so-called friend is like "come let's go talk to her" and i couldnt say no so i went and my "friend" says "ma'am why did you go to 6th grade now?" and the teacher responsed "oh principal ma'am changes those things every few years. we don't teach the same grade for a long time. and teaching the little ones is a challenge, you know. god, they're always out of their place. i dont have the kind of control there as i had teaching 8th grade". lol, i'd say it serves her right. she probably found it easy to contol a class of 8th graders because they tend to be more careful with teacher they find weird. 6th graders will always be their cute naughty selves. now up to her how she'll deal with them. good luck to the 6th graders with such a terrible teacher and i hope they dont have to deal when her when she's mad.

well, i think the 7th grade english teacher thinks a bit too highly of me. i might not really go to her for advice but i will to wish her a happy whatever. well, i get that it might just be she's tired after a long day because i normally go to her during dispersal, so she's tired of teaching and all the other things she has to manage like since she's a coordinator, she has to meet other teachers often and also deal with any student from grade 6-8 who maybe got into a fight or something she has to sort it out and scold the student and deal with everything. and from the looks of it, it seemed to me that most of the other teachers did not cooperate with her making things hard for her.

yeah anyway, i did like the english and history teacher this year at first. and i will say that i think they are quite nice as people. the history teacher is also teaching fairly well. the english teacher, not so much. she's quite sweet and her english is amazing and she had a beautiful voice. but she's not teaching that well, unfortunately. but she is surely better than last year's teacher.

anyway, speaking of teachers, i have to say the maths teacher is teaching well. i may not really like him much, but he sure is teaching well and so far everything thats being taught makes sense to me. he also makes us laugh sometimes with weird little jokes like if his chalk fell off and landed somewhere next to a maths textbook, he's like "see, chalk also wants to learn maths!" he does give a ton of homework, but i feel like its not just giving homework thoughtlessly. he mostly gives a lot of practice questions and that's probably a good thing. it is a lot of practice, so my mother feels it is enough for me if i just do the homework and she isn't making me do anything extra.

hmm yeah, i guess you're right that so much going on would exhaust anyone. lol, i really need some rest. but might not get much of it this week.

ah i see. so grammar actually does matter in subjects other than english too. i find it interesting that your students need to convince you of things in history. because so far what has been drilled into our brains is that history is something that just needs a ton of memorisation and no real understanding. i cant really memorise stuff like that and i want to actually know about why stuff happened in the past, but before 9th grade, we've always got history teachers who go by the "just memorise it" thing and i feel like our history textbooks are also kinda written in that way. so we dont really get to understand anything. there is obviously a huge difference between school level history and uni level history, but just saying that actually convincing would need a lot of real understanding and knowledge. 

anyway, i get that good grammar and spellings matter in school related or business related stuff. but it doesn't make much of a difference in our convos, right? what i mean to ask is, do you mind incorrect capitalisation and misspellings? you know i dont reread my messages before and i am also quite lazy and careless while typing, so i dont capitalise stuff and also make tons of spelling errors (in many cases, it is just a typo and i know the correct spelling and in some cases i dont really know the correct spelling, lol) and because i dont reread my messages, those errors get sent through. does any of this make it more difficult for you to read or understand what i'm saying?

yes, you understood correctly that i did get selected for computer graphics. but no, i dont really have much interest in it. maybe to some extent i do because like photo or video editing, but it's not really much of an interest. and know that in this class they said they're going to teach coding related to graphics and that really doesnt interest me. the reason i am still taking it is because it is better that the other options. just so you know, the other options were indian music, western music, indian dance, western dance, art and carft, and creative writing.

and i dont want to take music because i dont like the music teachers (they taught us last year), i dont want to take dance because not only do i dislike the teacher (the teacher for indian dance is also our yoga teacher) but dance is also extremely tiring and energy consuming, i dont want to take art and craft because i took it in 7th grade and they forced us to take it in 8th too and i totally regretted my decision because the teacher was just so terrible, she got all her stress and anger out on us, made us do what is her work, have tons of homework and also made all kinda of threats all the time.

