Annida's journal

Wow! 6 months of work have finally paid off. I'm so pleased. My friend Lisa and I discussed making jewelry using the Rapid Prototyping Method after she went to a convention in Texas, and I had already expressed an interest in making Jewelry of my own.
I draw designs, and I send them to her, and she makes them into three d models for the casters, based in Australia, and then they build it up from there on a machine, then put a mould over it, and let that dry and then build from there.
We are basing our designs on abstract, and letters/phrases from various languages. For the first three designs, we chose a seahorse, and two Japanese Kanji phrases.
I'll show you the graphic design my friend lisa made, and then the finished effect.
The Seahorse Graphic, Finished Cast of the Seahorse. The seahorse is in the size of a small brooch and earrings at the moment. I am hoping to make it into something bigger in the future, for a bigger brooch.
Love Graphic Design, and the finished design cast in silver. This one will be sold as earrings and a pendant.
Life Graphic, and the finished product. "Life" is my favorite design of all three. It went through a lot to come out the way it did. It started without a ring around it, and then through struggling with it with Lisa, I asked her to try the ring, and then we found how beautiful it looks that way. For now, that's only a pendant.
Because we're making them all out of silver, costs of making them and selling them will be low. We don't think any of them will cost more than 20 dollars! I'm so pleased.
We're working on some Tibetan abstracts now, one of which you can see here. This is a solitary letter "nyah" from the Tibetan alphabet. We're also working on an "Om" and some black and white abstracts which will be made out of enamel.
I'm just really excited that everything seems to be falling in place. I hope things will be moving forward instead of backward now :)

This post was edited by Annida on Jan 31, 2003.

Well, it was bound to happen, and it finally happened to me.

I ate something which was obviously "off" and have spent 2 days puking my guts out. I hadn't puked in 12 years, and it was so strong that it flew out of my nostrils too! I didn't know it could do that. At the same time I was fascinated as grossed out; I'm sure whoever is reading this is as well.

Now, my sides, and my diaphragm hurt. So much for eating potato salad again, I'm totally put off it. I've spent the last two days lying on the bed sleeping, or sitting up for an hour with the laptop catching up with things online.

Let me say this... I hope nobody ever gets food poisoning here, it's the most horrible feeling in the world, and I am still weak from it. I can't even breathe fully yet.

-Peace

It seems that not sleeping, or insomnia has entered my life, but only at night. I touched this subject lightly in one of my previous journal entries, but I shall bring it up again.

Everytime I nearly slept tonight, something strange woke me up. I am frightened to sleep alone in the flat. Even with the cats here, I am frightened. I know they won't stop somebody with a gun or a knife.. they will just run under the bed and stay there while I'm butchered to death! Maybe I'm developing a definite paranoia? I mean every noise makes me jump. I think that's why when I lived in england, I had a radio playing in my room 24/7. it was tuned to the lovely Classic FM, a british radio station which plays snippets of classical music in all its forms. I enjoyed falling asleep with the sounds of Shostakovic or Rachmaninov playing... it just really put me in a nice relaxed atmosphere.

Sharing a bed with somebody else is completely different though. I have to stay on my side of the bed. (At least I get to hog my blankets, cause Dan's always hot.) I have taught dan to at least leave one light on during the night, because I am uncomfortable with complete darkness. I think it's the fear of total blindness. I don't like it. Not unless it's my eyes shut or something. Complete darkness is something which should be reserved for death, or something. I am already blind enough by having to wear glasses. They are a crutch. I hate them. everything past the rim of my glasses is a blur. You're probably wondering how I managed to get glasses? I used to read in the dark because my parents forbade me to stay up all night reading which was what I really wanted to do. I think they thought that I wouldn't stay up. Instead I used to sit on the edge of my bed and read from the light from the hall outside my room. I used to read a book a day when I was younger. I must have had so much patience.

