Hi, everyone. It’s your fave avocado here again. I hope y’all good today.

Today I’m going to be writing up some college resolutions (I don’t know why I sound like a youtuber right now.)

Anyway, I just started college again. I’m doing a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and I’m in Year 2, Semester 1. I’ve been in college for a year now and I want to keep some rules (resolutions) for the new year in writing so I can follow them, and I’m gonna put in place some strict ramifications in case I break the laws. The guillotine is one of them. (Just kidding)

So, I’ve already been going for a week now, and everyone else is just one of those losers that doesn’t show up on the first week. I have attended a few classes, but some of the lecturers are one of those losers that doesn’t show up on the first week.

Ok, I’ll get to the list of resolutions now:

I wasn’t going to add this here because it’s a given, but then I felt guilty because what’s college resolutions without any academic goals? I don’t have much to say here because I’m a really good student and I get top notch marks without even trying (definitely showing off) I mean, I have every right to brag about stuff CUZ THIS IS MY BLOG AND I CAN DO WHATEVER. Ahem.

I mean for The Secret Writing Project to always be my main activity in my life. (Even though it’s not really.) It’s one of the major objectives in life. I take it seriously but sometimes it’s a hustle. But I’m a hustler, baby. *winks*

I want to concentrate on my writing because it gives me this sense of accomplishment and it also gives me confidence. I want to practise writing and keep getting better and better. I want to put my writing above school because I don’t want to give school a lot of importance. I’ll be honest with you: when I mean school, I mean the social aspect of school. More on that later though.

I’m going to cut down on those damn chips. They’re so amazing but this time I’m not going to be eating them, then coming home and hogging a plate of my ma’s yummy lunch. That’s like double calories. I have to go to the new café that opened near school, though, so…

There is no time for tolerating dumb things this year. If it’s destroying my calmness, it’s gotta go, yo. I’m not giving anyone time, if they not giving ME time. I’m putting no effort for no one in this house. I’m not letting anyone make me think I’m someone I’m not. Also, I’m not responsible for what people think of me. I done my job, done my best to give a good impression and if you thinking dumb stuff, hoe bye.

I’m not putting effort for my own stuff and giving it to lil miss lame-o who doesn’t even show up to class. (just an example) Harnessing the power of saying no. I actually did that last semester. I straight up said NO. It felt so amazing, honestly. So, no. No handing out my hard earned work. Ain’t got time.

My reading list is going to consist of great reads like the one I’m currently reading: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. The books I’m reading these days are so informative and are helping me to break out of really illogical mindsets that I’m only NOW realizing I have. Honestly, social media is dumb. It makes you believe the dumbest things. It makes you pick up really dumb concepts from life. I’m also reading the one book I absolutely LOVED when I was 16, which is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens.

Summer ’17 has been an amazing experience. And no, I didn’t travel or anything. I just looked within me and realized so many amazing things about myself. I understood that I am worth everything good for the sole reason that I exist. I am a queen, and I stand for no nonsense. I can’t let myself be treated wrong, and I’ve broken out of some deeply rooted mindsets that are so harmful for me. I learned a lot about emotions, that they are just chemical reactions.

I finally accepted my body the way it is. This is how I am, and I’m grateful. I can’t complain about my fats if I’m not doing anything about it. The main thing that made me truly accept my amazing body is the fact that I’m whole; uninjured and healthy. Just imagine you had a huge cut on your face that’s puckered and raw all the time—you would be grateful to have just a plain face. Same applies to your body—imagine you had an accident or you had a disease that started destroying your body. If you’re healthy, be grateful. There are people that have it worse than us. We should be grateful.

My self-worth and confidence really took a good turn. I realized that I don’t need to do anything or own anything to be worthy. Just my existence is enough. The fact that you exist, is your answer. There is no one better than me as a whole. Maybe they’re better than me at calculating stuff or something but no one is better than another person.

