"it's just a minty day"
After three days of carefully studying ten different outlines, I made it past Tuesday's final. Although I still have one more essay to go, I turned in one essay earlier today and am halfway through my last. Unsure as to when I'll actually be done! There's all sorts of variables, namely whether I can connect with my argument in every piece.
Please note this beautiful dog. An Alaskan Malamute.
I am ever so thankful for Therapy Fluffies, and even if I don't
stay long, I treasure them for the few moments of privilege.
Sorry about the lack of a Tuesday post. I did think about it, and it slipped my mind--by the time I realized, it was already midnight. Still trying to do better, to be better, but I also know that I'm a human being. I have the right to make mistakes.
The only issue is, I started this blog to journal. And I'm still practicing journaling, although I still don't know what it means to journal. I have scrapbooking, I have a collection of notebooks meant for half-hearted bullet journal entries and travel writing and writing writing, I mean the kind of writing meant for original characters and fantastical, human worlds and inhuman practices. If journaling made more sense, then the feelings would pour out like all those diary entries I used to write when I was kid, you know, the Disney Princess diary that I still write in near-annually as part as a letter to my younger self.
That may be what journaling is, to me. Letters to my other selves. Future selves, past selves. We're connected by the written word, by shifts in cursive and the nuance of each slant and every doodled gesture. It's hard looking at past entries because I can't help but realize that my issues were so small--yet they meant so much to me when I wrote them. Time passed, the issues faded into near-obscurity, reappearing in smaller waves, yet I still feel their ramifications. Those entries still haunt me.
My past selves still haunt me.
I hope my future self is all right with this. They might not look at each and every post on this blog (I don't at the moment), but they know it exists. They know their words are safe and tucked away into the void of the Internet. This is a time capsule meant for one person.
And that person is me.
This week I shifted my showering routine--I gained more hair volume washing my hair upside down, and I'm trying to figure out whether I like it or not. I'm still getting used to my hair having more freedom. I've always tried to constrain it, but this time around I want to let it breathe. And I do like the volume, so maybe it'll stay. It's not as organized and easy to maintain as I'd like it to be (oh, that's a dream, for curly hair), but it's a start.
In the selfie above that I took Tuesday (when I didn't post), my blouse came from Torrid as part of a Disney collection. It has a nice white collar and delicate details of Bambi and the like. I got it for Black Friday, thank you sweet capitalism.
Leftover Valentine's Day candy from the gifts my apartmentmate received has been really nice. This lollipop came from her students, and since she couldn't finish all the candy, it's been in this collective sharing bin. I really like the collective sweet bowl. No wonder I have memories of excessive candy bowls in any given household.
Five Guys, featuring my apartmentmate's fries and my other
apartmentmate's fondness for seasoning in ketchup.
A well-needed sense of collective memory-making.
Today we had the pleasure of heading out for food. I had to take a break from looking at my essay, another was finished with her finals for the other quarter, and the other needed a brief respite from everything. We all needed that, I think. We all needed time to enjoy ourselves and slow down and remember to be social and awake and responsive.
For me, it's not froyo without the bougie wafer straws.
And cookie dough. And mochi. I love mochi sosososo much.
And after that we headed to our local Yogurtland! We didn't take advantage of Tuesday's $5 8oz special, but that's fine. I could never finish an 8 oz anyway, that's appalling. I eat froyo too slowly for that. What I do love, however, is the plethora of toppings. I won't even deny how wonderful it is to get to delight in indulgent toppings. I have a preference for those over the froyo--they decorate the cup so nicely and give all the pops of color I need to remind me that this world is so wonderful, so beautiful, and full of varying flavors and sweetness.
When we got home we treated ourselves to a face mask. I had to apply it without my glasses on, hence the unequally distributed mask (how did I manage to avoid the area around my lips). Provided by my apartmentmate, the mask itself had a lovely minty smell to it. I'm glad my apartmentmates invest in Lush products, as they're often pleasant and feel really nice after constant emotional turmoil and stress. The Mask of Magnaminty includes Kaolin clay, peppermint oil, aduki beans, and evening primose seeds, and while it was slightly oily and clumpy, I still enjoyed washing it off my face. That was the best part.
Please treat yourself sometimes. That's all I ask.
