A place for Vase and Berry

Okay, I am going to try to get the rest that I didn't get last night. 

Take your uncle's visit a step at a time. I would suggest a few days before he comes (but not before then) that you remind your mom of your concerns. Then she will be more on the lookout.

It is great that your mom recognizes that her school conditions are quite different from your own. I think that she would like you to be as happy as she was, but she recognizes that things have changed.

Your mom is correct that finishing the studies gives you the possibility of having a career rather than being so dependent upon finding a man and getting married. This is the critical element of why you study - independence so you can do what you want rather than what someone else tells you women must do. I think that she is thinking (and she is probably correct on this front) that society conditions have changed enough since she was forced into marriage that you would have better chances at happiness. But that happiness only comes if you can live independently because you have enough education. Sorry to be rather blunt here, but that's the reality of life for women.

Tell me, where do you study best - at home or at school? So if you study better at home than at school that's fine. But use the next year or so to really get a good handle on the subjects that you like best and the spot that you study the best. That way you can create the best educational plan for yourself.

Sorry for your cycle arriving. It isn't a fun moment in the month, but you will figure out how to balance it. 

I am glad that your mom went with your dad to the psychiatrist appointment and you got some time in the house alone, even though you did talk with the maid. My guess is that she doesn't often get a chance to talk to anyone. It must be a lonely job. It was good that you were there for her even if she was hard to understand. You provided someone else a place to vent. How you responded wasn't nearly as important as just listening. Lots of people experience lots of struggles. As you know, sharing them with anyone is really, really important even though the conversation made you feel uncomfortable. You didn't make anything harder on her and it wasn't a stupid question at all. It is very much the question that she is asking herself. You validated the fact that for the living you are just left with that horrible question. That is why taking your own life wrecks the lives of everyone you ever come in contact with. 

Can you ask your mom whether she asked the doctor about you? I think that is a perfectly legitimate question. And it is good that the psychiatrist made your dad feel better with his question. Most people suffering from mental illness suffer from low self esteem. 

I am sorry that she turned the cooler off on you and you got hotter. You are right that she didn't completely understand. I am not sure that there was a way where she would have understood though. She isn't going to find sleeping during the day as good because she doesn't do it. 

The coziness of the bed with your mom is a perfect mini-moment. Remember that it isn't about what happened next. It is appreciating what happened for a few minutes. When you train your brain to keep looking for these (even more than one eventually) you keep up your strength for the rest of it.

Mine today was a duck that I saw on a small pool this morning as I rushed towards my 9-5 workshop today. On a whim I said "Hello, Ms. Duck". Then the duck quacked back a reply. It was quite funny. And tonight I am finally done the workshop so I could relax for part of the day.

@bestVase7265 hey hey i apologise for not responding to you lately. yesterday was an awful day, i slept all morning and i was just in general feeling horrible and coming on here and saying something felt impossible. today i managed to get some cleaning stuff done in my room and was busy with that in the morning. but here i am now. will get to a tiny bit right now.

so is your semester over now? what do you have now? what's the workshop about by the way?

well yeah i attempted to rearrange my schedule but it didn't work. i have no idea what to do anymore. i know my holidays are kinda coming to an end now and i really need to do something. i don't know what. and i'm going mad now. there is so much going on in my mind about my hols coming to an end and my homework and studying. i don't even know what to say. i'm just going insane. i don't even know what to write.

i feel like i have done nothing good with these holidays. i just did nothing productive. just timepass. not even something fun. now i don't have much time left, i'm overwhelmed, i feel like i just cant do anything now. i think i should just go to bed now, lol. tomorrow wont be a good day if i sleep so less. i hope i can somehow get some homework done tomorrow. and i hope i can respond to you. i feel awful for not doing it....

I understand that you are feeling overwhelmed with the holidays coming to an end. It is going to be okay. Focusing on what you didn't get done just causes you to panic. The past is the past. All you can do is stuff in the present. So start on any assignment that you feel up to do doing and keep at it. You still have some time left to do work. You will feel better if you do some of the pile than if you do nothing. I can guarantee you that. Take lots of deep breaths and do lots of little assignments.

I know that all days feel a bit the same right now. Most summer holidays feel like that. And I can also guarantee you that most of your classmates won't have done anything exciting either. But you can still differentiate your remaining holiday days in your brain. Remember that thing I suggested about coming up with a single moment each day where you are connected? That allows you to differentiate your days. It shows you that there is indeed a point because you had a few okay moments. It is how you build your mental health better. It is one of the most critical things that you can do. So what happened today where you connected?

You point out a nice one from yesterday in those moments of cleaning. Why did those moments feel better? Because you were actively doing something that needed to get done and the weather was cooler. Each time you do SOMETHING, ANYTHING you are going to feel better than if you don't.

You are letting your brain make a decision that the trip wasn't a good one by focusing on the bad parts. I know that time wise the bad was much longer than the good. But fight the fight and focus on the picture taking. Tell me about the pictures that you took. 