and i dont want to take creative writing because i've lost all my creativity at this point and i am worried they'll give us homework to write stories and poems and whatever and i would hate to do that. i may normally have fair enough writing skills like for paragraph writing, letter writing, notice writing, diary entry (only for exam topics, i never really write a personal diary because it feels like too much to write and i would rather share it with people on cups than write in a book) etc. so computer graphics seemed like the only option for me. god knows what i'd have done if i didn't get selected here.

hey, why would teacher have it backwards? doesnt make sense. i dont think i should feel good about being selected. actually 40 people got selected out of about 60 people who gave the test, so majority got selected, because 40 is the max number of students they can take inside the computer lab with one computer being shared by 2 students (we have only 20 computers in the school). i guess yeah the test was hard though. they asked us weird questions like what does jpeg stand for etc etc.

oh and no, i definitely did not have a good day at school on saturday. it was extremely tiring and mostly just timepass. i wish i had skipped school on saturday. anyway, how did visting you parents go?

Visiting my parents went fine. My mother is having challenges with her eyesight so I ended up having to call and push some doctors this week to do some surgery for her that she needs to have done now rather than two months from now like the doctor suggested. I was able to convince him yesterday which made me and my mother happier.

No, students aren't allowed to bring any other kinds of pets to class. This is the first time that I ever had a student bring one. They do have tons of cats and dogs though that you regularly see walking around campus with their owners on leashes.

The risk that I am talking about is just making another friend. It may indeed be that the friend falls in your lap. My point is letting them fall there. Don't cut off the people who are the least bit friendly. I can guarantee you that 1/3 to 1/2 of your classmates feel at some point like they don't have friends, are too quiet, and are lonely and miserable. I looked up an interesting statistic or two: 14% of teens have suffered a period of depression in the last 12 months, 10-14% are suffering with an episode right now, and girls are twice as likely to suffer as boys. So if the current number in your classroom is 1 in 10 then there are definitely people in your class who could use your support. When you support others, then you start to feel better yourself because you realize that you aren't alone.

This all connects nicely to the problem of your new problem seat mate. My guess is that the teachers placed him there because they thought you might be a calming influence. That puts lots of pressure on you that is going to be hard. When someone is as bullied as he has been, he is going to lash out and get angry at practically everything. Your mom is probably right in having you ignore him as best as possible. But you still do need to be kind enough to do things like offering an eraser when he asks However, if he ever gets physically violent with you, request a seat transfer immediately. Violence is a line that he cannot be allowed to cross. Use the violence (if it happens) as the reason to ask for the change. Teachers know that they are asking a great deal of you to be patient with him. After a while, things may need to change, but for right now hope for the best and go moment by moment. You have handled things great thus far.

11 sounds like a fine bedtime based upon your schedule, but I recognize the night owl issue. Midnight is doable, but later on school nights is not as good. Only 6 hours of sleep a night can impact your ability to get through the depression and retain the things that you are studying. 11:45 or later on non-school nights sounds fine, but the bigger the gap between non school nights and school nights the more trouble you will have getting to sleep on school nights. Does that make sense?

Yes, my dinner time is 6 pm so going to bed at 10 pm is doable. I also adore sleep to be honest. It keeps me sane.

That does sound like a nice (but hot) day. I am glad that you found the 3rd grade piece, you got dressed in the sari with pyjamas, and had ice cream. My special moment today was an unexpected visit from my second son. He attends the school where I teach but he lives on campus. So I go home at night but he stays on campus. Thus, I do not see him often because he has his own life. Today he popped into my office as I was working to show me a very pretty bird, a bright red Scarlet Tanager, that he spotted outside in the trees. He is very passionate about bird watching at the moment so it was nice to see his enthusiasm.

@bestVase7265 hey there. apologies of my late response. there's been a lot going on lately. there has been complete chaos at home since friday, and it has been a really very hectic few days. i am going to get to your messages now. before i do, i need to vent a bit about everything that's happened in the past few days because it has been unusual and stressful, and i hope i can do that here because i dont know who to go to right now. this might be a really long post hehe.

friday evening my mother was try to pack things as much as she could, and i needed to help her lots, and that kept me extremely busy. i ended up going to bed at 1 am, and she didnt go to bed at all that night.

