It's never good enough, is it? No, it's not.
Also, sorry, but I have NO sympathy for a man who's going to FLORIDA for a string of meetings. Yes, I get it, you have to talk to people in a business format, but it won't be for 24hours. You'll be able to fuck off for a bit in FLORIDA. So stop complaining, dink. You have a cottage now. And you're going to FLORIDA. Fuck, like you NEED a vacation to another country this year. HA. Royal dink status, ACHIEVED!
Oh, and PS. I don't mind people playing on my PS3. But I demand they ASK first. Is that so bad? Asking? No, not saying "okay, and now I'm going to play on that PS3 thingy!" No. That is not asking. That is being stupid. Also, stop downloading shit onto it. It's like a computer. But better. So don't muck up the hard drive with bullshit! I get it, you hate working, you're a tired old man, but LEARN SOME GODDAMN MANNERS! The only reason I rag on you is because, even if I'm nice to you, you shit on everything I do and am. So I turn the tables and then get in shit for it. LEARN TO ASK PERMISSION, Jackass.

Confession time.

I settled. I had settled for Library school. I looked at my options in first year and said, the hell with it, I’ll go to library school. Truthfully, I don’t want to go. Truthfully, I put off applying this summer for so long, I couldn’t get in. Truthfully, I put off applying this FALL for so long, it’s too late to get in, in January. Truthfully? I don’t care. I don’t want to go to Library school anymore, so as people are want to do, they question me. My older sister’s home from the U.S. now and she’s just tried to grill me on my “plans for the future,” and I made up some bullshit answer and left the room. I don’t know what I want to do with my life.

I looked up schools; colleges, universities, etc. I looked into training. But what it all boiled down to, every single time, was “do I really want to do that? No.”

I can’t for the life of me figure this shit out.

I have no skills, no talents, no interests.

In grade 5 through 6, I wanted to be a herpetologist (studies reptiles,) until my older sister told me that there was no future in it. In grades 7 through 9, I wanted to go into Egyptology, until my older sister once again told me there was no future in it. I even toyed with combining the two: studying retiles in Egyptian mythology, until I was reminded with low grades in Biology that I royally suck in any scientific field (which was needed for herpetology).

I have no interests. I watch tv, play video games, and surf the internet. I’m not passionate about anything anymore, and I hate that! Everything in my life is just....blah. I don’t care. I can’t care. I want to care, but I just can’t seem to do it! I can’t even write anymore, and it’s killing me.

So now what?

What now?

For a short time I toyed with the idea of going into some kind of artsy class, but I’ve never really ever been encouraged in any way, artistically, so it was just sort of a fantasy. Anyways, it’s both of my sister’s that are artsy. I’m just sort of...a blob of worthlessness.

I don’t want to talk about it with anyone here, because every time I do, I just panic and start feeling like a...well, a worthless blob.

I have no skills.

I have no talents.

I settled for library school, and now I’m not even going there.

“It’s kind of pathetic, living at home with mom and dad,” says my older sister. Well, thanks.

I truly feel that, maybe, if someone during my childhood had pushed me, had even forced me into doing things, maybe I’d know who I was. I took piano lessons as a child, when I wanted out, all I did was say so and they let me quit. Meanwhile, my older sister was pressured into staying in it, and now she’s professionally trained. Both my sister’s were in a singing choir, both pressured into staying in it, now the older is in the Graduate Musicology program at UCLA, and the younger is taking Art Fundamentals and soon Graphic Design at college. And me? I was offered to join the choir. I told my parents I couldn’t sing. They said ok, fine. And then, overtime, both sisters took occasional opportunities to make fun of my “singing” when I was singing in my room. So, really, was I ever told differently? I said I couldn’t sing. They basically said “You’re right.” I said I didn’t want to play the piano anymore, they said “Kay, whatever.” I didn’t want to join any clubs or teams in elementary, highschool, or uni, no one said anything. I almost failed 3 classes over the past 4 years, and all anyone ever told me was “You did your best.” NO! I didn’t! I spent nights meant for studying on the computer or watching tv. I slacked off, and only one person talked to me about grades, my German History prof, who I felt like I was letting down, so I worked my ASS off, and still almost failed. I felt like SHIT, and mom said “Oh, well, you did your best.” But my BEST is not GOOD ENOUGH!

