I have had one of the best weeks in a long time. I've just been happy. Very happy. If there was one thing I've always hated about being a teenager, it's the drama. I've rarely found myself in the centre of drama but for some reason, I tended to surround myself with people who were. For once in my life, there's no trouble. I've found a place that I'm content in... I've never been more care-free!

I know that, in studying Art & Design, we are expected to all have the same goal - to create art that means something to you or that you think others will find meaning in, but I can't help but feel like a cheater. Surely these mindless "works of art" that we are told to create in art college are not representations of what we are capable of. I always considered myself as someone with a fairly vivid imagination- I want to make use of the fact that my mind hasn't (yet) deteriorated to the size of a grape - that I know the difference between "effect" and "affect", that I care about more than what Lindsay Lohan got up to on her latest night out. At some points in my life, art was the only consistency ...but if I hold it so close to me, why do I feel less and less interested by the day?

I don't want to spend all my life trying to find out if I'm meant to do something or not, only to wake up one day and realise that half my life has already passed me by. I want to experience different places, meet interesting people, fall in love and be spontaneous. When I was 15 I wanted to write, at 16 I wanted to teach, at 17 I wanted nothing more than to paint and now, at 18, I only want to live my life and not be as obsessed with "normal" as the rest of the world. After all, "Too much consistency is as bad for the soul as it is for the body".

What happened to the days when we could just be happy? Open your eyes and stop looking to the future. It just seems like everyone has their lives planned out 10 years in advance. Go with the flow. Don't waste your life planning and scheduling, just live it.

I'm happy lately. I'm learning to look at life from the outside. That's the key, I think... the ability to see your life from a perspective other than your own. Pick the five things you treasure the most and picture yourself without them. Push the petty worries and inconveniences to the side and focus on what's left. If you have a family, you're blessed. If you have a home, food, friends... you are blessed. If you lived in the Central African Republic right now, you could expect to live to about age 43 and there is a 14% chance you would have AIDs. I'm sick to death of people I know complaining about how horrible their lives are. People can be so selfish and ungrateful. YOU ARE NOT AS UNFORTUNATE AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.

 I've been so calm, so stress-free for the last few months. My philosophy in life has always been to do what makes me and others happy, and that's all that matters. But I can't keep living in the moment and having a great time without consequences. I am so stressed right now. All the little things I've been ignoring are piling up. So much is happening. 

I had my first ever fight with a friend last month. I've been putting it to the side, ignoring it and ignoring how much it hurt but damn, it really did and it continues to. I know I did the right thing but "moving on" shouldn't neccessarily mean pushing all your troubles to the side, should it? I feel like, ever since, i've been a little more paranoid. I have some of the greatest friends in the world but I can't help but sometimes put up a shield. Why act weak when you can act strong and independant and tell nobody how you're actually feeling? ...It's such a bad way of living. 

Also, exams are taking their toll. I've been so content with my life this past year that my education has gone a little, how do i put this nicely... adrift. My original plan was to aim high in English, Art and perhaps French... Do ok in Geography and RST, and pass irish and maths. I don't know if that's the agenda anymore. I'm so petrified of failing math. I used to think I was so amazing at it back in 3rd year (big honours head on me), aced the junior cert exam, then when transition year hit, it all went out the window. I realised I really don't have the mind for logic at all so I focused onthe strengths I knew I had... won a poetry award, the school art award and basically focused on those two subjects. Lost complete intrest in maths, science, business... anything that required no creativity whatsoever. And here I am, scared shitless at the thought of failing maths and therefore, failing my leaving cert.

9.30 tomorrow morning folks, wish me luck. 

 

“One day You will take my heart completely and make it more fiery than a dragon. Your eyelashes will write on my heart the poem that could never come from the pen of a poet.”

-Jalal ad-Din Rumi
 

Technology is just so fast these days.

I've been feeling rather bad for the last few weeks but, regardless of the fact that I didn't finish my math exam in time, I'm in a better mood today. I feel really good actually.

I hate how my life has completely stopped for exams and everyone else keeps moving on. I was never one to follow the crowd but at the same time, I don't want to be left behind.

It's been too long since I've wrote anything, but I can't bring myself to pick up a pen. I don't want my thoughts to fade into obscurity but my life is just moving too fast at the moment for me to stop and think.

When everything else is crap, animate your stationary.