Introduction: Mimi Style

And by “Mimi style,” I mean “long and rambly.”

(Warnings: objectionable language; American/New England slang; swooning over Japanese celebrities; atrocious photography; mediocre writing; rambly, unstructured bits about my life.)

Hi there. :D If you’re here, it most likely means that you were led here by the Google search option, because this is an ANONYMOUS PERSONAL JOURNAL and none of my friends should ever find this page. If, by any chance, I know you and you’re reading this, oh crap I’m in trouble.

As long as I don’t know you in real life, I don’t care who reads my entries. And as long as I’m comfortable with sharing, I’ll write about anything and everything, no holding back. (This translates to potentially squirmy posts because I just discovered that I’m equal parts sexual and awkward.) Leave a comment if you want to speak up, whether to agree, disagree, tell me off, or just say hi — and I’ll definitely respond. I don’t bite, unless you deserve it, because if I were a deadly sin it would be wrath. Otherwise, just enjoy your stay.

The name’s Mimi — not my real name, but a legitimate nickname that my parents have been calling me since I was tiny. Most of my friends don’t know about this nickname, so I should be safe. In my older entries I would sometimes sign off with “Nana.” Nana is what my friends used to call me because I would look after them like a nanny would. Signing off as Nana indicated I was in a foul mood. I don’t do that sign-off anymore because I’m too old for this.

My real name’s in my fanfiction.net profile. Can’t risk drawing attention to this journal.

Detailed About Me page is here. But to sum things up, I’ll write some /quick/ points.

• I started this journal as a 15-year-old deep in the throes of teenage angst. I am now 26. Not sure if I ever made it past that stage of my life.

• Here I am in my bare-faced and sweaty glory. I chose this photo over a more presentable one because it better captures the essence of this journal. Also maybe people won’t recognize me in such a state.

• Never been to public school, which makes things interesting when I attempt to write fic about them. 10 years at various Catholic primary schools. (I am not Catholic but my parents thought it would be stricter there and therefore I wouldn’t go “astray” and do drugs or something.) 4 years at a teeny all girls Catholic high school, 4 years at a teeny women’s college. Recently completed my master’s at a large private university. The Catholic part of my education is important because it explains why I’m always mentioning prayers and God, even though I was raised without religion and identify as agnostic and I often think blasphemous thoughts. High school was also, um, not like any regular school (more about that here).
• Writing is my passion, my hobby, my obsession. I’m not amazing at it, but I’m still learning. I tend to side-eye people whose first language is English and yet can’t type coherently, ESPECIALLY if they shit on non-native English speakers for their English. Yeah yeah, I know, prescriptivism, elitist asshole, blah blah. Still can’t help it. No fancy words needed, just… can you at least make sure you’re not missing key verbs from your sentences if you’re trying to be serious?
• Looove Japanese things. I’m not quite a weeb because I don’t actually listen to Japanese music or watch anime that much anymore, but the country and culture still has a special place in my heart. You’ll see in older posts that I used to talk about the boys from the idol group NEWS a lot because I was completely infatuated with them. And it wasn’t until I saw that I devoted an entire entry to them and spent ages analyzing one of their music videos did I realize this. I’m still a fan but I don’t follow them very closely anymore, so my journal entries are now entirely life-centric. I have also matured and feel deep embarrassment toward my past fangirling antics so there’s that.
• For me, gender is no boundary, and love is love. If you’re against that sort of thing I suggest you not read any further. I don’t know what I am or who I like and frankly I don’t care. I just call myself queer but if you want a more specific label, I’d guess I’m pansexual with a preference for men? My current partner does not erase this aspect of my identity.
• Sorry for possibly coming off negatively at all. I’m just a very honest, opinionated, straightforward person, and my undergrad college had done wonders in bringing those qualities out of me. Which means I’m not always likable because I say what I think. Just letting you know, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

I don’t post nearly as often as I should so I have a personal Twitter connected to this journal! (To the side — see, see?) It makes me feel less guilty about being terrible with updates. But I have to be careful to not post on the wrong Twitter: I have another one used strictly for comedic purposes and that posts tweets to my Facebook. I see potential disaster in this.

