me, i'm not

but that seldom happens anymore. he shares a few cute pics/videos of his cats here and there. but that's pretty much it.

the problem with me is.. i am actively trying to smother the sadness (due to rejection) by putting on a very :D face on the outside. i've made a few friends with some of the girls at spinning, so we talk we laugh we smile.

an the other problem with me is... that i can find the humor in this absurdity. i may have gotten him balloons for the welcoming of his two new cats yesterday??? (which he never took home with him... i saw them under the stairs today...) (i told my online classmate about it while we were doing a facetime study session AND SHE WAS BAWLING 😭 😭😭😭 HAHAHA)

and also during class... omg. so a while back we were on the topic of people's kinks and how sometimes they're just ???... and i mentioned how i knew somebody (POS) who was into like ASMR stuff which i didn't understand... until one day somebody (i was talking about cute spinning instructor... to cute spinning instructor) whispered something into a mic and ... suddenly it kind of made sense.

and now something goes off in my brain whenever he does it.

he was like "whoever whispered in class, shame on them for exposing a kink you never knew you had" (i'm still not sure if he knew i was talking about him...

he hadn't really done it in a while (even before me mentioning it) but yesterday, there was a tiny whisper...

and today, there were a few tiny whispers.

and my reaction was a combo between 🤤😂😭 it's just so funny to me because... how do i react to this now?? it's still hot... but unfortunately i'm still attracted to him even though he wants nothing to do with me!!

(me 5 seconds ago)

so after meeting with my supervisor last week, i threw around the idea of interviewing the 200-level coordinator as well ??? and she said if it's possible, why not.

and one thing that kind of became evident as i interviewed the second, and third, and fourth engineering professor, especially with the fourth, was the students' i guess... metaawareness regarding the specific writing competencies required for different sections within their report.

so now that i'm interviewing this 200-level coordinator (from our department) and it's my last and final interview (total of 8- 4:4... RIP ME WITH DATA ANALYSIS THIS WEEK), and this.. theme has come up, i'm gonna ask her about it as well.

god. i fucking love this topic i've chosen AND IT IS SOOOO INTERESTING TO ME. i can't wait to process the data.

someone messaged me on ig. idk who it is, but i'm convinced it's the POS.

the username starts with a k and ends in an a... (similar to his old handle) , there's a 6 somewhere there (his birthday's in june)...

this person did message Hi :) instead of Hey (as he normally would in the past)

but... i'm convinced it's him.

the account was created last month and it's from this country.

i'm ... literally reachable to everyone else.

James Blake- "Loading"

there's this James Blake song/feature which i've been listening to from time to time for the past few months, Til Further Notice

and i decided to see if there were any interesting edits/remixes on soundcloud on friday. instead, i came across one of his boiler room sets. i listened to it on the drive to my friend's beach house and UGH. HEAVENLY!!!

it wasn't as bad as i expected. there's this couple that i met last time who were also there, and they are such cuties and the husband is very easy going and talkative.

there were these two (absolutely gorgeous) sisters who had also come. at night we were all sitting on the sofa getting to know each other, and the husband and sisters were talking, they're all lebanese, and they were talking about how lebanon has changed a lot and the amount of cosmetic surgery is just so much... and one of the sisters, who's 19, commented on how almost all of her friends have gotten some form of alteration!!

and the husband was trying to give advice to the 19 year old and was like "don't touch yourself" (and then other stuff) but my dumbass perverted self INSTANTLY LAUGHED and stopped listening!!! BECAUSE I AM A PERVERT!!

can't stop... ruminating over cute spinning instructor. communication/responses from him are practically nonexistent now. he says he's going through stuff, and i want to give him that grace and believe him... but....

the annoying thing is i can't get him out of my head. and it's like, girl. FUCKING PRIORITIES (YOU HAVE A DISSERTATION TO WRITE!!). sometimes (before boinking) he'd send something random at like 1 am. song, cat, thirst trap... and now i find myself randomly waking up around that time PRAYING/hoping for some message from him.

my sleep schedule is fucked.

and my heart is tired and i've surprisingly cried several times over this. i was never expecting a relationship. it's the discarding part that upsets me. also perhaps ego?? was i THAT bad at sex?!?!?!?! (plzzz... give me another chance. my previous experiences with former partners weren't the best.)

another annoying thing is... my brain is treating him like two separate people. there's the cute spinning instructor whose energy and vibes in/out of class brought so much light and brightness when i was having that rough start to the year (work + uni + "war" and having to teach online + dealing with no contact with ex + still dealing with ovary removal and just... what that means to be a woman etc...) and ... this person who's tooted and booted me.

something broken inside me still wants to see him and still go to his classes. i genuinely enjoy his classes (though tbh the choreo is way too repetitive and he needs to change that up!!!). ego is also a weird thing... i've been rejected. does that mean i stop coming? or do i come back in spite? idk.