"A Study in Scarlet" is a great one. Keep reading until the end. If you allow yourself to get into the story then time will pass quicker and you will finish. You can do this!

Again with the hair pulling - celebrate success. One hair is better than a whole bunch. You are doing better than you were at the beginning of the summer.

There will always be people who are more obedient than you. But that is true of anything you try in life. There will always be better scholars or athletes too. And I don't think that your mom is a good example of obedience. Obedience should never be just taking abuse from someone. The abuse shouldn't happen to begin with. Being quiet just gets you hurt. Your mom probably wouldn't yell less even if you did everything she said. You said her being obedient didn't help her so why do you presume that it would help you? You are going to clash sometimes. I think seeing things from her shoes helps you a bit, but it doesn't mean that things will be perfect. Perfect doesn't exist. 

For the peacock moment - people need to share such things with other people. It actually is really necessary to enjoy things. Otherwise you get lonely. Your mom hasn't had much time this summer because you moved for trips or movies. I guarantee that she would like to do some of these things too. They might not come before you go back to school, but you will get other breaks. Keep bringing such things up. 

Your mom doesn't want you to end in a marriage like hers with no prospect of doing much in life besides housework. She doesn't want you to end up with months without movies or vacations as you get older. 

My workshop was to start getting prepared for next semester that starts at the beginning of August. So I have what looks like a deceptively long break in front of me. But I know from the start that it isn't a break. If I don't read and work every day of the break then I will not be ready when the semester starts. I have three or four long books to read so that I can teach them as well as a bunch of new course ideas to organize. I will also be helping do some grading assessments on first year and senior papers. So starting next week I have to grade around 60 papers in 2-3 weeks. 

But I also have a little more time for my family and myself. Tomorrow morning for instance we are all going to a park to walk and look for birds before it gets too hot. And today I had a nice lunch with friends. That was my good moment today. I enjoyed a bowl that had some lovely rice with sweet potatoes and a green sauce. I also need to sort through lots of things and buy things to get my youngest son ready for college. So it will be a busy summer.

You need to keep fighting. It is harder during summer when you are home than at school. Your brain is going to find a better place again. But you have to really work hard for it. I know you are tired. But you are also brave and strong. 

@bestVase7265 hey there, i'm sorry for not being able to respond to you properly lately. i've been quite busy. yesterday evening i was trying to get some homework done and couldn't come on here. today morning i was trying to clean my room, i did a bunch of stuff, clean the dirty window glass, window grill, and mop my room as well as my mother's room because she asked me to. and then later i've been caught up in trying to get homework done, having my mother explain me some physics, and finally watching a movie with my mother since she had time for it today since my father wasn't home for dinner so she didn't need to cook much. i think keeping busy is kinda keeping me from feeling that horrible though. but yeah, sorry i cant get back to you properly. i promise i will respond tomorrow. i feel bad for taking so long to reply.

I am glad that you have a plan for your uncle's visit. I would be especially concerned with an older man (especially one who has had issues finding women who like him) that you don't know well possibly entering your space at any point during that visit.

You are getting the homework done slowly but surely. Keep avoiding looking at the pile and doing as much as you can on individual assignments. Everything that you can check off of your list is a victory. Any kind of homework, self study or revising would be interesting - do you study best now in your room, on your bed, in a common area? Sometimes switching up your homework spot when you can keeps you on task better than staying in the same location.

I think it is good that in general your father is feeling a bit better. But, as you know, mental illness goes up and down and sometimes you don't have a whole lot of control over when a bad moment will strike. It is good that your mom is aware of what is going on with your dad and can give the doctor a different perspective. Your father has a very different illness than you do. Periods where he thinks very highly of himself and that he can do anything are typical. They are followed by periods that are more dangerous where he crashes and burns emotionally.

It is fine to not go to your mom right now about your own mental health. But do promise me that if things ever got really bad (I would let you know when that moment happened) that you would speak to your mom then. Mental health can be something that gets overwhelming and endangers you in the same way that a heart attack or getting run over by a car would. 

As far as the maid goes, always remind yourself that listening is a great skill to have when talking to anyone who is feeling bad. It is what I do with you in part. When someone is heard then they feel a bit better. It was a very good question that you asked her. But your brain is lying to you about the idea that there are people out there who would be relieved if you or anyone else was gone. That is a typical thought with depression that is really off. Think about it for a moment, who would you actually want to see dead? You know that that person's family would be traumatized no matter what. The only person that I can think of is someone like Hitler who killed 6 million Jews. Otherwise, every person was put here for a reason. Even your bench partner would not want to see you dead. He might prefer to sit by himself, but that is quite different. Death is permanent. 

I am glad that your mom let you sleep a bit unexpectedly and that you had some moments of peace even if you can pinpoint what exactly made them peaceful....

