It’s time to start the whole self love journey

CW: 56 kg, Height: 5’2, Age:21

I’ve realized that I have a problem. I’ve had it for a long time. I don’t even know if it’s a problem, actually. I’ve been obsessed with losing weight/ getting lean for the longest time. My 2016 mood board has a section on “Become Size Zero!” I’m not even sure that’s possible.

I think, most of the time I’m fine with how I look. When I’m not fine is when I look at my body in the mirror. When I try out clothes and check myself out. I just don’t look like how I want to look. For the record, I don’t really have a goal weight. I do, however, have a goal body. It’s an overall lean-fit body. Smaller upper arms, a flat stomach, smaller legs.

I don’t just yearn for it. I work for it. I try working out and clean eating. Somehow I never really get thinner. However, I do remember losing some weight towards the end of 2016. I very much attribute it to the crazy amount of stress I was going through. Although it might be the fact that our elevator was down for almost 3 months.

In January 2018, I was really heavy because I’d just come back from a vacation in the motherland. However, in a few months, I was down to my usual weight. Shortly after, I began an intense workout/ diet regimen. It was intense. I’d never been so committed. I barely showed any change on the scale but I did notice myself getting fitter.

I routinely get brief bouts of absolute yearning for a better body. It’s usually during these times that I decide to go on a diet, or start a new workout. I’ll also put it out there that my mom forbade me to do any diets until recently.

Diets/ work outs like these usually lasts less than 2 weeks for me. After a while I just find it hard to find motivation anymore. Recently though, I managed to eat relatively clean and raw for 10 days. This was while I was working, and that made it way easier for me. I’d have a smoothie bowl for breakfast, a small salad for lunch and an egg salad for dinner, with a trail mix for dessert. I’d like to say I lost 2 kg by doing this but I never really believed it.

One other thing that I have to talk about is my stomach. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had a bit of a belly. I continue to be positive that some day I’ll get a flat stomach. Is that even logical? What if my stomach is meant to be this way because that’s how my body is? I don’t know. Recently I’ve seen a true story of a girl that had been large her whole life, but managed to get down to size extra small just by jumping rope and fixing her diet. So I too can get my dream belly.

Now that I’ve given you my life story (LOL) I’d like to mention what I’m going to do about my warped body image. (I’m not even THAT fat). I’m embarking on a self love journey. I started it yesterday and even as we speak I’m having a hard time already. I find it so hard to look at myself and feel like I look great. I’ve resolved to not looking in the mirror. Just my body, not my face.

I just want to pile myself with body positive affirmations until I’m mindlessly body positive. I want to say good things to myself. I get that it’s society’s BS standards that have forced me to believe I don’t have a great figure. However, I can’t pretend that I think I have a great bod. I think I don’t. I hope I can change that perspective. Actually, no. I’m confident I’ll find a way to think better of my blessed body.

Whew. This is going to be a tough journey, guys. How does one begin to peel off layers of poor body image and slather on new mindsets? I’m sure we’ve all heard the story how I can teach myself to like something I hate. I tried it out on shea butter. I HATED the smell of shea butter. Too bad I had dry skin and I’d recently gotten an entire load of some organic shea butter to remedy my malady. I resolved to turn this hate for shea butter into something more bearable. And I did. Same with yogurt. I have never ben a fan of yogurt. My fam ended by buying kefir grains which are these awesome bacteria stuff that create a highly nutritional yogurt. Guess who had to chug. Same with avocado. Almost all my social media @’s have avocado in them. I LOVE avocado. Growing up? Not so much. We had a wonderful avocado tree by our house back in the day. I didn’t get the whole point of a bland tasting fruit if there were lots of delicious foods I could eat. Not that I ate much. I was a skinny twig as a child.

So, yeah. I’m just saying that I’ll be doing this whole ‘love myself’ thing. Gosh. Every time I think of how I have to think from now on, something in my mind is repulsed. Something keeps pushing away sound reasoning. I don’t blame myself. This is years’ worth of conditioning by society, and dare I say, my own self.

So, wish me luck, internet ghosts from Russia that actually read my blog.

