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For the memories

- Sheylara 2 Comments
Sheylara

Exciting times! I have decided to stop being depressed.

But I was being flippant. I don’t decide depression; it website https://www.dentavacation.com/xanax/ decides me. Recently, after months and months of hounding me, it decided to take a break. One day, depression just up and scarpered off on a holiday or something, I don’t know. I hope it gets lost, or kidnapped, or dies of old age, or something, and never comes back.

Anyway, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, which is not new. I’ve been thinking too much since I was old enough to, and it’s not a good thing because I can’t ever decide on anything when I can make equally convincing arguments for all sides. This explains why I’ve had so many failed restarts in blogging in the last few years — I keep changing my mind. Also explains why I’m thirty-two kinds of strange.

But never mind all that. What’s significant is that the latest think dictated I must blog again because I’m losing memories. The last few years of my life amount to a series of blank pages because I’d failed to document all the highlights, like I’d done between 2003 and 2013-ish. As a matter of fact, my life before blogging is a lot of blank pages, as well.

That makes me sad. I need to save more memories. We all do!

So, I am now determined to start documenting again, pretending my life is really cool and everything, in millennial fashion, when, in reality, all I do is stay home and obsess over my sad obsessions. But 100-year-old me won’t remember that when I look back on my blogs with nostalgic fondness. All I’ll see and remember is that I was pretty cool. And that’s pretty cool.

In other news, I have a new obsession. It’s desk-bound and rather time-consuming so, I actually don’t know I will have any time left to get up to cool stuff, much less blog about them. But I can blog about my obsession, can’t I? Ooh. Aren’t you so very excited to read all about it?

She said self-deprecatingly.

It’s your fault that I post selfies

- Sheylara 6 Comments

Yes, I just thought it was time for me to post a recent selfie to show that I haven’t grown horns or anything.

Although I suppose I could have just photoshopped the horns away and you’d be none the wiser. But let’s just assume that I haven’t got the skills to do that. I can just about erase the odd blemish and eye bag and wrinkle and… wait, what? I didn’t say anything. I’m not saying anything until I see my lawyer.

What respectable human being grows horns for no reason, anyway?

So, selfie, sans horn!

 

Sheylara

 

Except I have cleverly cropped the top of my head off. Mwahaha.

And then very un-cleverly revealed all my tricks.

Speaking of horns, I just remembered I have a pair of cute reindeer antler hair clips I bought years ago. I was planning to wear them at Christmas but kept forgetting, and have forgotten three years in a row, or thereabouts.

Perhaps this year I will remember and then we can have a selfie with antlers.

Although when Piers found out my plans (to wear antlers at Christmas) he was, like, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. So, I’m not sure he would let me out of the house with them on.

Only about eight months to find out.

 

Comic: Antlers
He was afraid to tell her something was growing out her head.

 

Now I want to talk a bit about selfies. They’re a funny bit of modern culture that makes me very uncomfortable. I mean, selfies are blatant attention-seeking devices, right? Who would post a selfie other than to say, “Look at me and give me some attention, dammit?”

But go ask anyone, “Do you like attention-seeking people?” I’m going to bet you the answer is no. In fact, you know the answer is no without having to ask.

So why is it that, when someone posts a selfie anywhere, they get likes and compliments GALORE?

Here, look at this.

A selfie appears on my Facebook feed. I get 112 likes. And it wasn’t even a proper selfie post. I was just changing my profile back to an old picture I had already used before.

 

Selfie

 

On the contrary, a blog post link, accompanied by a nice little cartoon, gets three likes.

 

A blog post

 

THREE.

Ok, I did manipulate the data a bit by picking out two extreme instances but the fact generally is that selfie posts get WAY MORE likes and comments than any other posts (except engagement and pregnancy announcements).

It’s almost enough to make me quit blogging altogether and just post selfies all day long.

But, like I said, it makes me very uncomfortable.

Why do people claim not to like attention-seekers yet give them so much attention?

 

Peoples! You are messed up
You should be very afraid of yourself.

 

A lot has been written on this subject. A lot of psychobabble about self-esteem, and a lot of rants about selfies destroying the universe. I don’t want to add to that. Well, I do want to add that people are crazy and the world is crazy, and that’s about the size of it.

The selfie culture makes me uncomfortable because I was raised in an era and country of modesty and humility, which selfies are the burning antithesis of. I don’t want to post a single selfie if I am to be honest. I want to be admired for the work I do. But a lot more people seem to admire my selfies than my work, so it encourages me to propagate the selfie culture.

Which means that it’s all your fault.

When you like my selfies, it makes me feel better about the times you fail to like my blog posts, which I would have put a few thousand times more effort on.

Time spent writing this post: 5 hours.

Time spent taking this selfie: 5 seconds.

 

The other selfie
Let’s play a game. It’s called smile at the camera for no reason.

 

So, people, I don’t know, like, just do the right thing. Leave a comment to tell me I’m right (that you are messed up because you like selfies more than anything else)?

 

Return of the Sheylara

- Sheylara 5 Comments

Greetings, Earthlings.

We bring you news of the most trifling kind (in our opinion) which may potentially be of utmost importance to your species, although we can’t imagine why.

We announce the release of one piffling blogger, Sheylara, who has remained in our captivity care as of one year ago for the crime error of perpetuating an extremely garish pink blog, which hurt our eyes.

Sheylara has successfully completed a thorough treatment of brainwashing gentle counselling for the totality of one year, and been granted a probationary certification of sanity. She is hereby allowed to resume blogging on strict conditions of non-repeat.

Most sincerely but not yours,
Aliens (the most awesomest beings in the universe)

 

Comic Strip: Alien Abduction
Sheylara needs a hair cut very badly.