Ok, now I am going to go onto the message from today.

I am sorry that you had such a hard day. Remember that what you are going through has up and down moments so if today was bad, tomorrow might be better.

I can understand that you found your parents' words quite harsh. They certainly didn't phrase things well. However, they are reacting the way parents usually do to door locking by teenagers. Many teens do it and most parents don't like it. Parents get very sad because they think it means that you don't love them anymore and that you are growing apart. Privacy feels very scary to them because they are losing control. Locking your door when you sleep is dangerous. If something were to happen to you then they could not get in to help.

There are tons of compromises here though. What if you closed your door but didn't lock it? Then all they would have to do is knock on your door when they want you for something. Ask them more specifically about this. I know that they said "no", but I bet they would be willing to consider more circumstances than just you changing clothes. Tell them your concerns about disturbing them with music or exercising with people watching. With my sons, closing but not locking worked.  They were also very good about coming out of their rooms every hour or two just to say hi or eat a meal. It kept us somewhat connected. What you are doing is aiming for specific times when you can be alone and announce when you would like those to be. Tell me more about the cloth in front of the door. How does that work for you? Start thinking through what the three different positions - door locking, door closed, and cloth in front mean to you. When you can articulate rationally how things make you feel then you can make a cleaner argument with your parents and have a better discussion. 

Did you say before you moved that you wouldn't lock your door? If you aren't doing it now that doesn't mean that you are lying to them or that you are a bad person. It means that you are struggling with all of the ramifications of keeping your door open. You couldn't realize beforehand how much you would enjoy being alone. You are figuring things out. You aren't a bad person. 

Still try to think of a good moment even on bad days. My day today wasn't perfect, but my son was kind enough to buy me a sun hat. I am not really thrilled with the model that he chose, but he was so kind to have thought of me. I will make it work. 

@bestVase7265 

question to myself: prove that you can never keep promises.

solution: every day i say thay i'll get back to you the next day, every day i fail. every day i say that i will go to bed before 12:30 am, every day i fail. every day i promise that i'll read a certain number of pages or chapters, every day i fail. failure to keep my words is equal to never keeping promises. hence, proved.

I think that you can define promise differently. It isn't promises that you aren't doing. It is goals that you aren't reaching. Yes, you can work harder to reach goals, but promises makes it feel much more defeatist. I often have goals that I don't quite get to during a day. I dust myself off and try again the next day. Praise yourself for what you do accomplish. Otherwise the pile looks too large.

You are doing a great job prioritizing things in terms of what needs to get done first before Thursday. Keep up the good work.

You understand how you study differently in different places and the pitfalls of each. So you can try to balance them and figure out what kinds of homework are best to attempt in what places. Keep paying attention to what spots work best and rotate to keep yourself from getting bored. It will keep you more productive.

Holiday sharing is always hard, but you did accomplish something pretty awesome, I think. You and your family got moved into your new place and you now have more privacy than before. I bet a bunch of your fellow students don't have that. Their lives aren't necessarily better than yours. 

You haven't been perfect in terms of the hair, but overall you have done well. Focus on the days where you managed better. You are going to have more of those where you don't self-harm. Just keep at it. I call you brave and strong because you keep trying. You won't be perfect. You won't always be positive. But you get up each day and try to make that day better than the one before. That is all bravery and strength is. 

I know that your mental health constantly feels bad, but truly bad looks a little different. You have no coping or protective mechanisms left. You stop sleeping and eating. You make a detailed plan for your demise. I am working with someone else in that state right now on here and it is hard because I know that I might not be able to stop him doing something drastic is the next few weeks. That is a life or death moment in the same way a heart attack is. That is when I would start insisting that you talk to someone immediately. I don't think that is going to happen to you anytime soon, and hopefully never. 

You are right that your mom is probably yelling at you less with your door open because she can connect to you better. She felt cut off and was frustrated.  

Your paragraph about her childhood makes good sense. Your grandparents ruined her life, not you. It also connects very much to your own story and how she treats you. She struggles between not wanting to inflict on you the trauma that she suffered because of her rough upbringing and being scared that you might fall into the same traps that she did and not get good life opportunities. It sounds like her mom did much the same in not getting a college education. She also watched how her mom treated her to figure out how to treat you. So the same mistakes sometimes get made again even when she wants to avoid them. Yes, she doesn't have two kids to manage, but she is also less than forgiving of your mistakes.

Your uncle just feels a little dicey to me in terms of staying in your house when he hasn't been there often before. At your age, you are a budding young woman and I don't want him to take advantage of you. It is the one time that I would say nighttime door locking should be allowed. 

We do all get lonely sometimes when we see other people, but it sounds like you are like me in that being alone is also a good thing. You just have to create the balance that works best for you. There will always be people who need other people more than you do. That's okay. I find that just a few friends is fine for me rather than a whole bunch. I work to be content with what I have.

