Gadget Girl

February 17, 2015 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I never used to bother about technology at all when I was younger. It may have something to do with the fact that other than Sega Vs. Nintendo, not a lot of people I grew up with was interested in it. We had a PC at home that never gained an internet connection for it’s entire lifespan. It was used for typing school things and playing Theme Hospital. People also didn’t really have mobile phones, not till I was reaching the end of my school years. Even then, the most exciting things were making ringtones or playing Snake on a Nokia 3330. The internet was accessible at school or at the local library, and even then, I wasn’t much interested.

It wasn’t till I found myself in Glasgow, being quite the loner, that I started a blog on livejournal, and I began to get involved with the internet. I started talking to people, who understood, people who are still friends with me many years later. As I have got older, I have found that I have become rather reliant on technology. Like, if I don’t have my smartphone with me, I feel lost. Which sounds very sad, and probably should make me really depressed. But, it doesn’t. And here’s why.

For years through my adolescence I struggled to find out who I was. I just seemed to follow other people, and never really spoke up for myself. Yes, I had my own interests, but they never seemed that important. I was really scared of being alone, and became quite anxious, and kept a lot of my thoughts and feelings to myself. Which, made any anxiety worse. And it developed into me really, really hating myself. I thought that I was a horrible person, a thought that has stayed with me since, no matter how silly I know it is. What helped me step away from hating myself so much, was the internet. I found forums and blogs where I could be myself, without fear of the very few people around me leaving. I slowly became more confident when I realised that I wasn’t alone in how I felt, there were other people struggling.

I think that finding this solace in the online world has been something that has stuck with me. If there is something that frustrates me I’ll tweet or write a blog about it. I’ll express it in a way that makes me feel better. I can message people from anxiety forums when I feel a panic attack coming on. It helps me cope with stuff around me. Particularly when I have reached out to people in my offline life, they have been critical of my depression or anxiety, which is something that I can’t help. If someone is rude to you online, you can always block them. That gives me control that I don’t have in general life, and it calms me down. Maybe it shouldn’t be like that, but it is. The internet is a calming little assistant that I have with me constantly thanks to my phone. And considering I work full time, have a social life and function ‘normally’, I think that it’s great. All these wee devices help me feel like a normal person, and considering I haven’t felt like that since I was 13/14, I feel it is a good thing.

If technology allows a person to feel free and enjoy the things that make them happy, I just don’t get how it can be bad. But, I am an adult. Though, I can’t help how much easier my High School years would be if I was so connected as I am now. If I could ask anonymous resources about how I felt, and chatted to people who were ‘like me’. I maybe would have been more in control of how my brain works. I guess there is no point wishing things could be different. Life is what it is, and technology has helped me a lot.

Reasons

February 10, 2015 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Why do people blog? I have explained many times on here, that I blog for personal reasons. I do it to sort out my mind, and help me feel confident about how I feel. And over the years, it has helped a lot with a lot of personal issues I have had, particularly with my depression. I felt that I couldn’t speak about anything, because it was a negative thing to impose on other people. So I blogged, where it was like speaking outloud, and it helped me. For many periods over the last several years, blogging has been the thing which held me together.

It is strange for me to see something, that I view so personally, seen as a career move for so many people. We live in an age where the Internet and content creation are becoming genuine career paths. There are books and magazines telling people how to start a blog and make it profitable. It paints a very simple picture, write about trendy things, get views, make money. But it isn’t that easy, particularly if you are blogging for the soul purpose of making money. If you don’t believe in what you are writing, you aren’t going to make a connection and you will get none of the precious views you seek.

I just don’t get it. This blog is more about documentation and aiding creativity more than anything else. And that’s the way I’ll always see it. It’s always nice if what I say connects with someone, but it doesn’t drive me. The feeling of achievement I have when I have got something off my mind, and into a blog post, is what drives me. It’s a good feeling, and I have to make the most of those. My brain likes to ignore the positivity, so if I find something that makes me feel good, I will keep at it.

On The Verge

February 5, 2015 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I have explained before that I have been sick recently. I feel like I am over the worst, but the virus that I had is still lingering. This isn’t the best way to be. I feel like I can get back to normal, but I still have a bit of a fever and my skin is sensitive. This is all means I am back to normal in a working sense, but my body doesn’t like it much.

Times like this make it hard to stay motivated. Because it’s like your mind is willing, but your body isn’t able. It’s frustrating because the things I am trying to do, are leaving me exhausted because I don’t have my normal energy levels. I am trying to just get on with things, but it’s very easy to get frustrated about it. The hard bit is not being to hard on myself for finding normal stuff harder.

