Share Your World (social activities).

   This week, I thought I’d take part in Share Your World. Thanks so much to Di for hosting. These are her questions: 

 Did you attend Sunday School at your local church as a child? 

   No. I’m Catholic, and Sunday school isn’t  a Catholic thing. Well, at least here it’s definitely not and I’ve never heard of Catholics going to a Sunday school anywhere else either. I did have religion classes two times a week, as part of regular school though, and on Sundays it was Mass. Still is, actually haha. 

 Did you attend after school classes ie. drama, sports, as a teenager? 

   I attended LOADS of things at different points in time, I once wrote a separate post about that actually. Most of it wasn’t because I really wanted to do it, but I was at a boarding school for the blind where pretty much everyone had some after-school activity, be it interest- or talent-based, or therapeutic like mobility training or vision therapy. So I had stuff like piano, swimming, extra English etc. and when I was in an inclusive school closer to home for a while I was in a drama club together with my brother, though neither of us was enthused about that either as far as I recall. Later when I went on to mainstream school I had Swedish and horse riding as my after school activities, which for once were things that I actually hugely enjoyed, but these weren’t organised by school so not sure if that counts at all. 

 Did you go to evening classes after you had left school? 

   Kind of yes, but not for long and it’s a bit complicated. My whole school journey was quite complicated for multiple reasons, including that I had two years’ delay in education compared with my peers, so by the time I went to high school, I was already eighteen when the typical age would be sixteen here. By then I had left the blind school and was in mainstream education already, and since I had no ambitious or well-defined academical plans, but a whole lot of different fears and a strong antipathy for the education system instead, I decided to take advantage of my age and go to a high school for adults, to make life less stressful for myself. Initially I went to weekend classes, but then I switched to evening ones, I guess we had them three times a week, because the level was a bit higher there and you didn’t have to sit such ridiculously long hours at school. That still didn’t last long, because eventually my Mum and I figured that to make it easier for both my teachers (some of whom seemed genuinely scared of catching blindness from me 😀 ) and myself (who didn’t really feel like I was learning a lot as a lot of what we did was either based on slideshows or textbooks that I didn’t have) I would instead homeschool myself (except for math for which I had a tutor) and send them assignments and come only for half-term exams, which all the teachers were relieved about so that’s what I ended up doing and it was great. But yeah, I did attend evening classes for a couple months. 

   Do you now belong to any groups/meetings (ie WI, single (not dating), young Mums, slimming clubs, young wives, Men’s hobbies ) 

   Nope, I’m quite a proud semi-hermit lol. I’m happy to talk to like-minded people but not a big fan of groups usually. 

Question of the day.

   Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, what are some annoying things that the opposite do? 

   My answer: 

   Well I’m an introvert, and what I’m going to say obviously aren’t things that I think ALL extroverts do, just what I experienced with quite a few of them. 

   The most annoying thing imo is how a lot of extroverts see introversion as something weird, abnormal or pathological, something that is the worse option of the two and that you should at least try to change, or else you’re crazy, strange or something. I think if it’s something pathological, it’s not introversion but anxiety or other things like that, and introversion is just a totally neutral trait. Sure, there are more introverts than extroverts who have social anxiety or are shy, but that doesn’t mean that introversion alone is something that is deemed to make you pathologically shy and socially crippled, or that extroverts cannot develop those things (I actually wonder if something like social anxiety wouldn’t be even more painful and frustrating for an extrovert to live with). It’s kind of like being tall vs being short for example – each has its own upsides and downsides and potential risks that are more linked to the one but not the other, but none is inherently better or worse than the other. – 

   A lot of extroverts I know have a bit of an egocentric mentality, which sometimes really annoys me. They always readily assume that you must enjoy the same things as them, and if you’re not into partying or going out with their whole group of friends that you barely know, and if you politely refuse or something, they’ll assume you’re haughty/rude/cocky or that you don’t like them, alternatively they’ll keep trying to persuade you because they know that you want to do it and that you need company and someone who’d make your life less “boring”, you just don’t know it yourself yet, and even if you really do not want it, it’s the normal thing to do so you should. Speaking of extroverts assuming that you’re haughty or rude, that’s something that, to me personally as both an introvert as well as someone with AVPD and all that fun stuff that affects my peopling capacity, isn’t just annoying but also quite hurtful, because the last thing I want is for people to assume that I’m being deliberately rude towards them or don’t like them or consider myself superior in relation to them. 

   Insisting that you come in and stay at theirs when you just popped for a little while. Sure, it is hospitable to offer that, but insisting more than once when the invited individual already said “No, thank you”, to me it seems rather pushy and sometimes even threatening when someone is hellbent on having it their way. A lot of my family do that, and so does my Dad when people come to us. I always feel for them when they’ve come to, for example, just take their car back after last night’s party and my Dad invites them to come all over again and they’re like: “Oh no, no, thank you, we’d like to but we have this and this and that to do at home!” And he keeps going: “Oh but just stay for a cup of coffee” Guests: “Sorry but…” Dad: “I’ll make you a cuppa, come in, come in!” Guests: “But we really can’t stay long…” Dad: “Milk or sugar?”… That’s obnoxious! I totally get that he just wants to be nice and hospitable but, for flip’s sake, there’s a limit to everything! 

   And something that is objectively very minor but a real pet peeve of mine is how extroverts call introverted people “quiet”. I hate this word so, so much! Like, really? You see me for five minutes, during which I don’t really have much to say to you because I barely know you (and, as we’ve already established, I don’t know how to do peopling really) and you already know that I’m quiet? You should spend a minute in my brain. 😀 I can be very quiet, but I can  talk up a storm just as well in the right circumstances, and I think many introverts are like that, it depends how comfortable they feel in a given situation and how much they have to say on a specific topic. Some people, in addition to quickly labelling others with the “quiet” label, say it in a way that sounds as if they perceived those so-called “quiet” people as pretty dull and boring. And I do get that a lot of introverts seem like that at  first glance indeed. Sometimes even at second, too. And that group of introverts absolutely includes Bibielz too, perhaps even in the top 5! 😀 But if you label someone as “quiet” right away, you can’t expect them to ever open up to you. We’ll let you see what you want to see, we wouldn’t want you to get a shock from finding out how intense it can get when we go “loud”. 😀 And even those who are truly  quiet and very careful with how much they say at all times, they can be extremely deep people in their inner peace and balance, even deeper than those of us who hide intensity behind quietness, and in my experience can be really wise and anything but boring, but it takes time to get to know them of course. 