So yeah - I do just keep teaching but in a different form right now. I get an occasional hour or two to relax, but not much. I am mainly reading and prepping (and now grading those 60 new papers for assessment). My course prep is a combination of new stuff and old stuff. Most of the stuff in the fall is pretty standard except for a few books, but the spring stuff is new. And I have to reread everything anyway because you can't remember stuff after a year even if you have read the book every year for the last 7 years. 

As far as the moment that you are trying to focus on each day - hugging and talking to your mom for just a moment is fine. You aren't looking for things that take long. You are looking for points where you connect with your senses to the world and you are really present. This is a great mental health exercise because it puts your brain in the present rather than worrying about the past or future. It is also really hard to do on bad days. When you make a practice of it, it helps. Mine today was seeing a small yellow spider. I had gone to pick some vegetables from a garden - some greens, a cabbage and some tomatoes. The spider hitched a ride on my bag until I got near the car. He was quite cute.

I am going to need to stop for the night and get some sleep. I will try to be back in a day or two. 

Ok, I have a late night tonight so I am trying to get on to write a bit now. I will finish the last few paragraphs of the older message that I didn't get to plus the new one.

I do believe that everyone's families are traumatized by death. Your parents care enough that they most definitely would be. There will be the occasional person that is happy when someone dies, but most people mourn, especially for younger people.

There aren't many Hitlers out there. There are people that do things because they are selfish and don't think. But those are action errors rather than "their soul is evil" errors. I have to believe that most people are redeemable and those moments where the world feels particularly evil happen to convince us to do better. We never do perfect. We have to forgive often. 

I don't think your bench partner is frankly going to find someone better than you to sit next to. No one really wants to be his friend. Your kindness is the best he is going to get. Deep down he knows this. 

I know that your parents' words hurt a great deal and it will take you some time to process them. That is okay. It is your reaction to the words that matter now. You can't go back and change their words or how they phrased things. You can just prove your parents wrong. You didn't do anything to be ashamed of. You just had a disagreement over your door. You are also allowed at your age to grow apart from your parents a bit. That is perfectly normal. You will see the world differently. But I like the word "different" rather than "hate". You are rightfully angry right now, but the power going forward lies with you. You can decide you are a good person anyway and that they are just different than you. It will keep your soul much more peaceful if you do.

I would continue to work on very specific moments where you can ask to close (not lock) your door. I think that exercise is a perfectly legitimate one. No one likes to be watched exercising.  Then do indeed close it when you are studying and your father is too loud. I would suggest in a few weeks (give them time to adapt) that you be allowed to close your door when you listen to music for just a bit (like a half hour) because you don't want to disturb them. I know that it is really the reverse (you get disturbed) but it allows your parents to see that you are interested in their feelings (even if you aren't entirely). Always let them know that you are about to do so. Once you do this for a few weeks then then might relax a bit more. Right now they have their "teenage battle gear" in place, but when you show them that you are responsible with your door closing then they will give you more freedom to close it. It will just take time.

Use the curtain as often as you can. It will work as well as a door in a pinch. If you think of it that way, it will be easier. You are right that your mom isn't "forgetting" exactly. What she is doing is ignoring the fact that this apartment has different space than your other one and that you have grown up. So every time she "forgets" remind her of her promise. Do it really gently without getting mad. She may eventually stop forgetting as often. Do come out the once an hour or so. She will visit you less often even if she is complaining that you are taking study breaks too often. You need to get up and stretch and you will actually retain more information that way. I know that she would not necessarily believe that, but studies have proven it. Different people study different ways.

I am glad that you had a good few moments with your mom on the bed chatting. I had a nice short shopping trip with my middle son this afternoon to buy him some food. It wasn't anything special, but it was nice to catch up on how he is doing. He is living on campus (about a 15 minute drive away) for the summer and working at a summer camp for children and doing some study of birds with one of the professors. He now has a better idea of what his work schedule for the summer is going to look like. It is intense, but he is hoping to stop by for dinner occasionally. That will be nice.

@bestVase7265 hello there, i just wanna let you know that i've been really busy with stuff lately and haven't had much time to respond to you. i need to complete the english project of reading the book and writing a lot about it by thursday eneving, submission's on friday. and i haven't finished reading yet. i also have to complete the maths worksheet and do some other maths homework, and that's quite a lot. plus some four physics questions to do. this is stressful.

but yeah, it's my fault that i left it for the last few days of my holidays. you warned me to get started on work and i did get started but i went way too slow. so i didn't actually listen to you and i feel bad. but anyway, i need to hurry up somehow and get stuff some quickly. i need to finish the maths by tomorrow evening and the english and physics by friday evening. seriously a lot of work to do. i need to hurry up and be as quick as i can and i cant waste much time. and tomorrow i'll also have stuff to do so get ready for school, polish my shoes and pack my bag and stuff which'll take ages.