Peace Out,

Yours always,

ASI the bad man

Hello, hello! It’s a beautiful day today. I feel amazing. However, I’m craving bread and butter. I guess it can’t all be perfect. Haha. School’s back in session and that means life is going to settle into a routine. A familiar routine. I’m glad I got an opportunity to do an internship over the holidays. I got to see the big bad world for myself. (Not too bad, I should think.)

The first week of school is always slow and lazy. No one wants to show up. That means me sitting all alone in a classroom waiting to do what I came to do. I’ve had one class so far, and I’m looking forward to carpe-diem.

If I were to describe my life at the moment, it would be that mellow sun after a light drizzle. And a smile, I suppose. A walk, too. Some lovely greenery. I guess I’m content lately. I’m doing a bunch of things I had to do but never really got around to doing. I’ve grown in so many departments.

It’s a nice feeling. I know life has its ups and downs but for now I’m happy being in this state of mind. I’ve been doing yoga lately. I’m not sure if I’m doing it right because for now it’s just motions. I feel like I need to steer my life towards this natural, wholesome living. In tune with nature. That kind of thing.

I want to start dreaming big. I’ve never really thought about how I need to go after bigger things. Things far away in the future. I know that I can achieve anything I set my mind out to do. I know I’ve lost myself over the last few years but I’ve always known myself to be head-strong and resilient.

I’m a wholesome person. I guess I know my life has limitations but I’m willing to let those dissolve while I pursue meaning and direction in life. There have been certain events that happened in the last few months that have shaken me and what I stand for. It’s a welcome change. Something subtle and yet colossal has changed within me.

It’s nice to sit down and write poetically about myself. Because I mean, why not? It makes me feel really nice inside. I’ve started to feel the impact of how fleeting life is. For example, I could delete my blog in the matter of minutes. And there goes at least hours’ worth of worrying over how perfect my blog should be. Nothing has to be perfect. We’re all just young souls trying to find our way through the world.

Feeling like such a Yoda,

Yours always,

Asi.

You can tell I’m procrastinating by how many posts I’m putting up. Two in 2 days! Whew. The important thing that is due is my internship report, by the way. I worked on it all week, and I think it’s completely fine but it seems everyone is adding all sorts of things to theirs. I’m pretty in confident in my writing because I mean, do you know even know who I am? Have you seen my blog? Yeesh. Damn good writer over here, baby!

Tomorrow is the last day of the internship. This means saying goodbyes. I don’t want to, ugh. I made some friends and I’ve actually talked to a few people and having to say bye just makes me uncomfortable. Like, what do you do?

I also happen to have organized a whole pizza party for work. I’m not going to call myself a doormat for doing all the work. I mean, I didn’t even need any of this. I don’t even know why I decided to go through with the whole thing. I literally walked miles to and from the restaurant and went around collecting what everyone was pitching in.

Anyway, this trip made me realize I’d been spending a whole load of money on milkshakes from Café Javas all year yet Food Hub (where we got the pizza from) has all sorts of desserts for half the price! I tried out a froyo with oreo on it and LOVED it. For extra cheap. Somebody hold me. I might have found my new obsession. Someone’s gonna have to tell that to my diet for me, though.

One other observation of the day is that lately I don’t have anger management issues. I can clearly remember exactly 3 times I just… let it go. Why would I give someone power over my emotions? I also realized that I love anger. I love getting angry. It gives me this rush that I love. It makes me feel powerful.

At the same time, I feel that my anger is justified. I feel like if I don’t get angry, people won’t take me seriously. If you don’t know you did something that wronged me, you’re going to keep doing it. You’re going to take me for granted.

If I don’t express my anger, I’m going to be leaving a problem-free life. If I do, I get labelled. I am angry. I want to not be. I want to change. Who am I changing for? Who am I living for? Don’t I get to do anything for myself?

What happened to the times I was 13 and changed myself according to what was cool? When did I start complying? When did being weak become my thing? When did I start caring about other people? What’s the real me?

Okay, chill out, guys. I know who I am. I am this.

Until next time,

Asi.