   So I think these are all the things that I find particularly annoying about some extroverts. 

   You? 🙂 

Question of the day.

   The worst job in the world would be… 

   My answer: 

   In my view, probably something that would at the same time have to do with loads of math and loads of socialising. That means math teacher, I guess. 😀 That seriously seems like a truly awful job to me. 

   How about you? 

Question of the day.

   Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, what’s a nightmare situation for your respective personality type? 

   My answer: 

   Well for those who may be very new here I am an introvert, and based on my personal experience, the winner of The Introvert’s Nightmare Situation Contest would be First Communions! Except I don’t mean the actual First Holy Communion celebration at church when the child receives the Sacrament of Eucharist for the first time, as a Catholic, I think it is amazing, as long as the child has actually been prepared well and knows what it’s all about and so does their family, because these days this is so often not the case, as people focus on everything else except what’s actually important – whose child will be best dressed, or if all are to be dressed the same than what they should be wearing, how to take the hugest amounts of photos possible during the ceremony, which child should recite a poem, which Mum should thank the priest, which child should thank the mums, whom to invite, what presents should family members get a child, and the poor children are stressed out about loads of little details and excited about what presents they’ll get etc. etc. etc. – which is why I think children should receive Holy Communion individually rather than in large groups like based on grade or age, that Communion age should be younger for most children and the whole Communion party thing should take place the day before or after or whatever makes sense in a given situation but not on the day of the actual Communion. – But that’s a whole different pair of rain boots, as we say in Polish. 

   Communion parties are usually quite nightmarish though. They usually take place in some sort of a restaurant, because who wants to do that sort of thing at home and prepare all the food or even if they get catering who wants to play waiter and dishwasher all day. My Mum did that with Sofi and ended up with a badly strained leg. Such events are usually a lot more introvert-unfriendly when they take place in a restaurant vs at home, because usually the place isn’t very familiar to you or not at all, so you can’t just sneak out somewhere less peopled as you likely would in a family member’s or friend’s house, you can’t help out in the kitchen or something like that, or even lock yourself in a loo for very long. Taking a French leave may also be more tricky. There are no pets that you could talk to and focus on instead, like when I’m at people’s houses I usually play with their cats or dogs or something but at a restaurant there’s just nothing to do. You can probably go outside for a little while, but soon there’s going to be another course or dessert or something, and you just don’t have such freedom as you could during a similar celebration in a private house, where there may be some sort of a backyard, garden, lawn or whatever where you could de-people a bit. But generally you’re supposed to sit at the table and talk and either keep loading food into yourself or wait for the next delivery. The whole thing usually also takes a lot longer in a restaurant than it does at a house, but even at a house, for some odd reason it tends to take way longer than a birthday or stuff like that. There are usually  more people around you, as it may be some sort of collective party for more than one child, or there may be other guests at the place so even if you don’t interact with them, it may also contribute to the whole situation feeling overwhelming. Oh yeah and food. Well I don’t know if this is actually an introvert thing, probably not, but for me eating out is generally a problem for quite a few different reasons. Most importantly in this particular situation though, that I just don’t like to eat in social situations, and that I can’t get quite as much food into myself in one go as most other people seem to be able, so having a two-course lunch plus several different desserts plus snacks plus a huge dinner… I mean how do people even do this?! 😀 

   So yeah, if you’ve never been to a Communion, trust me, they’re pretty bad on brain batteries. I suppose wedding receptions must be even worse, but I haven’t been to one in a very long time so thankfully don’t have the experience really. Olek (who is also an introvert, though more functional than me and he claims that he just “doesn’t like people”, which I’d say is something different because while I’m very much an introvert I certainly wouldn’t say that I dislike people) has been to a wedding reception last weekend though , and, judging from how he slept pretty much til late afternoon after it, it must have been extremely rough. 🙃

   I just asked my Mum this question and thought I’d share her answer too. My Mum is kind of a curious case because I’d say she’s very much an extrovert, whereas she says she feels more like an ambivert and usually a more introvert-leaning one. So I guess she knows better what she is. ANyways, I asked her this and she said that for her as an ambivert, such a nightmare situation would be to be in a group of stranger people that she’s never met before, like the parents-teacher meeting that she’s going to go to tomorrow at Sofi’s school, and having to speak to them all, like introduce an idea that she has and thinks is good, and then if everyone was against her idea and she had to defend it publicly. Or, alternatively, if she had the idea but ended up not sharing it at all for fear of speaking publicly and her idea being criticised, and would then really regret it because, after all, she knows that it was a good idea. I think it’s interesting how there seems to be that sort of dichotomy or inner conflict when you’ve an ambivert. Because if I were in the same situation as an introvert, there would be no dilemma. I am just not going to share the idea, no matter how good it is, and I’m not even going to regret it, because I never share my ideas with stranger people, so I’ll just entertain myself watching them and chuckle internally at how weird they are that they haven’t come up with the same idea as me yet. Whereas here you have this weird push and pull in both directions, although of course it’s not all just a matter of ambiversion but also my Mum’s sensitivity to criticism. 

   How about your nightmare situation? 🙂 

Question of the day (8th September).

   What are small problems you have daily? 

