Bakudo

I want to give up ... not that that has ever or will ever be an option, obviously. But, seriously, after so long of 'giving it my best' only to come up with the same sub-standard mediocrity, I'm really finding it difficult to muster the motivation to keep this shitship afloat. I mean, it really is just a matter of incompetence. There are smarter ways I can study but I, the perpetually stubborn fool, can never accept it until the water reaches up to my neck.

...fuck off

Strange Days

Good morning
Don't cop out
You crawled from the cancer to land on your feet
Are you crazy...
To want this...
Even for a while?

The first verse of "Strange Days" by Matthew Good Band seems to be especially poignant of late. I think I'm finally feeling the initial burnout period after studying for far too long. Some stat (though one that was most probably biased) said that 73% of pharmacists aren't happy with job/career. How hilarious would it be if, after a near decade in studying, that I fall under the percentage. I might seem like a pessimistic guy but I really do try to stick things out even when things seem bad at first. Of course, now that I've tried that strategy a few times, hindsight does seem to indicate that for majority of the time a passive waiting approach really does jack-shit for me. Blah blah blah, please spare me the bullshit platitudes about taking initiative, if you think this type of "general advice" is anything remotely novel to me, I'd humbly submit that you should gracefully go fuck yourself.

Well anyway, it's a great song, one that I've been listening to for well over a decade, and I can actually sing it relatively well (imo). I'm still surprisingly motivated enough to wake up at 7 to catch a ride with my aunt to the subway (no pleb bus for me in the morning woo). I just hope desperately that I can last through the next two months.

I wish I wasn't here.

A futile maneuver

For the past bit, whenever I go to restaurants or coffee shops, I get this weird feeling when I look around. What I see is very run-of-the-mill: normal people eating, families with young children and grandparents, young couples smiling and enjoying each other's company. And I see myself, in a similar position, eating with my own family or friends (um... not the couple one, obviously). It's a strange notion, that I'm just sitting there, stuffing my face with this food, paid for by this money that, by some great miracle, seems to exist as my own property. It's a strange notion because beyond the restaurant walls, there's an entire world that is characterized by strife and tragedy. There are people out there who would count themselves lucky enough to eat three relatively substantial meals with less than the cost of my single meal, people out there who call pizza once a month a luxury, people out there caught in the midst of war, some of whom may even simply cease to exist before I can finish my meal. And, yet, despite all that, I sit there maneuvering the airplane into my mouth so I can satiate some inane physiological desire. Not just me, not just this particular establishment, but this scene multiplied by every similar iteration on the planet. It is as if we all share in a communal idle, enacting this collective apathy to the world just outside the front doors that seal us in our comfortable seclusion, to a world that, in fact, desperately needs our collective effort to pull it through to tomorrow. And yet, we sit and wait for our meals like ignorant children, unwilling to accept the harsh realities that permeate the lives of so many of our fellow compatriots. And, of course, in my oh-so-typical style, I just sit there like the best of them and, while my mind futilely flashes these impressions to me, I lack the spine to follow those things my heart seems to exclaim with all its might. Like a good little boy, I eat my fucking noodles, with a tinge of guilt ... but that's for damn sure not gonna help anyone. So say we all!

Goodbye, trees

Now that majority of the deciduous leaves have converted from their typically green dispositions, I can finally say with certainty that fall has indeed arrived. The season has a different feeling this time around; there's a more definite sense of conclusion. While my body aches from yoga, my mind aches for my unceasing academic career to end (or at least take a break of a few years). Although that time is coming very soon, I've been around this university long enough to say with certainty that it will not just go gently into the night. It will thrash, it will tear, and it will try to consume every last piece of my soul before finally being cast by my final strike. Assured is my victory but I still am not looking forward to the very imminent strife. The falling leaves remind me that time is indeed still progressing at its usual unrelenting pace. They remind me that tomorrow is coming and will always just be around the corner. When I see these downed leaves, it also strikes me that this may be one of the last times I can really experience this season in this city as comprehensively as I do right now. In a way, those leaves might very well be the final goodbyes from those trees. 

Quite poetic for some fucking leaves right?