So, my two month-long internship is finally coming to an end… in two days. Boy, has it been a ride! From absolute garbage trash to, well… to bearable. It started okay, what with being crammed into a barely ventilated room with 200 people. From there I got into a car crash. Good times. I mean, what’s there not to like?

I can’t lie though; it’s been good reaping all these experiences. I got more than I expected. I interned in 2 branches of the company—one for each month (minus the time I spent at home with a banged up chin). I gained a whole load of knowledge on various things and I’ve added these to my internship report. And anyway, you probably don’t want to know how I created a virtual machine that broke into the Chinese government. NOT. Lol. Only one part is true.

So basically I want to talk about how it took me 2 months to adjust to the whole routine of internship. I really resisted and battled and hated internship with my LIFE. Only some things made it bearable. If I’d just accepted the way of things sooner (being stuck doing nothing, twiddling my thumbs, picking my nails), I’d probably have been better off.

Routines are basically how we live our lives. By default. Or not. If you’re definitely going to be spending a lot of time in some place (like I was), you should probably suck it up and deal with it. Seriously. I’m thinking back and realizing I probably came off as a petulant, stuck up kid. I just wasn’t ready to accept the circumstances and live with it.

I know I’m saying all this, but I wouldn’t go back and change a thing I did, lol. I had a balanced time there. Some moments were really good. Especially the time that I completely gave up and left the work place to have a moment of solitude at school. I’m kidding. There were way better times.

If you’re doing something in a work place for the first time, chances are you’re going to be doing it multiple times again. What’s there to fear anyway? I’m not a bad student, and neither would I actively be a horrible employee. Besides, we learn from our mistakes.

It’s probably a short, incoherent post but you gotta excuse me—it’s been a while and I’m still tired from all this hard work I’m doing lately. The money, though! It’s coming in the negatives, lol. I’m not getting paid. That reminds me, I almost got a web design gig today! I don’t know if the guy will return to discuss some more but he offered to pay me! And like the clueless turnip I am, I didn’t know the rate of these things. I asked him how much he’d give me because I couldn’t think of anything. Turns out you can charge 5000$ for this kind of thing. Well, I’ll see you all in Georgia cuz I might soon be off vacationing!

JULY 2018 UPDATE/ WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I MISSED YOU??

It’s been a long while, I know. And hey, you missed me? Nawwww. I’ve written a bunch of posts (okay, maybe just two… or one) but I never got around to posting. Mostly because my computer has been super slow for a long while! Yesterday I finally deleted a guest account that was most likely the cause of all the frustration. I hope. Because after I deleted the guest account, everything was so much faster. It might be a mind thing, but hey—I’m not complaining.

Guess who’s working at the moment?! ME! Okay, maybe I’m not working. I’m doing an internship. Which doesn’t pay. But, you know… it’s worth something. Like, experience or something. I guess. I’m just getting a sort of training in networking and stuff. When we were being taught something I’m actually interested in, which is web design, some granpa had me typing out stuff from a book… which was printed…

OH MY GOD. Did I mention I was in a car crash? On June 5^th. A Tuesday. On the way to work. I got a swollen bruised chin and sat on the side of the road in shock for the most part. That was right after I got out of the car and ran away fearing an explosion! BAHAHA. I even left my shoe in the car. I was not driving. I don’t know how to drive. And this crash? Set back my chances for learning by 120%. Whatever. A month later and I still have a pea sized swelling in my chin.

What can I say, guys? It’s been a crazy few months. Life’s chill now, but the beginning of 2018 was tough for me. I guess you can say that’s why I didn’t blog. But my birthday in March was great! And life got better and better as the months went by. Mostly.

Last Friday I had some beautiful moments and the sun was beautiful and the grass was green. I feel like life is beautiful. I’m grateful. It’s only 300 words, but I’ve decided I’m going to be typing smaller posts. Nothing too taxing. So, see you real soon!

So, middle of December, the whole fam packed up and travelled half a world to visit the motherland. We do this once in two years, sometimes we go 3 years sans breathing this hot humid air, though. It’s always in the holiday season, so we never really get to experience what life is like at other times in the year.