i dunno how i'll manage to be honest. i feel like i should just skip school on friday to avoid all this but i don't really think i can miss the second day of school after summer holidays so i think i need to work hard to get work done. so i'll probably have to be busy with all this for as long as i'm awake and also stay up late to get things done. so i'll not get time to cups much, so i think i'll get back to you on friday evening or saturday. friday evening might not happen because i might just be really tired from two days of school and staying up late to finish project work and i might need to sleep.

i have school starting thurday and they haven't told us anything about change in timings so it's assumed that we'll have regular full day school from 7:45 to 2:20. and that's gonna be tiring. the last day that we had school for so long was 19th april. i just really hope we don't get homework on thursday because i need to work on the english project and finish it off somehow. anyway, yeah, i'm stressed and worried and got a lot to do. let's just hope i somehow manage, and i'll talk to you again on the weekend.

today we had heavy rains in here which really made me feel good but we also have a power cut and we do have an UPS but the battery is down now because we're doing everything on it for hours now. so i need to go to bed very early today because soon the battery will be completely down and nothing will work so i need to be asleep before that happens. it's only 10:34 pm right not and i'll be heading to bed soon after i send this. i've told my mother to wake me up earlier than usual tomorrow, so at 7 am so that should be a good 8 hrs of sleep for the first time in months. i hope i feel fine tomorrow because today before it rained i was really sleepy and felt unwell and this had been happened for may days now and i have have headaches a lot. it might be from not sleeping, but i dunno. anyway, if i'm fresh a good sleep in the morning, i should be able to get my reading done and start the writing part and finish the maths tomorrow. it'll be a very busy day, lol. but going to bed early today does seem good, i haven't been going to bed before 1 am lately. today i should be in bed by 11 pm. let's see how it goes. see you on friday hopefully but chances are, it'll probably be saturday...

@bestVase7265 hi there, this is gonna be a very gigantic past, lol. (note after finishing typing the whole thing: i think i'll post thrice separately for the three posts i have to respond to. it's gonna be really too long in one post otherwise. also, since this all has been typed over a long period of time, i think i'll alternate between colours so you can tell that it was typed of a different day without me having to leave a lot of lines unless i'm starting to discuss a new topic.)

(responding to your most recent post from 12th june)

honestly speaking, this period is supposed to be the relatively less busy time on the year. things are gonna get a lot busier and hectic after this. i know shorter posts are fine and easier for you to respond to, but i wanna be able to respond to all your messages and if i do it in multiple short messages by posting a little every day, things will get messy in here and it'll be difficult to figure out what is a response to what. that's why i am gonna send everything together in one day. i'm sorry. i understand that longer posts are harder to read and respond to, and i'm sorry but i dunno what else to do. please take as long as you'd like to read and reply to this. there's no rush at all. please take your time.

lol yeah, i guess i am learning the hard way. not sure if it'll help with my next break around october end, but i think this made me realise the horrible consequences of procrastination. at the same time, i cant stop procrastinating. i am just sitting and doing nothing useful for half the time. at least if i used the time to get things done i'd be able to sleep more or have more time to reply to you. but no, i'm so lazy.

i am more worried about the teacher spotting the unfinished work. i dont care at all if she realises that i copied from wikipedia. everybody copies. that's a fact i just recently fully realised. teachers already know it and they dont really care. teachers copy too, there have been many instances where i know teachers have taken stuff off the internet and claimed they did it themselves. if teachers copy, if almost all other students copy, why shouldn't i copy? by the way, i recently learnt a whole lot of stuff about copying and i've given it a thought. i hope it's okay to talk about it a bit. 

teachers know we kids copy stuff and they are very much okay with it. they know we copy project work from the internet, they know we copy notebook question and answers from the internet (or from other people's notebooks) instead of framing answers by ourselves. lemme share a couple of instances that show that teachers are okay with copying and instances where they encourage it.

our current history teacher recently gave us a project that we have to make a timeline of the french revolution on a chart paper. she told us that she will not accept any printed text because "then you all will copy paste from google and not even know what you are writing. it has to be handwritten so that you at least know what you are writing."

for teachers knowing that we copy notebook answers from the internet or from other people's notebooks, there are just too many instances. i cant even list them. sometimes teachers even ask us to give our notebook to someone who is not writing anything at all, so that they can copy our work. i dont like letting people copy from my notebook when i have taken the efforts to write answers myself, but sometimes i am forced to let people copy. in general, in my notebooks, i check answers on the internet to get an idea if what i can write and then i write it myself. i rarely ever copy word for word in my notebook unless i am under extreme pressure and have no time. so if anyone ever asks for my notebook i usually ask what they want to write and i let them copy if it was something the teacher gave in class (like dictated it or wrote it in the board) i let them copy or else i say no. (but sometimes people play tricks. the other day my friend asked for my chemistry notebook saying she needed to copy the questions the teacher gave, so i gave my notebook to her. then i asked her why she was talking so long and she told me that she was copying answers as well. i obviously cant just demand to have to book back, especially since she's my 'friend' and i want to keep her happy.) but i have no option if the teacher just asks me to give my notebook to someone. anyway, i think i'm leaving the topic, but my point is, teachers know that what we write in our notebooks is not written by ourselves. some exceptions of course but teachers dont see those. they think everyone copies.