Also, the fact that physical attractiveness is not everything. All it serves as is a way for guys to notice you. And girls, too—they’ll start comparing themselves to you. Don’t feel pressured to look pretty, beautiful, whatever. Don’t hate your face. This is the face God gave you, and He decided this is the best way for you to look for your life’s purpose. Seriously, be grateful that your face is whole and beautiful the way it is. Imagine you got an injury in your face that never healed and now everyone looks twice at you and it’s your defining character. Be grateful it’s not worse.

So basically, I’m pretty much ready for this new semester. I’m going to make good decisions, and be strong. I’m going to do good things, productive things, and not concentrate too much on people and alladat. Seriously, why you gotta think about people yet when you meet them everything is going to be different and you won’t act the way you practiced?

In short, I ain’t got time, and couldn’t be bothered.

Till next time,

It’s your girl asi. 

The truth is, maybe I truly love myself. Sometimes my dreams pour into reality; and what I feel in the dream spills into my waking thoughts. So, today I felt, maybe I love myself. I do everything I can to make myself a better person. I keep myself company, I argue with my own thoughts, I try to make myself feel better. I just want the best for myself. Maybe sometimes I’m the tough coach that gets you to do 100 push-ups just so you can get stronger biceps, and maybe some days I’m the calm therapist that listens without judgement. Ok, a lot of the days I receive the coach treatment from myself.

I think I’m on the path to accepting that the only person I need to prove myself to, is my own self. My self-worth comes from within, my validation, from my own thoughts. It’s no doubt that I’ve come a long way from the pessimistic, victim-mentality teen I was. My journey hasn’t been your typical one, and the one advice I could give myself back then would be to read self-help books.

When I was 17-18, I had my religious resurgence, and I thought it was wrong to read fiction. My reasoning was that rather then doing something like reading fiction, you should be doing something that will add better to religion. So, reading fiction was like a guilty pleasure. I read a lot when I was 19, but I still felt this way.

Whenever I would read fiction, I felt dissociated from real life; for a few minutes I wouldn’t be fully present in the real world. A lot of the times when I would take a break to pray, my prayers wouldn’t be all that great. That’s one of the major reasons why reading fiction gave me this restricted feeling.

On the internet, social media and stuff, I met some muslim girls that were into reading books. Somehow I thought you weren’t supposed to. Maybe like you could do it in private, but never announce it out and tell the world. Slowly, I decided it wasn’t all that bad. And I when I figured this out, I started reading less and less. You know how when you think of something as forbidden, it appeals more to you? I’m looking at you, Adam and Eve.

It’s only recently, however, that I got into non-fiction. I read books like ‘I am Malala’ and snippets of autobiographies. I really like biographies. I want to be a better person. I want to hack into my mind and control my emotions. It helps that recently I started learning that emotions and feelings are just chemicals squirted by the brain into the bloodstream. The ‘amygdala’ is an almond shaped mass of grey matter inside each cerebral hemisphere that makes us experience emotion.

Miraculous, isn’t it? However, there is a rational part of our brains that we must use to counter the effects of the amygdala. You can’t even trust emotions, by the way. They are usually there to protect you from dangerous situations, and these are supposed to be attacks from predators or stuff like that. Instinctual reactions, that’s all they are. As higher-level beings, we have to recognize the trap of these emotions and counter them.

You choose how you feel in the face of these emotions. They can be controlled. There’s this book that I read when I was 16; ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens’, I didn’t read the full of it, but I LOVED it. I wanted to buy it but somehow that didn’t happen. I should have realized then that I really liked self-help books. Anyway I got a copy of that book and I’m currently reading it.

In one of the parts it says, ‘No one can affect you unless you let them.’ I’m doing my best to work with that. Somehow I feel like I’m betraying my body by going against my emotions. I have no idea why.

I just took a break from this and my brain just told me it’s not true. I’m not betraying my body. It was weird. I just got a single pure thought, ‘I don’t think it’s like that.’ My brain literally just talked to me. Wow.