saturday morning she woke me up at 6:50 am and i had to quickly get everything done. and ever since the movers and packers came, everything was a mess. they were packing our stuff in such a careless and hurried way. i really hated seeing them do that. either ways, it was a very chaotic day and we came to this new place along with the trucks in the evening. they got all the stuff out of the trucks and we then needed to eat something but couldn't cook because the gas stove needed to be unpacked as assembled. my father got some outside food and we ate that. i was just so exhausted by the end of the day and wanted to go to bed so badly, but it took a while because we needed to get out the pillows and pillowcases and matress and blanket (i know it's summer, but i cant sleep without one, so i use a very thin blanket, bedsheet really). finally went to bed at 12:40 am. i was so tired, but i slept incredibly well so i felt less tired in the morning.

i woke up myself at 8:05 am yesterday (that's odd because i almost never wake up myself in the morning, my mother has to wake me up. the only time i do wake up myself is in the middle of the night.) but then i still decided to go back to sleep because what would i do getting out of bed when the whole house is a mess? and i didnt even hear my parents up, so getting out of bed would have been pointless and i slept on. woke up again at 10:34 i guess and got out of bed. turned out, my father had got out of bed yesterday at 8:40 am and my mother at 9 something. we all were really tired, lol.

either ways, no breakfast yesterday and then lunch at 4:30 pm. yes, yes, 4:30 pm. we had been doing everything late yesterday, including dinner starting at 11 pm. it was a very busy day to be honest. i needed to focus more on cleaning things and trying to make my room comfy and it was very tiring. i was so tired, yet i couldnt sleep well, so i am still tired today. i went to bed really very late last night (1 am) and woke up at 8 something, so it should be 7 hrs of sleep, but i didnt really get that because it took me a long time to fall asleep and i kept waking up a lot at night. by the way, i skipped school today. and as i type this, i am incredibly sleepy and tired and my brain is not working properly so it's like i dont know what to type so this is taking me really long. sorry if this post is confusing and makes no sense, it's because i am sleepy and dont know what i am saying. and i just feel like summers, especially summer afternoons are meant to be boring and sleepy.... ugh i want to sleep right now but my mother won't let me because she says i got up late today (8 am is late in her opinion). funny i need her permission to sleep even though i now have my own room.

i guess that's enough for now, feeling a little lighter typing that all out. now let me get to your messages.

okay, so me calling my friend "so-called" doesnt have anything to do with me feeling that i dont deserve friends. yes, sometimes i do feel like i dont deserve any, but i try to remind myself that i do deserve friends. it does have a bit to do with her saying something wrong at some point, but actually it's not about what she's said, it's about what she did. i will start the story from the very beginning so that it makes sense.

you see, she has been a classmate of mine since 6th grade, and she still is a classmate. back in 6th grade it was online school because of the covid thing, and i would see her during classes and i would absolutely hate her. because she loved to flatter teachers and always went to extreme lengths to impress them. she could answer any question the teacher asked and she followed every kind of instruction that teachers would yell at the rest of the class saying "if she can do it, why can't ya'll do it?" and blah blah blah. so obviously i hated her and most people probably did. but given that everything was online, we never talked or anything. 

in 7th, we just started offline school again and and she was the one who came to me and talked to me, and i felt really annoyed by her, because i remember the first thing she told me was "you are bengali, right" and i said yes so she's like "so you must eat a lot of fish". and i find that incredibly annoying because while it is true that fish is loved by many, in fact, most bengalis, it is not loved by all bengalis. and it is incredibly hard to explain that to someone who already believes all bengalis love fish. she also irrited me a great deal by demanding that i teach her bengali. like that is practically impossible given that i myself do not knoe the language well. yes, it is my mother tongue, and i speak it quite well as someone living outside bengal, but i do not know it well enough to teach it to somebody. but anyways, even though she annoyed me a lot, i tried to put up with her.

