thinking since '98

(for more pictures like this, head to my instagram @spawnoftheearth)

i've always hated when you find a new blog only to discover that it hasn't been updated in eight months and the last post is a two paragraph rant on the bachelor finale. the author has more or less fallen off the face of the earth, leaving behind a page that once was something important in their life and is now left to become lost in the void that is the internet.

i don't want this blog to become just another blog like that which is why i am writing this.

that's not to say that this is the definite end of thinking since '98. it's rather the opposite actually. i will be taking an indefinite hiatus for the time being, but it is very possible that i will be back here gracing your screens one day again.

however this doesn't change the fact that i am an attention-craving creator who seeks validation from others primarily through the world wide web. you can find me on my new photography/writing instagram @spawnoftheearth and i really hope you do. it's just as odd and wacky as this.

when i was in middle school, there used to be an after-school program called rollercoaster on abc and i used to plant my butt on the couch for the two or so hours it ran every single day. and every single time, the host, elliot, used to end the show by saying, 'bye for now, but not forever', and i think that is the most fitting way to end this.

so... bye for now, but not forever.

a list by a disappointed person

1. give yourself a moment or two to fully absorb the reality of what has happened. build a cocoon and don't leave until you can wrap your head around the situation and thus be able to become a pretty butterfly (more on that later). however, make sure you're accepting the reality and

2. don't make excuses. from the words of veronica roth, "human reason can excuse any evil". this thing has happened and that is it. don't pass the blame. don't be in denial. and don't obsess over absurd fantasies where a wizard in a billowing trench coat will magically appear, tell you there's been a mistake and wave his fancy wand to make everything how you wanted it to be. or at least something along those lines. because i can tell you with 99.9% certainty that's not going to happen. instead you should

3. accept that, in this moment, this is where you are at. it's real and it sucks but this is what you have. believe me, i know how disheartening how it is to work at something and expect so much only for it all to be for nothing. but this is it. this is happening. this is your foundation from where you will

4. move on. there's nothing you can do now accept pick yourself up, dust yourself off and turn the page onto the next chapter. maybe you're a little bit behind from where you wanted to be, but that's okay because, eventually, you can catch up because you're going to

5. work harder. do better. this is a life lesson and if disney channel shows have taught me anything, it's to learn from your mistakes. run into the future but don't forget the past. make sure you never feel this horrid feeling again. though, know that

6. if you really want it to, everything will be okay in the end.

exams are over. school is over. routine is over. childhood is over.

now is the beginning.

i've been so focused on everything that is ending in these past few weeks that i've completely disregarded everything that is about to start. yesterday was my first day of the holidays that were thirteen years in the making. though they're not really holidays; they're a bridge between the known and the unknown. comfort and the great expanse. they're blank memories and experiences waiting to be filled. they're going to be the best three months of eighteen years.

as an ambitious procrastinator, my motto is 'if you don't have expectations, you can't be disappointed'. so maybe i'm setting myself up for failure. but how can i fail having fun and writing and exploring and learning? hanging out with friends and laughing and watching and growing? how can i fail living?

because that's what these three months will be. and, yeah, in between there will be a few days of waking up at 2pm and hibernating in summer. but as long as i'm in a constant state of self-pleasure, i really don't care. is that selfish? i don't think so, because i'm hoping selflessness will show itself along the way.

last post i said i wanted to pause, but now i'm ready to press play. which brings me to the point of this: i want to capture these experiences as best as i can and share them with those who want to know that somewhere, out there, a girl is having a grand time. maybe you're just looking for some vicarious happiness, or maybe you'll be doing the same thing and our lives will run parallel through the immortal nature of summer. if so, here's some shameless self-promotion!

i'm really hoping that i can utilise my newfound spare time to create, whether it be in personal projects but more so on this blog. i initially made thinking since 98 during one of the most important times in my high school career as an outlet for procrastination and in itself it became another thing for me to procrastinate. however, i'm going to stop being a lazy piece of shit (famous last words, i know) so expect some exciting new content!

which reminds me to remind you about the 98 thinkers project that you can find out all about right here! i really want to make this become a thing and i'll be scouring the creative universe for 98ers to participate!

i would also love for you to check out my instagram @akhsunid (or, as you might have noticed, you can find on my sidebar because technology is amazing) and indulge me and my innate need for attention.