   My answer: 

   The first thing that comes to my mind is definitely peopling. I have all kinds of problems around peopling, big and small. But, to mention a small one, I always have a problem deciding if saying or doing something when interacting with someone is okay. I always overthink it massively and end up making the conclusion that either way it can potentially be seen as rude or something like that. Like today, I was thinking a lot about an interaction I’ve been having with someone, and had a bucket load of dilemmas. Should I ask them this question, or will they think it’s daft or intrusive? But if I don’t ask anything, it’ll seem like I’m generally uninterested and don’t care. How should I respond to this? Will this message even sound coherent to someone else than me? etc. etc. etc. All kinds of things. That’s why I say that online communication doesn’t always necessarily make it easier for me to talk to people. Especially if I write to someone new, I proofread a flipping three-line message ten times, and then sit in front of it for five minutes scared of sending it. Other times, I tell myself I think about it too much and no one does it and I should do whatever my gut feeling tells me, and only ruminate afterwards, and often regret something as well, because as much as I generally find my intuition to be very helpful, it isn’t necessarily so helpful when it comes to interactions with people, so if I go with my gut feeling I often end up either revealing myself more than I’d like or seeming very stiff. It’s not always what people will think of me type of dilemmas but also what’s appropriate more practically, like what people generally do in such and such situation, or finding a sort of balance when interacting with people so that you don’t do something too much or too little. So what I often do is I ask my Mum for advice and ask her all kinds of dumb questions. She isn’t always able to help, because she hasn’t always been in the same situations or because she just doesn’t get my perspective, but very often she can help at least a bit. When my  friend Jacek from Helsinki was still a part of this world and when we got a bit closer to each other, I would often also ask him, because he was an extreme extrovert and always knew what to do when peopling and was very successful at it, but at the same time he could understand my difficulties fairly well despite that, I would even ask him about in person peopling and whether something I did looked alright or not so much, or whether something wouldn’t draw too much attention etc. and he’d generally have more distance than my Mum so his input could be very valuable. I often also learn about such things from books and observing people. But while it is all helpful, I still deal with a lot of problems around peopling every single day. Many of them I’m so used to that I don’t even consciously think about them very often as problems, but I probably would if I, say, had a job that would involve me interacting with people a lot, and would require what they call soft skills these days. 

   How about you? 🙂 

Travelle – “Video Games”.

Hey people! 🙂

I thought today I’d share another song from this Norwegian singer, songwriter and producer with you all. I know diddly squat about video games, simply because I never really play them. In fact, I hardly play any games at all, not because I don’t like it overall or because I have some weird rules that I never do it like some people apparently do, it’s simply because there aren’t as many games that are accessible for the blind, and out of those that are, few have managed to really spark my enthusiasm, and even fewer kept me interested long-term. Yet, on some level, I do find this song relatable, because even though I don’t play video games, I do a lot of other things that I’m hooked on, just like it seems to be the case with him and video games, and which I use as a substitute for peopling a lot of the time, and I much prefer peopling online. Except for me this is a chronic state, which doesn’t seem to be the case for Travelle, because from what we can figure out from the song itself and from what I read about it, it was more of a transition period for him, when he moved from his hometown (he’s from somewhere in Rogaland) to Oslo, where he didn’t know any people and had no one to hang out with so he preferred hanging out online with people he knew. It’s certainly always quite a major change in one’s life to move from a smaller place to a city where you don’t really know many people. Also, like I already wrote about Travelle in my previous posts where I shared some of his music, I like how he seems very candid about things, I like candid, genuine-sounding lyrics which let you see a glimpse of a person behind them because people as individuals are interesting most of the time. And it’s always refreshing to hear a song that isn’t about love or sex. 😀

Question of the day (27th October).

What do you wish was easier?

My answer:

All things round peopling/socialising. I seriously don’t know how most people are so efficient at it when it’s so damn difficult.

You? 🙂

Question of the day.

Whether you are an extrovert, ambivert or introvert, what advantages do you have from your extroversion/ambiversion/introversion in the society?

My answer:

I am quite decidedly an introvert and find it to have a lot of advantages. My Mum, who is generally more of an extrovert-leaning ambivert but has her more introvert periods, always kept telling me as a kid that introverts are very useful and needed in the society, even if to some people it might seem like it’s better to be an extrovert. She always claimed that introverts are better at listening than extroverts are, and so if the world consisted only of extroverts, they’d keep talking about themselves but no one would listen to one another. I am pretty sure that listening skills or lack thereof aren’t strictly corelated with introversion/extroversion, because there certainly are extroverts who can also be great listeners, they simply tend to do it in a different way, just as I know introverts who are extremely self-absorbed and the mere fact that a lot of introverts don’t like talking about themselves doesn’t mean they’re automatically good active listeners, but I do think it might be true that introversion helps with listening more than extroversion does. I guess it does help me, anyway. I like listening to people and often find it interesting even if also usually a bit challenging at the same time because I feel I don’t always know how I should/how they want me to react to whatever they’re saying and I always fear that I don’t react appropriately or adequately to whatever is expected. I do have to have the brain energy for it though. I also think my introversion makes me a good observer, or in any case, better than I would have been otherwise, because often when I’m in a large/medium group of people I’ll often be the sort of person who is on the outside, looking in, so I often don’t engage very actively in the conversations, but will much more happily analyse the situation, people’s behaviours, what they’re saying, people’s interactions and relationships with one another, what they seem to be like etc. as I find it far more interesting and far less stressful, because I find people in general quite fascinating in their diversity and complexity, yet actual interacting with them is very exhausting. A lot of people think that you miss out on a lot with this sort of attitude, and that I in fact must be longing to be more in the centre of things, as is apparently the case with a lot of people who act similarly, but I seriously do not and I don’t do it solely out of anxiety. Perhaps I do indeed miss out on some good things that could have come out of it if I was interacting with people more actively and openly, but it gets compensated by all sorts of little things that I pick up on and that other people don’t because they’re too engrossed in engaging in peopling more actively, so I like to think that my perspective is in the end more multidimensional. I think being good at observing and analysing things does come in handy and useful and is therefore valued as an advantage in the society. Similarly, we introverts tend to be more in tune with all sorts of lil gut feelings and things, which can also be very useful for us and for others around us.

