2024-09-17
So, totally not in a desparate attempt to pad out words, I'm going to write about my day. It's late in the evening now (half seven) on the Tuesday, and I had the day off of work! For the record, I am currently sitting in bed, and for have have three carrots and some bread pudding my nan made me (that is very moist, and delicious - I swear she puts some kind of drug in the bread puddings she makes they are so good).
We went up to London today (which I suppose I would have done anyways for work) in order to go to the German embassy. We are applying for German citizenship: we can get it under a change to the citizenship laws and are able to apply until I think 2031. When we do get it, we can get dual citizenship which is good! So we took the District line from Tower Hill to Sloane Square, walked from there to the embassy, and submitted our documents (we had already filled out the application and prepared all the documents, and so we literally just gave them to the lady at the desk and she processed them and sent them to the citizenship office). Then because we had the day left, we went up to the V&A museum, had some cake, perused the art (there was a wonderful, vivid turquoise that was on plates in the Islam section - beautiful! I think it wouldn't have captured on a camera and we didn't take any photos there anyways). The renaissance section was lovely as well and likely what I will see a lot of in Bologna. The section on Japan was nice - samurai and kimono and the like, and also had a lot of Buddhist items. I notice how much my Japanese is failing me - I had a bit of a loss for words anyways during the whole day (I don't know if there is a good word for a loss of words (ironically) - I am not sure if aphasia is a bit too dramatic a choice) so much so that I actually couldn't even conjure up basic words like 'kabuki', or remember the word 'rakugo' when I wanted to talk about that. Not good... probably I was just tired.
Afterwards we had a nice meal at the Zizzi's by Tower Hill on the way back, for a sort of late lunch/dinner. The pizzas there are lovely, I had the spicy fake-meatball (vegan) one and some bruschetta (I *adore* bruschetta and make sure to always eat it at any chance I get - I had some my grandma made when I went round there for lunch one day - divine) which in itself was quite pricey.
London, though - everything is expensive. When we were passing through Kensington we stopped by the window of an estate agents to observe the house prices - all rented - and my god. The cheapest option, a two-bed flat, was £1100 per week. Not per month - per week! I genuinely don't know how people actually manage to afford that or think it is reasonable. The more expensive options were well above that - renting a five bed property was something stupid like £6000 a week. I wouldn't even last two months there before I've blown through my whole year's wages. The difference between the rich and the poor - well, really, I'm actually not all that poor, but it's just that I'm paid a normal salary. To even break even you'd have to earn £60k a year to pay for the property, and that's not counting living expenses - we stopped into a pharmacy to get some hand sanitizer - a small 50ml bottle was £3.99. Absolutely insane. The pizzas in Zizzi's were £16 and the bruscetta was £7.50. Just wow, London is truly something else. When my mum went to the embassy last time, a coffee and cake for three people came to £57. That kind of thing - it's just incredible how expensive it is.
Anyways, should I actually get on topic?
I was reading Mike Crittenden's blog, on a chain of different blog entries (hyperlinks are both the best and the worst thing - best for the internet and finding new people; worst for my time) - [Avoid avoiding](https://critter.blog/2020/11/19/avoid-avoiding) lead to [Am I an extrovert or an introvert?](https://critter.blog/2020/10/27/am-i-an-extrovert-or-an-introvert) and I wanted to write about that, this time.
Mike's conclusion was that he is a shy introvert, and honestly I think I am probably the same. I wonder if introversion has exemptions of sort for close members of family - I do not feel in any way drained when I speak to them. With friends I sometimes do, and sometimes don't. It's a bit vague and uncertain. Certainly though, I do enjoy going out on social occasions: for instance, whenever there are work-dos I always go out if I can, and I find I tend to stay out to be one of the last people out. In fact, there haven't been many work-dos of late (there was one maybe a month ago but it wasn't very good if I'm honest) and that does make me upset in a way - I want to socialise, and talk to people, and I do enjoy it and don't find it tiring. But, really, the thing I was to say is that, I almost disagree with the dichotomy of intro/extroversion in the first place. I think it is one of those things that becomes more important the more one thinks about it, and the more one comes to identify with it as an aspect of one's personality.
As in, I used to think about introversion and extroversion a lot. I was for a while very into trying to think of what exactly I was, whether I was just shy, or introverted, or extroverted, etc. and came to the conclusion as a teen that I was introverted. Yet, as I've grown up I've come to think less and less about it and now notice that... I don't care, really.
I feel the same about mental health and conditions. Now, I do get upset at times, and struggle with things as with everybody else, and for a while was wondering whether I was depressed. In fact, for a while I think I probably was, between the ages of sort of sixteen to nineteen - those were truly the worst days of my (twenty-three year - peh!) life. But I never went to the effort of trying to get myself diagnosed or anything, because it doesn't really matter, I think in the end. Really, I think that the psychological terms, like introversion or depression or this and that disorder really don't help. I am not sure fully how to articulate this. I don't want to say it is bad to reflect on feelings - rather, I feel that the psychological terms have pre-existing associations, and that by trying to ascribe the term to oneself tends to lead to aspects of it being attributed to oneself that aren't there, or a sort of self-affirmation into that state, if that makes sense. Sort of like how teenage girls can give themselves Tourette's syndrome because the content they see on TikTok.
I should probably try flesh this out, but I hope that makes sense. It is good to reflect, and to try to find terms, but using the pre-existing terms I think is a bad start.
That's all. I'm beginning to think that the wv is not a good format, in that it is conducive to writing too much, and saying things I don't want to say, in a way. Maybe I could write about that too, eh? I just almost think that being confined to having to write a thousand words is actually doing a bit of harm. I can't really write a thousand words well - I'm not good at it without rambling or covering multiple topics, and probably I should read more and try to learn instead of writing all the time. Maybe? In a way the writing is good for self-discovery, I'm just not sure it's helping.
Have a good one.