Empty Spaces

So when you talk to someone online, and you say BRB, and then you come back, is it even worth letting them know your back, if you know that they really don't care?

I wish I'd never met you TN.

I don't want to see anyone. I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to be by myself. Away from everything. I want to fade away into the night. I want to disappear and never come back.

Fark I hate everything. I just don't see the point of anything anymore. I'm angry. At nothing. At everything. At myself. It's a feeling that i just can't describe in words.

I went all day without talking to anyone.

I hate life at uni. I hate how I have no one to talk to. No one to sit with. Its so boring. I sat by myself on a bench for an hour. Doing nothing. Just sitting there. Absent minded.

After not talking for a day it is hard to start again. My vocal cords have gone into hibernation and aren't ready to awake from their slumber. It's a chore to talk. I wish i was telepathic. Communication by thought.

But its like that most days I'm at uni. I leave home, and for several hours a day I am without a voice. It doesn't really matter because I am a nobody anyway while I'm there.

Okay so more procrastination and this is what i've dug up... it almost brought me to tears just reading it :-( I went to a catholic highschool, and every year, we go on a 'retreat' which is sorta like a camp except we dont get to do fun stuff like normal camps. We just sit around talking about things.

The year coordinator said that we were in for a surprise this year - and that surprise was a letter from our parents. :-( except I never got one from my parents. Which is a little bit sad. So instead these were the letters i got instead.





The first letter was from 2 of my mates, the second from 2 of my female friends and the last from my year coordinator. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't get a bit emotional after reading these. All afternoon, i had been wondering where my mates had got to, and whenever I did manage to find them, they'd seem to ignore me, and then just walk away. I sort of had a fight with one of them, so i just thought that he hadn't gotten over it yet.

It was a bit like a punch in the face to learn what was really going on though - although it was a good punch in the face. I wrote a letter back to each of my friends, but I never had the guts to give it to them.

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I also came across these: My pay slips (blurred for anonymity) from my time working during highschool. I worked my two senior years, 2004-2005. It turns out that I made about $10,500 in that time.

:-) and just a random donation book i made, in an attempt to raise money for me to buy a new phone.





Anyway, I've put all my old junk back now. I dont know why i was lookin around there in the first place.

Guess what i came across while procrastinating today:

My silly little diary from highschool back in 2005. I had my friends and class mates sign it at the start of the year. It's really quite interesting reading back on some of these - I'll post some of them on here.

> oh i don't think i've really introduced myself on my blog before so from now I guess I'll be known as "Dan" - why? :-P because its an easy name (that and also its the name of my housemates bf).

1) Hey Dan, you're a great guy, your fun, kind, loving, smart, generous along with many other talents. So don't you ever change because in the past 11 years I have known you, you've been a really loyal friend. And for that I thankyou! <3 Always Zoe

2) Hey Dan, your awesome! your such an honest person and i really like that about you! you were great at that disco! you really got up there and shook your thing :-D <3 Lisa

3) Dan buddy, your a smart kid, and good friend, and don't make the school bankrupt! Shane (in response to me being Treasurer of the Student Representative Council)

4) Dan, you leave an impression on everyone. It's like you rub off a little bit of goodness onto everyone! Seniors '05'! <3 Naomi

5) Hello Dan, I don't even know you that well, but over the past couple of days, you seem like a nice, quiet person and I would like to know you more. <3 always Roselyn

6) Oi dude, thanks for taken care of my girl last night. Your Aiight with me! Braden (Holy shit! I had no idea that he was her BF. :-P i kinda took his girl out on a date)

7) Dan, you are a genuinely nice person with fantastic qualities. Go for it! Peter

8) Dan, your a good bloke who i think has a big future. i wish you the best of luck mate. Brendan

9) To my date :-D Thank you so much for being my date! you were a perfect gentleman. I hope everything you dream of comes true. Set your goals high because you will reach them. Lianna. (:-P my date, who was Bradens GF. Seriously i had no idea they were goin out)

10) Dan! The nicest guy i have ever met! You are so cool and i <3 you this much
<-----------------------------^.^-------------------------------->
hehe your cool! <3 Always Monique XXOO


11) Dan :D you know how much i love you already but im so telling you again! your my favourite!! I love how fun you are and how we are besties! Your so special and smart.. you will go so far in life so never forget me and our awesome times. Love lots hun!! <3 Celly ..Muah

12) I have seen two sides of you. One at school - quiet, and out of school, ready to get involved! I wish for you all god has to offer in your future! Cheryl

13) Hey little buddy, your so sweet caring and sincere. I would love to get to know you better! <3 you Kelly (haha its funny, but i have known you since 1st grade. okay..in your defense though, you moved away a few years later and only just moved back.)

14) Dan, you are an interesting person who can do anything you put your mind to. Remember, you are my friend and I will always be there. You are a true friend and I shall never abandon you, I only ask that you do the same. John*
(reading this one was really touching. he was the first person i came out to. it's really sad because i haven't seen or talked to him for almost 4-5 years. I hope he's doing alright)

15) Hey Dan, your a good, smart bloke and a real chick magnet mate! good luck in the future, peace out! James. (Another sad one to read, because James passed away in 2006)

16) Dan? whats good to say about you? NOTHING!!...