For some of us, we’ve been in a better position during the pandemic, as we naturally tend to deal better with isolation and aloneness than more extroverted folks, and I’ve come to realise that this is a really huge advantage in prolonged situations like this, and I really feel for people who find it difficult to cope on their own.

And, also recently, I’ve particularly grown to like the fact that my introversion makes me fairly self-sufficient emotionally. I generally think that, overall, life’s easier when you are an extrovert or at least more ambi-, but this one thing in particular is a really big upside to introversion in my opinion. I mean, our Sofi is very strongly an extrovert and she needs a lot of stimulation, adrenaline and a lot of stuff to be going on around her, she’s easily bored if she doesn’t have people around her and if things aren’t changing often enough. She needs things like having sleepovers, or herself sleeping at her friends’/cousins’ houses, parties, outings, travelling, people to play or even just hang out with on a regular basis, or if she’s alone she needs to have a clear idea what she’ll be doing in this time and preferably some strong, fun emotions, and she struggles to actually come up with any ideas herself of what she could be doing so she needs some prompting and encouraging and stuff. If she happens to have a week where no one can visit her, or she can’t visit anyone, can’t go anywhere or do any very fun activity, everything is meh. These are the things she looks forward to and her life goes from one such thing to another. Sofi only has a good day when it’s spent having a lot of WOW experiences and big emotions, surrounded by friends. And that’s fun and cool, except people aren’t available 24/7, so she’s bored quite often and has to depend on others to provide her some kind of entertainment and stimulation. Which I think is sad, because her friendships are often quite flaky and superficial, and even in the best friendship arguments happen, plus her friends have other friends and social obligations, and can’t spend all their free time with Sofi. And then there are things like COVID that can get in the way. Over the last couple years Sofi has learnt to tolerate being alone a lot better, as in the past she needed pretty much non stop attention to feel good, but her own company is still far from being something she likes for more than half an hour max, and it feels quite tricky to me when you have to depend on other people to make you feel good, therefore I’m really grateful that this isn’t the case with me and that I don’t need people to feel happy or stimulated or have fun, and that I rarely feel lonely as in in need of contact with human beings. In fact, as I think I’ve often mentioned, I often actually feel more lonely when I am around a lot of people, and I find this feeling way more difficult to manage and quite crushing than the regular loneliness.

How is it with you? 🙂

Question of the day (4th April).

Hey people! 🙂

Here’s the question I meant to ask you yesterday:

Do you feel like you have a special connection with animals?

My answer:

I don’t feel this way at all, but, judging from how a lot of animals are extremely clingy with me, you could draw exactly the opposite conclusion. I do like most animals in general, I grew up in the countryside where we’d always have a dog or two in the backyard, some wild cats running around, and fishes at home, I even had a hamster for a short while as a kid, then I started horse riding, and now have Misha and Jocky, but I couldn’t describe myself as a typical animal person, who would take some great interest in animals in general, or even a particular species, or anything like that. The only animal which I truly love in a way that goes beyond just liking it because it’s cute is Misha. Since I love Misha very passionately or obsessively as some say, a lot of people automatically assume I must be some crazy cat lady in general. And I don’t usually tell them that it’s otherwise because, of course I do like cats, but it’s not like I have some special interest or extreme love for felines as a whole. I feel I also had a very strong bond with a horse I used to ride for many years, that was absolutely amazing, but he died two years ago or so. I guess the fact that I’m madly in love with one cat and used to have an extraordinary bond with one horse doesn’t really make me an animal person overall or doesn’t mean I could have a connection with all of them.

For some reason though, a lot of animals seem to like me a lot. Often when I’m just walking somewhere and a cat passes by, it will come close to me and let me stroke it. Same about people’s dogs. We even have one dog in the neighbourhood who will always get so agitated whenever she sees me and will not calm down until her mummy lets her come over to me and I stroke her. It’s hilarious, although a bit weird. 😀 In my family, when we visit someone who has a cat or a dog, the pet will often come to me first thing, even though it’s my Mum or Sofi trying to coax it with some food to come to her and I don’t do anything. It’s especially remarkable with my aunt’s dog – Daisy – who is always literally all over me whenever I visit her. And I visit this particular aunt extremely rarely. In a way, getting so much attention from animals in social situations is fun, because it often rescues me from having to be social with people, or gives me something to do on family gatherings where I’d otherwise be bored to death (I think I talked about that when sharing Leah Nobel’s song Talking To The Dog At The Party, which I think should be introverts’ anthem 😀 ). In this regard, credit goes especially to my gran’s cat, Feluś, and one of my maternal grandparents’ backyard cats whom I called Michelle, who always keep me sane during social gatherings, as long as they are home. But on the other hand it often ends up drawing even more human attention to me and I don’t like that one bit. Also, especially with dogs, it can be quite awkward. I feel about dogs very much like I feel about children. They’re cute, but, in direct contact, I don’t really know how I should relate to them, what I’m supposed to do with them, and they can be a bit overbearing long-term. I even feel this way about our Jocky, as much as I like him at the same time. With Jocky it’s also funny because of course he’s mostly Sofi’s pet, just like Misha’s mostly mine, and Sofi and Jocky have very similar characters and love each other so much and play a lot. Still, it always bothers Sofi very much that Jocky always seems a lot more affectionate withh me than with her, even though I am not nearly as affectionate with him as Sofi is. I do play with him regularly and it’s fun, but I don’t do it not nearly as much as Sofi and don’t give him as much attention. Yet when we come back home from somewhere and he sees me and Sofi, he’ll be all over me first and only then scamper off to play with Sofi. I really feel for Sofi, I’d hate to have a similar situation with Misha where I’d love him as much as I do but he’d be more affectionate with Sofi. So while in a way I feel honoured that Jocky likes me so much, even though I don’t get it, I think for Sofi’s sake I’d rather like it more if he was more like that with her.

