Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Why?
I had a nasty feeling all day yesterday and today that something... Something was wrong. Something bad would happen. Something I couldn't understand. But I dismissed them and thought nothing of them, even if there was a small suspicion gnawing away at my mind.

But sadly, I was right.

Today, a little before 11 am, a male student of 22 entered a school building (a college) in northwest part of my country. He was wearing a skimask and carrying a handgun. He made his way into a classroom, and a little before 11 am, he opened fire. After shooting at the students and the police, he turned the gun on himself and shot himself in the head.

Currently, at 6:30 pm, it has been confirmed that the shooter, rushed to the hospital in critical condition, did not make it. Along with him, he took the lives of 10 students and injured a handful more.

Whether it be by irony or by planning, it has been two months shy of a year since the last school shooting that happened in the neighbouring town. Both shootings were executed in the same manner, shooting at students and then shooting themselves, both shooters published numerous movies/writings about their intentions and both shooters cited misanthropy as their cause.

What I find infuriating was not only this gross disrespect of human life, but also the fact that the police had recieved word of the shooter's intentions, interviewed him on Monday but found no reason to arrest him or confiscate his gun or gun licence.

As I listened to the news broadcasts, I felt sick. I wanted to cry. I couldn't finish my dinner because I felt like I'd be seeing it again in a few hours. Why do people do things like this? Why do people copy these atrocious actions? Why didn't anyone do something? I'm not the praying type, but somehow I feel compelled to dedicate a few words to these innocent young men and women who died for nothing before their lives even really begun. As for the shooter, I agree with my mother. He was let off too easy, and I hope that if there is an afterlife, he will suffer for more than a few centuries for killing so many and shattering the lives of so many others.

Both of the shootings within the last year were never truly near my school, and it feels so unreal that it would happen in my school, or that these things have happened at all. But when I start to think about things, how easily these two acquired guns and licenses, how we could do nothing to stop them, how no one saw these coming, I find myself realizing that for the first time in a long time...

I'm afraid to go outside.
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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

   Controversial Advice?
Well my fellow geeks and other weirdos, it's been a while, hasn't it? But fear not, I'll probably post one huge, depressing, sucks-the-joy-out-of-everything, bleak and cynical post about my past... Half a year or so once I get it sorted in my head. However, now you are treated with the fruits of my latest trip to the psychologist.

We got to discussing about how I sleep at nights (I have/had troubles. Alot) and I told her about my dreams and how they react to stress. The more stress I have, the more nightmares I have. Pretty obvious, right? Right. So anyways, when she asked if I had a re-occuring nightmare, I told her about my absolute worst-case, sleep depriving nightmare. That of a zombie apocalypse a lá Resident Evil.

Now, this phobia dates back to my younger days around the time I was 7 years old or so. The first Resident Evil was the bee's knees at the time and the older brother of this guy friend I had bought the game. So, my guy buddy, being a guy, wanted to play it with me and my brother present, and they played it, thrilled out of their little minds. I, on the other hand, was practically hiding behind the couch, trying to block the moans and groans of the living dead from my ears, ended up being frightened for about... One month straight, and the fear of the dead walking has stuck on me ever since. Silly, yeah, I know, right? But scared the bejeebus outta me when I was a kid.

Now, back to my dreams. My re-occuring nightmare, as I mentioned, is the zombie apocalypse dreams. Sometimes I'm in a big city, sometimes I'm on a space station, but all in all, I usually end up dead by either being eaten or ripped to shreds by your friendly neightbourhood corpse patrol. There are two ways in which I wake from these nightmares.

1) The Hollywood-way, in which I shoot up, ready to jump out of my bed at a second's notice, I am consumed by adrenaline and think I cannot sleep for the remainder of the night, only to gonk out around 6 and wake up around 8 to go to school. ... And then I look like death warmed over.
2) The normal way, in which I merely open my eyes, am startled awake and sigh in relief: it was all a dream. Now, this way indicates that the dreams weren't so bad and maybe, maybe I can still get some sleep. Of course, if I wake up like this, there may also be the chance of the dream rewinding itself and I start the same scenario again when I get a hold of sleep again.

So, I have only recently started to influence my dreams consciously, like "finding" a conviniently placed gun and defending myself with it or something, or willing myself awake. However, these things actually working are few and far between.

