Absence of contents, nothingness, emptiness

Same old semester

2006-08-28T00:04:00.000-07:00

About to start again the semester. Tomorrow I have to teach classes, and the most scariest thing of all: I will meet my advisor again, after all this summer in which I worked nothing. The psychologist suggested to increase the prozac to 60mg/day, so I guess that the anxiety is really showing up (or they are really "prescription"-easy with this kind of medication, who knows).

Yesterday I went to a dinner organized by a professor, with several grad students and postdocs, as a way to reconnect before starting the semester. Oh my, it took me so much "get your ass up and go" to myself..., didn't want to go. At the end it wasn't so bad, I could even speak a couple of times without thinking to myself that I was making the most ridicule act. But after the dinner I felt happy to return to my cozy loneliness. I don't want to be around people, really. It makes me anxious.

Sometimes I like posts in other blogs which contribute with links to stuff of similar "flavor". So, if you like comics you may like (or you probably already know) the great Pearls Before Swine (hats off to Stephan Pastis, the author).

B

2006-08-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

I don't know if blogging is my thing, it takes me a lot of effort to decide to write a post. Anyway, there has been same changes. Finally, I passed a course with a B, hey! Hurray! Fuck. It wasn't nice, but at least now I know how it feels. This summer has been pathetic, I didn't study for the course and I totally stopped any advance for my thesis. Every day is a continuous stream of guilt.

The medication is not helping at all, I guess I'll have to talk to the doc and see if he can change it. However, I started sessions with a psychologist, only one session so far. He diagnosed "anxiety" and some "endogenous depression". The "anxiety" part surprised me a bit, I have never thought of me as an anxious person, but after he explained it to me it looked a good diagnostic.

On a very different note, I started studying music. I think it may help to fight the void from inside. I had some musical instruction when I was a child but I never followed it. This summer I bought a harmonica and tried to start learning. I found it a bit difficult, and the music for what the harmonica is most suited is not really my style (blues and so on). It is a really portable and cheap instrument, though. After that I bought a basic keyboard, not so portable, but cheap anyway. That is more of my taste, now I can learn more music theory and I have been enjoying it for a while. I know that I have no talent at all, so I hope that the anxiety and the self pushing in this activity doesn't get too hard.

And on another very different note, some days ago I found a page which I visited a long time ago, but now I gave it more attention. It is a constructed language called toki pona. It only has 118 words and it's supposed to express only the most basic things in life. I'm reading the lessons and trying to express things with this language. I found it really calming, soothing.

o pona!

Donde la claridad misma es noche oscura

2006-07-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

The title of the post is the title of a book from a latin-american writer, I haven't figured out an english phrase which transmit the same degree of despair as the spanish title. Any sugestion is welcome. Hey people, write some comments, will you?, it's lonely here..

By the way, last time I wrote I was expecting, and somehow feeling, the effects of the prozac. I though it was starting to work on me. But oh my, was I more wrong? Not only it hasn't worked, but I'm feeling more depressed than before. I feel void, never the title of this blog was more accurate, heck. I have stopped any writing of my thesis, and the course I'm taking this summer is going not too good, to say the least.

It seems like if anything I do, I don't get any pleasure from it. That's one of the symptoms of the depression, I know, but hey, why doesn't the medication work? For a concrete experience: say I'm at home and I start thinking what nice would it be to go to the nearest bookstore, drink a capuccino, browse over some books, maybe buy a couple of books I may find interesting, spend some leisure time. Then, I go to the bookstore. And it happens that the reverse thinking occurs to me: I long to go back to home, and rest, and watch some tv and maybe read some book (isn't that ironic). But I know when I get back to home the reality will not be as I imagine. And that closes the circle.

I think it is clear that I want to escape from me. But everywhere I go, I am there, no escape, only the expectation of escaping, that's the only time I feel some relief. But, by definition, it is transitory. Pretty gloomy post, huh? Well, that's the topic of this blog.