I guess it’s kind of similar to what my Dad experiences with children. He makes a rather rough impression and can be authoritarian and not necessarily your ideal candidate for a nanny, but, for some weird reason, he’s very popular with all toddlers with our family. They are often a bit shy around him initially when they come to us or when we come to their parents’ houses, but after some time, it’ll be my Dad on whose lap they’ll be sitting or running to him to tell him about some game they’ve been playing or give him a half-eaten lollipop or something, even though I would think my Mum is far more engaging with children than he is. Maybe it’s about his sense of humour and that, unlike my Mum, he hardly actually asks them any questions, and I suppose not all kids like being asked a lot of questions even if it’s in a very friendly way as is the case with my Mum, who is genuinely interested and doesn’t just automatically ask about how school is going.

Weird how such things work sometimes.

How is it with you? 🙂

Some fun stuff instead of question of the day.

Hi guys! 🙂

I’ve found something today that I thought I could post on here so we can have some fun. Below are sentences that we can complete. I’ll do it here in this post, and you can do it in the comments, or in your own posts (don’t forget to pingback or leave the link in the comments so I can read it). Keep them as long or as short as you only wish. For your convenience, I’ll write the unfinished sentences alone first so that you can copy paste them without having to edit them and delete what I wrote. Here goes:

I am confident about…

I am insecure about…

I need to…

I want to…

I like to…

I recently bought…

I am thinking about…

I am anticipating…

I am procrastinating…

I am watching/listening to/cooking…

Mine:

I am confident about… nearly nothing, I guess. I’ve been thinking on this for a while now and I just can’t come up with one thing I would be like absolutely and unquestionably confident about. 😀

I am insecure about… almost everything, which I guess is pretty logical from what I wrote above.

I need to… find myself another faza. It’s really getting imperative! I haven’t written much about that lately but I’m still searching intensely. My latest finding has been Jack Hughes who is cool but too normal, not versatile enough, and has a bit peculiar way of singing which would be annoying for me long-term. Why do I have to find a faza for myself in the first place, rather than it just happening without my conscious effort, like always before? My brain is getting way too lazy. And it’s a vicious circle because lack of a faza and thus beneficial stimuli in the right amount only makes it more lazy. 😀 What do you do with a lazy brain?

I want to… stop cutting myself. I did last week again, and a couple of times, so this time I only managed to go without it a month or so I believe. And on the other hand I don’t want to stop cutting. Well but what I do want is I don’t want to do it in such an impulsive way. Or at least be able to not do it for longer periods of time, like once I managed not to cut for about half a year. In case you’re wondering why I did it, I was just feeling depressed and overloaded, also had a lot of anxiety for no obvious reason, it was my friend Jacek from Helsinki’s another death anniversary on July 29, and then later in the week it was my cousin’s 18th birthday party and I reeeally couldn’t deal with the socialising and all that comes with it. Quite ironically, I have some special memories with Jacek from Helsinki and my own 18th birthday party, which didn’t help. But it’s better now.

I like to… sleep with Misha.

I recently bought… my new Bang & Olufsen headphones, yaaaaaay!!! Seriously, this was a very spontaneous purchase, totally on the spur of a moment, completely unlike me, just because it was my Mum who found these headphones online on sale and she told me about them, I only briefly looked them up online to see if it could be something for me and it seemed like it could perhaps be but might just as well not be, but it was on Zalando Lounge so they were way cheaper than they would be otherwise and I could return them if I decided they’re not for me. I really needed some good headphones for my iPhone, I also need a good speaker(s), so I figured I might just as well try these with an opportunity like this. I had to wait ages for these headphones, about a month, and also I was rather sceptical whether it could really be something for me ’cause I’m sort of picky and have some very specific requirements. But they came on Monday – just before my parents went out on their camper van trip so Mum could pick them up for me – but they had to go and Sofi wasn’t home when they were leaving so I had to set them up and pair by myself. Which was not difficult but I had no accessible manual or anything and I didn’t really know how to do it. I figured how to turn them on and turn Bluetooth on after a while but they still weren’t visible for my iPhone because it turned out I had to get an app to set them up, so I was very apprehensive and wondered how accessible it’ll be with VoiceOver – the iPhone screenreader – and moreover how usable for me as a still more or less beginning iPhone user. It would probably be badly inaccessible if not the fact that VoiceOver can now guess what different buttons in an application do from how they look if they’re not labelled properly, and as far as I remember none or very few were labelled originally in that app and VoiceOver did a very good job at the guessing game. Then I didn’t remember what exactly model I had and I had to select the one I had from the list in the app to set it up, and some only differ between each other with one number so not very Bibiel-friendly. So I ended up having to call Mum and she had to check up what my model was. Then still iPhone couldn’t connect to the headphones for ages and I was getting really frustrated, but then finally I did something random and they did connect to each other. And once I had them paired, a very Bibiel-friendly manual showed up – both with audio and text, not some weird, hardly descriptive video like a lot of tutorials are – so I could figure out hhow to actually use the headphones without anyone’s help very easily. And once I learned it it was very rewarding because I’ve already grown to like the headphones a lot. I would never buy them for their original price, I seriously don’t think the sound is worth as much, but it’s definitely good for me and good for the price I paid for them. When I read reviews people complained that the active noise cancelling feature is meh because it doesn’t work as well as in other similar headphones but for me it’s just right. They’re my first noise cancelling headphones and, I don’t know, I have a terribly, horribly, freakishly loud desktop computer and when I turn the noise cancellation on and sit at the desk I can barely hear the hum nor anything else outside. Granted, I don’t need some really extreme noise cancellation, I am obviously blind and a control freak, I want to know what’s going on around me most of the time so that I don’t need to worry that someone is lurking behind me and I have no idea because I’m listening to music. On the other hand I do like the noise cancelling for situations when I don’t need to hear the world around me so that I have a good and immersive environment for daydreaming haha, and these headphones are just right for this purpose. Even yesterday I had a situation when Sofi was in my room, watching a video on her phone, and there was some really weird music that was setting my brain off a little bit, so I just quickly put my headphones on and turned my own music on with the noise cancelling, and I could no longer hear Sofi’s evil shit. They also have transparency mode which is good sometimes for such people like me (Sofi once said that they should invent cheekphones for me because with my computer headphones often when someone was in my room or something I would have the headphones more on my cheeks than ears so that I could hear my surroundings clearly without having to constantly put on and take off the headphones, yes, cheekphones could be a cool idea for some specific situations 😀 ), and integration with Siri which is useful at times, and the earpads are really comfy, though I haven’t used them for a longer stretch of time yet. They have gesture control which seems to work very poorly, or perhaps it’s me not doing the gestures the right way exactly, but thankfully you can also control them within the app or just simply from the phone. They also have a cable so I can plug them into my PlexTalk which does not have Bluetooth which is cool because my previous PlexTalk/computer headphones are falling apart. Oh wow, what a mini review I just wrote lol.