for an instance where a teacher encouraged us to copy from the internet, this was last year, and i rememer once i couldn't figure out the answer to a certain history question and my mother didnt have time for me at the time. so i went to the teacher and asked her for the answer. she got her phone out, asked me to repeat the question, typed it on google and told me to just copy from there. now i know it's okay to take help of the internet for stuff, but the teacher quite literally asked me to 'just copy it'. ever since, for the rest of 8th grade, i always took history and political science answers from google because we had the same teacher for those two subjects. and why take the effort to find answers in the textbook and frame it into a proper answer when everything is there on the internet?

so now that i was copying answers for history, there was once this time when the teacher told us she had made 50 questions for us and we had to find answers and write them. i obviously googled answers instead and that led me to something very interesting. the teacher never made the questions or too any effort to find questions and stuff. she got that whole list of 50 questions off some site, all in the exact same order too. so it was so easy for me to get their answers online all in one place. wow! i think it's okay for her to take the questions from somewhere but why did she have to say she made them herself?

and now for all these projects, i hear literally eveyone saying that they wrote it from chatgpt so i know nobody wrote it themselves. i just used wikipedia instead because ai language to me just doesnt sound like human language. it's okay to copy, my mother very much approves of me copying for such projects because she sees no use in them. she says that it's okay to copy for this because we havent even been taught how to summarise a story and now we are expected to summarise a novel. how are we supposed to do that? and i agree with her. it was in fact her idea that i copy everything from wikipedia and i was happy to do that. even if the teacher finds out i copied she probably wont deduct marks for that because she knows everybody copied. and she obviously wouldn't deduct marks for everybody.

a couple of days ago, it was getting late and i have lots of english homework to do and other subjects too. i never ever google answers for english and i write answers based on what i understand and feel. but i did it that day because i was so out of time and we were supposed to have notebook submission the next day. i mostly wrote what i found and changed it a bit to better suit my understanding of the story. next day in school the teacher was discussing the answers in class and she had us read our answers aloud. some people read them out and i realised that all of the ones who read it out had copies their answers from the site i had referred to. i realised this because i had referred to it too. but all of them had copied it word to word. even the people i would least expect to copy. wow, smart kids lol!

we also recently had a maths project where we had to draw a square root spiral and then decorate it or make something creative out of it and make it look good. the teacher showed some examples in class (like making a peacock or snail out of the square root spiral) and said that we couldn't repeat those. going home i was discussing this with my mother and she didn't have any idea other than the snail and we couldn't do that and i didnt have any ideas either. so we googled it and searched through a bit amd found lots of stuff. i ended up choosing to make the square root spiral look like a pram like i saw on the internet. it was obviously not my own idea. when it was time for submission, i saw the projects of many other kids and i realised that everyone had drawn something out of the stuff i had seen online. everyone copied.

yeah so that's a whole lot of me talking about copying. sorry it is so much but i wanted to share about my recent and old discoveries about how everyone copies these days. we are all copy cats lol. (by the way, when i say everyone here, i dont literally mean everyone, i mean most of my classmates and kids in my school, and my teachers).

yeah it is hard to read about those awfully detailed descriptions of the dead bodies. it's scary. ooh sounds like you have to read a scary book right now. how's it going for you? 

hmm sherlock holmes is not based on real life incidents? why did my mother say that then? and honestly, why would people want to read about these things? is it fun for some? ah i see, so if the girl you are reading about is able to overcome the challenges and the book has a fairly positive ending, i think that would make it a teeny tiny bit easier to read and not think that the world is horrible. hmm how can i read about horrible things where five characters die and the ending is that sherlock holmes doesnt even get credit for his discoveries and not think the world is horrible? i dont know. by the way, just curious, why would you have to teach such a book?

well, i most certainly dont want to focus on the evil. if i did, i am sure i will be dead very soon because i dont want to live in an evil world. but the good is sometimes quite hard to find. i know my mother wants me to know well about the bad. but how will knowing it exists help me save myself from it? knowing about the bad is useless. and i already kinda know, i dont need to know any more. "I think focusing on the good, on how people overcome the bad, on how they help one another is how we make the world we live in bearable." yeah, right. and i think i already know the world is a complicated place. and it might be quite bad because good people are such a rare find.