before our first set of exams in 7th grade (unit test 1 in july), she told me that if i needed help with something i could message her. that was pretty good timing because i needed a lot at that point because the day before the exam, i got extremely sick and missed the first four exams, and gave the last three. (we had 7 subjects then). eventually i got used to dealing with her and found her less annoying and i also stuck around with her because she had helped me then. she always came to sit with me during breakfast and lunch in school and we talked a lot. things were good between us from about july 2022 up until jan 2023. in february, things took a turn for the worse. until then, she literally never talked to anyone but me in school in front of me, but now she started taking to others too and often ignored what i was saying. until this, whenever i missed school she would message to ask why and would also offer to share that day's work. and i did the same for her. but in february, she kinda stopped that, and when i messaged to ask for help, she would respond very late, which was very unusual for her. she eventually stopped talking to me much in school too, she would still sit with me, but talk to others around, or just sit quietly. i assumed there was something going on in her life so i stayed patient and tried to act normal even though i felt hurt. but she never got better. our "friendship" was really falling apart. and my hate for her came back again a lot more intensely. i noticed she would note down the marks of everyone who got good marks in our class after every exam and compare them, and i hated that more than anything else. i realised she was keeping track of not only my marks but also that of 10 other "competitors" of her. she not treated me not as a friend, but as a competitor in marks. and i absolutely hate that. by the end of 7th grade in april 2023, our "friendship" had little left of it.

our 7th grade class teacher, however, though i was a really quiet girl and had only one friend who was the one i have been discussing now. when it was time for the class teachers to shuffle students to determine their division in 8th grade, she put both me and my so called friend in the same division so that i dont lose a friend. that is what the teacher told me. so yeah, we were both in 7B in 7th grade and came to 8D in 8th grade because of the class teacher. as we started 8th grade in june 2023, after a month of summer holidays, my "friend" was still weird with me. she sat with me yet ignored me and sat quietly and paid more attention to the people around.

once in july 2023, i was absent for two consecutive days because i was unwell and i decided to message her asking for what was done in school and she told me that she too was absent, when she was absent for only one day and could have helped me with the previous day's work. also, i noticed that ever since she got some prizes in i belive july 2023, for highest marks in social studies, science and marathi and for general proficiency, she seems to have a lot of ego, and completely ignored me and stopped sitting with me slowly. that made me feel so awful. i told my mother about it and talked to people on cups about it but nothing ever helped. so now i was completely alone sitting alone in school during breaks. that was when i first started feeling so lonely, and to this day that feeling has not gone away. just so you know, i had never felt lonely before that, whenever i had to sit alone, i considered it a privilege because i could sit quietly and eat, but now it hurt to sit alone. i did try to make friends with some other but no one had the time for me. my benchmate back then was quite nice and i tried making friends with her and even asked her for help when i missed school and she did help me. but she had other friends and although she was nice to me, she didnt really talk much. also, in dec 2023 when our places were changed and i got a different benchmate, the previous one who was nice stopped talking to me. during my long period of absence from school that month, i did bother her by asking for help because i had no one else, but since then we havent talked.

anyway, coming back to the previous so called friend i was discussing, one fine day in jan 2024 she decided to message me asking for help. she even wished me on my birthday and every since she is trying to talk to me more. i will never know for sure, but i believe that she stopped talking because she wanted to find someone better who gave her the attention she wanted, but found no one, and decided to come back to me. because she in general is incredibly hated by most because of the teacher's pet and "boring studious student" and people pleaser she is, and because of her ego. but i still choose to talk to her even though i dislike her because i need someone who can just help me with the days work when i decide to skip school, and possibly sit with me during breaks. but again, i dislike her, and feel unable to forgive her for the way she's made me feel. but i just be with her for selfish reasons. makes me feel really awful and selfish, but i cant help it. yeah, so anyway, thats i really long story, and that's why i dont think she's a real friend and just a "so-called friend". by the way, know that for a very long time, i tried to talk to her even after she stopped talking, and i tried to be nice to her and i was willing to forgive her. but she still ignored me to the point i cant possibly truly forgive her anymore. she really has made a horrible mistake, just like you said friends sometimes make horrible mistakes with one another. and she has never even apologised for it, just so you know. i know i should probably still just forvive her and move on, but i cant.

yeah, maths is going smoothly in me understanding stuff, but not so smoothly about doing homework. i have tons to do and dont feel like doing it. it's rather be here on cups you know, i havent been able to be on cups much lately. i have homework to do from about a week ago, lol. maybe i should go do a bit now. so i'll stop typing and go do a bit, even though i dont want to.

