date: 3 jan 24
time: 7:20pm
eating & drinking: bell shaped chocolates
feeling: Swiss prairie on fire (arson)
- quote found on pinterest: “art and love are the same thing: it’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you - critic Chuck Klosterman”
- happy new year!
- XXX keeps calling me in the middle of the night. I learnt how to wake up at the vibration of my phone. Sometimes I even wake up before he calls. I tell him he needs to chill out. Seriously. I listen and listen to him and melt my brain away to try and say something constructive until dawn. I tell him I'm always here. Everything is fine. I love him a lot and I worry a lot. I let him hang up.
date: 4 aug 23
time: 6:00pm
eating & drinking: fruit salad
feeling: zzzzzz
Went to the tailors to fix some clothes. Every time I go they give me a small square pink paper with a number on, it’s thin like the page of a newspaper, I keep it in my wallet or it gets disintegrated in 30 minutes. I went to the fabric shop too, on the -1 floor they have tons of cool scraps in huge chests, even silk. I bought a very light, pale blue piece of silk one year ago, just enough for a short skirt, but I’m still nervous to actually sew it, since I’ve never sewed anything but beyond easy things. The city is really silent now. Barely any cars around
date: 29 july 23
time: 5:37pm
eating & drinking: /
feeling: fish
After my July exam, I told myself I was gonna go to the last stops of the green line to look at the fields, but I still haven’t done that. I briefly went to the sea, ate lots of strawberry granita and these super weird champagne flavoured crisps. They actually taste like champagne. One of the ingredients is popping candy. Astonishing. I bought some new hair accessories and swam a bit. Now I’m back home, studying again. I like to study late at night when the air gets really fresh, listening to the cars in the distance passing by. One week ago me and E went on the 5th floor of our uni where our professors’ offices are. I think we were the first people to go up there since some time, because when we opened the door it smelled like plastic things that stayed in the sun for too long. Our Japanese professor sticked a piece of paper with a Calvin and Hobbes quote on his door. It was slightly torn on the sides, like when you stick some tape on it and then rip it off. I think he recently went to the hospital, and the quote was about leaving a hospital bed. It made me feel like someone took my heart in their hand and squeezed it
date: 4 june 23
time: 7:05pm
eating & drinking: fresh raspberries
feeling: flu & throat ache
Two days ago a thunderstorm woke me up at 6.30. Walked a friend to the train station, she looked at the laggy departure screen and said “imagine looking for your train’s time and getting an epileptic attack instead”.
I get anxiety about lost time more often than I’d like, wondering if I wasted my life or if I should have done something drastically different, frantically comparing where I am with the superficial idea I have of my peers’ life. My satisfaction or appreciation or happiness over plain regular life happenings scratches against the hazy, very poorly defined and general idea of how being an adult should have been when I was younger, that I somehow still have instilled in my brain. Not even about a successful adult, rather a more grounded one. Someone who acknowledged that adulthood was actually going to happen, who is able to rationalise the future. There’s this memory I obsessively go back to, in kind of a voyeuristic way— when I was 17 during summer in a gross part of my country, a high school friend’s uncle, an insufferable 40-something year old, looked at us through the rearview mirror and said “enjoy your summer break now that you can” with a voice that was just plain butthurt. First and last time I looked at him with the intent of doing so. It felt like a mini half epiphany: looking at him living his life was like watching a kid rage on a videogame he can’t beat. I knew it had to do with something I was gonna struggle with later on, but couldn’t put my finger on it. I can now: it’s about not feeling that much compatible with life, feeling like I’m looking in the wrong direction but can’t turn around. I don’t rage about it though, I’m not mad. I don’t know why he was mad. Uncertainity feels like surfing in Hawaii. It's sunny and I have to move with the waves. woohoo
date: 28 may 23
time: 12:48am
eating & drinking: minty water
feeling: flu
the weather is getting better. The kindergarten near my house is having their first end of the year party since 2019. I know that because they screamed it through a speaker the other day. I never even realised that until this morning, while I was brushing my teeth to kids music coming from a distance and was like ah. It’s been a while since I had this experience. The rain and weirdly low temperature of the last weeks seem to have discouraged plants from invading my apartment with their pollen, which sucks. Fluffy pollen is such a joy if you don’t get asthma from it
date: 20 may 23
time: 4:57pm
eating & drinking: warm water with lemon
feeling: okay with a slight backache
I haven’t posted since winter break. The break itself was sad, super lonely. I took care of a friend’s cats, laid on her bed during Christmas evening looking at the apartment in front of hers where there was a guy who dressed up as Santa for his little kids. Made me happy. I ate vanilla biscuits. When I went back to uni my Chinese class group and Japanese class group solidified, so I started spending the majority of my time there. Social life in uni is like a balm. Studying in the ugly library with pictures of Buddha statues on the walls and eating outside looking at small groups of white collar workers slowly getting into the canteen one after another, never ever looking at us. No one makes me feel more out of place than people who completely match the part of the world they live in. Yet I always surrounded myself with them, hoping to fix the cracks. Not anymore.