Jokes. lol. Nah man, me and you will take over the world, be rich RICH i tell ya. Best luck in the future <3 ya heaps. your a great guy. But OMG still need to be LOOSER GOOSER!! Ty*

(:-( He was one of my closer friends in highschool. He is bi from what i've been told, and in retrospect, he really did try to open up to me, but he came on a bit too strong and i was really confused back then so i sort of shunned him and we had a falling out. i haven't talked to him since)

17) Dan, how can i start this? Well not to sound too corny but I just want you to know that i look up to you as if you were a brother to me. THanks for everything. Mark*


These were just some of the more memorable ones that my classmates and friends posted. The ones with the * are the ones written by my closer group of friends, and i've changed their names for anonymity.

So from reading back on these, I've gathered that this is generally what people think of me:

- Smart, Intelligent, high achiever
- Nice, caring, friendly, generous, honest
- Quiet

I sit here and wonder, is this how i really want to come across for the rest of my life? People always see me as the 'nice, quiet and friendly' guy. I guess its good in the sense that I get along with everyone, but these traits don't make me an interesting person do they? It doesn't really make me stand out, and in a crowded room, i'd probably dissappear pretty quickly in the sea of more outspoken, more outgoing people. Maybe people will use me, they'll see me as easy, and a pushover.

But i can't help it if thats who i am. :-(

I reckon, if i tried this sort of excercise again, I'd pretty much get the same sort of responses. Its almost as if the whole 'nice, quiet, friendly' response is the default or automatic response because people can't think of anything else to say about me.

Anyway, it was just interesting coming across my old diary. It made me feel happy inside. I might keep this diary, and read it whenever i'm feeling a bit emo.

Want to know what i've been doing while procrastinating?

I've been watching an awesome TV show - Misfits.

It's about a bunch of young offenders who are serving community service when they are caught in a freak storm that somehow gives them strange powers - powers that stem from their own personality.

I just finished the last episode. There's a character that I feel really drawn to. I see a lot of myself within him. His name is Simon - he seems to be an intelligent guy, but shy and somewhat of a social outcast. His interactions with the others are awkward and he feels ignored and unappreciated. Not to mention he doesn't have any friends - apart from the other misfits.

His power is invisibility - although he only turns invisible whenever he feels ignored or alone.

Throughout the series, his character develops quite a lot. You find out so much about him, and honestly i think he's probably the deepest character in the whole series. He seems sweet and humble, yet deprived of true companionship, and somewhat perverted.

But yet im so drawn to him - i feel like i want to reach out and hug him, tell him that everything will be alright and that I'll be his friend.

Maybe it's because I am so much like him. I have always been a bit shy, a bit socially retarded. Although i do have friends, I kind of just float around, and every one assumes that I've got my own close group that i hang out with - but really i don't. When in big groups, I tend to shrink, and become unnoticed.

A comment i received from my last job interview was that I wasn't as 'outgoing' as the other candidates. This is something that i wish i could change. I wish i was more outgoing, i wish i was funnier, and more interesting. I wish i wouldn't take things so literally or seriously all the time.

so yeah...

Hi, I'm Simon. How do you do?

Had another exam today. I don't think i did very well. I needed 50% to pass my subject, but i doubt i got anywhere close. I have a feeling this semester is going to be extremely dissapointing. I need a break from everything.

I also need to get my student card renewed as it expires on the 1 July so unless i get it renewed, i dont get student concessions anymore.

Life in general has been pretty so-so. Eat, sleep, attempt to study and procrastinate. Thats how its been really.

26 - is the magic number. because thats the date that i finish uni for the semester. I can't wait.

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i also had another random dream this morning.

I dreamt that i was following someone i knew down a back alley. I lost him so i started to walk back, but then i was confronted by a group of girls, and they thought i was a 'rent boy'.

:-) so it wasn't exactly anything interesting but lol me as a rent boy? :-P maybe one day....

The exam didn't go as well as planned sadly, but predictably. Seriously, I don't know whats wrong with me anymore. My academics has just been going downhill and there's nothing that I can do about it.

I used to be so good at learning. I used to be able to memorize passages from textbooks word for word. But over the years, after all the random thoughts and crap that have been going through my head, after all the physical, mental and emotional strain I've endured, I think I've lost that ability. My short term memory is nothing short of horrendous. You could read me out a few sentences, and apart from the last couple of words, I wouldn't remember the rest.

I don't know whats wrong with me - could it be that my mind is clouded by all my repressed thoughts and feelings over the year? Or is it that my brain is physically degenerating? I don't know, but I have a feeling it could be both. And I'm scared about it, but I'm also afraid to go see anyone about it, in case they think I'm a nutcase.

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I remember back in highschool, when I was around 16'ish. I sort of came out to friend. I didn't really come out all the way, I just told him that I've watched naked guy porn and it didn't turn me off. I think the most explicit thing I said was that I could be maybe bi-curious. He took it well and said that he was there if i ever needed someone to talk to.