in conclusion, i'm excited for what's to come and i hope you are too!! xx

so as it might/might not be apparent, the last few posts have been just some drafts that have been hanging around in my folders i've staggered out to make it look like i'm active when really i've been quite negligent in the blogging world. but, in a surprising twist, i actually have a valid reason for ignoring maintenance and am not just procrastinating because i am a lazy piece of shit. instead it's exam time over here in victoria - the moment of truth. if i'm being truly honest, i can't say i have a valid reason for procrastinating my studying like i'm doing right now but, hey, no one's perfect. also, i usually don't like being really personal here as i find straight-out baring my emotions a lot easier in the covers of my notebook that i know no one will see, but i figured i'd kill two birds with one stone: (a) vent & (b) explain my past and future absence.

i officially graduated from school about two weeks ago and yet it still hasn't really sunk in. twelve years i've spent going to the same place (after a brief stint at a local primary school). even though i only missed out on prep with my classmates, i still always kind of felt like the new kid, and it wasn't until the last few days that, in waves of nostalgia, we flicked through old photos and memories that i've realised that i grew up with these people. from awkward side-fringes to growth spurts to the acne that still taunts my face, i've done it with the vast majority of the these people that, come next month, i will probably never see again.

if i was not at school, i was on holidays, and if i was on holidays, i was just doing time until i would eventually have to go back to school. school has been all i've known until now (you can't count infancy, no one remembers shit during infancy). it's so easy to say that school sucks. the evidence is there in homework and rules and conformity. but i am truly going to miss the community that i've become so comfortable over the past twelve years. as shitty a day i could have been having, i was always comforted by the thought that right here, right now, i was where i was supposed to be. granted, it's government-mandated, but i knew i belonged - my parents paid the fees. and now i realise how truly lucky i was to go to the school i went to. academically we might not have been the best, but at least we were friends. teachers, students, ups and downs, we were a family. huh, i guess i can't say 'we' anymore.

in other news, in exactly 24 minutes from this moment i will be 18 years old. an adult. i can vote. i can get my license. i can [legally] drink. am i ready? hell no. 23 minutes.

but the list doesn't end there. a couple of months, i was helping out at the annual career expo my school holds every year. there, i met a lady from a renowned university interstate. she told me about a scholarship. i applied.

the whole application process happened across a week from when i even heard about the offer so my reasons for applying were pretty hasty. if i'm being honest, i think my imagination clouded my better judgement. moving away from home after high school was what i'd grown up seeing in movies and tv shows shipped out from hollywood. it was the american dream. but it was not the norm from where i come from. my brother graduated from school two years ago and everyone in his year level still live where they did two years ago. here. and, if i'm being honest, i secretly hoped i wouldn't get it because then the decision would be made for me. i could stay in the place i knew, doing the things i always did, having said i 'tried my best' and everything would be okay.

i received a call today. i received the scholarship.

things are going too fast right now. the exam period started on wednesday and my first exam is next week. but it still hasn't hit me that this is the end. i've been 17 for 364 days, but it still hasn't hit me that in fifteen minutes i'm 18. i've been growing up, but it still hasn't hit me that i've grown.

in video games, when things are getting crazy, you can pause. take a break. take a breath. and continue.

well, things are getting crazy right now. but i just can't find the pause button.

do you ever just want to restart?
hold power button to turn off, no i don't want to save.
back to when your skin had never been touched by lotion or cheap perfume.
back to when your knees had never been scarred from crawling between trees.
back to when your head had never been filled with these treacherous thoughts.
before you built the social web that now tangles you up so you can't move.
before you chose to do this or that or go right or left.
before you ended up here.
yeah, me too.

i never understood how people can be so obvious about their pain.
how they wear sadness on their face as bold as a bloodstain.
their movements lethargic and their shoulders turned down.
i never understood how they could so easily frown.
aren't you supposed to hide that all from the outside world?
keep it bottled up inside you, leave it in your stomach to swirl?
put a smile on your face and speak in uppercase,
take up only pleasantness and joy in your space
because how dare i think my feelings matter?
that i'm important enough to dull the chatter?
i'm only one among so many billions and more
why should i deem myself too cardinal to ignore?
so i lock my misery up and throw the key away
and then i wonder why no one asks me if i'm okay.

clouds are so weird. they're just these giant bundles of fluff way way up high.
i mean, obviously there's a science behind them and their existence can be explained with two dollar words like vaporisation and orographic forcing, but to me they honestly don't even look real - they look like a painting of the sky by the gods where their hands slipped and the paint spilled onto the canvas but it's okay because sometimes accidents are the best kind of art.
when the world around you is constantly moving, the clouds aren't. cars are rushing to your right, people running to your left, and you're caught up in the race. but then you look up and the clouds are just still, watching down on it all.
it isn't until you stop moving and everything around you freezes that you realise the clouds are moving too. and you realise that they have places to go and things to see. and you realise that they're not going to be there forever. and you realise what a bummer time is.