aww "the great divide between school level history and uni level history". vase, that's a beautiful phrase, sounds really nice. you are probably right that history is more interesting than it seems to be in let's say 9th grade. i wonder why they keep it like this and make us kids associate the word 'history' with the words 'boring' and 'unimportant' early on. like if they make us hate the subject now, how many people might actually stick around with a 'boring' and 'unimportant' subject in higher education to actually learn the not-so-boring parts of it and discover that it isnt so boring and that history class isnt a sleeping class?

well, at least you know what happened first and what happened next! i mess up that too a lot of times because our textbook is written is such a messy way. one minute they are talking about 1947 and suddenly they are talking about 1930 so it gets all messed up in my mind. i usually have a rough idea most of the time but definitely not always. we're lucky that in exams we dont get asked what happened in what year, because i've heard that untill a few years ago, those kinda questions used to be asked. anyway, woah, that sounds like an interesting history class about parks. i wish history was that interesting for us too, but nah that's not happening.

anyway, its getting really late today, so i will try and get to the rest of your messages some other day. sorry if today i have been going on and on about some few things.

@bestVase7265 hi hi. i'll try to get back to as much as i can today. i just dont know why but i feel horrible today though. i've been feeling really uncomfy and stressed for some unknown reason. i slept a bit after school and got up just about an hour ago but i still feel the same way. today had been a really bad day for some reason i dunno why. i want to cry but i cant. ugh. and the thing is nothing particularly bad has happened yet i still feel awful. anyway, i'll try to get to your messages. this might be a long post.

(responding to the rest of your first message from friday)

oh i must say last friday's computer graphics class was extremely boring. the teacher was talking about data, data science and social media and social media reputation. i dont understand how that is related in computer graphics class. and also, i thought that the school strongly disapproved of its students using social media (i know youtube counts as social media, but they are mostly talking about the other things than youtube), so i wonder why they are telling us to use it carefully not to spoil our reputation and blah blah blah. by the way, i believe the school disapproves of it because back when we were in 7th grade, the principal once came to our class and she asked everyone who has an inst...am account to stand up and she scolded, actually yelled at, all those students so much even listed down the names of all those who stood up and gosh some kids ended up crying so much after the scolding. i was lucky that i didnt use social media (i watched youtube but that was it). i'm in a way quite lucky that i still dont use social media because i dont think it is useful at all (youtube can be useful though). but then with the teacher talking so much about social media, specifically face...k and inst...am, it's like i have no idea what is being discussed and the teacher is assuming everyone uses social media and knows it well, when i am an excaption, so it is incredibly boring. anyway let it be, it's just 1 class a week luckily so i'll have to manage even if it is boring.

as for my mother's words and their impact on me, sadly they are affecting me more in the past few days. probably because i am already not feeling good lately or whatever.

Now to the challenge of your new seat mate. Above all, you are doing a great job in managing a difficult situation. Ignoring him is best. It will probably keep him calmer. Remember that he is stressed and angry too. He doesn't want to be bullied again so he constantly has his guard up. Then the bullying becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because he overreacts to everything. You under-reacting is much better. Just be patient a day at a time. Keep seeing how it goes. If it becomes worse, then we can figure out a new way to handle things.

You are going to work out the sleep schedule over the next few weeks. Give yourself some time for things to slow down. If you are only going between 11:30 pm and midnight then I don't think that you will have too much of a challenge going back and forth between the two different times. It is only when the weekend versus school day gap is an hour or longer that you would have a challenge.

Yes, my basic eating times are usually 6:30 am, 11 am and 6 pm. I do snack some during the day but I try not to eat after dinner too much. I think that might help me sleep better but I am not sure.

It looks like next year both of my younger sons will be going to my uni. The youngest one is finishing up his regular schooling this week before a month of testing. Then in August he will start at my school with him sleeping at the school and me going home. My middle one is going to spend next semester studying abroad. So then I won't see him from August until December. My oldest son also went to my uni but he graduated several years ago. He now lives fairly close by and visits maybe once a week for an hour or so. He got to hear the president of the US give a speech in person yesterday so that was quite exciting.

Okay, I am going to stop at the halfway point of that third message. I may or may not have time to answer tomorrow because I try to do some other people too every other day. I usually get about a half hour a day to do this.  So be back soon.

