Heh.
If people at uni start telling me they worry about me because nothing's been posted here for ages I guess I should really do at least a mini update.
First things first: There are a number of people on my flist (which I haven't read for months) I constantly think about and worry about because the last time I heard from them/checked their LJs, they were experiencing various kinds of crises. Nevertheless, I cannot check your LJs now, because I'm just barely keeping my life together at the moment as it is. This sounds more dramatic than it is, on my side. Your lives are probably infinitely worse than mine, and I feel guilty (as elaborated here before, I think?) about not providing what little support I can. But I have very little energy at the moment, and I *need* to devote what energy I have to getting a lot of uni work done, because I *need* to finish my studies ASAP. LJ tends to eat my time like nothing else if I 'surrender' to the urge to enter its world again, so I need to keep away from here until the immediate 'crisis' at uni is over. Same goes for most other online activities.
Basically... what happened over the last couple of months was me falling into a kind of mental black hole. It wasn't exactly depression, but maybe it was something close to it, I dunno. I'm out of there now, so no worries, but it still takes me more energy than it should to just keep meeting the requirements of everyday life. So, anything beyond that is necessarily somewhat restricted at the moment.
Actually, you needn't worry about me in general, because as a rule I don't get *really* bad depressions. I get 'low energy' phases - like the one I'm still sort of in - but I have never in my life doubted for a second that I enjoy being alive. So, the worst you'll ever have to worry about if I fall silent here for a while is me feeling vaguely down for a couple of months and neglecting both important 'real life' duties and online relationships and the likes. Which, I admit, is annoying, but not *really* existential.
(Well, okay, I suppose you could start to worry about me being, dunno, hit by a car or something if I don't post for months. Maybe I really should post short 'I'm alive!' messages at regular intervals when I go into one of my anti-social, low energy phases. But I mostly feel too guilty about neglecting you guys to post something before I've caught up with you. Vicious circle.)
Anyway. I may not be back in the LJ game yet, but at least I'm sort of back in the RL game. I'm only doing two real seminars at uni this term because I'm still aware that I probably couldn't make myself really work for more than those in my current mental state anyway, but I'm really giving those two my all, and one of the two is, frankly, enough to fill an entire term all by itself - the workload is insane, considering that for most people it's just one seminar among many. It's just about manageable if it's all you do this term. It's also intensely satisfying to me, because *finally* here is a seminar where we read and discuss a load of social theory and philosophy in depth - not just excerpts, but entire studies and treatises. It's the seminar of my wet academic dreams. *g*
So. A lot of good's been happening recently, really. I've had a number of great conversations with a really old friend/relatively new roommate (been friends for about 13 years, roommates for about one, one and a half); been having a number of very stimulating exchanges of ideas with a colleague and new friend who's giving me a lot to think about, politically (Scaped her, too. Of course. *g*); have been trying, semi-successfully, to re-ignite some older friendships (but then I've been slacking off again, so I need to get back on track there); had a great conversation about Marcuse at uni today (in preparation of a presentation on Thursday); also got a hug from another neglected friend today (for a person who's very anti-'touchy-feely' I sure enjoy being hugged by certain people! *g* Actually, sometimes I really wish I had the talent to hug people. There are a number of people I'd like to hug occasionally. It's... such an uncomplicated way to communicate affection, if you know how to do it.) I've discovered a great deal of semi-wilderness I didn't know of right in front of my door; there's now a cat in our house that I occasionally see on the stairs (seeing a cat is always guaranteed to brighten my mood); I've rediscovered my love for old aussie protest rock (goes very well with the Marcuse); uni is stimulating my mind... and lately, I've even been getting some work done, hooray. Even some of the work I should have done during the holidays. Maybe I'll even finish one of those frelling papers, one of these days.
Here's to hope.
First things first: There are a number of people on my flist (which I haven't read for months) I constantly think about and worry about because the last time I heard from them/checked their LJs, they were experiencing various kinds of crises. Nevertheless, I cannot check your LJs now, because I'm just barely keeping my life together at the moment as it is. This sounds more dramatic than it is, on my side. Your lives are probably infinitely worse than mine, and I feel guilty (as elaborated here before, I think?) about not providing what little support I can. But I have very little energy at the moment, and I *need* to devote what energy I have to getting a lot of uni work done, because I *need* to finish my studies ASAP. LJ tends to eat my time like nothing else if I 'surrender' to the urge to enter its world again, so I need to keep away from here until the immediate 'crisis' at uni is over. Same goes for most other online activities.
Basically... what happened over the last couple of months was me falling into a kind of mental black hole. It wasn't exactly depression, but maybe it was something close to it, I dunno. I'm out of there now, so no worries, but it still takes me more energy than it should to just keep meeting the requirements of everyday life. So, anything beyond that is necessarily somewhat restricted at the moment.
Actually, you needn't worry about me in general, because as a rule I don't get *really* bad depressions. I get 'low energy' phases - like the one I'm still sort of in - but I have never in my life doubted for a second that I enjoy being alive. So, the worst you'll ever have to worry about if I fall silent here for a while is me feeling vaguely down for a couple of months and neglecting both important 'real life' duties and online relationships and the likes. Which, I admit, is annoying, but not *really* existential.
(Well, okay, I suppose you could start to worry about me being, dunno, hit by a car or something if I don't post for months. Maybe I really should post short 'I'm alive!' messages at regular intervals when I go into one of my anti-social, low energy phases. But I mostly feel too guilty about neglecting you guys to post something before I've caught up with you. Vicious circle.)
Anyway. I may not be back in the LJ game yet, but at least I'm sort of back in the RL game. I'm only doing two real seminars at uni this term because I'm still aware that I probably couldn't make myself really work for more than those in my current mental state anyway, but I'm really giving those two my all, and one of the two is, frankly, enough to fill an entire term all by itself - the workload is insane, considering that for most people it's just one seminar among many. It's just about manageable if it's all you do this term. It's also intensely satisfying to me, because *finally* here is a seminar where we read and discuss a load of social theory and philosophy in depth - not just excerpts, but entire studies and treatises. It's the seminar of my wet academic dreams. *g*
So. A lot of good's been happening recently, really. I've had a number of great conversations with a really old friend/relatively new roommate (been friends for about 13 years, roommates for about one, one and a half); been having a number of very stimulating exchanges of ideas with a colleague and new friend who's giving me a lot to think about, politically (Scaped her, too. Of course. *g*); have been trying, semi-successfully, to re-ignite some older friendships (but then I've been slacking off again, so I need to get back on track there); had a great conversation about Marcuse at uni today (in preparation of a presentation on Thursday); also got a hug from another neglected friend today (for a person who's very anti-'touchy-feely' I sure enjoy being hugged by certain people! *g* Actually, sometimes I really wish I had the talent to hug people. There are a number of people I'd like to hug occasionally. It's... such an uncomplicated way to communicate affection, if you know how to do it.) I've discovered a great deal of semi-wilderness I didn't know of right in front of my door; there's now a cat in our house that I occasionally see on the stairs (seeing a cat is always guaranteed to brighten my mood); I've rediscovered my love for old aussie protest rock (goes very well with the Marcuse); uni is stimulating my mind... and lately, I've even been getting some work done, hooray. Even some of the work I should have done during the holidays. Maybe I'll even finish one of those frelling papers, one of these days.
Here's to hope.