I haven't updated this site in over a month, but for anyone who has been wondering; I am doing okay.

Well, okay except for the fact that I feel like I am going through a canon event right now. I believe I am falling for my cishet female friend. She is exceptionally intelligent, gifted, kind, creative, and patient with me. We work like a well-oiled machine whenever we're paired up together to take on a new challenge. She is the one person I feel can call me out and keep up with me. I am embarassed to admit that I imagine one too many music videos with her. Despite this, I have to remind myself that all of her past boyfriends have been cishet, tall and white boys; I'm afraid I don't have a chance.

We're better off just as friends. I think I'll just continue to admire her from a distance.

Since I've last updated my journal, a few significant things have happened. One, my application for the executive position I mentioned previously was accepted, two, I've finished my supplementary applications for uni, and three, I've aced my last two physics tests. My life has been going well so far, but I always get this feeling that nothing good ever lasts for me. I should be grateful for what I have and what I can do, but I never am. Maybe this makes me a bad perosn.

In the meantime, I've been peer-tutoring a grade 10 science class. They completed their first unit test last week, and just under half of the class is failing. I don't know what to do. I keep emphasising the importance of personal responsibility, of taking the reins over their own learning, and yet they don't seem to understand that they need to work hard in order to succeed. Parents have been contacted to no avail. I hate sounding like a boomer, but yeesh this generation is cooked--and parents aren't really doing the necessary parenting to make their kids decent human beings. At least I haven't been bitten or punched by a 10th grader yet.

About a week ago, I did an interview for an executive position in a non-profit organisation I was quite interested in. I think I fumbled the bag. I wasn't prepared for the questions at all, and I felt completely out of place.

I'm just grateful the interviewers were other teenagers, like me. I should hear about the final status of my application this week if I'm lucky.

This weekend, I flew to Ontario to visit my family living there and check out the campuses of the universities' I'm interested in. On the first day, my mother and I took a 3-ish hour drive to Kingston, the home of Queen's University. Kingston is a small, but beautiful city sitting on the shores of Lake Ontario. I believe it was originally intended to be the capital of Canada, before Ottawa was chosen instead for some reason. The actual Queen's campus is quite nice. I like how easy it is to access the buildings on foot, since all of the halls, residences, libraries, etc. are close together and within a 15 min walk at maximum. The students seem to have a very tight-knit bond with one another, and genuinely seem happy to be there (even in the engineering faculty building). Overall, I'm happy to consider Queen's one of my top choices.

Next, we went back to visit the University of Toronto, which lives right in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of downtown TO. I really like how integrated the university is in the city, and thus how accessible restaurants, transit, and other services are. The campus of UofT is massive, but still relatively easy to navigate on foot. I especially love the fusion of modern and gothic architecture that the buildings have.

I definitely like University of Toronto's campus the best, since I enjoy cities more than small towns. I just hope I get in.

One thing I enjoy doing lately is watching videos about orcas. They are fascinating, beautiful creatures that I don't think we'll ever be able to fully grasp. They demonstrate an extraordinary level of intelligence, empathy (at least, to each other and humans), and self-awareness. I've been watching many documentaries of their hunts, and their strategic coordination and terrifying brutality is something to behold. In the Arctic, orca whales line up to create surface waves that knock seals off ice floats, while in South America, orca whales have been seen intentionally beaching themselves to catch seal lions before dragging them back into the water. Sometimes, using simply sheer brute force, orcas ram into whales and sharks to fatally injure them.

I'm grateful that humans aren't on their menu. We, thankfully, lack the blubber, fat, and other nutritional value that orcas seek. I think, knowing how intelligent they are, orcas are probably aware that we're similar to them. There's been multiple cases of orcas approaching humans with curiosity and playful behavior. They can annihilate a person on a kayak or paddleboard, but simply choose not to. Game recognises game, I suppose.

Each orca pod/group has it's own traditions and dialect, which is crazy to think about. Orcas also demonstrate a wide range of emotions, and are very social creatures. They're basically like sea humans.

I wish I could tell my mom why I hate going to church. I wish she would understand the horrors that God's chosen men can inflict upon a child.

In the dead of the night, I find myself awake teary-eyed, snot-nosed, and sobbing because I want Wriothesley so bad it physically hurts. It's painful to realise that the one person who could possibly understand me and love me unconditionally isn't actually real, no matter how hard I try to delude myself. I spend most of my days daydreaming about living an ideal life with him. When I get home from school, work, or something else I immediately jump into this imaginary world I've built.

Reality is cruel. Plans don't turn out the way they ought to. Adults took advantage of me as a young child. Friends and lovers leave when they grow bored of me, or simply get tired of tolerating my abnormalities. 98% of people don't see a lover in a short, average-looking queer Asian dude with zero interest in actual sex. My fixations dictate my entire life.