I don’t want to blame others, I hate doing it, it makes me feel like shit. I shouldn’t do it, because that’s one thing I was encouraged to do and feel: it’s always, all of it, my own fault. I’m fat, because it’s my fault. I’m not the brightest, it’s my fault. I have no goal in life, it’s because I’m lazy and don’t want to think for myself.

But it just seems, this one time, that maybe it’s not ALL my fault. Maybe if someone had had just a titch of faith in me, if someone had encouraged me, pressured me, told me that I could do it, maybe then I wouldn’t be feeling as worthless as I do, as lost, as alone, as, as... stupid as I do. Maybe it’s not all my fault. But even if it’s not, that still doesn’t help me in the long run. That doesn’t help me give a definitive answer to “what are you doing with your life?” This Christmas is going to be hell. The entire family (extended and otherwise) is going to be asking my sisters about their grown-up adventures, then either ignoring me or asking me “so, what the hell are you doing?” and whichever they do is most assuredly going to be followed by one of those looks. Those looks that is plain black and white language among Italian families that says “I worked for years, and immigrated to this country, and didn’t speak a lick of English, and saved and pinched money, and brought up blank number of children before I was blank years old and I’m still struggling and you’re, what? Sitting on your ass, playing video games at age 23? Pff.”

So here’s a question, Italian family, if you have such wisdom, why did you not encourage, push, and pressure me into achieving?! Why did you let me “just get by,” when I could have soared?! Why did you have only scant amounts of faith in me?! And so why are you, now, not helping me?!

I feel like that’s all anyone’s doing. They question and question and question and then leave. They don’t help. They tell me that their brand of “help” is telling me that “It’s kind of pathetic, living at home with mom and dad.” Thanks. I know that already. Why do you think I feel more like shit than I usually do?!

I need help from my family! I need directions from my family! I need my family to act like a family! I don’t know what to do with my life, with myself, and, like usual, all my family seems to do is tell me “oh, that’s nice dear. Also, you’re pathetic. Do something with your life. And F.Y.I, you can’t sing.”

So what’s it gonna be, hm Kristen? Maybe you can take...ummm....goldsmithing at the local college?! Sounds like a goddamned plan to me!

This is un-fucking-believable.
I am so livid at the world, and I have no explanation as to why. It's that hole in my gut again, and I hate it!
My parents and younger sister are down, and at first it was okay, but then the grandmother started being all...grandmothery, you know, being a pain in the ass. So it went downhill from there.
I was fine when my sister and I went to the mall (by ourselves) and then to Chapters (by ourselves), but as soon as I got here, after I proclaimed to my father how fucking crazy I'm going and how I fucking hate my step-uncle (which was brought up when he said he had to stop and pick up some beer because the ass was coming over for dinner tomorrow). My dad semi-yelled at me, telling me that said step-uncle has his problems, but they're not my problems.
Well, they are when he ladles them on top of everyone.
So I got bitchy.
And then my room here is being torn asunder by my neurotically-neat-freak for a mother because my ex-step-aunt has decided that she's going to fly in to London from BC and spend a week sleeping in the other room. This week? I have 3 exams in 4 days and I'm panicking!
The first one on Monday is in the class I got 37% on the midterm. And it's German history. Fucking god damn germans! I'm sick of it! Just fucking sick of it!
And then, since my last exam isn't until the 25th, a full 9 days after my 3rd exam, I was planning on going home. Except, apparently, I'd have to take the bus and I really don't want to have to fucking do that shit right now.
So I told my mother I'm staying here.
She's all bitchy now, but I don't care anymore.
I just want to be left alone! God damnit! Just leave me alone!!

And now a classmate wants me to type out two, 8-page notes for her, and my mother's nagging me ("We came here to see you, and you're just sitting at your computer!" Well, I HAVE TO.) She said "Well then, we might as well leave." Fine, go. "So, are you not coming out for supper with us then?" And I told her that I don't eat supper, so tough shit. She said "Fine!" and left in a huff.
It's true, though. I don't eat supper.
I don't eat.
And I'm still fat and miserable, and I hate every aspect of my life right now, and I'm sorry I'm being emo, but tough shit, it's what I am.
And my younger sister gave me a mini-lecture as to diet and exercise and basically told me that if I'm unhappy about how I look, then to loose some weight because, sweetheart, you're not gonna be any happy fat. Thanks loads, sis.
Fucking unbelievable.

