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My challenge this week is to try to keep my expenses to SCR 500. This does not include any household items e.g. toilet paper, rice etc. usually we have a specific budget for household items so my expenses are purely based on specific things I need e.g. soap, shampoo, drinks, snacks etc. I want to curb my expenses because this past year, I have been going overboard with my expenses. The business pays all the necessary bills like my rent, phone bill, internet, electricity, water so I can certainly do a better job. I of course, pay my car loan with my own salary and that’s the largest chunk. I am glad my car loan repayment will be over by May next year… it’s been a long ride and it’s surprising just how difficult a car loan is to repay off, especially because before this, I had never taken a loan before.

I’ve not been productive today. I spent the day watching “Physical 100” Season 1 on Netflix. I’ll probably spend the rest of this week watching season 2 but I probably won’t get much time tomorrow since I have Chinese classes and will have to do this homework the teacher gave us and study some new words.

Business wasn’t great today. For many retailers it’s the “worst week” when it comes to earnings, since everyone is broke already. Thankfully, earning nothing in a day is very rare and knock on wood has only happened once.

I’ve not been doing a great job with my diet, I’ve gained 5kgs over the last month (hoping 3kgs is temporary). I’ve been eating a little bit more than usual these last few days thanks to the Durian snacks my mother brought back from Singapore.

I’m not so sure what I’ll be watching for movie night tonight but going to try to have an early evening after watching a movie.

This past Friday, we had a belated birthday gathering for my niece at my mother’s house. It was a family gathering and my sister prepared mushroom masala and nuts rice to contribute from our side and 3 bottles of wine. I had one white wine and a lychee wine and woke up with a headache.

We normally keep our gatherings to family because for a few years now, this is how my family rolls. Other than family gatherings, I don’t hang out with friends much- they’re fed up of asking me to come over too, since I don’t. One of my childhood friends invited me to her daughter’s beach birthday gathering yesterday but I didn’t go. I’m starting to find going out to be a tedious affair. I am usually the one who has to decide what conversation we are going to have, which direction the conversations take and I’m quite fed up of being around kids all over the place. It isn’t that I don’t like kids- I don’t like spending my day surrounded by children either. These are things people with kids generally don’t seem to understand because they love their kids so much. At the end of the day, I don’t force people to like my cat and I don’t want to be forced to interact with their kids. Of course, these are things that one cannot say openly without public backlash but that’s just the way it is… you chose your path, I chose mine and these paths don’t have to cross. That being said, I know I am great with children, I keep them entertained and understand that I was once a child… just not something I can deal with for more than 10 minutes at a time. Sue me.

I’m clearly not great at picking friends and most of my great friends are abroad. In Seychelles, people tend to change their group of friends often and it’s not surprising. in Seychelles, many people also prefer hanging out with their siblings- unless you don’t have any then in that case you don’t have a choice.

Last night my sister and I watched “Cloud Atlas”. It was a 3-hour long movie and in my opinion, it was like 3 different movies, set at 3 different eras but I honestly didn’t manage to make sense of it all at the end. Maybe I wasn’t paying that much attention or maybe it was intended to be that way?

Today is World Mental Health Day. I have seen online that many of Seychelles’ employers have taken the time to conduct team building activities for their workers which is a great move forward. Mental health is becoming a more recognized issue in Seychelles and this makes me feel very pleased.

I started my day yesterday picking my mum up from the airport. I then went to the SSPCA and volunteered for a few hours with the cats. They’re doing a lovely job considering that they have limited resources and I was happy to see that they extended the senior cats’ cattery.

My mother, her friend visiting from Singapore, my sister and I went to Boardwalk in the evening. It was a good time.

A former colleague reached out to me asking if I was available for a consultancy. I’m not sure if this will be a direct bidding situation but after sending my CV over, I was told that the funding organization will be the one to contact me. I’m keeping my fingers crossed because I really need to take on more consultancies for my resume.

Today, I didn’t do much, I went for Chinese classes in the afternoon. Tomorrow will be a relatively busy day since I will be preparing for a stakeholder consultation in the morning and meet with the stakeholders in the afternoon.

Watched “Changeling“, based on a true story. It was pretty interesting and I definitely need to read about it more.