I keep on thinking of all the things I miss in England, where my life used to be. I keep on day dreaming about it, and then I find myself on the verge of tears, and I have to stop myself, because it is important to remain strong. I miss my friends. I even named my one cat (migget) after a friend. I miss having the little gathering, and just play a game all night, or when Simon (migget) and I used to decide at about 3 am that it was time to go outside and discuss life during a walk through town. It was an amazing time, and something I should have cherished more. I wish I had saved all these moments by writing about them, and taking the time to read them over and over, to memorize them. I can't believe how much it hurts, to remember me sitting on a park bench in the middle of Horsham, and discussing how much fun and excitement it would be to live with Dan in America. We used to talk about our hopes and dreams, and how it was important to follow them. Migget used to talk about how he was going to die young because he just never saw himself growing old. I used to smiles and sing "with or without you" to him... as friends we were very close. He used to ask me to sing that whenever he could. One of my favorite moments was when we decided out of the blue that we just had to get drunk (as you do with friends) and we ended up in a pub, and then we had a few drinks, got bored, cause we were both depressed, and walked home, kinda drunk, after I taught him the blessing of tequila, and I tried to order pizza delivery... and for some reason, the stupid woman on the other side of the phone just wouldn't understand me... I read her my credit card number about three/four times, before I just handed the phone over and told him to do it.

I miss mark, too.. Mark was such a generous man. I'd trust him with almost anything, as long as he wasn't drunk. I think if I didn't have dan, I would have ended with mark, because he's just... amazing. As a person, as a friend... He would go out of his way to help me, and I would go out of my way to help him. That's what friendships are like, right? His laughter always made me smile, or laugh, and the funniest thing ever was when my cat, Dusty, went to the bathroom at the same time as he did, and took a swing at his privates when he was trying to pee. His comment was, 'Dusty took a swing at my todger, I cleaned the piss of the wall though, no worries.' LOL..

In hindsight, I should have realized just how hard moving to another country is, and has been. Money issues seem to be the worse thing involved. But most of all.. I have no friends, other than my husband, and that hurts the most. It's unbelievable how much structure you place around your friends, and how sane they keep you. I think I'm just losing my grip of reality. At the moment, I feel I am not worthy of friends, and even though that sounds like I'm completely insane and just being stupid, and I know it's not a rational thought; it just feels that way though. Hey, I even miss my family. lol. I guess that's a given though. My parents have been so supportive.. mostly monetarily. They understand what it's like to be a young couple in debt, and in debt we are.

My parents sent us an international cheque about two months ago. When we went to deposit it, the people at the bank said, well, this'll take two to six weeks to clear. Anyway, we left, and after much discussion we decided to cash the cheque, after talking to my parents as well. Anyway, we put the cheque into the account, and two days later, we had 500 dollars in our account, we thought, 'YAY! the cheque cleared.' Well, two months down the line, we were suddenly debited 500 dollars. Five hundred dollars. It was a big blow, because we thought we were doing well this month, you know? On budget, etc. It took three days to find out what the debit was, and why.. The bank was useless about it. The only thing that led us to know the actual fact was that the cheque was sent back to us with a small note which said, 'this is not a valid cheque.' !!!!!! (many swear words)... I don't know about you, but I think the bank screwed up, and now we're in debt, and being CHARGED because they made an error. That is unexceptable, and we're planning on talking to a lawyer about it. Banks think they are beyond reproach these days, and this bank has just been, completely useless for us. Even though it's a debit card we use, and it's supposed to only draw out money which is IN the account, they allow us to overdraw (by accident on our part), and then they charge us an exhorbitant amount of money for each extra amount we withdraw.

Wow, got myself riled up now. I think I'm going to wait for Dan to get home before I go to bed. Just another half an hour to go now. I'm exhausted.

Like a Thief In the Night

it was a dark moonless night
but she could still see.
she stepped in a puddle
letting out a little curse.

she flicked through the leaves
of the forest in the dark.
she spotted him.
she followed.

he had something she wanted
something he had stolen.
so on she stalked
like a theif in the night.

then she was on him.
yellow eyes ablaze
she jumped on his back with a screech.
he dropped the precious morsel, running away.

she stood again
queen of her kingdom.
'miao' she said,
"what's mine is mine."