by the way, even if the book i read is not based on real life in any way, it makes we wonder some stuff. is it possible for someone to live just to seek revenge? is it better to d!e or live for something like seeking revenge and sacrifice everything else for revenge? is seeking revenge a good or valid thing? what's really the point of life? and do we have the day when we're gonna d!e decided beforehand or does it happen when our purpose (is there is one) is over or does it happen randomly? i obviously dont expect you to be able to answer any of these things, i'm just sharing that it's making me wonder about these things.... you dont need to know the answers but if you do know any, feel free to tell me.

i dont think school's gonna get any better if i give it a few weeks. it's only gonna get worse. school has always felt and will probably always feel overwhelming. and like i said before, the first few weeks after holidays are supposed to be the least stressful and least busy weeks of school and it usually gets worse afterwards. i guess this year it's been worse from the beginning because of all these projects and i expect it to only get even more horrible. sorry, but i'm really hating school. 

so far the projects that are done are the english book review project and the maths square root spiral project. and we have a history and geography project to do now.

the geography project is making a booklet kinda thing about disaster management and it's an individual activity luckily. my topic is about floods and tsunamis and related stuff. so i have to find information about all of that and write it down by 24th june. stressful.

the history one is a group activity and it's halfway done, that is, the chart is ready. the presenting of it in class is left. and that's the scary part. it's a timeline of the french revolution and a group of 6 including me. each of us has to speak on 3 events and the ones i have to speak on are the legislation to free all slaves in french colonies, slavery finally being abolished after being reintroduced, and women winning the right to vote. i still have to memorise what i have to say and i do have to prepare it well lol. speakin in front of the whole class is scary. the last time i had to do it, i messed up so bad and it made me feel horrible. the teacher's kinda nice and assured us that it's okay get stuck with words and that we dont have to worry about people laughing and stuff. but yeah, i'm still scared. the teacher told us not not memorise stuff word for word but understand it instead and speak in our own worda because if we memorise it, we forget one world and and so we forget everything after that. honestly, i dunno how to memorise it lol.

and i am also behind on homework and have tons to do. i had a long weekend, saturday, sunday, monday, and i wanted to use it to get everything done. not sure if that'll happen because right now it's about 6 pm monday  (17th june) as i type this part if this massage and i have lots of english, maths, and chemistry homework to do. i need to do something for marathi too but it's not that important. i think i have procrastinatinated a lot this weekend. most of the work i had to do is still left. friday evening i was just so tired and couldn't get myself to do anything. i cleaned my room a bit and that's it. saturday was a horrible day. i felt sleepy the whole time and for most of the morning i was either sitting or laying in bed or sitting idle because i just couldn't do anything. sunday was a horrible day too. my mother was in a horrible mood and said and did a bunch of things. also a horrible incident happened sunday afternoon and i felt awful. i did manage to get some homwork done thanks to the terrifying incident, but it was hard. today i have done a bit and i plan to do the rest after typing a bit more on here.

to tell you about what horrible incident happened yesterday (sunday) afternoon, my mother walked into my room without saying anything and i didnt hear her footsteps because i had some music playing. she was already in a horrible mood when she came in and she saw cups open on the laptop. she questioned me a lot about that especially since she saw me hurridly closing the laptop flap when i realised she was here. i made and excuse that i opened it to check the school website to check if the political science teacher had uploaded anything, i claimed that i had just shut it down. she said that that wasnt the shut down screen so i said that i closed the flap before the shut down screen came and that it was just the screen background that she saw. she was not convinced, though i thought she would me. she came and asked me to turn on the laptop again and i pretended to turn it on but i actually pressed the power button twice to turn it off and then on. she went away after that luckily but now she thinks i am hiding something from her an lying to her and she is not happy. i think she saw me trembling and my voice being shaky and maybe she heard my heart racing when i gave her a hug? i dunno if our hearts actually beat loudly when we panic, lol. but she could obviously tell that i'm getting nervous and stuff so she knows something's not right. and she really thinks i am hiding something.

i am mad at her for coming in like that without calling my name first. and i am also ashamed of myself. i shouldnt really be using cups, right? in 9th grade now i should only be studying, right? i am doing something i am not supposed to, i am not supposed to be cupsing. but cups is the only thing that keeps me alive. believe me, i would be dead today if it wasnt for cups. i have no reason to live anymore. i cant just leave cups because that would mean i leave earth too, or try to, at least. the fact that my mother saw cups open on the laptop is terrifying. that incident left me feeling so nervous, tense, uncomfortable, uneasy, whatever you wanna call it, all the way untill i went to bed. i am terrified, i hate this. i hate her. i didnt tell her anything about why she came in without telling because i was in the wrong too and i dont want to bring it up again and i want to avoid any convo about that with her.

and i think she's suspicious about me and my overthinking thoughts tell me that she might try to trick me. what she'll do is that for a few days from not she will always tell me before coming in so once i start to trust her a bit and let my guard down she will one day come in without saying and catch me doing something i shouldnt be doing. my thoughts are kinda getting confirmed because ever since that incident my mother has been telling me before coming in my room. like how come she suddenly remembers every time now?