I am thinking about… Jocky, whom Sofi has just let inside and he’s devastating the house and barking his lungs out, and about Misha, who is thankfully cosily tucked inside my wardrobe – this is his recent hideout for when he’s a bit stressed as it seems, and he certainly is stressed now because Mum is away and he’s very attached to her.

I am anticipating… huh, nothing really. Can’t think of anything I’d be anticipating at the moment.

I am procrastinating… way more than I realise on a daily basis. I’ve only recently thought more about it. I really procrastinate a whole lot and it’s usually because of anxiety as it seems. But it’s not like impairing or anything so I can’t say I care very much, just a little alarming when you suddenly realise such things.

I am watching/listening to/cooking… listening to BBC Radio Cymru at the moment.

So, who wants to play along with me? 🙂

Bloggerz.

Hey people! 🙂

I feel a little crappy with energy levels today and haven’t come up with or found a question of the day for you for today, just don’t feel like it, but I decided to answer some questions of Rory’s, aka

A Guy Called Bloke,

and if you would also like to do it, either on Rory’s blog or on your own, go ahead! 🙂

Here are Rory’s questions:

How spontaneous are you?
If you mean emotional spontaneity, generally not at all. It also depends on a setting, like, my surroundings and who I am with, sometimes I may be a little bit more spontaneous than not at all but that’s really rare. I am more spontaneous in writing though, sometimes much more. If you mean spontaneity as in going with the flow and not planning your life, I think I must be somewhere in the middle. I do like my routines and sticking to what I know, I hate change, but I am not the type of person to rigidly plan my whole life or even a whole day ahead, I’m too disorganised for that kind of thing and it seems boring to me.

How flirtatious would you say you are and if that is not the word you would use then try the alternatives of ‘teasing or playful’ either way – how much are you of this?
Flirtatious – not at all. Teasing – if I know someone well enough and/or it’s some relatively mild teasing than sometimes I can be if I know that they know that I’m just teasing them or being sarcastic and don’t mean to offend them or anything. Playful – yes, I do have that very playful part of me, the inner child or however you want to call it, I call her Bibiel, aka Bibielle or Bibielka but Bibiel is what she’s used to the most, and she is very playful, humourous and childish and she especially loves playing with Zofijka.

How serious are you as a person?
Apparently lots of people think I’m serious and I guess I do make such an impression, I’m not playful and humourous with just everyone, and also my mental health/social difficulties prevent me from truly expressing myself around people in person. Plus I have some qualities that, while don’t necessarily mean the same as being serious, are often sort of associated by an average person with seriousness, like I’m very analytical and overthinking, quite naturally depressive and usually not too talkative unless I know someone very well and feel at ease with them. I can be outwardly serious or very serious when need be, but because I have Bibiel, I can be never fully serious in my mind and I have frequent situations when I can barely hold back laughter in generally inappropriate situations because some minor, funny detail caught my attention or something grotesque about the whole situation or because I just remembered something similar that I think is funny. Sometimes I myself am worried about it that I can find things to laugh about even in the most serious/sad situations that shouldn’t really be laughed at, and while I never do it openly/ fully intentionally, I often feel a bit guilty when my inner Bibiel makes fun of absolutely everything. But usually it is a very helpful trait. Has helped me to get through life on numerous occasions. Also a lot of people don’t get my sense of humour which can sometimes be very immature and childish, while other times rather sarcastic and dry and when it’s the latter people often don’t know that I’m joking or saying something ironically and their impression is that I’m being very serious.

Do you think the older we become certain emotions are easier to handle – say as an example ‘grief?’
I think it’s hugely personal. Of course there is that developmental psychology thing and it makes a lot of sense and is kind of obvious that we go through different stages of emotional development and growth as we age, but I think emotions are a very individual, as well as fairly intangible matter, and depend on so many factors for everyone, so you really can’t generalise in this case and measure it. Perhaps for someone who is as emotionally mature as their age would indicate, it’s true, but then emotionally mature people can at the same time still be very sensitive and I believe their grief would still be rather intense then.So it probably also depends on some other individual traits like resilience or such. I don’t know.

What is the most adventurous thing you have done to date?
I’m not really overly adventurous, but one thing that comes to my mind at the moment was when we wanted to run away from home with Olek, I think I was about 11 so he would be 9 at the time. Not for any particular reason, I think we had some minor tension with Mum but mostly just for the sake of it. It didn’t work out at all, I don’t really remember how it all ended up but we didn’t go very far at all. We weren’t prepared for that, plus it would be quite difficult to achieve for me as I was only getting around with Olek as my guide so that just wouldn’t do more long-term I guess when running away in any circumstances.:D

What’s the craziest or riskiest thing you have ever done and simply got away with it or gotten caught doing it?
It would have to be when I used Doses, I think, Doses are those binaural sounds I’ve told you guys about that are meant to have a similar effect on your brain as drugs or other psychoactive substances do or evoke some other strange sensations in your mind. I had gotten caught, so there were some external consequences for me and the other kids I persuaded into it, but I believe that I got away with it in a different way, because apparently, while those things are apparently not addictive as drugs are, they can still cause brain damage, and I don’t feel it had such an effect on me because this was a relatively short period when I was doing this. Also as a Christian I believe that it could have had far worse spiritual consequences for me than it did.