The joy of summer

2006-05-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

What were you doing? Why don't you post more often? I ask myself, since according to the statistics not too many people read this blog (although there were some interesting comments in the past). Well, I was hoping and waiting for the prozac to kick in, the doctor increased the dosis to 40 mg, but I haven't felt anything too much different. I wonder if I'd be inmune to this medication, other people seem to enjoy it a lot more.

Anyway, I'm about to start the summer term in this fucking town and more fucking university. I still have to complete some courses, which means the usual stress to pass with A, and it also means having to talk with people and to move around the big masses of students happily walking between classes, thinking in their bright future, dreaming in the wonderful and easy life after they graduate from such a "prestigious" university. How I hate them, man. How I hate their big trucks (you know of which college and town I'm talking about, right?). Hey, if nobody read this what's the point of anonymity?

By the way, the experiment of passing a course with B or C failed. And as usual the satisfaction lasted a microsecond, while I'm still wore out, sad and defeated. But cheer up my dear me, there are still oportunities, some classes still to take, and most of all, we can still fail in the decisive moment of defending my thesis. Or easier, I can fail to write it! (which is more or less what is happening...).

Prozac, not Plato!

2006-05-04T21:09:00.000-07:00

On a not so unrelated topic to the previous post, I finally went to the doctor and told him: "hey, I'm depressed." "Ok, here you have some prozac", he said. Heck, it was too easy. Or perhaps I was really convincing that my symptoms were fucking my life. Well, if you think that it took me years to have the strength to go and to say "I'm depressed", that is probably a strong enough symptom. But I haven't felt any change, this is already my third week on this stuff. I wonder if the dosis is too low, or if I have to wait (I heard it takes several weeks to produce some effect), or even if I need some stronger kind of antidepressant. Sometimes I think in taking more than one capsule. I haven't done it. But how would it be like to take 5 capsules? 20mg times 5 = 0.1g. What would be to take 0.1g of prozac? The answer is probably one google search away, but I have resisted the temptation of looking for information about this thing. I don't want to know of side effects or so, I only want that it works. I also wonder how would it be mixing prozac and marijuana, but that is just a rethoric question, as you would notice if you read the previous post.

Weed

2006-05-04T15:24:00.000-07:00

There was a time, last year, when I went back to my country for a congress. I really didn't want to go, conferences are a lot of stress for me, too much people, relations, meeting my old fellow grad students, sharing hotel rooms... But I had to go. Then something weird happened. Every day, after the activities of the congress, we went out for beers. In those nights I discovered that most of my peers smoked marijuana. Man, how can I be so outsider?!? How can I be so blind? I had spent lot of time around them, mostly around the university, and although I'm not close friend with most of them, we had been in bars, pubs and parties (yes, sometimes I go to parties to suffer). I know them from almost ten years! Did you want a proof of my social skills? Here you have.

But the weirdness continues. They invited me to smoke, that was my first time I tried a drug. It felt really good, and I kept doing it almost every day for the two weeks that lasted the conference. The funny thing was that I started to feel less anxious around them, around the people. I felt that some kind of connection made a click between their group and me, and I could fit. That's the exact word, I fitted. And it wasn't only a subjective impression on my side, but some of them said farewell to me with a "hey, ... we really enjoyed these weeks with you". Can you believe it? I was astonished. Ok, I read later that everything may be an effect of the weed, but what the heck, I wish I'd be permanently stoned if that is one the symptoms.

The brighter vision of the world remained for a month after I returned to the US. Then, it started to fade out. And the worst part is that I'm incapable to get weed. How can you do it when you have no contacts, when you don't have anyone to ask where to find these kind of things? I guess that after you make a contact the rest is probably not difficult, but that first part is the most difficult for me. I have wandered sometimes around bars, trying to smell if somebody is smoking, so I could ask him or her (pathetic, huh?). But I'm blind, I probably won't get any result, judging from my previous lack of intuition. I've even had dreams about smoking pot again... oh, man. Let's stop here.

Any comments?