In the end, I think, I really love myself. I want to be the best. I want to be better than other people. But as they say, Comparison is the thief of joy. From today, every time I think some other girl is cooler than me, I’m going to tell myself it’s because I love my self so much that I want to be better than that person. But I probably am. I have so much love for myself that I fail to see how cool I am, because I want to push myself to be better, better.

I’m not an empty canvas; I’m splattered with unruly colors on one side, a beautiful master-piece on the other. A few misplaced but symmetrically aesthetic pieces scattered all over. Besides, ‘coolness’ is subjective. We’ve all been conditioned to accept one type of coolness, but you know what? I’m unsubscribing from this. It’s not fair. I don’t want to be cool in that way anyway. I have my own quirks and nice bits of my personality, and that’s all that matters.

All that matters is my authenticity. I’m so grateful that in my life I have productive, helpful things that I do. For example, I have my blog, my graphic design, and these give me a sense of purpose, achievement, and fulfilment. A lot of the time I feel like my fiction reading amounts to nothing—but that’s not true at all. It gives me new vocab, ideas, new experiences and I can draw a leson or two from it.

Sometimes when people disregard us and our opinions, or the things we do, we actually believe them. You shouldn’t. They know nothing! For example, if someone on the street shouted, ‘You have an ugly brain!’ Does that mean it’s true? Hell, no! They don’t even know what your brain looks like, or all the amazing things it does for you. You don’t get to believe whatever people say about you. At all. They may seem to have an ‘outsider’s perspective’ or whatever, but you do not, and I repeat DO NOT get to believe them! That’s their own loser opinion.

This has happened to me so many times. People say uninformed things about me, and I just cast my gaze down and accept it. And even if it’s not true, it becomes true because I believe it. No one can judge you. An old cliché, right? But it’s true. No one has any right to tell you what is not true about yourself.

Just like people are wrong about you, you have to accept that your perspective of others is wrong sometimes. I mean, you never know when you’re thinking the wrong thing. Some things can be excused but never let anyone take advantage of you or mistreat you.

What are you supposed to do to earn your worth? What makes you worthy? What makes you deserve the best? Nothing, that’s what. Your existence is reason enough. I know this might not snap you into believing you are worth it, but you need to know this. No one person deserves something over you. You are worth it. You are worth all the good things and deserve the best. Because you are human and you exist. Nothing else.

 Wow. This post started out as something else and ended up being some kind of advice forum. This isn’t even written in my usual memoirs of asi voice, but it’s coming from deep within. I think when you start looking to be a better person, things come to you. It’s probably like that for any new thing you start on. For example, say you started becoming interested in archaeology, and you see that kind of stuff popping up all around you. Maybe you just start noticing things more.

That’s all from me for now. See you, and don’t forget to be awesome!

Asi. 

Hi, everyone.

It’s been quiet here around the memoirs, and that’s because I’ve been working on some stuff. I’ve also been adding more information to my knowledge arsenal; and debating whether I should write up a fiction novel.

I think a lot of the time; at the back of our heads, we know what we truly want from life. We may feel directionless, but really in that obscure part of your mind you just KNOW what you want from life. (Ugh I just voiced this out to my sister and she said, “No, I donno what I want.”) I WAS ON TO SOMETHING HERE.

Last year, when I was making a magazine for my design project, I decided to fill up two pages with an epic fantasy short story; except it wasn’t a short story? It was more of a tiny snippet, and I had no idea where it was going. My siblings read it and were mind blown. I also showed it to one of my friends who agreed that it was most riveting. The thing is, I have actually never written a single fiction story. Even though I’m sure I could write an amazing one—given that I have read a very good amount of novels.