What do you think the future is of dating and other ‘other’ now that social distancing has become part of your life? Will your life ‘up close and personal’ with people now be different?
Dating apps and websites have been already popular for quite a while, so I think this time now might be good for them and more people might start to use them. Which I think is generally good, though it does have its associated downsides and risks, but so does dating face to face. Still, I think after some time passes, and the threat of contracting COVID will lessen, there will still be people who will prefer meeting up for dates because it feels more genuine to them. For some people meeting people in person is too important to just give up on it plus some believe that it’s a much more reliable/genuine way of finding a potential partner and that you can get to know each other better over a coffee when you look each other in the eye rather than online.And as for my life, hm, I’m not sure. I’ve never been one for meeting up with people. My contacts with my immediate family with whom I live are as normal. When I go out, my Mum is my guide so we can’t keep the distance. With other relatives whom we see more or less regularly we try not to get too close, no kissing, hand shaking or such but we’ve had people in our house and such. I don’t think we’re seriously going to keep it for a very long time and only keep our relationships with people from a distance, but it also depends on how things evolve. It’s a completely new situation for all of us so it’s hard to say.

How different do you really think you are to the next person – are you prim and proper, or straight laced and serious, wild and abandoned or rebellious and controversial?
I don’t think any of these particular adjectives fit me well really, haha. I am certainly not prim and proper, although I do have a strong sense of morality or so I think and a lot of so called traditional values are important to me, I’m not straight laced and serious either. Some people do say I’m wild, but rather in the sense of a hermit who is not used to people than someone who is very adventurous, impulsive and uninhibited, I have nothing against being wild. Some of my views or opinions are controversial but I’m not the type of person who has the kind of opinions she has just to provoke controversy, and I don’t think I’m controversial at all as a whole, neither am I rebellious the way most people see rebellion, though I am very quirky. I do think I’m very different, which is both great and difficult, I love it and hate it, but if I got a chance I don’t think I would change it. I like my unusual brain and that I like things that not everyone else likes, I like that my experiences are different than many people’s.I’m just Bibiel lol.

During this time of global concern how has your thinking changed with regards the planet, conservation, climate issues …..or has it not changed one little bit?
It hasn’t really changed at all. SInce the Earth is where I currently live, I’ve always tried to live in harmony with it, that was what my family had taught me, I believe it’s our responsibility both as simply its inhabitants and as human beings. The nature has been created to serve us but that does not mean we can act disrespectfully towards it and destroy it or flood the world with our rubbish just because we feel like it, quite the opposite. We are obliged to care for the Earth and protect every single life on it as much as we can. However I am not an ecology freak nor an alarmist and I believe that moderation is key. I don’t think I believe in climate change the way most media portray it and some things that people apparently do to take action against it seem downright illogical, if not counterproductive to me, or at least pointless. Climate IS changing, but it always has been.

What ‘topical issues’ considered ‘taboo’ by society are you deeply passionate with and about to the point of doing something about it?
Mental health and disability. Since I myself am both disabled as well as mentally ill, I try to raise awareness of those issues by blogging about what they mean to me, in my life. There’s no taboo around these things on my blog.I also like to support other mentally ill people if and how much I can, though I’m not sure how good I’m at it actually.

What’s more important and or is there a difference between ‘Friendship and Companionship and if so what is that difference?
I don’t know about what’s more important, I believe companionship may be more fulfilling but since I’ve never experienced it I don’t really have an idea. I think the difference is that companionship is more intimate. I’d think that it’s something between friendship and romance, and at the same time something on the next level. The people are in love with each other, could be romantic but not necessarily, spend a lot of time with each other, are used to each other’s company, know each other very well for a long time, both the good qualities and flaws of one another. The image that comes to my mind when I think of companionship is a couple who has been together for many years, they’ve already gone through the phase of friendship, romance, and now are at a stage where they have been with each other for too long and have gone through too many different situations to be madly in love, perhaps they don’t even need sex anymore, but they feel very comfortable with each other. Whereas friendship can be when two people like each other very much, have a lot in common, either in terms of interests, or life in general, or how they think or what they like, and they like to talk to each other, can count on each other and support one another. But it’s not quite as intimate as companionship and people don’t know each other quite as well.

What is your passion with regards writing genres – 1] what is your chosen genre and 2] what is the genre you might like to write about but lack confidence to start?

I mostly just do journaling type posts on my blog. Misha’s posts are also usually diary-like, though some are fiction (The Human Life of Misha Hhrrru?). I used to write a lot of short stories just for myself and enjoy it, though I hardly ever enjoyed the final effects and usually deleted them straight away, but these days I write much less fiction. I wrote a few stories in English on my blog, separate from Misha’s series, and that was fun, I’d like to do it more often but I think I lack confidence in terms of writing fiction in English and writing fiction in general, and also I don’t really have that many ideas.

 

Question of the day.

What are you not looking forward to?

My answer:

I’m not looking forward to my cousin’s 18th birthday. She’ll be having a very big party with dancing and lots of people, many of whom I’ve never even seen before, and I’m scared of that. I have arranged an escape plan for myself with the help of my very understanding grandad, from the other side of the family, not related to that cousin, and he said he’ll be able to help me most likely, but I’ll have to stay there for some time. Ugh scary. And boring.

You?

Question of the day (21st April).

You’re allowed to erase one item from your schedule for the next week. What is it and what do you replace it with?

