(FOUL SUMMER)

this era started when i moved back to live with my parents during summer break. my first semester at university was a complete failure, but my parents didn't know that yet. i was too scared to tell them. but my plan was to regroup myself during the summer and go into the fall semester with more motivation and confidence. but first, i had to get a summer job, of course! i vowed to make the month "money making may". i got a job working at a thai restaurant. it was fucking awful.

i got paid $20 a day, most of my money was from tips. the owners of the place were ridiculously cheap and stingy. they would leave the temperature at 82 degrees in the restaurant, during the horrible hot and muggy dog days in charleston. i sweat like a fucking pig trying to take people's orders and giving them their food. the owners used to literally eat half-eaten food from people's plates after they left. if any sauce was left on the plate, they reused it. THEY WASHED AND REUSED STYROFOAM CUPS. god, i'm glad i'm not a business owner.

there were many days when there were only 2 people working there: me, and the cook who couldn't speak english. so i had to run the entire front of house by myself. it was absolutely exhausting. i would be dead tired by the time i got home, and i barely had energy to do anything. but i did get free thai food, so that was cool.

i was able to take a week off from work when my gf visited me from california. we had an amazing and great time! until we suddenly didn't.

my dad figured that it would be fun for the three of us to go canoeing in a river nearby. there was a place that offered canoes and stuff. i remember feeling iffy about getting into the canoe. it felt... off. like it was gonna tip over at any time. but i got in anyway.

it was really nice! it was a lovely day outside, and it was calming to be in nature. but then, uh... a spider got in the canoe. a big one. and my gf screamed bloody murder. next thing i knew, the canoe tipped over, and i was completely submerged in the muddy river.

thank god we had life jackets on. they weren't even a requirement, but i insisted on us getting them beforehand. i can't swim, so that's the only reason i was able to stay afloat. the canoe was overturned, and we were holding onto it for dear life. my gf got her phone out and called 911. i remember us yelling "help!!" at the lady on the phone.

did i mention this river had alligators in it? yeah... i remember seeing something that looked like an alligator, just the top of its head, swim by us. i could've panicked, screamed "OH MY FUCKING GOD AN ALLIGATOR" and increased the panic, but i kept my damn mouth shut. getting more panicked wasn't going to help our situation at all. thankfully, the gator just swam on by, completely unintersted in us.

we held onto the canoe for what felt like forever. eventually, the police came in a canoe of their own, and literally dragged us out of the river and onto dry land. i remember walking in the swampy forest completely barefoot, which was gross. there was an ambulance waiting, in case one of us was injured, but thankfully we were fine. physically, anyway.

once we got home, we cried, then took the longest shower of our lives. my phone was waterlogged and fucked, so i had to buy a new one. overall, not a fun experience! definitely the scariest situation i've ever been in. for a while afterwards, i did feel some slight trauma from it. i would sometimes recollect the situation in my head whenever i was drifting off to sleep, and my heart would race again, and i had to gasp for air. those feelings are mostly gone now. but i'm NEVER canoeing again.

in terms of my physical health, this was probably the lowest point of my life. i was the heaviest i've ever been (250 lbs), and i sometimes got worried about my heart. i felt like it was beating faster than it should, and i would occasionally get palpitations and chest pains. i went to the doctor about it, and they gave me a little heart monitor that i had to wear on my chest for a week or so. after that was done, they gave me the results back: apparently, i was perfectly fine!? but that didn't stop me from still freaking out about my heart sometimes, even to this day...

my weed usage was at an all-time high during this era, which probably didn't help my phsyical or mental wellbeing. i would take a thc edible multiple times a week. i remember getting unbelievably zonked off my ass while listening to shit like two virgins. honestly, all the music i listened to while high just sounded fucking amazing, and it made me listen to the songs in a new way, even when sober. i remember being blown away when hearing the dark side of the moon for the first time while i was high. that resulted in me hyperfixating on pink floyd for a while.

i was also hyperfixated on night in the woods. i never even finished the game! but i really identified with mae, a slobby catgirl who was a college dropout. i mean, i hadn't dropped out of college... not yet, anyway...

i started having a huge hyperfixation on radiohead after seeing the smile in concert. they weren't radiohead, but they were the next best thing. i was just so happy to see thom and jonny in person, and the concert was amazing.

(this is before i lost all respect for them as people!!)

one night, i took an edible and stayed up until 6am, and while i was high off my ass, i made a "fanmade music video" (shitpost) for any colour you like by pink floyd:

right after making it, i posted this video onto a server with my friends. nobody said anything about it. for some reason, this made me really sad...

one thing about the weed that i didn't quite grasp at the time was that it made me very paranoid. the day after getting high was always terrible. i was physically tired and mentally weak. so, in that state, i felt that my friends didn't care about me. i felt like they saw me as an annoying pissant. i was desperate for love and attention at the time (as i kinda always have been), and when i didn't get it, i tended to get into negative thought loops in my head.

i felt genuinely terrible that my friends ignored my video. which is ridiculous, since it's a shitty joke of a video that isn't meant to be taken seriously. but it affected me badly. with my mental state in a tizzy, i absolutely dreaded going to work the next day, and right as my shift was starting, i had a nervous breakdown. i started crying in front of everyone. i just couldn't take it anymore.

here's what i had to say about it at the time:

needless to say, i was... not in a good headspace. this foul summer, combined with the disappointment of my first semester at university, had taken its toll on me.

one day, i had so many toxic thoughts in my brain that i couldn't handle it anymore. i seriously considered suicide. i've been suicidal before, but that was the strongest i've ever felt it. i had a plan worked out in my head on how i would kill myself, and how i would say goodbye to my friends and loved ones. i am so thankful i didn't follow through with it.

things did get slightly better towards the end of the summer. i worked fewer hours, and my mental health did start to recover slightly. i listened to a bunch of pixies and wilco and the smiths. and i started this little website! :) i was heavily inspired by the website for ranfren.

this era ended when i moved back into my apartment to start the fall semester at my university. oh boy, ive got a good feeling about this!

my rating for this era is a 2.5/10.