I've decided to add another new year's resolution to my already long list.

RESOLUTION #16: be more vocal.

I used to be high-strung, easily angered, loud, obnoxious. (i still am to some extent, but much less so now) I've mellowed out. A LOT. As a result, i don't talk unless i have some great burning desire to talk and i don't get excited easily anymore. i no longer laugh a lot. i chuckle periodically because i'm amused with something, but i can't remember the last time that i laughed really hard. i'm too contained. people think i'm disinterested or dispassionate. and that's not really true. i'm just too "mellow". but clearly, mellowness in this context is not a good thing. it's my shield, my armour (like james bond. ha) that protects me from a lot of things. time to take some off. maybe just a few layers for now. but i've gotta start somewhere.

b-b-b-bored

me + no tv = crazy, right? but yes, it is true. i've given up television for the ENTIRE term as a type of fast/sacrifice that the LCCF committee has decided to partake in (but the object being fasted varies from person to person). No lost, no office, no how i met your mother, no arrested development reruns, no OC on much music, no design inc., no nothing - including movies.

Let's just hope that this writer's strike lasts a little bit longer.

So every once in a while for a period ranging from 24 hours to a week, i get depressed. For no reason that I can think about except for a possible chemical imbalance in my brain. I don't experience some traumatic or devastating event, my sleeping/eating patterns are no different, I get enough sun, enough air, enough human socialization. As a result it's hard to understand why I get these bouts of extreme sadness. It might stem from boredom - but I'm always bored but not always "sad". I'm not clinically depressed or anything. My parents just say that I'm very sensitive and very "driven" by feelings and emotions. Whatever, regardless of the reason, the truth is that I do get depressed periodically. And when I'm in these moods, It's like I'm not even alive.

So anyway, I've been feeling off lately. Today was a bad day - like a really bad one. I couldn't function properly, I didn't want to talk to anyone, I just wanted to be left alone so that I could listen to music and brood. And I couldn't pinpoint a reason as to why I was feeling this way. I tried to push it aside and be happy - most of the time, feelings are psychological and depend solely upon perception. But today I had no luck. So I looked up ways to combat this debilitating psychological ailment. I came across all this scientifically-based website which talked about serotonin and chemically imbalances in the brain and so forth. I didn't try to understand half the jargon, but basically, this is what I got from these sites: eat food that is rich in serotonin - Walnuts.

So, is this the key to emotional and psychological euphoria? WALNUTS? At the same time, if eating walnuts will up the serotonin levels in my brain thus effectively raising my mood level, then I'm all for it. I'll eat them by the truckload. But then is it like using drugs? The term "drug" has an unfavourable stigma attached to it. But is it REALLY wrong to rely on these sorts of stimulants? Sure, people might say that dependence on these things is clearly "addiction" and that our reliance on these stimulants is harmful for ourselves. But at the same time, you're trying to rectify a problem that needs to be fixed otherwise you'll come to harm anyway. Ha, I've suddenly genuinely smiled for the first time to today. Basically, my question is this: Should I stuff my face with walnuts when I'm sad or should I just trudge along, letting my sadness run its course naturally (when my brain finally decides to up the serotonin)?

:( marks are up. i'm all over the board.