side note: i also posted this on my commaful account which you can check out here

i can cross rivers and climb mountains with energy to spare
i can explore oceans and lift boulders like they're barely even there
but give me a social excursion or a two hour dinner
and suddenly i understand how bears can sleep through winter
my cheeks hurt from smiling that superficial smile
in an attempt to make others think their gossip is worthwhile
but that doesn't compare to my thoroughly exhausted brain
who would rather drown in its own fluids than say "oh no, he didn't" again
days and days of peace and quiet
and now i'm thrust in the middle of the riot
so i run as soon as i can to the solitude of my room
hoping the serenity will once again resume
i close my eyes and am surrounded with silence

but the noise in my head doesn't stop.

last night i went to a friend's 18th and things got a little bit crazy to say the least. and by 'crazy' i mean of the alcoholic persuasion.

i don't remember the exact moment when the parties i went to with people from my year level stopped being pass the parcel and started being shots shots shots but it is what it is now. technically, i'm not allowed to drink. my parents are brown and asian so i'm expecting that rule not to change until i'm 30. at least. but the concoction of rebellion mixed with thudding music and pack mentality as well as just being a good ol' fashioned dumb teenager means forged permission notes at 6:30pm, jagermeister burning down my throat at 8pm and quickly trying to sober up at 11:30pm. i know its stupid but, again, it is what it is now.

last night's celebrations was for a girl part of the upper class in our grade's social hierarchy. i'm not gonna try and pretend cliques and popularity aren't a thing in high school and, sorry middle schoolers, they probably will be for a long time to come. but they also mean that the party circle i'm invited to involve practically the same groups of people every time which also means that most parties follow the same routine. you know who's going to hook up. you know who's going to be crying. you know who's going to be the centre of attention. you know who's going to be in all the photos. naturally it can all become boring and derivative. that is, unless you have your drunk goggles on which is what i did last night.

at first when i sat down to write this post i wanted to do one of those angsty poems about alcoholism and superficialness and how amidst the haze of lethargic movements and lack of filter you see a person for who they really are deep inside. i wanted to write something that would fit amongst the 1975 lyrics or have aesthetic tumblr accounts scrambling for the reblog button. except, for me, that's not what drinking was.

i mean, it was fun. i was buzzing on a confidence boost with only one goal: party. gone was my usual crippling sense of self-consciousness and self-awareness. i did not give a single, flying fuck what anyone else thought of me. though, if there's one thing i remember from last night, it's that i'm pretty sure i looked like a complete moron. but i was a moron who was having harmless fun so that's all good with me. i had no inhibitions and i didn't get caught which altogether equals a great night.

by no means am i encouraging underage drinking or saying that you need alcohol to have a good time. you do you and you do you responsibly. besides, rule number one when dinushka goes drinking is do not throw up. that fear of puking and having the most sacred part of my body penetrated by the half-digested contents of my stomach (my mouth is where i taste food and thus it is the temple that i worship) ensures i cut myself off before anything becomes too hectic. what i think i'm trying to say is that not everything is deep and meaningful and reflects the inner-workings of humanity. sometimes it's just pure, mindless fun.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

so i had this dream the other night and i've been thinking about it a lot hence i wanted to record it somewhere but the trials of year 12 have caused my hand to ache at the mere glance in the direction of a writing utensil and i don't want the people i know in real life to gain insight into my hidden subconscious which rules social media out so i thought, hey! why don't i use that blog that i haven't touched in a buttload of time?

anyways

in my dream, i was part of the avengers (the marvel kind, not the british tv series that aired in the 60s which i may have mistaken for my beloved superheroes when flicking through the tv guide many a time). obviously, that's not a very unique fantasy - comic book worshippers probably have wet dreams to that same concept on a daily basis. however, rather than having the alien war or whatever take place in a poor, featured-in-every-movie-since-the-dawn-of-cinema american city while australia chills tranquilly far, far away, the avengers came down under to melbourne, because thats the place my sleeping brain knew and therefore it could destroy.

so my dream self was at home, watching tv with my older brother when BREAKING NEWS! A BAND OF SUPERVILLAINS IS ATTACKING MELBOURNE! AVENGERS ROLL OUT ASSEMBLE!

my designated avengers team member pager that i kept with me at all times (because this is 2016 and that's the widely used mode of communication states my subconscious confidently) began to beep hastily and, as i clicked it off, i only remember a single thought running through my dream mind: ah fuck, i have to help.

my brother pushed me off the couch and out the door excitedly, assuring me he'd watch me on the news. i stood on my front porch and sighed. here we go again i thought before bending my knees and launching myself into the skies, flying effortlessly through the clouds.