I don't know what I'm doing with my life anymore.
I'm just so confused and fed up and I'm starting to think that the best solution is the final one: run away and jump off a bridge.
I just...I need to be alone.
Stop shooting at my feet and making me dance for you.

I'm heading home for reading week tomorrow at 8am with my dad.
First we're heading to Toronto, though, so he can get some needles poked in him to help his back (acupuncture) and then home. 5 hours of driving? Sure, but then home.
Man, I need this.

So, I'm about 2/3's of the way done this thing.
And I'm sort of sad. See, my mom phoned Monday, and I spoke to my dad, and he said that maybe he should come down this weekend. I laughed and the like. It was because my mom told him about how I didn't eat anything on Sunday. Heh heh.
So, I phoned again tonight, on my self-proclaimed break, and asked my mom if he was serious. Aaand, no. He wasn't.
Hence why I'm sort of sad.
I'm lonely here.

Oh well, next week I'm being picked up to spend the week at home for reading week. :3
Which means I get to go to the dentist so I can ask him why my jaw cracks and snaps loud enough for my friend beside me to hear it during Korean History class. Guuuh.
I'm sort of positive that it's lending to my headaches.
Yay.

Oh well, one more week, one more week.


BACK TO MY ESSAY!


PS. I'm also posting again so I can get the Queen post off the page, since it seems to be still messing up the layout of my blog. :/
I'm just clever like that. D:

Find me somebody to love...

I was downloading the key word lists on Sunday for my Korean history class when I noticed one of them was titled "Under Pressure:The Opening of Korea and Foreign Pressures in the 1870’s and 1880’s" and that led me to a downloading spree of Queen songs.
I used to listen to Queen when I was really young. I think my favourite song when I was five was "I Wanna Ride my Bicycle," and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." I can distinctly remember sitting in the back seat of our old old car, leaning forward between the front seats where dad was driving and my older sister sat. I remember listening to Queen on a tape on our way to Sudbury. I don't remember why we were going. I mean, we go every year on boxing day, but why was it just me and my sister and dad...? Well, my little sister would have either been just born or at least 1...so that would make sense. The 6-ish hour car ride wouldn't have been a good idea.

I also remember my uncle.

He was the middle of three. Like me.
His looks remind me of that of Freddy Mercury (I think it's the mustache).
I can't remember much of him, but what I do remember is only happiness.
I can remember that he used to chase my older sister and I around my grandparent's house, pretending he was a monster. When he finally caught us, he'd lift us up, flip us around so that we were sitting on his shoulder, he'd then flip us over again and pretend to bite our bums. Then he'd tickle us and we'd laugh and laugh and laugh!

I don't remember when he got sick.
My dad told me last year that he moved to Toronto. He got sick there. They knew he was sick, but no one talked about it. He moved back home when it got really bad. He remembers seeing my grandfather giving my uncle a bath because he was too weak to do it himself.
My dad told me that he remembers the day he got the call. He was in a meeting, but he just left the meeting room without a word. The rest of us drove up soon after.
All we (my sisters and I) were ever told was that he "was very very sick and the doctors couldn't do anything to help him."
I suppose it wouldn't have meant anything to a one, six, and eight year old if you were to tell them that their uncle had died of AIDS. I only learned about 5 years ago.

My dad told me last year that, although the family was accepting of his homosexuality, whenever they spoke of my uncle (if ever), they avoided the cause of his death. I'm not sure why. I suppose it's because I grew up in a drastically different society than them. It's understandable, I suppose.

But I'm so proud of him, and I miss him terribly whenever I hear Freddy Mercury crooning away.
My older sister has seen his name on the AIDS memorial in Toronto.
My uncle was the first Emperor of the Gay and Lesbian community in Toronto, there's a scholarship in his name at the UofT, and every time I remember that, I'm filled with the warmth of the utmost pride in him.

I was reading information about the scholarship and my dad is listed as an honorary winner of the award, and I broke down in tears.