We’re currently having a very rainy May. I smell wet jasmine bushes and weed combined more frequently that I could have ever imagined. Yesterday I went to Chinatown with a friend and we had what we call Reagan noodles, aka Wuhan noodles, 热干面 (re gan mian) and passion fruit iced tea. So good
date: 9 dec 22
time: 9:41pm
eating & drinking: chamomile
feeling: frozen
- more catsitting for the photography professor, more photography books. This time I liked
Martin Parr & The Anonymous Project
I Hear the Silence In All This Empty Space
- passed by a little square with stunning tall ginkgo trees, full of bright golden leaves. Couldn’t stop staring
- politician from my country said he supports shops and bars refusing card payments because he “enjoys walking to the ATM”
- thank god this year, once again since 2020, the local priest won’t come to our house to bless it (throwing holy water on our faces and on anything in the proximity of the entrance). They sent us a letter to let us know. Turquoise font on white paper.
date: 24 nov 22
time: 5:18pm
eating & drinking: perfectly ripe banana
feeling: wiggly
- gotta buy a new pair of converse
- on Wednesdays we have a 16-18pm Chinese class. The university scheduled two of these classes on the same day, 12-14 and 16-18. The professor explains the exact same things in both lessons, and from what I could gather the university decided to do so that students can choose which lesson fits their schedule best, because we all have different classes from one another. Except that most of the student care more about getting home in time rather than skipping a class or not, so the 12-14 class is literally full of people to the point there aren’t even enough seats, and the 16-18 class is empty. There’s me and 4 people I know, and then usually 5 to 7 other people (the same ones, it’s just that they don’t come every time). It’s amazing! It's almost like a private lesson, and it’s so relaxing. I have friendly people sitting around me making me laugh, my coat on my legs to keep me warm, and a huge glass wall through which we see the sky slowly turn orange, red and then black. Our little group is the last one leaving for the day, and the corridors are so quiet and huge when we finish.
I feel a bit sorry that our professor has to stay for 11 people, I assume that if it wasn’t for us she could leave at 14? Maybe? But I think she likes us, because last week she invited us to a museum with her Chinese friends :) it was really nice, I liked staying with them and the art was beautiful (my favourite being the panting of a group of little fluffy chicks), and then! She invited us to go with them to have dinner, to coincidentally one of my very favourite restaurants ever. It was so fun and I also had the best soup of my life. It had some passion fruit inside!!!!!!!!
date: 5 nov 22
time: 10:37pm
eating & drinking: chamomile
feeling: weeeeeee
- this morning I woke up before the sunrise and made myself a cup of tea. I sat in the living room to drink it, with my cat. The radio was on at a very low volume, and at one point they aired this song, Allt tekur sinn tíma. It was really nice. The radio host said the title means “everything has its own time”, which was a good sentence to hear in that moment
- I changed the layout. I hope you like it :)
- brandy melville USA is literally selling olive oil on their website wtf?