Bedtime!

I’m having a Nestle Mocha 3 in 1 cup right now. I decided to quickly write down some thoughts and then head to bed. I have an early morning tomorrow.

There was a landfill fire again last night. They seem to be more frequent but either it was a small fire or the authorities have improved their response capabilities. I am supposed to go volunteer at the SSPCA tomorrow morning after picking my mum up from the airport but they informed me that I should call first before I come, just to be sure they are open. The SSPCA is close to the area of the landfill but they have been lucky so far because the are rarely downwind from the smoke. Still, Providence and surrounding areas are often able to smell the fumes even days and weeks after the landfill fires.

In other news, the seychelles defense forces intercepted a ship carrying what they suspect is narcotics. It’s hard to say whether the drug situation in Seychelles is improving or not since there is an incredible amount of panhandlers (generally known to be drug users) all over Mahe (I don’t know how the situation is on Praslin and La Digue).

Almost every shop has their specific panhandlers that frequent right outside the shop harassing people who enter and exit the shops. It’s a very irritating situation here in Seychelles and I don’t think the authorities are bothered. Because we have a culture of “poverty” if I can call it that, it is normal for the authorities to allow these types of behaviours from people “in need” because they are rarely aggressive (other than pestering people for money/ soft drinks or something sweet). I’m not going to deny that more often than not, I don’t give anyone anything (I prefer to give directly to charities and churches) but I do give into them once in a while which I know is not a good idea.

I had a conference call this morning for the consultancy work I am doing. I have an in-person meeting with key stakeholders on Friday. Yesterday, I didn’t attend the certificate presentation ceremony because I just didn’t feel like going. I had a few errands to run and preferred to do them.

When I was pursuing my Master’s degree, my first semester was really tough for me. I was in a new country (USA) and the culture shock probably hit me harder than I care to admit. I’m sure similar to many people across the world, living in a country where they don’t feel like they fit in, they look to the US as a country that would be more accepting. I was excited to be in the US for the first time. I was not there for any of the propaganda, because I was well aware that gold wasn’t found on the streets. I wasn’t excited about living in a country because I felt different but I was excited to be in a country where the majority spoke my first language. Living in Seychelles is pretty great too, the majority of people understand and can speak English to some degree- some groups of people are English-speaking too but there is still a lot of Creole. And of course, there’s nothing wrong with Creole, I can speak and understand it but it’s not the same. The way many Seychellois feel like speaking Creole when they are abroad, English is definitely my preferred language to speak, to listen to and to read.

My performance for the first semester was impacted by my mental health. I didn’t want to admit it but discussions with my fellowship director who had a child suffering from depression made me feel accepted. Depression is a very difficult topic to talk about because unless you suffer from it or talk to people who really get it, you will be left disappointed by how someone thinks you can just “take a nice hot shower” like a classmate of mine told me. A professor of mine who taught a subject I wasn’t doing too well in asked me a few months in if I was feeling “normal now”. What is normal? If someone suffers from depression and this is known, and they begin to “turn up” more often for classes, their friends and family etc. they are “normal now”? No. High-functioning depressives have a marvelous way of figuring how to mask depression- we first convince ourselves that if we “turn up”, we are better. So we turn up. Every day I find out more and more about myself and how I maneuver myself in life… I pile things on my calendar because this is what seems to be “normal”, also I feel guilty for any lack of productivity… whatever “productive” means and if I spend my time doing nothing (which is always my first choice), I feel like I am spiraling.

What can you do for someone who you know suffers from depression? Compassion is a good word thrown out there often. You might be “normal” and feel excited about things, feel happy to talk to other people and believe that you are in a position to give advice to people who aren’t doing as well as you mentally. You shouldn’t. Unless you have walked in our shoes, we don’t want to hear it from you. The best you can do is listen, and leave us alone. The worse thing about depression in my experience is the battle I have with myself. It’s not that I don’t want to be in a relationship, it’s that I cannot be in one. The highs are never high enough and the lows are very low. So imagine living a life where the only thing you want to do is nothing and you want to be accepted into a world where doing nothing is the worst thing you can do? Like I said, it’s hard to explain and hard to accept but if you know- you know!