2006-04-09T22:34:00.000-07:00

Long time no see, huh? I had forgotten about the therapeutic effect of this blog. The last posts tried to be more or less well crafted, they took some time, and they were written not because of pure fun but thinking in the (possible) readers. If you have read this blog from the beginning you probably remember that I have a strong tendency to worry about what people think of me. Now I'm trying to recover some of the good feelings that I got after writing the firsts posts, fresher posts, without hitting the "delete" key as I said in very first, almost incoherent, post.

I've received some comments in previous writings. Although I'm a not so well socially adapted person, although I have fear of people and friendship and interpersonal relations, I must confess that I feel exhuberant when I find that someone made a comment. Wow, I think, someone read this babbling and felt it worth to make a comment! Well, half of the time they are just spammers who said "great blog, you surely get a bookmark", and I believe it (how pathetic, isn't it) until I click on the name of the commenter and I walk into some porn or so. Oh well...

But sometimes is real people. And (warning: more pathetic things coming) I feel really good, for a moment at least. I get back to read the post and the comments several times during the day, until gloomier feelings and the usual depression kicks in again. So, is it people and relations the cure for depression? Is it talking and sharing good remedies? Ah, who cares. Too much effort. I always liked some lyrics from Pink Floyd, The wall, that say: "I don't need no arms around me" (*).

The arms around me feel good and warm, though. Ok, too much contradictions for now. And since I'm exercising the "write it for fun" rule I think I'll stop here.
There was a short time when I was happy among people, with some little not so virtuous help. That's for next post, stay tuned.

(*) Update: Pink Floyd, The Wall, Another Brick in the Wall Part 3.

A day in the life

2006-03-15T13:57:00.000-08:00

Do you want to enjoy a typical day in my life? At least these empty days in spring break are like this. Come with me, over here, please. Sit and enjoy:

11:15AM: I wake up, sleepy, want to keep sleeping.
11:30AM: Turn on laptop and put the kettle on for tea.
11:45AM: Turn on TV and look for cartoons or similar things (actually I'm watching a lot of "Between the lions"). Start bouncing between reading blogs, mailing lists, feeds, watching the TV, sipping the tea. Dream about the whole day I have in front of me. I do this until I finish my tea.
12:15AM-17:00PM: Repeat previous routine (without the tea) over and over.
17:00PM-18:00PM: Lunch break, with net and TV, of course.
...3:00AM: the same, you get the idea.
3:00AM: go to bed, read a little.

After the day is gone I worked nothing. I feel guilty, empty. I got nothing from the day. Well, it's spring break, you may say. Yes, but I was planning to use the extra time to do some work, and my plans are crushed by my worst enemy (what a cliche, huh?).

Lately, last weeks, the (self inflicted)-pressure to finish the dammed phd has increased. I've been feeling physical problems, shortness of breath, things like that. I went to the doctor, something that it is not easy for me, and even more difficult when I know that the examination may involve taking off my shirt (refer to this post). They ran several tests and x-rays. It seems that it's just stress (another cliche, aren't you bored?).

Ok, to honor the spirit of this week, as if I care... but, heck, here it goes. Contrary to the title of this blog, I have one "good" thing to say about this holidays: I read usually at bed, before going to sleep. I (re)discover the pleasure to read during the day, several hours straight. At the end, after reading, I worked nothing, as in the previous schedule, but I feel less guilty. Actually reading: "Geek love", very good. Anyway, the good stuff is the exception to the rule.

Drawing dogs

2006-03-01T14:00:00.000-08:00

Words I can write are probably not enough to recommend the drawings of Sam Brown (explodingdog.com). Take a look at the loneliness, sadness, and sometimes cruelty of some of the characters. All with an immense human touch, even tough most characters are just stick men (I wish I could draw stick men like that, sigh..).

In a nutshell, Sam picks common phrases and makes a drawing inspired on them. Some of my favourites:

Bloody homeworks

2006-02-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

The reason for the "bloody" expression is that I watched a Monty Python special this week (fabulous show). I have to watch again some of their movies, I think the holy grail is next on my list.