i took the route that we would normally take by car if we were heading into the heart of the city - rather than how the crow flies - as i glided above cars rushing outward bounds on the freeways and twisting my body in line with the turning roads. occasionally people stopped in their hurry to get away from the chaos i could hear ahead of me to point at the "flying avenger here to save us all". i waved awkwardly and sped up towards the cbd.

in my avengers essential ear piece, i could hear that the fight was well underway. the evil enemy team was made up of - well, what do you know - the same amount of members as us, the avengers. therefore, we were each delegated a different villain to defeat. mine was a hulking woman built not-unlike an amazonian on steroids, complete with enviously strong thunder thighs that no amount of squats would ever let me obtain. with only my ability to fly no better than a well-constructed paper aeroplane, i was fucked.

so what did i do? i procrastinated. all the way to my deepest subconscious, my go-to method of coping with stress was procrastination.

"where are you?" black widow yelled into the intercom.

"sorry! saving civilians!" i replied, helping an old lady cross a road next to where i had been watching the battle from a far, far away distance.

"your assignment is helping mine kill me!" iron man exclaimed, whizzing past me as i tried to begin rebuilding the fallen eureka tower with three bricks i found at a construction site.

"is dinushka even in this movie?" hawkeye asked and i didn't dare take a breath in case they'd hear me and remember that i was.

eventually captain america finished up his nemesis and informed me he was coming over to help me end mine, so i flew out of the empty coffee shop where i'd been taste-testing their now abandoned muffins-of-the-day and caught up with the wonder woman who looked like she ate wonder woman. panting from the effort, captain america assumed i was tuckered out from my brave fight and with no reason to believe otherwise, good old steve did all the work.

the rest of my dream is a haze of relief and shawarma but basically the moral is, people say your dreams reveal your true self, and apparently i wear my soul on my sleeve because i handled that situation exactly as i would any of my real-life responsibilities - with procrastination and muffins

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

standardised tests are one of the most ridiculous things that the education system has to offer. how is how i'm thinking and feeling on one particular day supposed to reflect a year or even more of my whole schooling career?

vce results came out yesterday. though i still have one more year of school, i did one vce subject. it was the only thing that i really tried hard at this year and in a classic turn of events, i didn't do very well. what a representation of my life.

but what really ticked me off were my 'results' for the general achievement test which is supposed to validate school-based and external assessments. i'm not gonna lie, i didn't really take it seriously at all and now i regret that because i realise it played a heavy part in my disappointing final score. but, c'mon, all there questions were begging me to make fun of them.

my gat results came in today. the gat is separated into three parts: written communication, mathematics/science/technology and humanities/arts/social sciences. my last two results were meh but let's talk about written communication. i honestly don't remember what i wrote for that part, but it supposedly wasn't up to par. apparently my "score in written communication typically indicates weaknesses in presentation, often reflected in a lack of coherence and an inability to use an appropriate style. there are frequent errors in punctuation and spelling, and vocabulary is generally limited."

well, alrighty then. not to toot my own horn, but i've entered three writing competitions and all three times i was published with honours. all of my school reports have indicated i possess really good literary skills. this blog isn't really a sufficient representation of my ability because i take it much too casually, but the icing on this very much lack of sundae is that in a very similar test earlier in the year, i was placed in the top 5% of the country for english. and yet, the gat is telling me that my writing skills are seriously below average.

how on earth is this one test an accurate reflection of what i can do? if this is the reason that i didn't do as well as i expected in my vce result, then i am beyond pissed. a whole two years worth of work down the drain because of three hours in one day?

the education system is flawed. i don't know how to fix it but i recognise that it needs to be fixed. and it's about time that the people actually controlling the system realise that too.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

one of my least favourite tropes is that whole idea about girls being against girls. like the protagonist is only friends with dudes and she's kind of tomboy but every guy she meets basically falls in love with her and she doesn't have any girl friends because all other girls hate her because they're jealous and they spill their asparagus juice on her or whatever. also, the protagonist is against anything slightly perceived as feminine - scoffing at girls that want to go to prom, rolling her eyes at girls that wear make up and waving her middle fingers erratically in the air at girls that slightly upturn the corners of their lips at a boy.

like, nooooo. i thought this was the generation of feminism? the rise of the sisterhood? we're all queens. we shouldn't be putting ourselves down; we should be helping each other up to the throne.

being a feminist is not about disregarding anything that has had a history of being linked to femininity. it's about the equality of females, males, and anyone else. it's about destroying gender labels. it's about letting everyone be who they want to be.

if you like wearing a dress, cool, wear a dress. if you don't like wearing a dress, cool, don't wear a dress. having opinions on harmless things is not a crime.

and, girls, support each other. fight the patriarchy together. we're awesome.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)