I'm so sad that I didn't get to know him better. I'm so sad that he didn't get to know me. I'm so sad that I'll never know what it would be like to have him as an uncle now. And yet, I'm so happy that he's at peace. I can only imagine the pain he felt, the pain my father still feels when he thinks of him.
When my dad told me about him, we were sitting in Tim Hortons and he almost started to cry. My dad...he's not a crier. He's such a strong, stubborn man.

I just wish, wish I could have known him. Known him as more than the uncle-monster who chased me around the house, biting my bum and tickling me until I couldn't breath.

Can you love a relative you barely knew? I think so.
I'm terrified that I'm disappointing him.

I didn't get a chance to do what I intended to do in the previous post. I waited about 30minutes for the bus in the snow before it showed up, going the opposite way, therefore it would be another 20 minutes until it showed up. I turned around and went back to bed. Really, I would have been severely late for my first class and, as we all know, I hate my afternoon class, am going to fail it and, at this moment in time, don't really give a shit.
So maybe on Monday I'll do some vandalizing.

In other news, I am going to both snap and die.
I am going to snap if only because I'm so insanely stressed right now, and essay due dates are looming, and tests are approaching, and I have yet to apply to post-grad school, and I'm sinking into depression again.
I am going to die because my father has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

My mom is down this weekend and, so far, other than a visit to a friend, this weekend has been complete shite. She's hearing tales of woe from the grandmother who is becoming irritated with me because it appears she wants me to read her mind. Case in point, earlier this evening, my mother came into the back room where I was watching the discovery channel and told me that I should "at least try to be kind." I asked what she was talking about and mom told me "she wanted to sit out here, so you should have read her mind."
Seriously.
Like, really?

So I'm up in my room now. I had gone down to the front room for about 5 minutes, couldn't find anything to watch, gave up reading "The Fat Girl's Guide to Life" but because at the moment I am feeling insanely fat, I gave up and came back up here.

This afternoon at lunch (mom and I had gone out), she told me about my dad (after eying me rather disapprovingly after I ordered a Pepsi). My dad's in denial. Really, we saw it coming. He's big. He's Italian. He eats. That entire side of my family is that way. Hell, at big family dinner's, my Nonna tells me I'm her favorite because I "try at least one of everything." Which is great, it means I have tried and love roasted eggplant and artichokes and other weird, or at least weirdly prepared, vegetables and seafood. But that's also bad, because it's something I've taken into my life as an absolute: food is love.
I know I know I know, I'm supposed to be flabulous. I'm supposed to be loving my body for what it is. But when I'm told by my mom to "just be aware. It can be hereditary" and that now she's "thinking of putting [me] on the same restricted diet" as my dad...well, I smiled and nodded but it felt like she had already put a death sentence over my head.
You know what, I probably do have diabetes. I probably am going to die because of my weight. But I'm also sure in my firm stance that "ignorance is bliss."
I had a friend in highschool. We went out for lunch one day. We were the only two of our group at school, and she was used to going out for lunch with her dad (a teacher at said school) and he was busy. So I volunteered to tag along. I brought my own lunch with me, I just went as company. As a good friend.
She ate her fries with mayo. I had never seen someone do that before. I asked her about it, nervously, but she answered quite calmly and comfortably that, hey, you only live once, so she was going to enjoy every bit of the time she had. I envied her. I sat there and ate my cheese and crackers and wondered why my mom insisted, after I told her about that, that my friend was going to die an early death. Why did my mom have to put that death sentence over her head?

Why does my mom have to put that death sentence over my head?

She told me that my dad is trying to cope, but it's going to be hard because he, like me, is set in his ways.
His second-in-command-type guy at work has type 1, and my mom told me that he told my dad that the first thing to do is not blame yourself. To not tell yourself that it's your fault that you're in this mess. My mom wishes he hadn't told my dad that. She hates it. She, and we, and my dad to probably, know that it is his fault. Our family's relationship with food is a passionate one. It's the Italian, food=love/food=acceptance mentality.
I told my mom that, maybe, for now, it's best that he doesn't blame himself, or he might sink into a depression. My mom agreed, but she's just waiting for him to start blaming her for his situation.
I tried not to say anything.
Really? I'm sorry, but that sounds a little self-centered.
If he doesn't blame himself, then maybe he'll be motivated to make the changes that need to be made! In the end, it's his health that matters, not her sense of blame.