I’m currently writing from the motherland, and this is a first because I don’t think I’ve ever blogged from here. I really just want to get to home and its comforts, essentially, but I’ll try to describe in depth what’s going on.

For starters, I got really sick the first few days we got here. I now know how babies feel when they’re wailing and nobody understands what they want and they want something but no one can figure it out and they keep crying and crying. I’m not saying I was crying but I was. I was suffering and I could do nothing about it but cry. For reals. 

All I wanted to do was go. BACK. HOME. Like, the urge was so real and desperate. (I’m slightly okay now.)

The motherland has its own beauty, I suppose. (See how I’m grudgingly admitting it lmao.) Serene paddy fields with the bright green of new growth, maybe a pond dotted with lotus flowers, a cluster of coconut trees beyond that, swaying in a breeze, and finally a majestic backdrop of towering mountains. Wow. 

Also, global warming is real, yo. Every time I come here for the holidays, it’s hot. Sweltering, humidity laden heat that makes you sweat and sweat, so much that it’s like you’re eternally swimming in your own H2O. Skin clammy with sweat 25/8. When I came here this year however, I was positively shivering at some points of the day. (This may be because I was sick but we’ll blame the melting ice caps.) 

Two days into our stay here, my phone battery died and refused to charge. This meant I was completely cut off from the world. I didn’t see the need to bring my laptop here and I guess I’m paying the price. (Currently using my sister’s laptop to type and her keys are so tiny compared to mine!) I don’t have anything to read, and I get on my mom’s phone to internet like once a day.  The only book available to me is the Quran, and that’s my current read. I sit by my window with the Quran open, waiting for the next cool breeze to reach me. 

I don’t feel like eating much here, and that’s because I got sick. I am an eating machine, trust me. It looks like I just don’t like the food here. Everything is so much more here. Like, the ginger is ginger-ier, the chilly is way more spicy and stuff like that. Cue heart burns and sugar rushes. It’s also funny because we always have nice food here. Like boxes of cake, and other snacks. I just don’t feel like eating stuff here. 

I know at the start I was a bit too extreme, dying to go back, but now I’m willing to see the end of this visit, while tolerating the whole middle part. Who knows, it might be nice to me, surprise me (like someone said) so I’ll just know that this whole visit is transient and I’m going back soon, back to the sound of cars rushing by instead of crows cawing at my window.

Hi. It’s Asi, writing from the motherland! It sucks. Moving on, I realize I didn’t write up my 2017 yearly recap post, but oh well. I probably can’t remember anything being so far away from where 2017 basically happened. 

I guess 2017 was pretty cool. I mean, I went on a safari at the beginning! I have a very picturesque memory of the amazing savannah backdrop teeming with wildlife (the magnificence is hitting me in an odd way) lots of giraffes, antelopes and elephants for miles and miles!

I remember really nice restaurant conversations, really nice chips, and probably odd reactions to a lot of things. Lol I’m not crying what. (Seriously, I’m not). I’m not. Why would I? I swear I’m not what the hell. 

I can’t exactly remember much of the first half of the year, which coincides with the college semester, which means it was probably pleasant enough. 

The second half of the year was pretty much a roller coaster. Lots of ups and downs. I have no idea why though. I did everything the same as usual, but I guess I needed character development or something, and got steamrolled by life pretty much. I had a really nice time, but I also had really bad times, so I can’t really conclude whether it was good or bad. I went out, spent time with amazing people and I really love and cherish all those moments. Also, dark times. That’s all. 

In all, I think 2017 was needed. And important. Or whatever. Some of the things that happened didn’t need to happen, but oh well, I can’t go back and change anything, because they happened. I didn’t do them. Or wait, maybe I did. Ugh. Bye.

