P.S. (Access N810 over network with samba server) If that sentence there brought you here looking for a way to get that working, leave a comment.

Giant Pickle

We walked through the place where (according to my mother) the Diagon Alley scenes of Harry Potter were filmed. I couldn’t give a shit, but I figured Emma would be mad if I didn’t take any pictures:

This is for you, Emma.

When we got to Marks and Spencer I found this:

Might have to get this for my birthday.

Then there was Lloyd’s Tower which looks like something from a dystopian mining facility, but whose picture is currently sideways. When we got home I fiddled around on the computer for a while and then Princess Mononoke was on and having never seen it I felt I should watch it. I did. It was of course very good and trippy. Then I fiddled on the computer some more. We’ll see how sleeping goes tonight.

I didn’t apply to college. Yeah, probably a mistake as I also didn’t find anything productive to do in my year off. Instead, I’m moving with my parents to England for seven months. In retrospect this is possibly the worst thing I could do without trying very hard (I could probably fuck up more if I actually put some effort into it). Seven months, in a small flat, in London. Oh sure, it’s London, the once center of the verse, but I’m also spending with my parents and I haven’t changed at all. I generally don’t make friends unless they’re people that I see every day for something like school. I can’t go up to someone and say “hey, you want to go mock people because they’re stupid?” Other people can do that, but unless I know the person, I’m generally shy. I guess I have very low confidence.

I know I have very low drive. I have no purpose, no idea what I want to do in life. I’ve grown so cynical that I have trouble enjoying life. If I’m not distracted by something I become depressed, because I feel like I’m wasting time. I blame that on school; there’s always something that you have to do. Vacation? Sweet right? Fuck no, you get reports projects, all at the same time as if every teacher assumes that you’ll have nothing to do over a break. I don’t but that doesn’t mean I want to spend it doing school work. The problem with this cynicism is that the only purpose to life I can see is further the human race and seeing as I’ve had zero luck in that area, what else is left for me. I know it’s mean to my friends, but sometimes I feel like I have nothing, that I need something more. I keep hoping that something will come along and change my life, give me direction something to live for.

My little projects help, but they only last so long. I eventually run up against a wall that I can’t overcome either because I just lose interest or I have so many things that I want to implement I end up bogging it down and it becomes unusable or I’m just not capable of doing what I want, I don’t have the skill or the knowledge necessary. When my ideas work I’m overjoyed; I actually get giddy, but just the opposite when they fail. That project was all I had at the time and now that it’s done or failed I have nothing. I try to come up with something else to work on, but nothing seems plausible or it just doesn’t interest me. What do I do then?

I wholeheartedly believe that ignorance is bliss, maybe that’s not true and of course this is me believing I know something others don’t. The religious believe in an afterlife, I don’t. By some huge cosmic coincidence you live (maybe there’s something out there, but all sources point to no) and then you die. You cease to exist. You are nothing. Most people who practice religion must know in the back of their minds that this really is it. Why else would they be afraid of death? Why are we afraid of death at all? Am I? I don’t think so, only a painful death, but not the aftermath. As I see it there is nothing and that’s what scares people because it’s impossible to wrap your mind around the idea of not existing. How can you imagine non-existence. Try and think about it, when I do I have those “who the fuck am I?” moments. Similar to “what the fuck do these sounds have to do with their meaning” moments.

So what do I do? I don’t want to go to college. I can’t get a girl. My ideas are transient. Oh and to top it off, I’m paranoid. Not aliens and the government and tinfoil hats, but I can’t shake the feeling that my friends have problems with me, but choose not to tell me and instead talk about it when I’m not there…oh wait. Not all of them. Some of them I know honestly love me even if it would be “gay” for them to say it. And then there are those who I know are my friends, but i can’t tell if they’re telling the truth or are trying to not hurt my feelings. I can’t tell if it really is them or if it’s me. It eats at me. When I get nervous I pick my nails. Or if I think too much.

That’s another problem I have. Sometimes I just can’t stop. All kinds of stuff going through my head. Math, people, quotes, “that would be a cool picture”, “what if I tried using that equation?” Maybe I have mild aspergers. Sometimes I talk too much, but I don’t think that it. I just have trouble condensing stories, because I feel that every detail is important. Isn’t that how you’re supposed to tell them? It just ends up boring people (xkcd). This wasn’t even going to be this long, but then I started writing what came to mind.

I haven’t done anything amazing. I’m not really good at anything. I’m just good at a lot of things, most of which are useless. I played Ultimate for four years I stopped getting better after three I was ok and knew what I was doing, but I wasn’t a star. Not that I tried that hard.

I guess I haven’t tried very hard at a lot of things. I didn’t try to get interested in college. I don’t try to read books. I haven’t tried hard to meet someone.

As I said, I’m not the kind of person that can just go up and start talking to someone. The idea of trying to hook up with someone that you don’t know at all, but that you are physically attracted to seems wrong to me. Which I figure is my problem. I always try to become friends with girls that I’m interested in before trying to make a move. And who am I kidding, I don’t make moves. I just sit there, pining, forever. And then when I do move, it’s just weird. I don’t know if it’s the way I go about it or if it’s that I’m just not attractive mentally of physically. The last girl that said she liked me was someone that I had never met in person. It wasn’t a completely random creepy meeting on some forum thing, her sister is my friend. When we finally met, she decided that there wasn’t a place in her life for me. She claimed that school had suddenly picked up and that what with school, family, horseback riding, friends, lacrosse she just didn’t have the time I deserved. Somehow, I never fully accepted that. Then there was the girl that I like on an off for two and a half years. Yeah, I fucked that up too. Three times. Not so much fuck ups, just nothing.

I haven’t had a regular sleep cycle in five or six years, maybe longer. Pictures that my mom dug up show me around twelve with dark circles. They became a permanent facial feature. I don’t think that they’re leaving any time soon if at all. I think I have insomnia, maybe mild. First I don’t want to sleep, back to that needing to do something with my time or else it’s wasted. And then, there’s the knowing that once I get in bed, I won’t be able to fall asleep for at least an hour unless I’m utterly and completely exhausted. Sometimes not even then. I can easily fall asleep working on homework, my body uses it as a form of self defense, but once I actually get in bed, I’m wide awake. My mind fills with thoughts that I can’t make go away. Sometimes trying to daydream works, but it’s become harder and harder to do so on commands. These days I wake up dehydrated with a headache and bloodshot eyes. Doesn’t really help attract the opposite sex.

Not that I even meet girls. I spend all my time in my room. I would have friends if it weren’t for school. The only other place that I know people from is JRTechie and I stopped going there a long time ago. It doesn’t even exist anymore. I started this blog back when I was working there the first time. And now everyone is leaving. We’ll keep in contact over Facebook, but it won’t be the same and we’ll slowly drift apart until we don’t talk to each other.

So what do I do? I go to England. What do I do there? I don’t know. Tourist activities? I hate tourists and I hate the idea of being one. I want to go back to Lewes, I want to go to Ireland, I want to try and find my friends from seventh year. The girl that I had a mutual crush on, but nothing ever happened, because I was in sixth grade, what the fuck can you do. I got a laptop so that I can keep playing TF2 with Trung and Ravic. I’m not sure what else…

From the first day there to sometime in March I’ll be writing.

Are you happy now? I know I’m not.

If by some chance someone trying to configure their tablet with ubuntu happens upon this post, I’d be happy to point you in the right direction.