June 2022

June 5, 2022: The trip back home

I'm back in my family home. What a trip it was... where to begin. Let's see. 3 days before the trip I sprained my ankle in a bus. I'm pretty sure this was my first time to twist an ankle, so I didn't know what to expect pain wise, whether it was broken etc. I was really frustrated at first because it just had to happen 3 days before the trip. Luckily, it healed well enough by that day that I could walk without limping, and that I could even run a bit... Running was much needed because my first flight was an hour and half late, even more. I was supposed to have a 2hr 40 layover so you can see why the need for running was there. During the first flight that was 4 hours long I was mostly fidgeting and my anxiety was through the roof. I managed to tire myself enough to fall asleep for a bit but as soon as I saw the time and that my boarding was starting in 20 mins and we were only just descending more anxiety came in. Now, I was well prepared to have to stay a night and get on the next flight, and it's not like it would have been the end of the world, but I was mostly scared for my luggage which wasn't with me and of course the hassle of having to organise and complain and request and etcetcetc. The flight landed 10 minutes before boarding, and I was filled with optimism. Then, instead of putting that tunnel that connects the plane with the gate we had buses, so my optimism quickly left me. There were 2 and I got into the fuller one, hoping it would leave first as I've had that experience before. It seemed they waited for both of the buses to fill and I saw how frustrated everyone was. It seemed as if everyone there had a connecting flight they were about to miss. One of them in particular, this 2m tall and huge (as in buff? large? not fat, really intimidating) middle-aged american dude in a suit was asking for a driver and joking around the bus asking if anyone would like to volunteer to drive a bus. I asked him if he has the same layover as me to find myself someone to stick to, but sadly he didn't. I told him about my connecting flight and he jokingly said I'd probably have to deal with the fact I'll be sleeping and sightseeing the city I was in. However he helped me get to the correct gate, so bless his heart and his light-heartedness as it really calmed my nerves. By the time we reached the airport I didn't know what to expect anymore, it was 2 mins before the gates for my flight would close and I still had to go through security. After security I heard the american dude yell to me "you'll be fine" and I finally got to see the little scheduled flights monitor, the boarding for my flight was delayed by 15 mins and it hadn't even started yet. Finally I could pee after holding it in the whole last flight, and I managed to get on the flight, sweaty, but relieved. Then another thought occured to me. I have made it, but has my luggage made it with me? I left that anxiety for later though, as I was too tired to function at this point. I read a book a bit and relaxed. I think the flight was 1.5-2hrs long, I can't even tell anymore. When we landed I went to the baggage claim. It took really long for the baggage to come out but after like 45 mins it finally started rolling out. So I waited. And waited. At the end there were 5 of us around the baggage claim, two of which I recognized to have been with me in the first flight, so I asked them to confirm. They said yes. The other pair was also from the same late flight. I said I'll go speak to the lost and found and report back with all the info I receive, to make it easier for them since all of them were foreigners in this country. I was a bit relieved to have not been the only one to not get my baggage though, as it confirmed what I was anxious about - the baggage just didn't make it to this flight, as it was super late. I spoke to the guy at the lost and found and he filled up a form with me regarding my baggage. He said it's good that there's only 5 of us and that the baggage will arrive to our home addresses (or wherever these tourists were staying). The rest of the day I proceeded to read about lost baggage and how it works, I was getting prepared for the worst, even though the statistics were in my favour. The next day I received the call and the baggage arrived pretty quickly to my home address. Luckily I only live 40 mins from the airport. And to top it all of, for the whole duration of this adventure (and now, still) the right side of my face is a bit swollen because my wisdom tooth is growing and my jaw is killing me. What an event huh. I learned my lesson, never have short layovers, or take a direct flight. I already had a late flight with a short layover before, I don't know why I repeated the same mistake again...

June 10, 2022: shitty, toxic, ultra close, almost gay female friendships

Today I felt like reminiscing a bit. I was reading the manga thread on lc yesterday, and I came across a post about Nana and this part caught my eye:

Most importantly, I like the focus on female relationships. It's a weirdly unprobed subject in manga; where are the shitty, toxic, ultra close, almost gay female friendships?