date: 30 oct 22
time: 17:04pm
eating & drinking: strawberry tea
feeling: sparkling toothpaste
today my favourite claw clip broke :( it was just transparent pink plastic but really glossy and cute. rip. I just finished cat sitting for this photography professor and he has the coolest photography books ever. These are some of my favourite ones:
うたたね
Once
Pictures from home
date: 7 oct 22
time: 22:12pm
eating & drinking: chamomile
listening to: sunset rollercoaster
feeling: ^L^
this morning I wore my favourite cardigan, went cat sitting, had Japanese and Chinese class sitting next to nice people, ate apple cake and drank juice with one of them, studied with one of them in an empty(!) study room, went cat sitting again, had dinner (pizza!) with an old friend. :^)
date: 10 sept 22
time: 11:47pm
eating & drinking: water
listening to: /
feeling: mellow
it’s been one week since I tested positive to covid. I haven’t taken so many paracetamol tablets in my life, and I have weird cravings, and a high-ish fever with literally 0 physical discomfort which makes me feel like it’s just hot outside, but besides from that I’m fine. I’m living on strawberry popsicles and transcribing Chinese interviews like my life depends on it
date: 21 aug 22
time: 1:51pm
eating & drinking: chocolate biscuits and Fuji water
listening to: nothing
feeling: actual tachycardia
I always finish working at 9pm, in a not very nice suburban area. The metro’s stop isn’t underground, and every night I sit there waiting for my train for 10 minutes looking at the dark and at the mosquitos looking like cute little sparkles when they reflect the platform’s lights, and listening to the cicadas. To get to the metro I always have to walk by a little corner store in front of a big sad tree with lots of drunk men sitting under it. They just sit there in the dark, talking and drinking beer. They smell really bad
date: 10 aug 22
time: 4:23pm
eating & drinking: mineral water
listening to: nothing
feeling: humid train coach
- there’s been a huge fire some weeks ago not far from the house I’m working in. I could see it from the rooftop terrace. I’ve never seen such a big fire in my life. It was in an apartment on the last floor, and I saw it spread from one room to two other ones. Luckily everyone was ok, I don’t even think anyone got even injured!
- I really like the house I’m working at, btw. It’s on the 8th floor and then there’s a staircase that takes you to the 9th floor which is one room and the rooftop terrace, which is big, with lots of plants. Every single evening I take a shower and go on the terrace, sit on the edge and look at the dome. It’s so calm. There are two cute light blue/green churches and a lot of houses. I look at it until the dome and the white houses around it become pink, then orange, then blue. I go downstairs when it’s dark, feed the cats, go back home with the bike
- My agent scares me
date: 10 may 22
time: 9:29pm
eating & drinking: herbal infuse
listening to: Valentine by DIIV
feeling: green heart
- pollen season is here. My whole house is full of little white fluffs. Inside my tea cups, under my bed, in the shower. It's so cute
- I wanna read Claudine à l'école again. I honestly don’t understand why people say it’s erotic literature, it’s literally not. I keep thinking about this one line, like since literal years. And it’s not even clear in my mind anymore, but it’s about how much Claudine loved her old, provincial school which was about to be demolished so they could have built a new one. I loved my schools too, the classrooms and the bathrooms. Staying alone was a relief, but it also made me feel guilty. My schools were old too, with lots of things from the 80’s and 90’s, lots of desks and walls covered in writings from the past generations of students, and even carvings. I hope they're still there
- I found a twitter profile that angrily documents all the trash left on the street and the incorrect parkings in my neighbourhood. They post daily, sometimes even more than once. Their tone and expectations are extremely boomer-like, but not objectively wrong
date: 26 apr 22
time: 1:13pm
eating & drinking: cappuccino
listening to: the clock
feeling: ♨️ (◡_◡) again
another soothing place - I went catsitting for another person and between his house and mine there’s a big area with lots of buildings of the Polytechnic and the cancer institute. The streets are huge with very tall trees, and during the weekends it’s always empty. Big streets upon big streets with no one around and no one in the buildings. It’s so green and a bit grey. It’s very close to the apartment where I grew up, and I remember my parents brought me there to ride my bike because there were barely any cars around. On the northern part of this big mass of empty streets there’s a dead end one, the last one before the railway, on Saturday mornings there’s always a street market, and in the evening all the vendors go away leaving it ridiculously littered with squashed fruits and veggies, empty shoe boxes and hangers, and gross fish parts and liquids on the very end of the road. It was so nice riding my bike there, seeing the early sunset on the railway and the trash lol. Damn I miss that neighbourhood. I wish I could buy a house there one day, but the indies took over and the prices skyrocketed. Love that for me ^_^
date: 20 apr 22
time: 7:27pm
eating & drinking: water
listening to: nothing
feeling: ♨️ (◡_◡)
I’m catsitting at one of my “regulars”. They live 2 tube stops from my house, which is between the actual city and the suburbs around it. This place in the suburbs. I know it very well because my hs best friend lived here. The house looks like a furniture showroom, kind of like Ikea but more modern and less warm. Everything is light grey and white with a lot of stainless steel and a black marble counter. It’s spotless and silent and it smells like new things. There is nothing hung on the walls and barely any useless object. The only clock in sight is the oven’s one. Lots of empty spaces with colourful cat toys scattered all over the grey floor. In the bathroom there’s a cartoonish drawing of a blue strawberry sticked on a cabinet. It looks so out of place.
