2018 keeps chugging along

[zen_monk]

So January came and went, as did my first term at university. English schools make the students do final essays over the winter break, completely bonkers. I did manage to snag 6 days at Bordeaux, France for a 13 pound round trip on Ryanair, and that was super relaxing.

But the winter break also worsened some of my worst tendencies, no less because of doing all the research and finishing assignments almost at the last minute (although I was rewarded with decent grades on the confusing UK grading scale - a 65 is like an 85 on the grading scale). For one thing, it made me a lot more reclusive and flipped my whole sleeping cycle, and the fact that there’s only 8 hours of sunlight everyday in December kinda makes the days blur together. Also it’s really cold in this country, although I did see snow and frolic a little bit when it falls down magically in London. I suspected for a while that I’ve been doing some typical depression habits that made me suspicious of my mental health- I was reluctant to shower early, although if you see my shower you’d understand why, I don’t eat regularly and for a lot of days I just eat one big meal for tha day (which is dinner). I also found a couple grey hair for the first time on my scalp, and I had pretty deep feelings of my mortality as a result, and almost like the previous year in Japan I felt a big wave of existential crisis regarding my life and how I perceive myself in relation to time going by.

However, I think the biggest wake up call to my behavior was that I treated my friend poorly over break, where I was taking out my frustrations on her by implying things like how I help her more than she helps me even though I never really ask for her help. Sometimes it had felt to me that I make more effort in the friendship recently, which isn’t fair in my part because I know that it’s not like she takes me for granted, but it sometimes felt like it is. I also got irritated by the things she ask me to help edit because I see a lot of grammar and spelling errors, and that it felt more simple to me as a work than it should be, because I felt that I had to put in a lot of effort into something that isn’t about my own worries and concerns (like my final essay), and that I do sometimes forget that she is dyslexic and had admitted at the time that she was overcoming a stomach bug. But the whole of it is that I let my frustration and anger get the better of me, and so I took it out on her in a way that made her feel terrible, and it was something that really took a rift between us for about a month. Now she wants to talk, and i think it was a conversation we should talk about, not just because I wanted to apologize but also that I wanted to let her know that I was making efforts to change. Like today I went to the Mental Health and Wellness center to have a consultation, since like if over the break and at France if I just holed myself up in my hotel room for two days and not really eating during my personal vacation, then something must be really wrong because I decided to blow up a friendship over school.

 

But it’s February now, and I bought a month gym membership at my school’s gym. Gonna try to exercise regularly so I get some kind of pattern going that’s good for me. Gonna try to make myself eat more regularly even if it’s garbage food, since I more likely need the calories or else get more grey hairs on my head (which caused me to buy zinc tablets and b12 tablets alongside iron supplements). Starting to think more about what I eat and how to take care of my hair and skin even though I just want to replay video games and binge watch Fargo on school days.

in terms of Publishing and getting the most out of my program, we started talking business talk about content creation and ideas in the marketplace. One of the group projects I’m excited for is looking at children’s literature and seeing what kind of content can still be created for it that could be new or being more innovative. My group wanted to focus on children’s comics, which is pretty exciting to me. Other group projects is looking at a new imprint at Hachette’s imprint, Octopus, which acquired Kyle books which is primarily a cookbook publisher, and trying to come up with ideas on how to utilize the imprint for Octopus. One strategy is looking at what had worked at Kyle books and also what didn’t work which resulted in Octopus buying the publisher to make an imprint. Should we make the imprint stand out or should it contribute to Octopus in some way, or shuffle books from Octopus’ other imprints which are very diverse but more experience-based, like photography imprints or an imprint on antiques.