He did mention that he has noticed that over the years he's known me, my mental capacity has somewhat been reduced. I've known him since 8th grade, and we were in most of the same classes. So he knows what grades i usually get and my standard and quality of writing, assignments and general school work. I was a straight A student, who could pull an all nighter and still get A's on exams. I was articulate, and fluent in speech and writing. So it came as quite a shock to me (well actually it didn't.. because i knew that my mental state was deteriorating). What surprised me was that i didn't think it was THAT noticeable.

And as a response to my sort-of coming out, he asked if it was my sexuality and confusion about my sexuality that was clouding my mind. I guess it was, but I downplayed it and told him that it wasn't really because of that.

Really though, it was. It was in conjunction with my massive amount of schoolwork, (i undertook 7 subjects, and an external Information Technology certificate) as well as having two part time jobs, and home duties - as well as trying to juggle some form of a social life. Most nights I wouldn't get home from work until 9PM, and wouldn't get to bed until maybe 1am. Then I'd be up at 6am, to repeat everything all over again - School, work, homework, sleep.

I wore myself out so bad. I was physically and mentally exhausted, and I couldn't concentrate in class. It was rather bad, and as a result my grades in maths plummeted from an average of A down to barely a C. In fact the lowest grade I've ever got was a D. This was in stark contrast to my near perfect A average of the previous years, which was of a great concern to my year coordinator. But fortunately my grades for my other 5 subjects didn't suffer too much and i still managed to get mostly A's and B's. Oh and i was the only one out of the group who did the IT course to attain the certificate.

So my academics sort of went downhill - but it wasn't just that. Working everyday after school, at a retail store really made me go mindless. I'd be working on the shop floor, by myself, for hours on end, 'merchandising' or what we would call 'recover'. Basically my duties were to bring stock forward on the shelves to make them look neat, clean, tidy and fully stocked. I also had to pick stock off the ground, put back inventory that customers had put in the wrong place as well as collect inventory that had been damaged or opened by customers.

The first few weeks were okay, but after that, it felt like mindless wandering. I had noone to talk to and the work was so repetitive that while i was doing it, I would forget to think, and my mind would go blank, and everything i do would be purely because i've done it so many times before, that my brain instinctively knows what to do. For 6 months i did this, everyday after school. Time slowed down in my mind. The lack of mental stimulation meant that my brain activity slowed - and as a result whenever doing calculations and such in my head, what would seem like 5 mintues in my head would end up being more like 15 mins in reality. To this day i still suffer from this problem - im slow to react, take too long to come up with something to say, taking too long to work out calculations. Its a terrible thing.

It got to the point where I felt i couldn't do this anymore, and embarrasingly, i almost burst out in tears to the manager, when I told her that i wanted to resign. She asked me why, and I told her that i felt as if nothing was getting done. I wasn't feeling like my efforts were achieving anything. The store was that large that it didn't matter what i did - the moment i finish a section and move onto the next, by the time i'd finish the next section, the first section would be back in the same state it was before as my work was done during opening hours.

The manager was a little suprised and slightly shocked at what I told her, and she reassured me that I was doing an excellent job and that I have been the only junior employee who was managed to go through the entire store in a single shift. And that was the reason why they choose to have me on 5 days a week instead of rostering anyone else for that shift. She asked me to reconsider my resignation and asked if there was anything she could do.

I asked if she could put two other juniors on with me doing the same shift, and whether it would be alright if i just took monday's, wednesdays and fridas instead of all weekedays. She agreed and for a while my situation with work got slightly better. But as a result, of getting tuesdays and thursday's off, i now got rosterd to do an 8 hour sunday shift. It was okay, as I got paid time and a half, but it did severely affect the time i had available for schoolwork and other things.

Oh geez, I don't even know why im talking about things anymore..Im just rambling now.

Right so i guess what i was saying was that my reduced mental capacity and prowess could have been a result of circumstances dating way back to highschool times - overwork, stress, as well as repressed emotions.

I want to do somethign about it, I wish i could, but I just don't know what to do or who to see about it. It really having a major impact on my life. My academics at uni have been horrible, my learning abilities are hampered, my short term memory is appalling and what scares me the most is that i feel that i've become in-articulate (is that even a word?) in both speech and writing. Its like i've suddenly lost my vocabulary and it takes me ages to be able to express my thoughts in writing or in speech, and even then i still can't convey my thoughts in full.

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When i was 5 or 6, i had a pretty bad bike accident where i fell off my bike and knocked my head on the bitumen and was knocked out cold. It was stupid that I didn't have a helmet on, but i didn't come from a well off family. My family in the early years struggled to get ends to meet. So there was only 1 helmet to share amongst us kids. We weren't supposed to ride together, it was strictly a one person at a time affair, but i wanted to ride with my brother, so i took a risk.

I still don't remember what happened that day. All i can recall is waking up in the arms of my mum.

So could the head trauma i suffered back then have any affect on me know? Surely not?

I don't know. I might ask my doctor if i could get a CT scan or something done. As I'm worried that if i let it go any longer, it might get worse.

Or am i just overexaggerating this whole situation? Am i just using this as an excuse for performing poorly in my uni work?

I really don't know.