So now my mom wants me to make the same changes. Fine. Sure. Whatever. As long as she's the one who tells that crazy Nazi downstairs about it. The same crazy Nazi who, when her friend was diagnosed, was convinced that the woman wasn't "that sick" and that all she needed to do was stop eating cookies and cake. Sure. Fine. You tell her, mom.

All I've ever been told in my weighty years of life is over-friendly words of "advice."
I just had to eat my fruits, then I'd be fine.
I just had to walk more, then I'd be fine.
I just had to realize that I'm probably doing to get and die from diabetes, then I'd make changes and be fine.
I just had to lose a few pounds, then I'd be "such a pretty girl."
I just have to love myself more, then I'd be fine.

It's the last two, the last two that I've heard from my grandmother and my own mother, so many times, that make me wonder why they even care. I mean, if I'm not good enough by their standards, why even bother mothering me? Taking care of me? Talking to me? Caring about my life?
If I only lost a few pounds, then I'd be so much better in their eyes.

What about my eyes, huh? How can I start loving myself in this toxic environment?
How can I start loving myself ("enough to lose the weight") if their "love" is making me hate myself?


I'm going to die, because I'm fat. There, that's something about me I can accept. Thanks mom.

A small realization to breathe life back into this blog:

I was just watching "Bringing Home Baby" on TLC and I've come to the conclusion that if I EVER have a child (if, IF), I'm only having one. The poor 4 year old just could not cope with having a new sister, it was so sad!
I would never allow a child to loose his or her sense of belonging in my imagined family unit.
One child. Tada! D:

Again, that's IF.

Reading Week

Home.
I'm home for reading weak.
First day back was shitty. I woke up and was told to go make/print off resumes to take to a job fair.
Welcome home.
Then my little sister goes off with her jerk-friends that make her feel like shit but whom she still hangs out with.
The parents and I go out for supper and first I get an iced tea (instead of the coke I asked for) and a completely different salad and sandwich which I don't complain about, because I just don't complain in public.
Then dad plays the "Oh yaaa?!" game and tries to prove that he knows more about the Serbia/Kosovo situation than me. Claiming Serbians are stupid because they're protesting the separation as I try to remind him that, like many of my profs say for different issues, you can't assume an entire people or group is "stupid" or any less intelligent than you, because that's just what they know, it's who they are, and just because that isn't you doesn't make them any less intelligent.
But, see, I'm wrong.
So, unimpressed food-wise.
I go home, all ready to slaughter some civilizations on Age of Empires III, only to discover that I left the game at my grandmothers house.
I have no essays due when I get back (for a while at least) and no major assignments to do, so I had my entire week planned out: playing Age of Empires III until the cows come home. Can't do that now.
And then I put way too much sugar in my tea. And I hate when I do that.
So my little sister had promised me that, since she and her jerk-friends were going to the movie in the small-"city" 45 minutes away nice and early (around 500pm), that she'd be home nice and early and we could watch Girl Interrupted. I had a sinking suspicion that she wouldn't be home, and I was so bored and cold and annoyed that I went to bed at 8:30pm. Turns out her jerk-friends decided on the way to pick up my sister that they weren't going to go to the movie but would, instead, go to the local teams' hokey game. Which meant my sis didn't get home until 11:45, but I was asleep and long gone by then.
I haven't seen my little sister since Christmas, and I was hoping to spend some quality time with her. Now she's off to school every day this week, and I'm left to wish I had my game.

Things have been piling an piling and piling up for the past...um, 5 weeks. Now every tiny little thing gets on my nerves and ARG! It's annoying!

So now I'm bored bored bored and cold cold cold and I usually like the cold, but for some reason I can't seem to warm up here.
Bullocks.
And my dad's being a grade A douche. So that helps. He was nice to me when we were driving from London to here, but then on the drive to go out to eat, he turned 180degrees and has been nothing but rude and douche-baggy to me. Fucking brilliant.
I was going to take the bus this (Sunday) morning, back to London, since I have absolutely nothing to do here. Buuut I was clearly too lazy to do it.
So now, more boredom.
Cheers.