There is something extremely soothing about these suburbs, and about the silence of this house and the gentle humming of the interstate nearby. Just like the concept of “too late”. When it’s too late, you can just be yourself
date: 11 mar 22
time: 2:22pm :^)
eating & drinking: Tropicana multivitamin boost
listening to: James Harpham - Oriental Dolls
feeling: pensive
yesterday I ate chocolate and raspberry ice cream on a bench. I got up only when it was dark and freezing. Some trees are already blooming, there was one literally brimming of white flowers in the distance. I have so many happy, calm memories like this, just me and the things and sounds around me
date: 6 feb 22
time: 1:01pm
eating & drinking: cappuccino
listening to: I lost something in the hills by Sibylle Baier
feeling: bouncy castle
purposefully missing the cultural niche references that people throw at me in a conversation to probe my cultural level has been a very good idea so far. god I hate them
date: 15 january 22
time: 9:25pm
eating & drinking: fennel infuse in a Olympics mug (Athens, 2004)
listening to: the radio
feeling: 😤⏰IT’S GRIND TIME 😈🏃(NOT!)
- I came back home so late from my volunteer job + cat sitting (like at 9.30pm) and I didn’t even feel like having dinner, I just immediately went in the shower. I stayed in my dark bathroom under the hot water for a while and at one point I heard my neighbour coming back home. He went to his kitchen, which is behind my bathroom’s wall, and started cooking and humming a sweet melody. It made me happy.
date: 25 december 2021
time: 3:17pm
eating & drinking: sparkling water
listening to: the town's church bells blasting xmas tunes
feeling: a hard thing that breaks open in one single big crack
I’m currently food drunk on the sofa. Christmas day is always a big boiling pot of emotions for me. ..
I hope you're all doing great ♡
date: 30 october 2021
time: 6:21pm
eating & drinking: satsuma mandarin
listening to: Anniemal - Annie
feeling: girl (derogatory)
what if my dreams were supposed to be something else? We certainly have to adapt to the world we live in to function, especially if we want to bring something good into our community. Selfish dreams and insignificant dreams. Should I have them? All of my dreams are extremely functional, and after all, why should I have dreams that take me nowhere but to an unsharable, unsellable happiness? A place that’s only mine.......................
date: 13 october 2021
time: 2:03pm
eating & drinking: pepsi
listening to: linguistic professor
feeling: crying girl in the class of a manic dance teacher who runs her after school course like it’s the navy
the other day I went to get a mani with my other cousin. Just for the records, I have three cousins, D, E and C. They’re all girls. This time I was with D. I got french tips, she got baby pink :^) When I’m with D we sometimes end up talking about C who lives in New Jersey. Our point of views are different, but the conclusion is the same. I always expected to kind of, sorry if it sounds aggressive, betray myself for some sort of capitalistic cause, more specifically a high paying PhD, or my father’s bank, but it’s kind of impossible it seems. I wanna know if having a house with the view of the Statue of Liberty is worth it?