-Annida

I have a lot on my mind as of late.

What will my future hold? Will I live to see 30 years old (this is my latest obsession)? Will my husband die on his way to work, or on the way back?

I'm truly afraid of death at the moment. I'm scared that I will just die one day, and nobody will remember who I was, and to add insult to injury, nobody will care. I'm afraid that my life has made no impact on anybody or anything in the world. I'm afraid that I just don't matter in the whole scheme of things, and that's just depressing. I'm afraid that I'm going to end up being a housewife for the rest of my life, and bake cakes, and make dinner for my loving husband. I'm afraid.

I don't voice these fears to my husband. I voiced them a few times, to test the water, and he just starts to cry about how he's failed me, and that he wants me to be happy, and that I should be doing what I want to do most in life, which is anything with music. I've tried to tell him that when I voice my concerns, it's not a criticism on his part in our relationship... I just need to voice them, or I will go insane. It is just so hard to have nobody to talk to about when you're feeling down.

I feel that I am a burden to my husband. I've often wondered if he would be better off if I killed myself, but then, that would put him in a worse position than before, financially and emotionally. That would also be very selfish of me to do that. I used to cut my wrist as a form of release, not deeply or in a life threatening way.. but just to remind myself that I'm alive, and to see the blood on my wrist meant that I was still here. I stopped doing that about two years ago, and decided to find other methods of release.

Music and poetry were my two main releases. And now I don't have them. I do not feel comfortable in singing in such a dry climate, because it hurts me after 5 minutes, and well, I have writers block regarding the poetry. I guess I have to be truly miserable to write anything that I deem as good. I have started taking pictures, and making designs. My husband is good with being there for me when he can. In fact, he will drive me around now, so I can take pictures of the things I want to take. He is very nice that way.

If we stay here, in Phoenix, I have decided that I will volunteer to an animal shelter. I just have to wait and see if we're staying or going to Iowa, to live with his father for a while. That's something, I honestly do not want to do. I mean, I like my father in law, but that's also taking a step backward instead of forward. I want to move forward. I am greatly impatient in that sense. I want my independence again (not a divorce).

I've often asked my husband why he loves me.. and he answers, 'cause I doooo'... I think he's worried about me. He knows I'm bored, most of the day/night alone in the house by myself. One of my biggest fears was being alone in the house at night, and well, it has happened. I can't sleep. He works all night, and I stay up all night at the computer fighting off sleep. Every time I sleep when somebody isn't home with me, I have horrible nightmares of a man dressed in uniform stabbing me. I always wake up scared, frightened, and alone. That's not how I want to live my life anymore.

I want my confidence back. I want to have a purpose.

I lay down to go to bed around 1 am (early for me), and then there was suddenly a huge bang, and a crash. I actually thought somebody had broken into our apartment through the side window, that's how loud it was. So... I turned to my husband up and shook him awake vigorously, and told him I thought that somebody had broken into our apartment! He went "yeah yeah" and rolled over, pretty much.. Then there was loads of thumping. Dan looked outside, and said that he thought a car was on fire, or something.. so I got dressed, put on shoes (a good thing) and walked out.. to find that there was glass all over the front of our door area.
Somebody had broken the thing that was in the glass case, although I was never quite sure what the heck it was, it is gone now anyway. I walked out to find loads of people milling around the road where we always park our car, and looked to see a nice looking car with smoke coming out of the trunk (the backside) and not the front. There was a huge fire engine, and two firemen whacking the car, and trying to get into the trunk to put out whatever was smoking. It was so weird! All you could hear was THUMP THUMP! FZZZZZ...
I heard one of the neighbors whispering to somebody else ".... I told you that would happen...." blah blah " ... do you think they did it on purpose?..."
Well... normally, you'd think the engine of a car would be the one which would catch fire!
Weird stuff!