i dont want such an incident to happen so i am going to do some things from now on. first off, i am never ever listening to music again except under some very specific conditions. 1) i am sure my mother is in the kitchen and busy there or is in her room and doing something. 2) i will never play music on the laptop because that way the volume needs enough for me to hear from like 1 and a half foot away and that's a big distance. i will only ever listen with my phone on the minimum possible volume and hold the phone to my ear so i can watch out for my mother's footsteps. 3) i need to be totally alert, not sleepy or anything, to be able to listen to music and pay attention to footsteps. 4) i must not do anything else while listening because i cant do three things at once (listen to music, watch out for my mother, and whatever third thing). 5) have my books open and ready and also sit in a proper position and not a relaxed one so i can quickly just put the phone away and make it look like i am studying if i hear footsteps.

i am also going to be very careful with cups because i dont want her to see it on again. letting her seeing something twice would be horrible. she only saw cups from a distance yesterday but her eyes are sharp so i dunno what exactly she saw and remembers. but i need to careful so as to not let it happen again. here are the stuff i'm gonna do. 1) avoid using cups from the laptop as much as possible. it's easier to quickly put the phone away than to switch tabs on the laptop or put the laptop screen down. also, if my mother does see me on my phone, it'll be harder for her to see what exactly is on the screen and it's also easier to just turn the screen off if i realise she's here. i can also turn around a bit while using my phone so the curtain behind with she might appear is in my peripheral vision and i realise her coming in before she comes in. 2) have my books open and ready and also sit in a proper position and not a relaxed one so i can quickly just put the phone away and make it look like i am studying if i hear footsteps. copy paste from 5 of the music one lol. 3) if i do decide to cups from the laptop, i must make sure my mother is in the kitchen or her room and is busy, i need to be totally alert and not sleepy or anything, have as much silence as possible, and i must not multitask.

and i have to do so much to be able to be on cups and occasionally watch youtube (on zero volume with captions on). i've had to do all of this when i shared a room ao none of this is new. but i expected to have more freedom when i'd have my own room. that happened for a while as long as i could keep the door closed (because opening the door disturbs the silence and feel of a room so its easier to sense) but it's not gonna happen anymore. i still need to constantly watch out for my parents, especially my mother because my father's busy in his own world and doesnt really come in much. and he usually says before coming in though he doesn't wait for me to respond. there are times when he comes in without warning but it's rarer. i really hate them, especially my mother, and i dont trust them anymore and never will i ever make the huge mistake of trusting them again. they are so untrustworthy. they dont keep their words and expect me to keep mine. this is so unfair. i just so hate them. i hate my mother especially. she's being a horrible mother to me. i am sick and tired of this. she might think she's being a good mother and i know she is trying and she is probably a better mother than her mother was to her, but she still is doing ao much of horrible stuff. i hate her. why does she have to know what i was doing on the laptop and why did she want me to show it to her (i didnt show her obviously)? why, just why? she literally does not need to know what i was doing on the laptop. also, why does she want me to study all the time? that doesn't make me study all the time, it makes me learn how to pretend to study and do other things, and it makes me have to be ultra careful and secretive about everything other than studying that i do. it is not fun to have to do so much to try to hide that i do other things too. but i cant help it, i cant live without cups.

i do have to go back and respond to everything you have written in previous posts. i do have time, i am just not using it wisely. today evening i plan on making myself a proper timetable to follow on school and non school days to hopefully use my time more carefully and procrastinate less. i might not make you feel bad by not responding to previous posts but i myself will feel bad because you always respond to all my posts and i want to be doing the same even if you dont need me to, i need myself to do it. i will be beating myself up if i dont respond to them. so no matter how late, i will somehow respond. you dont have to read them if you dont want to but i will be mad at myself if i dont respond so i am going to do that.

hmm have you been getting rain over the past few days? i think for us it's not raining as much as i would like it too but overall the weather is cooler and better than a few weeks ago. i believe monsoon is here and summer's finally over, lol. but not sure if i can declare that just yet because. it does sometimes get really sunny in the afternoons and my room heats up a bit lately. (it wasnt heating up the past few days because it was staying cloudy) not sure if i've told you this before, i assume i havent, so my father installed a wall fan near my bed because the ceiling fan is really far from my bed and i get sweaty while sleeping if i dont use the cooler. lately the temperatures have been better so i havent been using the wall fan or the cooler and the ceiling fan does the job. but i was sweating last night so tonight i'll try and use the wall fan and see how it goes. i hope it helps me not sweat at night.

wow it's nice that your sister in law got a job finally. i really hope it goes well for her. how have you been lately, vase? how's your break going? are you able to just stay home most of the time or are you having to go to your uni sometimes and just no teaching?

i think i should stop here for today and go do as much of my homework as i can. i will get to the rest bit by bit from tomorrow and hopefully making myself a full day timetable will help me get things done and spend some time on cups.