Anyway, I have been thinking about to avoid spending a lot of time in my homework this semester, and to concentrate in the research, to see if I can finish this bloody phd sometime. These last weeks I gave it a try. It doesn't feel too good, sadly. When I neglect to do some exercise because I don't want to think hard, I end up with the confirmation that I'm stupid. And although I really believe that I'm not intelligent, I don't want to see it written in paper with the form of a "B". But at the end, does it really worth to spend a lot of effort in the courses to pass with "A"?. Let's see if I can manage to pass a course with "B", let's see if that leaves more time for my research work, and let's see what I think about myself after that. An interesting experiment... But I'm afraid of the result.

House, M.D.

2006-02-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

And now, for something different, not so introspective... I love the TV show "House". I love to see how miserable (in his own words) the character is. I really like how he hurt himself. One of his friends (actually, I think the only one) told him something like "You think that being miserable puts you above the rest of the people, but it just makes you miserable". Great, just fucking great. I think House knows that, and that makes the dialog even greater. Recommended.

Follow the light

2006-01-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

Some days since the last post... The thing is that one or two more or less good events happened. But those things do not belong to this blog, right?, just look at the title. The truth is that when good (or more precisely, just "normal") things seem to be working well, I don't feel exactly like myself. It's hard to describe. It's like I feel more comfortable, more "me", when surrounded by some kind of penumbra or shadow. Of course I don't like the complete obscurity, or pain, or anything like that. I don't think I'm a masoquist. It's just that when things are going well there is some sense of fragility, something is going to break. I cannot stand the uncertainess. When things are "down", they are more stable, if you are lying on the floor you cannot fall further.

I remember the first time I discover this kind of characteristic of myself (or perhaps it was when my depression started to kick, how can I tell?). I was very down, thinking I was going to fail an exam that I was taking. The exam ran on two days, different tests in each day. After the first day I thought I had done very poorly, and it was going to be the first failed exam in my life. I went home that night and I tried to cheer up with a funny book, one of those which make you laugh loud. It didn't work, it made me feel worse, "unstable". Then, I tried to watch TV, something funny again, and it also didn't work. Finally, I took the most depressing book I found on the shelves at home, and it worked! I didn't feel happy or anything, but I felt very calm, in control of myself, it was even better than feeling happy. I don't understand why, it may be some kind of psyc problem, I don't know, but such kind of of books or movies or music still produce the same effect on me (by the way, if you are reading this, if by some chance you understand what I'm trying to write, and you have some suggestions for books/movies/music, you are welcome to write them in the comments; someday I'll post some of my favourites).

The worst thing was that I not only didn't fail the exam, I passed with great grades. So, back to the bright light, and back to wait and long for darker and more stable times. Since those times, the oscilations have been continuous.

Anyway, I wanted to post about the not so good events (that also happened, obviously, in addition to the "good" ones) in the last week, but this is going too long. I'll save it for the next post.

A matter of skin

2006-01-11T21:48:00.000-08:00

I suppose I'm still in the phase "know me better", explaining myself, giving some context. Here it goes a bit more of me, have pity..

I'll write here something I don't tell to anybody. Since I was young, a teenager, I suffer from an acute case of acne. So strong it is, that I have concealed from anyone else since those times. Of course I interact with people, I'm probably seen as a more or less normal person, though a bit of a loner, but heck, they probably say, he's harmless. I don't have much acne in my face, when I'm dressed you can't notice anything particular. The worst of my problem is in my back and torax. This has prevented me to undress in front of anyone, and gradually, it has moved from a physical problem to a more psychological problem. I'm always afraid that people invite me to go swimming, or to the beach, or to some activity that involve taking my t-shirt. The consecuence of this is that it adds up in a negative way to the social inabilities that I always had.

I grew up in a city whose main business is the beach, in a country where the only thing that people do in summer, in the vacations, is to spend the whole day in the beach. Can you imagine the number of excuses I had to invent to avoid the perpetual invitations to "go to the beach"? Fucking words, how I hate them!