@bestVase7265 hey there. getting back to your messages now hehe. yes, i definitely agree that moving is emotional. it has been a quite stressful week to tell you honestly and i have been struggling a lot. but today has been a bit better. i had school today and that was terrible, but since coming home i have worked to make my room feel a little better, i mean neater and a little cleaner, and it's helped be feel a little more relaxed you know. being in a tidier environment does help with the stress a bit.

umm well the computer graphics teacher is just trying to tell us to be careful online, she isn't really discouraging social media or something. probably because she knows that most students already use social media a lot and trying to discourage them at this point wont work. just curious, how is social media a problem in your classroom? well, as for the class getting more interesting after the initial warning, it doesn't seem to ba happening. we had it yesterday and it was very boring. and then the teacher told us to sit on the computers, two people on one computer, and open excel and collect and organise some data and i was sitting all alone, felt incredible lonely, and just got really bored. the teacher told us to chose one of five topics and google stuff about it (for example, types of animals or cars etc) and set some 8 columns and make a table. i just did nothing to be honest.

i hear you about your mom. how's she feeling more recently? i really hope she is doing better and that the recovery goes well.

yeah, people do forget, and it's not just with feeling lonely, it can be about just any struggle, i think. i like your idea about the thought experiment though. i tried it yesterday when i was feeling awfully alone and left out in the computer graphics class, and i wasn't able to see anyone who seemed lonely though. literally everyone was sitting in pairs with a friend or something and where having a nice time just chit chatting with each other.

i think it makes sense that the ones who are talking about depression casually are the ones actually in pain and they just want to talk about it in a casual funny way. because surely it is an uncomfortable topic to talk about.

hmm yeah, you are right about my benchmate. trying to be patient with him. and you know, he is actually in my bus too. and he talked a lot in the bus to one 6th grader, and causes a lot of drama and stuff, and the other day he happened to be sitting in the seat behind me in the bus attendant told me being quietest person in the bus, that i shouldn't sit around this "mad person" because it will "make me mad". and i didn't pay much attention to her because i didn't really have any other place to sit then. but later on my benchmate came to me and started defending himself telling me that i should not listen to her because she is apparently mad and she doesn't know him well and that she just blabbers anything that comes to her mind. and really, i ignored him. i am not listening to the bus attendant, and he doesn't really need to defend himself, and that's not going to make me listen to him either. i totally understand why he is so defensive, but come on, i am going to listen to neither regardless of how he defends himself. anyway, let it be.

yes, just hoping i am able to get my sleep on a schedule, lol. but i have just three more days of school before my summer holidays from 2nd may to 6th June. maybe for these three day i can make anything just work and I'll sort things out later. i will have lots of stuff to sort out during these holidays. because after this i am really going to have to start to take studying more seriously. also, it will be a long time till our next set of holidays (in october) so i need to make the best of these ones.

either ways, speaking of sleep, i need to go to sleep now as it's getting late and i am also very tired. i will respond to the rest tomorrow, or will try at least. maybe i wont be able to because i have quite some maths and history homework to do for monday and some chemistry for tuesday. 

Ok, I am finally back. I will try to get to everything tonight but I may have to break it up because the messages get too long.

I am glad that the moving is starting to feel a little better. Once you feel more organized then things will settle down emotionally too.

My students have computers in the classroom so they are regularly using social media rather than being part of discussion. It is an increasing challenge but overall this semester is probably a little better. I make them turn in their cell phones as a promise that they won't use social media during lessons. Creating Excel sheets can be boring at the beginning but Excel is useful especially to do mathematical functions. It is how I record all of my grades.

My mom was finally able to order new glasses today so I am hoping that things will be better soon when they arrive in a few weeks. Not being able to see is hard for her.

You won't always spot lonely people, especially in a computer room where everyone else is paired and they are working together. But keep trying. I guarantee there are some. There are always some in my classes too. Just keep trying to turn off the comments of your benchmate like you are. The less you feed the drama the better. You are doing a solid job of that at the moment.

It is lovely that you are able to get a holiday soon. That will really help you get settled and ready to jump into the longer part of the semester. We have a week and a half left until our exam period so things are pretty intense right now and will remain so through most of May. Ok I am going to end the first part of my message here so things don't get too long.