Have a lovely day!

…This intro is longer than the About Me page, isn’t it?

Herbivore

Apparently, indulgences are no longer indulgences when you indulge every day. They become a lifestyle.

AKA summer 2018.

(Yes, I am talking about last summer in January 2019 because that’s how long it took me to write this entry. I wrote huge chunks of it in several sittings but, as with everything I do, struggled to finish it.)

While I am all about treating yourself when you want to, I probably should also have not eaten every cookie waved in front of my face.

Like, I ate literally every cookie waved in front of my face. And cake slice. And fried thing. There was lots of pizza. (I have a dairy sensitivity.) Hell yes carbs. I never said no to carbs.

Usually I would be like yolo and #NORAGERTS, except that after going through the summer without much control or routine, I was feeling pretty lousy, sluggish, and bloated. My clothes also stopped fitting well. Luckily for me, I regularly exercise so I didn’t blow up like a balloon, but you know, abs are made in the kitchen and whatnot and I ended up on the chubbier end of my normal. I felt like I had to cleanse from my summer lifestyle, so that meant giving my body what it needed and not what it constantly wanted.

Also, enter the beginning of September when I had to complete a course of antibiotics that my body did not take well (nausea, cramping, all of the gastrointestinal upset), which just contributed to my constant malaise.

A detox was in order. Not a literal one, of course, because your liver does all that for you. You know what I mean.

I’d been interested in trying out something like Whole30, which is, in short, an elimination diet that you follow for a month and then gradually reintroduce food groups at the end to see what your body doesn’t like. But that would be too much of a commitment. Instead, I decided to try what I once thought was unimaginable.

I went vegan!

For ten days. Not permanently*.

(*More on that later.)

However. I didn’t decide to “just go vegan.” I know from the past that I tend to fail every vague diet modification — like when I decided to go low carb to curb my sugar problem, without a concrete plan of how I was going to methodically cut out carbs. “Low carb” lasted all of 3 days before I was uncontrollably stuffing my face with cake again. I needed something to actually keep me accountable.

Liiiiiiiike spending a lot of money so that I have to stick to my diet, otherwise I would have wasted all that money.

Specifically, after being wooed by their marketing (and in spite of reading the mixed reviews on their meal delivery service), I purchased the 10 Day Reset from Sakara Life.

countertransference is not illegal, i tell myself

Oh boy how time flies when life is happening huh journal hahaahahaa.

Sorry for neglecting you like I always do.

I started working full time roughly a month after my last post and I’ve been too busy evolving into an adult for the past 1.5 years to do much else. But for 2018 I made a list of resolutions and it includes writing entries more often than once a year. So here I am, two months late, but still!

I’ve been working in a mental health crisis facility, which isn’t as intense as you might think but it’s definitely interesting stuff. You meet some real characters. Lots of drug abuse. Everyone’s homeless. No one showers. Personality disorders suck for all involved. Haven’t given myself HIV by poking used needles yet but I’ve touched more syringes and crack pipes than I need to in a lifetime.

Without tying up this post with too much detail, I love my job and the personal development it’s forced me to undergo. Seriously, I feel like I’ve changed and matured so much since starting this job. But I’ll go into that another time — just wanted to check in today and announce that I’m still existing somewhere outside the internet.

I’ll close this entry with this: I may or may not have developed a troublesome crush on one of our frequent flyers and I may or may not have starting writing fic inspired by our interactions. Here, have some samples that are totally entirely definitely fictional scenes. 

yes, of course

It’s strange to be able to say these next few things, journal, since I started writing here when I was a baby teen and I’ve grown so much in these 7 years. At least I think it’s been 7. Too lazy to spend 10 seconds going back to check.

(Okay fine, I checked and what the actual fuck it’s been nearly 8 years.)

As I was saying!

I made it through high school.

I fell in love with a boy.