My answer:

Barbecues – there’s some sort of weird, informal tradition in Poland that people are doing barbecues in the first days of May – as they are like bank holidays here and the weather is usually getting warmer, or I guess that’s the reason. – Barbecuing can be cool, but as for my family it usually means socialising, and eating loads of meat and little of anything else, I usually hate them. I’d replace them with… let’s think… learning Welsh maybe? or blogging? or something nice like that. Definitely something nice.

You? 🙂

Question of the day.

Hi people. 🙂

Since February is definitely a birthdays month in my family, I have another birthday related question for you.

How do you like to celebrate your birthday? Do you actually like celebrating it at all or is it just a normal day for you?

My answer:

I definitely dislike the conventional way of celebrating special days – all people crowding around the table, having to absorb huge amounts of food at once, smalltalking, feeling bored and either you being in the centre of attention all the time or people not caring at all about the reason of the celebrations but just being happy to have some place to go and stuff themselves with food – depending what kind of a family you have. 😀 My extended are a blend of both haha. No that’s not for me. I try to have possibly decent relationships with my extended family, at least my Mum’s family, even though I don’t feel much of a connection with them for a variety of reasons, so I’ll adjust to such a way of celebrating if I have to, but that’s normally not my thing. I much prefer spending my birthday with just the people I genuinely love or like and care about and with whom I feel well like my immediate family and my online friends. For years I would rather avoid celebrating my birthdays at the boarding school so now I’m not that crazy about them either. It’s nice to do some things you really like on your birthday, to make it more special, be them something very unusual or just every day things you like, though my birthday this year, although really nice, wasn’t something I celebrated a lot. I know my Mum wanted us to go to the Italian restaurant that is quite close to us, because we both love Italian food, but unfortunately in the end it wasn’t possible as it would collide with my Dad’s job and Mum usually has to pick him up. Anyway, luckily I could avoid my extended family coming over, and my Mum just made my favourite toffi cake and my favourite salad and then chips for us for supper, which were all very yummy, we also went to church because of my birthday and I got a picture of a cat that looks almost like Misha, from my Mum, and it was all very nice. But other than that it was just a normal day, and if I had to choose whether I prefer having a rather normal, maybe even a bit uneventful birthday or a family gathering, I would definitely prefer the first. Other than that, here in Poland as in many other European countries we also have name days, which are originally a Christian tradition, and maybe because I’m Christian, or maybe for some other reason, celebrating your patron saint’s day seems just more worth celebrating than the fact you’re getting older. Especially now as I could change my legal name a few years ago and like the name Emilia, it feels like just a much better opportunity to celebrate. My name day is on 30th June so it’s always summer holidays then here, so even the atmosphere is more favourable and you can do more fun things, and my extended family still can’t get used to me having nam te day in June so I don’t have to worry about socialising too much. 😀

How about you? 🙂

Question of the day.

What would your perfect shindig involve?

My answer:

Well I guess a perfect shindig for me would be no shindig at all. It’s definitely not my thing. I sometimes can’t stand a normal family gathering, let alone a noisy party for God knows how many people. But if I had to take part in one, I’d be happy if there were some places where I could take refuge, or from where it would be easy to take a French leave and sneak out to my room with Misha as soon as possible. I just had a similar situation today. It’s my Dad’s nameday, and because it’s Sunday, lots of people came in hopes that there will be a lot of food and an opportunity to have fun. And my poor Mum had to make all that food, of course. At first we had a big dinner for the grandparents, and after that my Mum was really kind and understanding to me. She was in the kitchen and called me out. She said she just thought I’d probably be much happier to help her rather than sit with the rest of them, which was of course true, just took me aback a little bit since my Mum usually doesn’t care that much about my social dilemmas. SO I helped her out with making the bread – well helped would be probably too big a word, but I tried, anyway. – And then I could sneak out to my room and Mum told me she’d call me when the rest of the guests would come. ANd she did, so I came down to socialise with them a bit, but there was soon so many people, including children, or so it felt for me, that I felt sort of overstimulated, and despite really good intentions, I had to leave rather early, I started to feel really uncomfortable. So, no, no shindigs, please!!!

You? 🙂

Question of the day.

And the actual question for today is…:

ANy drama happening in your life right now?

My answer:

I think we need to clarify what drama is, or at least I have to. ‘Cause I don’t really understand this concept in general I guess. Or do I? For me, drama is a lot of fuss, usually going on in a group of people, which is causing a lot of emotional distress for all interested and people acting impulsively and often like in a drama and sometimes even attention-seeking, but no one actually knows what it’s all about, but despite all that some people like to get into or cause dramas. Or anyway any drama that I have ever been witnessing or somehow involved in was hard to figure out for myself, what do they actually make suh a drama about? It might be that I’m just too socially awkward and stuff, or just not a drama type of person so I don’t get it. Or maybe I do get it right? What drama means for you?

Anyways, back to the drama, or lack thereof, in my life. 😀 So as you can guess now I think, no, I don’t think there is much going on in my life that I could call a drama, there are rarely such things, because I simply hate dramas and making fuss of anything, so I don’t involve in dramas usually, and if I ever have to witness such things it’s very disorienting and in a way also cringy. Unless there is a real and important cause for making drama of course, then it’s not cringy, but can also be disorienting, but I wonder if something like this still could be called a drama. THere are some intense things going on in my life, like now that I quitted therapy with my last therapist, and have been talking with Mum about very intense stuff and figuring out a lot about it on my own (I maybe could say that I have an internal drama because of that because it’s really really intense) and then there is my aunt who has been sick and just had surgery a couple days ago, but… yeah, I don’t know if such things could be called dramas, I think not really. Our Zofijka is in the “drama stage” of development, she’s in her early teens and also very extroverted, so I often do hear about her school dramas, which are very, veery weird and cringy, and I guess that’s all I can say on this very confusing topic.

So, how about dramas in your life? How would you define a drama in this context, do you see it the way I do? 🙂