Battle of the Sheylaras

- Sheylara 8 Comments

Just thought I should pop in to say that I’m stil alive and kicking and gaming too much for my own good.

(I do have to assert for the record that the right games promote mental acuity, so there is something to be said for gaming too much.)

Well, the thing is, once in a while I get into a kind of mental block that prevents me from writing. It’s not writers’ block; it’s a block which I can explain more adequately by sharing with you the following internal dialogue:

 

Sheylara 1: What shall we write about today?

Sheylara 2: We could do X, Y, Z or A.

Sheylara 1: We could, but I don’t want to.

Sheylara 2: Why not?

Sheylara 1: They’re all boring.

Sheylara 2: No way. People are waiting to read them.

Sheylara 1: They’re boring to write. And if they’re boring to write, they must be boring to read.

Sheylara 2: Just write one of them, anyway.

Sheylara 1: I don’t want to write for the sake of writing. I want to make some changes to my blog.

Sheylara 2: Like what?

Sheylara 1: I don’t know. I have a million ideas but they’re all not sustainable and I don’t want to start work on half-baked ideas only to regret and then want to change again.

Sheylara 2: Okay, keep on incubating ideas but in the meantime write something or everyone will think we’ve quit and gone to live in Tibet.

Sheylara 1: I can’t! I just can’t work on something I don’t believe in anymore. I want a new direction. I want to change everything. I NEED to change everything!

Sheylara 2: Do it gradually.

Sheylara 1: I can’t! Because if I continue in this vein, I will keep on continuing in this vein! There needs to be a sudden, drastic change for anything to happen for real! And for that to take place, I need to stop doing whatever’s not working! Don’t you understand?!!

Sheylara 2: …

Sheylara 1: I need to change NOW! I can’t wait! My blog is getting stupid and boring!!

Sheylara 2: Erm… I think we should get back to our game.

Sheylara 1: Okay.

 

This happens a lot.

In fact, this happens regularly my entire life.

Occasionally, Sheylara 1 gets a breakthrough and something life-changing happens and then we are happy for a time. But, more often than not, Sheylara 2 wins by appealing to the mature, sensible adult hiding somewhere in our DNA, and then life goes on in a mundane but safe cycle until such a time as Sheylara 1 decides to halfheartedly rebel again.

 

Geese talking

 

In other news, I am taking my IELTS tomorrow. That’s the stupid English test we are forced to pass in order to apply to colleges and universities in Western countries.

I hate it because it makes you study stupid charts showing how many Japanese people travelled abroad each year over a 10-year period and how many of them chose to go to Australia in each of those years.

You then have to write your findings in 150 words or more.

Among other things, you also have to read long, wordy essays on the boring history of cartography and then answer a series of trick questions which are impossible to answer because you fell asleep while reading the essay.

The IELTS is a three-hour ordeal that will only prove, if you pass, that you have the mental fortitude required to withstand prolonged torture to your brain.

 

Well, don’t mind me. I’m just grumpy.

“What attract readers to reading blogs by Sheylara, Dawn Yang, Xiaxue?”

- Sheylara 39 Comments

A reader sent me this link and said, “Hey, you’re in the Dawn Yang and Xiaxue league!”

And I’m thinking, “Right, thanks. Should I start moderating comments now?”

So, here’s the link. Sharithstar asked this question in the iAnswer page in Infocomm123:

What attract readers to reading blogs by Sheylara, Dawn Yang, Xiaxue?

I wanna know what attracts people to read their blogs.

In the same vein, I also wonder why the Goonfather likes slapstick and how people can eat boiled chicken breasts with no seasoning whatsover and not die of abject misery.

The Goonfather can watch something like White Chicks for the fifth time and still bust his guts and split my eardrums guffawing like there’s no tomorrow.

Seriously. You don’t want to be in the same room as the Goonfather when he’s watching slapstick.

I’m digressing on purpose because it’s fun to make fun of the Goonfather. His expressions, each time he confronts me about making him my post-of-the-day subject, are priceless.

Then, in retaliation, he’ll make me sit through another two hours of mind-corroding slapstick. It’s a fair world.

Okay, end of digression.

What I want to say is that I hope readers are reading all our blogs for quite different reasons because I don’t really want to be like anyone else.

I think people read Dawn because she’s pretty and has a glamorous lifestyle. People read Xiaxue because she’s funny and creative and naturally controversial (that is, as opposed to people who become controversial merely for the sake of getting traffic). I hope people read me because I’m pretty and glamorous and funny and creative and naturally controversial.

Just kidding.

I think people read my blog because I’m randomly entertaining. At least, that is what I’m hoping for.

I try to be unpredictable.

For instance, I didn’t post an entry in the last two days because I decided to give myself an MC.

I received a flu virus on Friday from the Goonfather; such a thoughtful gesture. It made me feel really horrible, so I decided to boycott everything (after publishing GGF) and do nothing but lie in bed for two days and watch TV and play games.

But then, my boss (the tyrant that lives in the back of my head) was really horrible and still made me reply e-mails and do admin work which amounted to more hours than it takes to squeeze an orange entirely dry with your bare hands.

In the end, I only had time to play ten minutes of Tales of Vesperia. The rest of Sunday was spent watching an entire season of Heroes with the Goonfather because that is infinitely more rewarding and less painless than watching an entire season of slapstick with the Goonfather. I thank the stars that Adam Sandler does not have a TV series.

So, yeah. I like to think that I’m entertaining because I’m randomly unpredictable.

But I don’t think I really am. I think I’m just randomly random.

I’m also just a sick girl whose flu virus has now progressed to the coughing stage so, tonight, we shall have a showdown, me and the Goonfather. My coughs vs. his guffaws.

Well, perhaps you could just read my blog out of pity.