All I have to do is get my head down and get on with things. Hopefully I get rid of what’s left of this virus, and can get back normal. I just have to keep busy.

Returner Returns

February 3, 2015 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I am sorry there have been no posts in the last week. I have been ill with a horrible virus, which has taken my appetite, whilst covering me head to toe with a rather attractive rash. I’ll be honest, I haven’t been to focus on anything bar my itchy skin. The few days where I was able to thing productively, I couldn’t look at a computer or phone screen for 5 minutes before my head started thumping. So, nothing has been done at all, which is something that gets me really depressed.

I hate it. I like feel I need a sense of purpose for me to be happy. Which may seem silly, but I can’t really help it. I know that one of the easiest things to settle my mind and lift my mood is to feel like I have achieved something. Which is why to-do lists litter my day-to-day life, so that I can actually push myself forwards through every day. It stops me from becoming overwhelmed by things. And when I had no way to even figure out a to-do list because I had no energy, and so it added a feeling of failure on top of feeling like rubbish.

So, I have decided that a week off was the best thing for me do. Things happen, and commitments need to change as result. And for someone who relies on routine so much, this is a good thing. I haven’t once berated myself because I didn’t post last week. It may sound trivial, but that is something rather revolutionary for me. It doesn’t take much for me to start feeling bad, and it happens all the time. So, I am rather pleased that, for once, I made a conscious decision to not even think about it. There was nothing I could do about being ill, and not being able to sit in front of a computer. It is a thing that happened. The important thing is, that I am now feeling more normal. I am wanting to get back into routine again, and get life back to normal.

Hope anyone reading is doing okay, and that you have had better luck than I have recently.

Achievement Unlocked

January 22, 2015 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

What do you do when you achieve something?
How do you celebrate?

I was having a think today about how I am making effort to eat a bit healthier. I made a couple of good choices over the last few days, and I should really be happy about it. But, I am so used to my plans falling apart that the fact I was sticking to what I intended was ignored. I barely registered that I had done anything right. Which considering how much I beat myself up when I fail, you’d think I’d celebrate doing something right. But I don’t.

This made me feel a bit strange. Uncomfortable, even. How could I focus so much on the negative, and ignore when something goes well? After talking to a couple people at work, it seems that I am not alone. People can be overly harsh if they miss a target, but don’t do anything if they achieve it. Considering the amount of resolution failures there are at this time of year, you’d thing people would make a deal about actually seeing something through.

When I had my food, with no snacking I felt good. And I spent a little time just thinking ‘well done’ to myself. Food is a big issue with me, and always has been. I eat whenever i fancy, so to hold back is a big achievement. Particularly when food is staring at me all over the house. It makes me sad that I don’t act proud of myself when I do well. It’s even more horrible when you think that other people do that too. Praise yourself, you earned it.

Hide From Headlines

January 13, 2015 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Living in a world where the news is available 24 hours a days. A lot of the news reported is depressing. Now whilst this sounds quite selfish, I can only speak from personal experience. When I was younger I feel that what happened in the news had more impact, that I thought about things more. I was able to read through the newspaper once a day, or watch the 10 o’clock news. Get a review of the daily news, and then if you wanted, you could look into it more. Research what has happened.

Now, the news channels constantly roll the same news. Finding different angles, different specialists, but still repeating the news stories continuously. This makes the news become flat. It can sometimes become a bit monotonous, and the news that would have caught ones attention years ago, just all blends into one another.

As people become more apathetic with the news, networks and publications do more to make themselves stand out, to retain their audience. They want to be the first to break news, whether the ‘news’ be true or not. American news network, Fox News, recently responded to the Paris terrorist attack by saying Islamic extremism was accepted in areas in Europe. To try and prove a point, the commentator stated that cities like Birmingham exist, where the city is a no-go for non-Muslims. This is entirely wrong, as it estimated that 21% of Birmingham is actually Muslim. This is Islamophobic fear mongering. It is just nonsense, but shows how far agencies are willing to go to try and gain an audience.

Personally, anyone who uses a genuine story where people have died, to make up lies to reinforce the ‘fear factor’ shouldn’t be reporting news. How can people judge what they do see on these networks and in the papers, if some use it to back people into a corner? To make them fear for their lives?

So maybe, it’s a good idea not to absorb the constant news coverage. Yes, educate yourself on what is happening in the world, but don’t let yourself becoming overwhelmed. Because the stuff that is happening in the world is scary, it is big, but you should know the truth. So read from varied sources, small bits, so you can get the facts, and not get beaten down by a specific parties lies and exaggerations.
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Hope that made a little sense. I don’t trust the news I watch, with papers having political alliances and ‘specialists’ reporting lies. And I don’t know if other people find the same issue.