I completed a bachelor’s degree at a wonderful school that completely changed my life.

I learned to navigate around chronic mental illnesses and now understand myself so much better because of it.

I maintained relationships with dear friends who scattered around the world after graduation.

I returned to my high school for our 5-year reunion.

I just finished my master’s degree.

And I’m not supposed to tell people this next thing because of complications that I’ll further explain, but…

I’m getting married.

Holy shit, right? That little baby child who started this journal all those years ago is now engaged!!

why do i do this to myself

Paper anxiety + extreme procrastination = I have to write a minimum of 47 pages for 3 classes (+ regular stats homework and a stats final project) in one week.

I have never written this much before.

I am scared.

I am trash.

Until next time,

~ Mimi

P.S. Have a picture of Manny’s dog because she’s cute.

Grad

It’s been a world of culture shock.

I’ve gone from a tiny women’s college in a bubble of a campus to a gigantic research university so interwoven with the city that I can’t tell what’s school and what’s not. It’s also co-ed! There are /men/ walking around!! That’s not to say I never saw men during my undergrad years, but I can count the number of dudes I’ve had in my classes on my two hands. That includes cis and trans dudes.

Onto the Next One

The last time I posted, I told some lies. Like that I was gonna post again soon.

I am deeply sorry for lying. I apologize for neglecting you, journal. I was still a little girl scrambling to complete her last year of undergraduate studies, making claims and promises along the way that never followed through.

But it’s okay; I’ll make it up to you, journal. I truly swear this time because two important things have happened since my last post, erm, last year:

1. I graduated and received my Bachelor of Arts degree (and left my undergraduate institution forever and ever and please please take me back i wanna go back)
2. I just began my master’s at a graduate school!!!!

How does my moving from undergrad to grad school make things any different when it comes to my posting frequency? Simply because I had wrapped up one chapter of my life and started a new one. Think of it like New Year’s just happened and you’re making resolutions because you want to start anew. You know, except 75% of the year already passed and I have a concrete and logical start date — the start of grad school — of this new chapter, as opposed to the arbitrary designation of January 1st as the beginning of a fresh start.

YOU READ THAT RIGHT, I just promised to post more frequently. Not gonna promise how frequent, just… *more* frequent. I’m aiming for at least twice a month (hey, a huge improvement over ignoring this journal for a year), but I also expect I’ll be super busy if I start working in a research lab along with schooling full time. So we shall see if I end up being a scumbag for not following through once again. I’m super determined this time though, especially since I now need an outlet to discuss and vent and word vomit with most of my college friends unavailable to talk to because they’re scattered around the world after graduating. Gotta force myself to write shorter entries too, because I have a horrid habit of starting long ones that end up rotting in my drafts page for all of eternity (current count is 35).

If money weren’t such an issue I would have moved in with Ley in her apartment — it’s SO close to my new school. Alas, I am broke and must resort to commuting from home.

Of course, I have to talk about grad school now, right? I’ll save that for next time because I’ve just procrastinated hardcore by writing this post instead of doing the assignments due tomorrow.

For now I’ll just say that commuting is incredibly exhausting. I don’t understand why because it’s not like I’m driving myself — I am sitting on a train doing nothing and yet it drains me. I was also accustomed to waking up 15 minutes before class and still arriving on time. Can’t do that as a commuter. Tomorrow is my longest day so I’ll report back on whether I stay awake in class/finish the assignments that should not have been left untouched until now.

Until next time,

~ Mimi

The Neglected

I’ll write a more traditional journal post about my current life happenings later because I’m swamped with work at the moment. When I’m writing papers all the time for my classes, the last thing I want to do is type moar things, even things irrelevant to academics.

First, a filler post!

I found an archive of many of the small things I’d written in the past, including my finished short stories and lots of bad poetry written for high school English classes.

And then there are the Neglected, the drafts I had started and then left to collect spiderwebs in the deep archives of my flash drive. I suck at finishing anything. I don’t know if I’ll ever finish them, so I might as well publish them here, along with the writing prompt that went along with them if they had one. Even if these weren’t dated, the writing styles make it pretty clear to me which ones are old old old and which ones I wrote closer to the start of my college years.