date: 10 october 2021
time: 00:06am
eating & drinking: mineral water
listening to: Sweet Valley Slumber Party - Racing Hearts
feeling: the good cop
today I bought the book I mentioned in my last entry, Heaven by Mieko Kawakami. It’s amazing. I’m saving the ending for tomorrow, as I don’t want to have nightmares. It’s pretty crude
date: 23 august 2021
time: 11:36pm
eating & drinking: sparkling water with ice
listening to: Kid Francescoli - The Player
feeling: sunset lipgloss
2 days ago I had my second dose of Pfizer. Everything was going super well until yesterday night when I woke up with a super high fever lol. I didn’t
sleep at all, took paracetamol, in the late morning I went cat sitting, came back home, collapsed, woke up again with another high fever, took
paracetamol, collapsed, ate dinner, went to sleep. And today I was completely fine! Whew. Also, tomorrow I’ll try to make a tart. They’re super easy
actually, you just have to buy pre made puff pastry and throw random ingredients on it. I'll declutter my closet tomorrow
date: 6 august 2021
time: 00:18am
eating & drinking: extra mint chewing gum
listening to: anti MLM video
feeling: Hermione Granger punching Draco Malfoy, but in a hermioneXdraco fanfiction
I’ll be back at the seaside tomorrow. There, everything is perfect. The air is warm and dense and I can wear a tight dress and make my hair shiny. It's nice.
date: 4 july 2021
time: 11:44am
eating & drinking: oat milk latte
listening to: bisou magique
feeling: wasp bite on eye
just came back from the seaside. I cut my hair really short and looked at a lot of sunsets on my own, and I went to stunning places as always. I’ve known those places for all of my life and sometimes I can’t see how stunning they are anymore. It takes like, a particularly hard hike at midday that makes me sit down exhausted on the dirt path surrounded by jasmine bushes in full bloom on a lazuli sea with aqua patches and I’m like “oh ok, I’m here”.
I’m very avoidant. I’m more scared than curious. I can't stand it. I wonder if it will ever be different. [update 2024: yeah.]
date: 2 mar 2021
time: 11:45pm
eating & drinking: water
listening to: one direction (don't @ me)
feeling: empty bladder
I feel like I’m going to be the target audience for botox in 5 years.. neat
date: 14 feb 2021
time: 12:19
eating & drinking: my heart out
listening to: nothing
feeling: puddle
date: 15 dec 2020
time: 11:46pm
eating & drinking: Innocent smoothie “mega mango”
listening to: immersing into Hector Gachan's entire discography once again
feeling: anime sky
I love being the last volunteer and closing our shelter. I can see the sun setting from the windows, and recently the sky always becomes a very rich cue of purple. I have to mop the floors with water and bleach and wait until they dry (doesn’t take that long). In the meantime I bring a kitten with me at the front and cuddle, looking at the sunset. It’s perfect every time, and it makes me so happy.
date: 10 dec 2020
time: 00:41am
eating & drinking: water
listening to: you'll know in a sec
feeling: overwhelmed
I was listening to a Stardew Valley soundtrack playlist on youtube to chill and when it ended it automatically passed onto the next video which somehow was the Nintendogs soundtrack and I had the most violent transcendental experience of my life
date: 6 dec 2020
time: about to have luncheon
eating & drinking: plain green tea
listening to: the radio (classical)
feeling: thankful
Me and my childhood friend, C, decided to see each other every thursday at the park. We became best friends when we were 6 years old. Recently, the more I see her, the more I like myself. ^_^ amazing, right? Yay!
date: 5 dec 2020
time: 00:56am
eating & drinking: melon tea (cold.. ugh)
listening to: amour plastique
feeling: chocolate bunny who’s being eaten only because it’s melting
Isn’t it super creepy that I keep dreaming about a man I met in Rome once? How would you feel if a girl dreamt about you 3 nights per week? Creeped out I assume. Anyway. Today I bought a stack of mini packets of chili doritos for 0.45cents each. I was a bit embarrassed when I piled them on the counter, but the cashier didn’t flinch. It’s whatever.
date: 3 dec 2020
time: 11:47pm
eating & drinking: lemon green tea
listening to: 王菲《給自己的情書》
feeling: don't tell anyone
today I bought a bottle of Johnson’s Baby “bedtime baby bath” shower gel, a blue candle and some strawberry jam. I had a shower, used the new shower gel, loved it, ate dinner. I tried to make a portrait after dinner, with chalk and pencils, but I got bored. Maybe it’s because I’m not into Kit Harington and I was drawing him.
It’s been raining for the whole day. I tried to have a walk. Bad idea.
uh oh, you reached the end