Makes Me Smile

January 8, 2015January 8, 2015 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Not having a good day today. Feeling a bit low, and thought I needed to cheer myself up. I ventured onto YouTube and there is a couple of videos by RatherGood that never fail to make me laugh. It was quite a few years ago when I stumbled across their website, and just laughed at the daft videos. I think it’s important to promote something that does make you feel better, and Joel Veitch’s creations certainly do that. A word of warning, a lot of the videos contain adult content and immature jokes. Still makes me laugh though.

I’ve added s few videos here. Hopefully they make you smile, as they did me.

Out & About

January 6, 2015 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Today I ventured outside with my new camera. The Canon PowerShot SX510 is a digital bridge camera, something that I wanted since I did a photography course at college many years ago. I like taking pictures, although I am not the best at it. But that is the good thing about hobbies, you do not have to be particularly good to do it, you just have to do something that you enjoy.

Anyways, I was to meet a friend today, and because I was in town early, I went for a walk down the main park in Dunfermline, Pittencrieff Park (also known as The Glen). It was a gift by Andrew Carnegie to the people of Dunfermline, the town of his birth, after he made his fortune in America in the steel industry. He also donated a library. gymnasium and concert hall to Dunfermline, and also various projects through the USA, particularly New York’s famous Carnegie Hall. Carnegie believed that one third of life should be spent learning as much as they can, the next third spent making as much money as he could. The last third of one’s life should then be spent giving earnings to worthwhile causes to better society. The Glen is one of my favourite places in my hometown, so I thought it was the perfect first trip out with my new camera.

And then I ventured up to the Abbey, a building dating from the early 1200s. A beautiful place.

The one thing that struck me as strange, was the number of squirrels about. I am sure that the squirrels used to hibernate, but the mild winter and constant food from visitors mean that they haven’t done so in years. Visitors are encouraged to bring nuts and seeds to the park to feed the birds over the winter, and the squirrels feed off them. And because they get food of people, they have no fear and can come right close to you.

Happy New Year

January 1, 2015 ~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

So another new year is upon us, an annual point for people to reflect on their lives and think of ways to make this next 12 months better than the last. A year is a significant period of time, and it is a unit of time, where a person can evaluate how they have done. And anything they didn’t do, they may want to create ‘resolutions’, to help them achieve what they want over the course of the next 12 months.

Of course, everyone should live their lives making today better than yesterday. Change can happen at any day, not just at New Year. Most people make resolutions fail, so a lot see it as a waste of time. I feel like people could fail if they don’t really ‘believe’ in what they are doing. When I was at school there was a bit of a pressure to invent a goal, to try and achieve something in the year. But if you didn’t really want to do what you said, there was no real push to do it. And I believe that this thing of ‘making resolutions’ that you don’t really want to, means people do fail. Some people see this year after year, and then call out resolutions as a waste of time. Which I guess could be true for some people.

Personally, other than writing a resolution when I was at Primary School, I have never been a fan of the whole ‘new year, new me’ stuff. It just seemed like a waste of time. But this year I am thinking slightly differently. 2014 was a bad mental health year for me. I struggled really badly with anxiety, and I reacted by shutting myself away from people. I refused to go on nights out because I didn’t want to be that person who drags a whole night down. So I didn’t bother going out. And then I hated myself for being so weak. It doesn’t sound like much, but I spent the best part of the year not liking myself. So, I am very relieved to shut the door on 2014, and look to make 2015 a bit better. And I have made some aims that I’d like to try for the year.

I’d like to work out a writing/vlogging/drawing routine and stick to them. I need to work on letting my frustrations out, so that they don’t wear me down, and i do that best by creating something. Food. I need a better relationship with food, and I need to stick to vegetarianism better. I don’t like the idea of something dying for me to eat it, but I like the taste. So I hope to find new tastes, that maybe fit my morals, and still taste good. I also would like to be more organised. I am very much a ‘throw everything on the floor’ kind of girl, and that means I lose everything. I can’t live with a messy kitchen, but my room can easily look like a bombs gone off. Learn how to love ‘me’. I am my own worst enemy and it needs to stop.

But that’s it. Just a few things that I feel would help me function better as the person I want to be. I have always had this idea of what I should be like, and I end up being down on myself on not being this hypothetical person. Which no one should be like towards themselves. But hey, enough with the negativity. Let’s lock that away with last year, and look ahead to a happier 2015.

I hope all my readers have an amazing 2015. And I wish you all the luck in the world for anything that you want to achieve.