I have grown so used to this that I cannot put in words how much this problem has screwed me. But it has colaborated in great and permanent ways to my self steem (refer to the previous posts). It is probably not so uncommon, but I never met anyone with the severity of my symptons. Can you believe I'm more than thirty years old and I still have acne?!?

Well, many missing points, still, to explain, but I got tired. One funny image at the end, though: do you rememeber the "never nude" character of Tobias in Arrested Development?

How long did it take?

2006-01-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

The previous post is still there, it do looks stupid to me, but still... I'll delete it later.

Few minutes ago, rereading the previous post and thinking about today's date, I realized (with terror and desperation I must say) that it's going to be more than twelve years since I started studing in the university!!!! You could say that if I'm thirty something it must be more than twelve. Well, I started college later than the usual age. Even that is something to not be proud of. But heck, thinking about the time spent on this is crazy. And the worst part is that I still have yet some years to go, I cannot see the end. I work, a bit, or try to work anyway, but sooooo slowly, every day slower and slower. And more of the worst part: all this time I want to finish the phd for what? I suppose I'm thinking there is some kind of prize at the end of the line, or that the day after I finish a bright world full of possibilities is going to open in front of me. But I also know it's not going to be like that. It's going to be more of the same. And that if I'm lucky...

You may ask why I don't quit. That reminds me I wanted to write about another big, huge, defect I have. I mentioned earlier that it scares the most of me to make a bad impression on people. To complement that, I have the lowest self steem you may imagine. There is probably somebody with lower self steem than myself, I'm sure, I cannot be that good at having low self steem. See... there it is the self demotion at work...

Ok, but I brought this to explain that I cannot quit my phd because I'm terrified at what my advisor, my colleagues, my old teachers, everybody, will think of me. They will think I'm an idiot, and I will believe them. Currently, they think I'm somewhat good, I have managed to struggle through courses and things like that, although I don't understand how is that they don't notice I'm not doing the work I'm supposed to be doing, research, papers, stuff like that. Well, I'm good at misleading them... But the thing is, if at some point, they open their eyes and see what I am, and if they tell me that, then...

Oh man, these posts are too long. If I continue this I'll write them in smaller chunks, you know, so that you don't get bored and leave.. ;-)

Inaugural post

2006-01-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

What a crazy moment when I decided to open this! I'm feeling so shity. I promised myself I was going to write without hitting the backspace key. I'm not doing it, but I'm trying. Be warned, as the description of the blog says, to find nothing but babbling, and worse.. in bad english. You have been warned!

Anyway, I'm writing, I think I would read something like this, I like to read about depressed people, not to feel myself better but to know there are more people like this shit I am. You have been warned, do you want to leave now? Go ahead, be my guest. One of the worst defects I have is to always try to make a good impression on people. I want to see if I can be more sincere here. I want to know if writing, or babbling, or whatever, helps me. I don't even know if I will write again, but heck, here it goes.

Well, to say something about me, I'm a thirty something years old male, still a graduate student in a relatively good university, people say, but in the probably worst town of this damn country (hey fbi, are you reading every ip packet that goes by? you have the date, the ip, ask the provider, you can identify everyone, fear rules this country...) Ok, I even hate this university, everything that surrounds it. Forgot to say that I'm depressed, at least autodiagnosed, since I haven't had the courage to see a doctor . People say that I'm not dumb, but from long time ago I cannot work, my reasoning slips, like when you hit the gas in the car but some malfunctioning makes it move slowly, you hit harder and it moves a bit faster but still way out of what it should...

And here I am, writing this, trying to empty myself, instead of working, I have the paper in front of me but I can't. Procrastination they call it, but in my case I think there are deeper causes, which I can't find, fuck! Ok, now I'm not hitting backspace, there you have it, even in this (semi)anonymous media I'm feeling afraid of hurting feelings. Feelings of who? Of you, reader! How fucked I am!

Ok, I'm going to post this without rereading. I'm sure tomorrow it will look to me like a stupidity, but anyway... I can delete it tomorrow. Oh, mighty google, would you index this for the benefit of some poor soul, similar to me, who likes to read about the misfortunes of others...