The Actual Resolutions

Read more non- fiction/ seek knowledge

I feel like this is pretty much my reason for existence. Learning new things, and enriching your existence. I’m going to be reading a LOT this year, and that’s saying something because I read a LOT. I read so much this year, I wish I’d kept track. As I grow older, I’m seeing how much more fulfilling it is to read non-fiction. I read a bunch of self-help books this year, and I legit feel the difference, the impact they have on me. That’s cool. I was reading Sophia Amuroso’s book (Can’t remember the name dammit) but it was basically her memoir on how she started up her flourishing clothing website Nasty Gal (I’m sure this spelling is wrong) and she mentioned reading a ton of self help books and I’m sure I’m heading in the right direction. *winks*

Read more audiobooks

I think I’ll be spending a lot of time listening to audiobooks next year because I LOVE THEM. They’re great for getting my pronunciations right, but mostly they are great entertainment. I feel way cooler now that I’m an audiobooker (yes, that’s a real word) and I’m gonna squeeze in time for audiobooks whenever I can. Life is short, but it’s long enough for audio books.

Write more

I don’t consciously and constantly think of myself as a writer. I guess a lot of people wouldn’t call me one, but damn sir, you’re wrong. Grade A writer right here! I remember once when I was on the way to joining a karate class (ended up not joining it), I was scrambling around, trying to grab scraps to use as self esteem, and I was like, ‘I’m a great writer’, whispering it furiously to myself. Ah, well. At least I didn’t need to bank on that. I didn’t need to bank on anything for that matter, but I did end up buying a bunch of awesome tees that day.

I want to write more. I want to write crap, and I want to write best selling content. I have a half-finished fiction outline catching dust in my laptop (it’s part 2 of a series) and I have quite a few fans… like, 2. I LOVE MY FANS. I think they’re called readers though?

Don’t repeat mistakes from 2017

*Loooooow whistle*

I have made SO many mistakes this year, like what the heck. I have made so many mistakes. Like, what even. So, so very many. I think 2017 takes the cup for dumbest decisions, acting childish, and basically doing dumb things. See, when I was 18, I thought I was done growing up. I recognized myself as a rational adult, and treated myself as such. There was no more growing up to do. I literally thought of myself as a women. But when I hit 20, it was like I was back to being a 10 year old. And that’s a disgrace to my actual 10 year old self, because I’ve always been a composed, and good child. Luckily, towards the end of 2017, I decided to get a grip and start acting mature again. Or at least like I had a conscience. Like I had to live with the dumb things I’d said and done, and boy am I living with them. Cringing at every turn. So yeah, I’m going to not repeat mistakes, and I’m not going to make mistakes. And you know? That’s going to be easy for me--heck it’s already easy for me because nowadays I have a grip on reality. It takes going through horrible stuff to finally stop acting like a dummy.

Concentrate on self

I know that I don’t need anyone to complete me, and I am ENOUGH on my own. I’m planning on concentrating on myself, self love, the usual. The human mind is amazing, honestly. If you believe something, even if it’s not true, your mind will accept it. And my affirmations are true, I mean, there’s a lot of good things I can say about myself. I’m honestly a bit concerned, and mostly looking forward to seeing how 2017 is going to psychologically affect me in the coming year.

Achieve more

Sometimes, I wonder what I’m doing in life, with life, with all that I’ve been given. I can mention a few things I’m proud of--but is it enough? I have so many resources but I barely use them. It drives me mad sometimes, but I’ve come to accept that life can just be lived, and not consumed with utter fervor and passion or whatever.  Lazy, but whatever.

Keep myself sane.

I’m prepared to do anything, believe anything to keep myself calm and balanced. I’ve been doing this actually. Kicking out old beliefs that make me go crazy, like karma. I don’t believe in karma anymore. If karma exists, I’m in for a load of crap, people. I mean, okay maybe it exists, but I don’t care, it doesn’t exist to me, so I don’t have to think of it. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. There’s also other stuff I’ve been doing. Forcing myself to believe that everything is okay, or something.

Stop trying to be so cool

One of the most important things to pretty much everyone is to have a good impression on people (except for my sister, she’s an alien frog or something, she once told me). I want to stop putting too much effort. I mean, I’ll put in effort, but for different reasons and with the right intentions. I want to stop caring too much about how I look, yet in essence I wear clothes that are designed to NOT draw attention. I have to consciously remember that.

That’s it for this post. I hope I can go through with these resolutions, and I feel like I can, because it seems that I started on these resolutions some time before 2017 started. Ciao.

Asi.