Now, my psychologist suggested that I write my nightmarish dreams down and write them a better ending for them in an effort to get rid of them. In a way, that is a good advice and actually might help, and hey, I might even sell the stories to the publishers if I make it that far. But, the dreams affect me so badly that I'd rather forget them than remember the haunting images. So I'm torn. On the other hand, It'd help. And on the other hand, it might make me feel frightened and small. I dunno guys. What do you think?
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Thursday, October 18, 2007

   F*cking YAY, life.
Well, let's see.

My grandmother passed away 13th October, and I was in the same city she was hospitalized in and had I checked my messages earlier that day, I might've seen her one last time before she passed. Sure, she was well over her 80s and undergone two major hip surgeries, but still, I miss her and I didn't want her to go... She's been in my life for the past 18 years and there are so many things I wanted to ask her, so many things I wanted to talk about with her. Now I'm worried about how granpa is handling all this.

I'm starting to have a phobia of hospitals now, because two times, my dear relatives have been in them having routine surgeries, and both of them died post-operation to complications.

I hurt my back last spring by doing a sumersault on a flat, elevated surface. Of course, me having the over-all grace of a hippo, I didn't want to go, But I needn't worry, she says, she'll catch me, she says. Well thanks a lot teach, now my lower back has been sore, stiff and making crackly noises SINCE last spring. And now, NOW, the "injury" is really, really bothering me. So I'm sore, cranky, can't bend over, I can't find a good position to sleep in and am loosing sleep.

I also seemed to have a muscle-strain in my right side. Which is odd, since I haven't done anything that would give me a strain lately. It's sore and it hurts.

Also, it seems that one of my tearducts has blocked. It itches like hell, it's swollen and it hurt. While we're at the topic of my eyes, I also banged my right side to the wall when I was barely out of sleepworld and now it hurts to blink. Also, my eyes feel like they're full of sand, which is not a good thing, since I have dry eyes and am in a group that has a high risk of getting glaucoma; my eye-pressure is higher than normal for a person my age and my grandmother from my mother's side has glaucoma.

I haven't been able to sleep well in months. I'm irritated, irate, angry or at least disgruntled most of the time, depressed, tired, moody and on the edge. My neighbours aren't helping this at all, as the brats upstairs ran inside the house in shoes the other day (which is a cultural no-no in Finland; when you enter, you leave your shoes behind and walk in your socks or bare-footed. Also, this saves me some cleaning time), my downstairs neightbour plays guitar LATE AT NIGHT which would be okay, IF HE COULD ACTUALLY PLAY THE GUITAR. When I do get some sleep, it's light (as in, I wake up to the smallest sounds) or I see those dreams about a zombie-apocalypse (I'm thinking these dreams are my personal equivalent for the "I'm falling down and I can't stop"-dreams some people have) which is not good because I have a fear of zombies and I always wake up with a start, usually around 2, 3 am and can't sleep until 5, 6 am and then SURPRISE! I gotta get up for school.

Also, I'm stressed because due to a mishap in planning, I only have two courses this cycle in school; the mandratory minimum is 4 and a half courses (P.E counts as only half a course). I've already pleaded twice so I could continue studying and I'm scared that I might be booted out. Moreover, I'm scared that my performance in school isn't good enough for my folks. Then again, NOTHING I do at school is good enough for them, so that's that then. But I'm dead-set on continuing my school, whether they like it or not.

For the past three or four months I've been crying myself to sleep at least two times a week because I'm stressed, I feel bad all the time and I feel insignificant thanks to my folks. Nothing do will ever be good enough for them, everything I do has only flaws in them and frankly, there was a time in my life where I would've done anything for one, simple, encouraging sentence from them. But not anymore. Now I just want them to leave me alone and let me decide about my own life. 'Cuz let's face it, I'm gonna have to start eventually.

Everything seems to be piling on me these days and I'm having a hard time trying to get out of bed these days. I'm constantly crying but I can't say that to much anyone, because my parents will undermine me and I'd rather not mess my friends into this. I've been skipping school lately because the last time I was in school, I nearly cried for four times during the course of one lesson. I'm going to have to go and see the school nurse tomorrow, if for nothing else then to ask her a permission slip for my absences. Everything shitty seems to have piled up during the course of one week and I'm starting to break down. Lucky for me, Fall Break is just around the corner and begins next Monday. Then again...

If I wasn't depressed before, I sure as hell am now.
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