-----

i've finished collecting data for my dissertation. 7 interviews. semi-structured, but each almost an hour long.... i'm meeting with my supervisor on monday to discuss how to analyze/process it all. the first full draft is due July 29.

i don't know how people do phds. i'm so sick of this project already. i don't want to write 20000 words!! i CAN'T write that many words!!!!!!!!

i was supposed to send her what i've written so far before our meeting, and ... i did not do that. i have nothing written so far.

i have my original proposal and an assignment which focused on my methodology, but i have to reverse outline those and then flesh them out... and expand a lot more... (the first half is supposed to be... 10K words....) RIP ME

----

so for my dissertation, i'm interviewing several people from the engineering faculty. finding participants who fit my criteria had been more challenging than anticipated. i was referred to one professor several weeks ago, and i met him, and he met my criteria and he seemed interested in participating... but when i emailed him, he never responded... both times...

there was ONE person i had met at the very beginning who seemed interested in participating, but he'd only been teaching the course for one year... so i was reluctant... plus, for some reason i was under the impression his was like a lab report (intro/methods/results blah blah) and i wasn't too keen/interested in that.

because i'm running out of time, i decided to reach out to him, even if his reports weren't "ideal"... not only was he was still interested in participating, but when he sent over the template/student samples of what he does in his class, IT WASN'T WHAT I WAS EXPECTING AT ALL!

so already i was pleased.

we had agreed for me to interview him today at 10. so i woke up early, came into work, blah blah blah. i waited outside his office at 9.55-10.10, no show... i messaged him, but i was like wtffffffff… i came all this way. but whatever, maybe i can interview him on Teams or something. so i went to visit my coworker. we went downstairs to get her coffee... then by CHANCE i decide to see if he'd responded before i head home, and he said his class ran a little late but he's in his office now.

so i headed over.

and i am SO glad this worked out because his responses were... so informative. and he had this... metacognitive awareness regarding what students should be able to do with their writing (WHICH CONNECTS BEAUTIFULLY TO WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR). and he even said something towards the end which i was able to connect to another participant's responses, so having his... differing viewpoint was very interesting!

noice.

i don't like working/writing...

please TELL ME WHY HER NIECE (6 years old) TRIED TO LICK MY THIGH TATTOO?!?!?!? LOL

she was asking me about my tattoos and she was like "this one is so pretty!" and then she tried lifting my left so that she could lick it!!!

(to preface: i'm choosing to believe he's single)

anyways. i've already mentioned the "sporadic" communication, so moving on.

on thursday, before class, he seemed exhausted and he mentioned he and his friend were hanging out / getting high until like super early in the morning, so he didn't sleep much and his body is just exhausted. he hadn't really prepared a playlist for the class, so he was winging it like 10 minutes before.

the class was good! so later that night i sent him a message letting him know.

he responded LIKE 24 HOURS LATER, the following day... saying he pretty much fell asleep once he got home and he had a busy day blah blah and hopefully i had a good day.

we chit chatted a bit. a soccer match was going on, so we were texting a bit throughout that. afterwards, texting slightly took a naughty turn, and more pics/vids were exchanged between like 1-2 am.

i may have offered myself for assistance in the morning. and i may have gone over at 8 am.

my... questionable decisions aren't the reason for this post.

my reason is... idk. i can't get his face out of my head. i'm not trying to romanticize the guy. but his face brings me so much calm. i remember at one point on saturday just literally... looking at his face and looking into his soft round brown eyes and just smiling.

i know what i'm getting myself into. i know this isn't sustainable. i know this isn't going anywhere.

but from february until like... may, so like 3 months, where i was feeling like pure shit, seeing his face and experiencing his warm vibes/energy before/during/after class brought me so much joy.

and then getting to know him, and learning about him, and learning about some of his past experiences and childhood, it doesn't seem like he had the most positive time. so the fact that he comes off as this warm light just makes my heart soften a bit, especially considering that some people experienced far less, but are just absolute dark clouds to be around. (cough cough piece of shit cough cough)

we both have our own "agendas". i don't necessarily want to know what his is, all i hope is that it doesn't come from a place of malice. i feel very aware and conscious of what's happening between us. he hasn't misled me in any way, so i pray that my judgment isn't so bad so i can't see OBVIOUS red flags.