But in this imaginary life with Wriothesley, we're married. We both have good jobs. We have built a family together. I'm somewhat normal enough to be desired. He accepts that I don't care for physical intimacy. He loves me. I think they call this escapism.

I'm back at school again, and it hasn't been terrible. I made a new friend, caught up with old ones, created a new club, got chosen as the president of multiple clubs, and got my course schedule. I have physics, computer programming, and 20th century world history this semester, which I have been enjoying. I think this year will be a good one.

The final few weeks of summer have felt like a blur, to be honest. I've mostly been occupied with work, university applications, and occasionally going out with friends. I'm excited to go back to school again; I feel empty without the routine and academic grind.

Work has been work. I won't be disclosing where I work at exactly, but it is a major global franchise. I've gotten more shifts since the departure of my 4 colleagues, but it feels much less enjoyable without them. Corporate came into our store to discuss strategies to increase sales, and I can really tell they've never worked a day in their life here. Many of their suggestions are redundant and yet another minor thing to keep track of in the hustle of keeping this store functioning. As well, they came to celebrate a colleague of mine for his excellence. He's been working here since opening, I think, and is an all-around hard-working, kind person. They did not reward him with a raise, a bonus, or a promotion, but a cheaply-made pin to wear on his uniform. It seems like such a slap in the face. What else can you expect from corporate greed, I guess.

Going out with my friends has been fun. Most of the time we're in the mall, since there's not much else for teenagers to do that aren't in the boiling heat, inaccessible by public transport, or require an absurd amount of money. When our hangout is over, I feel so empty. I can't feel anything remotely positive without the dread that it will end soon.

I can't stop being anxious about my grades and university applications. I currently have a decent enough top five average for University of Toronto's engineering program and yet I feel so inadequate. I stress so much about things that ultimately won't ruin my life. I hate it.

I am back, and happy to say that I survived my math summer course. Now on to AP Calculus. Purely due to cost and the stress it causes, I likely won't be taking the AP test. I just need the course credit, anyway.

The rest of my summer until September rolls in will consist of me preparing university applications, wasting my time with mindless online drivel, and working. Speaking of work, at least four of my colleagues have quit their jobs due to a bunch of different factors, most having to do with my boss's behaviour and mismanagement. They were the only things that made me look forward to my job. I could always approach them for help or conversation without feeling like I needed a script, or to put on a mask. Now they're gone and I have to deal with the horrors of retail and medical services alone. At least I'll probably get more hours. Hopefully my pay will be raised. I have to stay whether I like it or not, anyways. The job market out here is absolute dog water and I can survive another year of this.

I think I should also finish the fic I've been brewing up this past week.

Still waiting for my bootleg Wriothesley merchandise to arrive. I ordered 8-9 keychains and acrylic stands? Too many anyway. The parcel is still waiting for flight, for 4 days. I hope it arrives on time.

In the meantime, my summer school pre-calculus 12 test is tomorrow. It's on exponential and logarithm functions. I'm afraid I won't remember everything I've learned when I see the paper. Pray for me.

I think the reason why I've given up being a binary trans man is because I have realised that the pursuit of manhood and societal acceptance is futile. I am never going to be what I want. Cis women will hate me for betraying womanhood, femininity, and feminism, whereas cis men will see me as a faker and invader of their space, or worse, prey. This is stupid. My mother finished chemotherapy less than a week ago, and I am complaining about nothing, again. I wish she would swallow me whole and birth me again, so next time I'll be someone worth living as.

I was probably born with a couple screws loose. Everyone else seems to know how to conduct themselves and appear normal. I don't what I'm doing wrong. I feel like an uncomfortable, awkward idiot in front of other people at work, school, home, etc. no matter how well I know them. Too loud, too quiet, too critical, not critical enough, annoying, immature, mature for your age, picky. I don't know what people want from me. I try to compensate by scripting my interactions with other people and/or putting on a mask of someone I'm not, but how long can I keep fooling people for? How long can I stand to be ashamed of myself? People are exhausting. There's definitely some sort of social interaction chip I'm missing. I'm convinced that if I was born as a white cis boy in a family that actually cared I would've been diagnosed with Asperger's/ASD by now.

Maybe this is why I'm so attached to fictional characters. Wriothesley wouldn't judge me. He's had it much worse than me; he'd understand. He would love me unconditionally. No one loves me more than the people I make up in my mind.

Summer breaks are always the worst times for me mentally. Without the constant rush and routine of school, I suddenly have a lot more free time, and with that comes unwanted introspection. I don't like being alone with myself and I. (I'm pretty sure Julien Baker wrote a song about this, actually). I'd prefer not to know myself. I've been listening to Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers (unironically my favourite KL album, for now) on repeat. I wish I could write poetry/lyrics like Kendrick Lamar. I wish I could confront myself like he does.

hi :)