おは異様ございます！
Better late than ever, but I need to get back to the schedule and routine for the last half of the semester. I did not mean to combine the log for the last two weeks, but since I am doing it now, might as well have fun with it, hit the:
Lamelo should ask for a trade, he will never win with Charlotte, but that is not the trade I am concerned about. Switching sports and leagues, Myles Garret to the Rams is diabolical. The NFC west is so over. I pray for Brock Purdy. I had such high hopes for the niners this season, but:
NHL Playoffs this year has been interesting, I am still salty about Marner getting a shot at the cup in his first year off the leafs, but he deserves it, playing lights out. Game 1 was a thriller. NBA finals will be wild, Knicks vs. Spurs will feed families. Tragic that I can not rip PrizePicks from abroad and get some bread, but the bigger tragedy is missing the American 250 summer.
Homesickness is starting to kick-in after 2 months, but it is not too bad since I went to the Wallen tour last year. I have had "Don't We" stuck in my head and Reels feed since Memorial Day. Those lyrics hit hard:
"I used to hate it, but I traveled lots of pavement. And there ain't no better places at the end of the day."
It took me coming to Kyoto, traveling Asia to really understand and realize how privileged and lucky I am to be an American. I will stop with the political spiel before I get myself in trouble, but I am proud to be American; along with being Canadian and Japanese too. I just miss golfing and going to the beach a little too much right now.
Moving along, it's been a minute, and I will keep it real, I’m not doing too good. There are heavy bags under my eyes, and I am very sleep-deprived. As fun as the low cortisol life is, my body cannot keep up. I am pretty ashamed and disappointed in myself because I am only 19, and I should be full of energy entering my 20s, but that could not be farther from the truth.
The last few weeks or more accurately month have been a fever dream and Week 5's log was pretty much pre-written before I went to Hong Kong. I will give you a run down on what I have been up too with some photos.
Me at night thinking about all the good times I took for granted pic.twitter.com/gsMeZ95hgl
— 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘇𝘆’🦉 (@OvOBrezzzy) July 12, 2023
Lot of places in the past month, I am very lucky to be able to travel and have great people accompany me with. I had some surprise visitors besides my oldest brother, but I will reveal them later in the main IG post, coming soon. If I have frequent visitors from home, I do not think my "study abroad experience" counts at all 😹.
Do not get me wrong I am having a blast, but it is just exhausting at times. It is like I am experiencing vacation burnout and aside from going to bed late, I developed some bad habits, been doing some things I am not proud of, a few thou shall not. I cannot seem to kick them, and "I tried and tried and tried 'Til the R switched place with the I."
Really messing with Iceman and felt like that was a clean transition, but I am tired.
You ever feel like there’s a gap between the person you are currently and the person you want and God wants you to be?
I have so much ambition and things I want to do that I know will give me joy, but I just have not been doing them. It is not like I do not want to do the things I love, but I am just not able too. Most of the time when I am not spontaneously adventuring, I just procrastinate. You know I saw this other reel the other day that read something like “if I'm being honest if a doc told me I had 24 hrs to live, I’ll hit a doom-scroll,” and as funny as it is, the scary it is too.
Doom-scrolling and my other bad habits have ruined me, and I do not even want to share my screen time because it is that bad. I hate and do not want to it, but it just happens. It’s like breathing you know, you don’t think when you breathe, you just do it.
Luckily I am conscious of it, and admitting is the first step towards recovery, but it does not necessarily save me. It’s shameful, and I pray to God about it, but as I learned reading Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts by Sally M. Winston and Martin N. Seif, shame is what keeps you going back to your bad habits, and prayers just increase your anxiety.
I know Matthew 5:30 said, "And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell." I have done that numerous times with deactivating accounts, but always ended up, and falling back into the cycle. What you resist, persists, and it is not a battle of willpower to stop. It is a neuroscience and dopamine problem. The algorithms are designed to keep you addicted, and it's tough, but in times like these I remember:
Romans 7:21-25: "So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
But for the first time I had a different feeling when reading that verse and questioned if I even want to be healed. It is exactly what Theo Von is referring to in this clip:
"Do I want to be healed?" I cannot answer that question because truthfully I do not know the answer myself. That's the human struggle, you feel me; part of me wants to be saved and part of me does not. Who I am kidding, I am not even 20 yet, I should not be spiraling into a depressive state of not being the person I want to be just as my life is about to begin. I am making better progress in my self talk and how I view myself though. The other day when I shared my story to new people, I took a moment and smiled at myself for all I accomplished already. My story is actually pretty impressive and insane, and I am happy that I am still here. I am proud and grateful of everything and everyone in my life regardless of good or bad because it shaped who I am. There are some regrets I have, but I think it is good to have some because that is just further proof of your learning and growth. Regretting is confirmation that you are the person who will make the decision now. Although I am still not the 100% fixed version of myself I thought I would before going abroad, I am happy to see a person who tries to their best every time I look in the mirror.
That is pretty much it for the log. This was not really a detailed account of what has happened in the past two weeks, but you can say that for my other logs. I do not know when I will upload my next YouTube video, but it will come. The next video I really want to take my time and really put out something I can be proud of looking back because the last one, I just made it for the sake of making it. That's why the script was largely AI towards the end, but if you ever had a conversation over Drake with me, you know I will be yapping for hours. I really need to think how I can top "surrender" because I felt that was my Magnum Opus for lack of better terms. I definitely do want to put out video and visual content, but I find writing things out is easier for me. Who knows though because I did get a $30 gimbal from Shenzhen and I want to use that. There is more I want to write for this log, but the contents are more aligned with Week 8's material, so check back in for that. The HTML and CSS of the homepage has been updated, and I embedded a new video of the week, you should. I found it very interesting.
Before I end, I just want to wish good luck for those with finals, and a reminder for everyone to protect your mental health. Claude Lemieux recently took his own life just days after lighting the torch for the Habs and that is very unfortunate to see. The illness between the ears is real, and the conversation has to got to get bigger. Some signs are obvious, some signs are not, and if we never share, we will never know. I pray whoever reads this may find peace within their own suffering and wins the battle in their head every day. Like Zach Bryan said, "if you can make it to the end of the day, you can make it to the end of the year."
Thank you all for reading! As always stay safe and godspeed!
See you in a few days! じゃね！