---

1. No prompt listed

“Kent.” Madeline dares not speak above a whisper. “Kent, we shouldn’t be in here.”

Kent shows no sign that he heard his sister’s warning. He takes a giant leap off the last five stone steps, landing noisily on the ground. Madeline’s slippers muffle her footsteps down.

“We’ll get in trouble if the guards catch us,” she tries again.

A pause. Then: “Don’t get us caught.”

His easy reply floats to her from somewhere ahead. Madeline sees the top of his head peeking out behind a bush, and she hurriedly pursues him.

“Should be around here,” she hears him mutter. She catches up to him in time to see him impatiently brush aside some of the palace’s sunflowers blocking his way — and rip the head off one of them.

Madeline’s hand flies to her mouth in horror. “Kent!”

Kent stares at the fallen flower for a second, and then not only treads on it but grinds his heel into the soil, inducing a dismayed gasp from the young princess.

“Just help me look for that vial.”

-later-

“Kent, what are you doing? We have the water, so can we go now? Please?” Her fingers wrap around his wrist and pull him in the direction of the exit. Almost absentmindedly, he pries her off so he can slide the fingers of both hands over the vial. He stares at the transparent liquid with glazed eyes.

“The last of the water from the Fountain of Vitality before it was destroyed in the war,” he murmured, more to himself than to his sister. “And it’s still here, more than sixteen years later.” He runs his index finger down the side of the cool glass vial. “Just enough left to heal the sick…”

Madeline tries to get him to move. “I know that. That’s why we’re here — to help Mama get better. And that’s why we really need to get back to the palace before she gets worse.”

“Enough left to heal the sick,” Kent only repeats. As she watches him, his faraway eyes suddenly regain focus. He looks at the corked vial in his hands in a different way now. He pulls on the cork. Madeline hears the small pop it makes when he tugs it free.

“There’s just enough left to heal someone who’s ill. Or make the healthy invincible,” he says. The resolve is evident in his hazel eyes. And now, Madeline sees his intention as well.

“Kent, please, it’s Mama’s last chance. Without this, she’s sure to…” The words die on her lips, because she knows they are trying to reach ears that can’t hear, a mind already made up.

His lips slowly part as he raises his right hand. Madeline can only watch, wide-eyed, as he tilts the remaining contents of the vial into his mouth.

Body Destruction: Results

This was meant to be posted several weeks ago. Whoops. This is the most hellish month of the academic year, with papers and exams and performances and events jam packed into thirty days, so I guess I just got caught in that whirlwind of stuff.

Anyway.

I was pissed beyond words. THE MISERABLE EXPERIMENT DID NOTHING.

Okay, it didn’t quite do nothing. And considering how incredibly brief the experiment was, I should be grateful. To be exact, it did practically nothing in terms of numbers. My weight went down by half a pound, but my weight often fluctuates and that half pound could be water. Most likely my weight is the same. It’s also my period week and who knows how my body wants to behave when it’s gushing out unpleasant fluids for five days.

I did take pictures of my tummy to track any visible changes. I’m not posting them here because it’s my tummy and I don’t want that floating around the interwebs, but I do see a difference! :O In the lower belly area, the fat has definitely started shrinking away from my hipbones. My hipbones are slightly more prominent too in the side photo, although there’s still substantial fat covering it because 25% of me is fat. ):

According to my measurements, I only shrank by maybe 1/3 of an inch around my waist. I know for sure that it’s reducecd because my belly fat has always been pretty squishy, resulting in some of my leggings often cutting into my sides, leaving unattractive bulges. But now that doesn’t happen to the same degree! It’s mostly my side and back fat that’s firmed; the frontal belly button area fat is still soft.

For only five days, any kind of noticeable or measurable result is pretty impressive. I’m convinced that not following the meal plan really was detrimental to my progress, so if I were to try this again, which I certainly will not, I’d try to stick to the suggested meals instead of doing my own thing.

