pointless stream

Date: Friday 7th of August, 12.33
Location: Leiden, at work, inside my head

what was it I said again? "it is been renovating" ... which should have been "it is being renovated", gosh I'm so stupid, what was I thinking, and I also think he wasn't that interested in the building anyway, maybe I should have talked about something else, what was it he said again? oh no, I'm doing it again; replaying conversations in my head and correcting the grammatical mistakes I made. I shouldn't do that, it is ridiculous to worry about what I said and how I said things in conversations with other people. it's just that I feel that I'm not allowed to make such mistakes since I've been studying the language for like five years now, I must look like a total idiot, especially since I told everyone that I have a BA in English when we had to introduce ourselves to the group, so they probably expect me to speak the language fluently, which makes me self-conscious when I talk. maybe when I go to Nottingham I should tell people that I did do a BA in English, but then add that I know it's not perfect and I'm there to improve my language skills. but that's just stupid, I shouldn't have to apologise for anything, my english is probably better than most other exchange students there and why should I care about what other people might think of me? I need to stop worrying about things like this, it is probably not very healthy, so from now on, I am not allowed to replay conversations in my head. I must think about something else. I must clear my head and think about nothing, just focus on what's going on right now and nothing else. I'll just listen to the music on my mp3-player. I'm mister brightside... this song reminds me of catena parties, I think I'm wearing that little dress with the fringe to the party tonight. maybe I should get some new tights, or check out my closet this afternoon to see if I have one good pair left. maybe I should wear red lipstick, isn't that what they wore in the thirties? I don't think I have red lipstick though, so I would have to go out and buy some. although that might be a little unnecessary now I think about it, I never even wear lipstick and my boyfriend doesn't like it. maybe I'll go shopping this afternoon and then decide. I'm worrying about unimportant stuff again, let's just not think for a while. I'm vacuuming the stairs. I'm vacuuming the stairs. I'm vacuuming the stairs. wow, this gets boring pretty quickly. I wouldn't want to live in a house like this. my house would have a large bedroom with a giant closet with many shelves to hold my shoes. and it wouldn't have doors, but a curtain along the entire wall so I could hide all of my clothes behind it without having to stack them neatly. and I'd get a dressing table, and a small cabinet with drawers for gloves and necklaces and stuff which could hold the tv. I don't really need a tv in the bedroom, but since I'm getting a huge closet and a dressing table I guess my boyfriend should get something too. his gamecube must go into another room though. he'll probably want a gameroom so that's two rooms and then there's the living room which makes three, unless the kitchen is in another room big enough to hold a kitchen table, I kind of like that idea, so that makes four rooms which seems a bit unnecessary since there's only the two of us, and now I realise I haven't thought about where to put our books, so they should go into the living room, but then if I wanted to have a desk to work on that should go into the living room as well. seems a bit greedy to want a house with four rooms while I was thinking of downsizing the amount of useless crap I own. I would like a bigger house but with less crap though and probably more books and shoes. desire...is the cause of all suffering? it's probably not very healthy to think about stuff I want either. I shouldn't worry about the things I've done, I shouldn't worry about the future, but then there's nothing left to think about but the present. I bet if I could manage to think about the present only I'd spend a lot less time worrying, unless of course I'm doing exciting stuff at the present time that needs worrying about. I suppose if I stopped worrying unless it was absolutely necessary I'd feel more relaxed in general. which is good. although it would mean that I have to monitor my thoughts and make sure that I don't worry but think about other stuff. other stuff that isn't just superficial thoughts about stuff I want like lipstick and a giant closet. argh now I'm worrying about how not to worry. this is hopeless, it is impossible to think about stuff without worrying or without wishing things were different, unless you think about what's happening right now, at this moment in the present. the unbelievably boring present that kind of makes you wish you were somewhere else if only you were allowed to. trying to control your thoughts is ridiculous. endless, pointless.

Seven years

Some say life is a succession of seven-year periods, each of them defining a different stage in your life. I guess that could be true to some extent. I spent the first seven years of my life in Rotterdam, after which my family and I moved to a small and quiet town, a major change for all of us. During the next seven years I went from elementary to grammar school, changed from a girl who had a single best friend into someone who actually belonged to a clique. Nothing particularly great happened when I became fourteen and entered the next 'stage', although over the next few years I gradually became your typical teenage poet lamenting the agony of everyday life and the uselessness of it all. And then I fell in love, life became brighter (although the colour of my clothes did not), I graduated and went to college, moved out of my parent's house, learned many things, met new people... It just seems silly to consider these events which took place during seven years to belong to a single stage in life. Maybe this theory does not work out so well for me after all. But say it does, that would mean I have just started the fourth seven-year stage of my life. Nothing special happened to mark the transition from the previous period into this one though. People are probably supposed to become grown-ups during these seven years; finish their studies, get a job, get a car, maybe get married, maybe have kids (eek!). Hmmm... For now, I think I'll just try to do the first and worry about the rest later. Maybe in the next seven years.