First of all, this is indeed an underexplored concept in manga and I wish there were more of it. Rarely will a friendship be the focus as opposed to a romantic relationship, yet friendships can be way more intense and dramatic in a different way, coupled with weird dynamics. Second of all, which is what I'll mainly be writing about here, is my own experience with a friendship like this. Why is this experience so universal? I was around 12, and it was the summer I started listening to pop-punk. A classmate of mine came back from a family vacation and randomly asked me to hang out with her. We never hung out much before, so this was kind of out of nowhere. It's so funny when you think about it, how easy it is to make friends in middle school. Anyway, by total chance, she started listening to the same music I did during that summer vacation and we bonded over it hardcore. For the first few months, it was just me and her. Exploring random places, sitting and talking near the train tracks and watching the trains pass by as we stood way too close. Hanging out at her house and sleeping over. I spent all of my free time with her. Soon after, she started introducing me to a lot of people. She was extremely extroverted, I was the shy lost puppy always following her. Despite her having and making so many friends, she would always turn back to me for my advice (lol) and rant to me about her "friends" and the latest drama and rumors. I followed her wherever she went to, but I was often left ignored by her flavor of the week friends. It didn't bother me much, because I was only there for her. I wanted to look cool for her. Only I went to her house to sleep over and film funny videos on our matching Sony Ericsson W910i's. In my mind, I was strangely possesive of her although I never expressed it. I'm not sure whether I would call it a full blown crush. Mainly because I've never experienced such intense feelings for a girl ever again. She was very much the type of "I'd kiss a girl in front of guys for attention and edgyness" type of alt (well back in those days, just punk not alt) girl, and yeah, I kind of wished that was me. The first two boyfriend's I've had - one of the reasons I dated them was to keep closer to her. Amidst me crushing on her though, I've come to realize she's not all that. Sometimes it seemed as if she put her flavour of the week friends over me, and that she would come running to me when she got bored of them. She didn't have a strong personality of her own, rather she just copied whoever she was hanging out with currently to a ridiculous degree. I was the only one who noticed, as I was the only one that stuck around long enough. Fashion style, speech patterns, the way in which she used social media, music and specific bands she was into, lace code, specific subcultures, haircuts, hair color - all of those changed a multitude of times over the 2 years we've been best friends. She would always choose to copy the most popular person of the group to impress them. She was very pliable. Attention-starved. I knew that would lead to trouble eventually. And just like that, I was out of her life, and she was out of mine. My feelings were brief and she no longer had an interest in me once she realized how much attention she can get from men, and how much comfort she can get from drugs, as opposed to me. We went to become total strangers in high school and I've only talked to her once since then.

June 24, 2022

I slept over at my friends house yesterday. Had a great time as usual. Her brother showed us a teen show he helped produce (he works for a production company) for some popular teens magazine. As usual I feel like these teens magazines, just like in my time, cater to mostly tweens that want to imagine what being a teen is like. Anyway, since the production value was high and good quality the show is kind of well made but the plot is.. wow. It's like our domestic attempt at Euhphoria kind of. I think the slang (which is something these "teen shows" can never get right) is actually okay-ish but incredibly hard to listen to nonetheless. But what shocked me the most was the setting of the show. It was set in what seems to be an extremely fancy private school in our country which is just kind of wow to me. We're not a very rich country and I assume this shit is not representative of like 95% of our school kids and how their school experience is. Most kids here go to normal public schools. Not to mention the way they dressed the high school students in heels and really skimpy outfits, it really seems Euphoria inspired except it comes across as extremely bougie because of the setting i.e. well they get to dress like that and not follow the rules because their parents are dirty rich (most likely because of political corruption)! Because of that the setting leaves a bad taste in my mouth as all characters are automatically assumed to be spoiled and privileged. It's extremely unrelatable and I wonder if the kids will eat it up. The plot is about a transfer student from the UK coming to study in that private school and befriending a group of """outsiders""" through a huge NLOG main female character with the obligatory abusive bf. Drama and love triangles ensue. Oh and their hang out spot is the NLOG's basement that her parents (or idk who) are planning to turn into a gym which makes her very bummed out :(. I love how she described the schools obligatory mean girl bully as "rich" when anyone in that school is probably filthy rich already lol... It's extremely hard to like a cast that's in a totally different caste of society almost yet they're kind of shown to us to be "relatable" or whatever, and I guess it hits especially hard because it's so geographically close.