Now that I’m back at school during the busiest month of the school year, I’m eating ALL THE SUGAR. I expect to puff up like a balloon by the end of the month.

In conclusion, this is what I learned:

• I can deal with extreme exercise even if my body protests with blood.
• Clean eating is disgusting, and I simultaneously envy and pity those who enjoy it.
• The idea of eating clean with a weekly cheat meal pisses me off irrationally.
• I need an intervention for my sugar problem.
• Let’s never do sketchy exercise experiments ever again.

During the school year I give few fucks over what I eat and how little I exercise — I’d rather that energy go towards not failing. I can be vigilant during the summer. :D

Until next time,

~ Mimi

P.S. My new journal layout makes me so happy. My vibrant choice of background does wonders on my mood. I don’t know why I ever liked my old dark layout to begin with.

Body Destruction: Day 5

Exercise: Since I felt like the past four days did nothing, the motivation to continue was totally not present. But I overcame it and finished the final workout after much grumbling! Somehow, despite doing purely cardio for the past week, I can now do 20 consecutive pushups without overexerting myself. :o My form begins to fail me after 15 pushups but still!

Food: Mama is such a good cook and I couldn’t eat much of any of her cooking all week, wahhhhh. Today was especially a struggle to eat around 1200 calories because of all the yummy things she cooked today. All the various sweets are still here too.

Tomorrow I get to eat somewhat normally again (and Mama is cooking one of my favorite dishes before I head back to college), though I should be careful to bump up my calorie intake to no more than 1600. I don’t wanna freak my body out too much.

Body: Looking at the “before” picture I took, it looks like I got bigger now!!! D: To be fair, that picture was taken in the morning and my tummy always expands as I move throughout my day, so maybe I shouldn’t judge myself until I have numerical evidence. I won’t be able to take new measurements until return to my dorm room, where my tape measure is. My clothes fit the same.

General thoughts: NEVER. AGAIN. I’m not that desperate to put subject my body to that kind of torture more than once just to reduce my body fat percentage. I’ve already gone down more than 40 pounds over the course of 4 years, so slow and steady is more of my thing than radical life adjustments.

Clean eating and I will just never work out. *hugs cookies*

I’ll post my results of this experiment on Sunday. Fingers crossed for minimal disappointment!

Until next time,

~ Mimi

Body Destruction: Day 4

Exercise: YESSSS I NEVER HAVE TO DO THESE TWO HORRIFIC WORKOUTS CONSECUTIVELY EVER AGAIN. They were horrible and intense and never-ending — and it’s all over at last. I don’t even wanna talk about the workouts anymore so let’s move on!

Food: Dammit, why does Mama choose this week to bring home all these cookies from work? She came home with two more flavors today. ): And I ate them. ): To compensate, I had to switch out my usual dinner meal with a bowl of canned, chemical-laden soup because it would keep me within the calorie limit.

Body: Somehow I injured my Achilles tendon again. This inevitably happens every time I start a regular workout routine and it’s always the right foot. The area where the tendon is feels warm and swollen, and it hurts to flex my foot at all. All the jumping during tomorrow’s workout will not be pleasant.

I’ve started spotting! Just a little bit of blood, nothing like a real period. This hasn’t happened in the longest time. Plus, I’m on a birth control pill that’s been really good to me for the past year so it shouldn’t be happening. A quick Google search has me believing that the excessiveness/intensity of my exercising combined with the sudden change in my diet is putting a lot of stress on my body, which in turn can freak out my hormones. Thus, the bleeding.

I could also be pregnant. We’ll find out by Monday when my period is scheduled to come.

On the bright side, my back no longer hurts!

General thoughts: Based on what I see (or what I don’t see) in the mirror, I’m seriously doubting this experiment is doing anything to my body. It usually takes me up to three weeks to notice physical changes; expecting results in five days is nuts. I’m suspecting it’s due to not following the provided meal plan at all. Well, lesson learned.

Until next time,

~ Mimi