Anyway, the story was about a girl called Sarsarai, who’s kind of like a Baba Yaga, but prettier I guess? She lives in the middle of a forest, and she’s like a guardian over some village. Kind of like a Brom, waiting for kids with magical powers to come to her. YO DON’T STEAL MY STORY OK. Moving on.. While I was writing this story I was trying to add a bit of myself to Sarsarai? I don’t know if I managed it. As I went on to college, I became flooded by how different people viewed me, and I allowed myself to believe what they thought I was.

I’m a fiery being, a force to be reckoned with! A roiling being of emotion and passion! A strong independent person with a dream for greatness. Why must I conform to what mere mortals suggest I am?! Gulp.

That’s a topic for this post, though. I have a goal, and maybe a lot of the time I forget all about it, maybe sometimes I don’t care about it, but it’s always there, swimming at the edges of my thoughts, leaving a heady sense I can’t explain. (And by sense, I mean sense of smell, touch, hearing etc) I want to achieve things. I want to make a mark. I want to earn money.

I go through SO many thoughts in a day. And by many, I mean a TON. My feelings and emotions change SO fast; and I’m researching into this lately. Trying to find ways of controlling how impulsive I am. I can feel one way about something, and the next day it’s completely different. I told myself that all my thoughts, feelings and emotions are valid—but what is real? What’s the actual way I feel about something?

So, in order to keep sight of what’s important, I’m making a list of how I feel about things. A very moral, good view on things, something I can consult when I’m feeling overwhelmed. When I lose track, to remember my goals and dreams, and all that matters in the end. To believe in myself.

In other news, I’ve been researching hormones and mental disorders. A lot of other stuff, too. But mostly mental disorders. It’s crazy how it started. I just came across a pdf document (I don’t remember clicking on it) and started reading through the complex stuff they had on there. A lot of the time, we think we’re the only ones suffering through something, but that’s not true. There are people who’ve felt the same way as you. After all, emotions are just chemical reactions. Can you believe that, though? I had no idea. Hatred is a result of the brain squirting a chemical? Astounding is what it is.

And that’s how I started looking into feel-good hormones. Now I’m not showing off (I totally am) but here’s a list of happy hormones;

All this actually made me question my entire existence. I mean, come on—chemicals? I even thought emotions were all in the mind! This, however, is a game changer. I don’t really think about my brain; it’s just used for calculations and stuff, but the thing is, the brain does everything for us (*cough* excuse me, I’ll be right with you—need to google more about the brain)

Ok, so. The brain is the ‘boss’ of the body. Never mind that I got this information off a kiddie website. Everything is the brain. Wut. All we do IS THE BRAIN. I’M HAVING AN EPIPHANY HERE. Every single thing you do is the brain aaaasjddjflg. Even when you’re thinking about the brain, it’s actually the brain doing all that. THE BRAIN NAMED ITSELF BRAIN.

Anyways, in the whole reading world, I’ve been looking for more quality reads than ever before. I got myself the kindle app, and even though I don’t really buy anything, I sampled a few biographies and I actually like them. I’ve been looking for self-help and such. Most of all, however, I’ve been using my laptop, and this means I’ve been browsing a lot of topics. (In contrast to reading on my phone, which usually means I’m reading fantasy.)

I did write up a post on the half yearly recap and stuff; and I’m re-cementing the resolutions I laid down for myself. There’s things I need to accomplish before the year ends. I want to have façade of being in control this time round. And by ‘this time round’, you can bet I mean college. My second year of college starts in about 20 days, and I can assure you, I’m not interested in lounging around school. I’m going to be whipping in and out; after all, now I have a sense of what I want to be. (I used to think I had to prove myself to people but what the heck—I have a life. Now, I realise. I have goals and dreams and projects outside of school. I’m not just a student. Before I’m a student, I’m a bunch of things.  For example, I have this amazing blog! Yes! Have to fix this renegade coding, though.) I’m a river raging with energy, I can’t just invest that in only school! Thank God, my eyes are finally open.

 Keep being awesome,

-asi