zylen:akhor
"in your own way"
hello world. it’s been a while
Feb 7th
It has been, shall we say, a longer time than I’d planned. My last post seems to have been in November, when I had intended to post at least once a fortnight and for a while earlier in 2011 was actually achieving that goal.
Ah, life. How it gets in the way. Well, that said, I’m kicking off 2012 in a similar fashion to 2011 – with a retrospective look at 2011 and a few thoughts for the future. Here goes.
2011 was an interesting year. I entered it physically well and whole, with not a care in the world and precisely halfway through my medical degree. I left it with a chronic (albeit mostly stable) medical condition involving torn groin muscles and relatively familiar pain, whilst being precisely three quarters through my medical degree. I must admit that the latter is more positive than the former, but both are amongst the top three events/processes that occurred during 2011, so they’re both important. The other is the relationship that began in October and still continues, but I’ve discussed that previously, and I’m out of sequence.
In January of 2011 I spent a few weeks working in a palliative care inpatient unit with an amazing doctor, and emerged from the experience relatively convinced that I had found my calling. Between palliative medicine and medical oncology I think I have a fair concept of where I may end up in the great ocean that is medical care, so fingers are crossed for that potential. Of course, it was during that elective that I began experiencing my relatively constant pain and torment in my groin muscles, following through with surgical visitations, uncomfortable examinations, expensive scans and finally a diagnosis with long-term surgical treatment post physiotherapy. If you’d like to know more, here’s a link for your edification.
Other than physical change the year brought an advancement in medical progress, passing Phase 2 and entering into Phase 3. That also led to me moving to Bowral for Phase 3, where I’ve spent six months and will be here for several more to come, working two days a week in a GP surgery with my supervisor, called Dr Penny by several of her patients, as well as acting as her intern/assistant in the hospital, and working a half day a week in the emergency department. I also joined a gym (for which, I must admit, I have not *quite* achieved maximum value but I try), I’ve learned a bit more clinical medicine, I feel inadequately prepared for my next year’s thing which will be actually being a doctor for reals, and… yeah.
I sit my final exams for medical school this June. It’s a combination clinical (OSCE) and written paper, much like last year, and I haven’t quite ramped my study up yet, I’ve been a little too… lax? No, just hard to get motivated at home in Bowral, but I have a good plan sketched out and I’m finally beginning to follow it so that’s good.
Other stuff that happened in 2011 included entering into a relationship with Vanessa, which I’ve mentioned before and will leave out of here in detail, buying a new computer, and watching a lot of bad television – these are of course in decreasing order of importance. 
How do I feel in myself? I’m balanced. I published a book of poetry in September last year that was quite pretty, I think, and I’ve written some more since but less so, as my mood has been more stable and uplifted. I hope to resume writing soon, and I think that I will… it’s just nice to be happier again. Plans for the year ahead? Write more of and hopefully finish elohim this year, my sci-fi philosophical work, write some more poetry, apply for a rural internship position through the Rural Preferential Recruitment process (I’m thinking Orange!), pass medical school, go to London (I’m working there for 6 weeks in September/October!) and do a palliative care elective to make sure the passion is still there in St Vincent’s in Sydney.
That’s on top of continuing to build a relationship with a wonderful person, trying to still keep up with friends and family as best as I can, and just enjoying life.
Wish me luck.
-Benjamin Andiyar
after the hiatus
Nov 21st
So it’s been an… interesting few weeks. Hell, it’s been an amazing few weeks. A friend asked me tonight online how I was feeling and I replied with “pretty fantastic” – which isn’t my usual basic state, but hey. It’s becoming that.
It’s currently three weeks before the end of the year, and I’m feeling like it’s going to be very downhill over the next part of a month. My major assessments are handed in, my performance review was signed off on, and my preceptor’s overseas for a few weeks so… I’m kind of in a holding pattern now until the end of session, turning up and making sure everything goes nicely. So that’s nice, I’m massively looking forward to the break and having a few weeks off, spending some of what my housemate tonight called “love nest time.”
Oh yes, I should mention that too – regular readers will recall the character-referred-to-as-Miss-Butterfly, and how I spent some time trying to wrap my head around whether or not she was interested, available, etc. Generally speaking I’m pretty good at figuring stuff like that out, and so she did my head in with the uncertainty and the mixed messages. Well… turns out I was right. She was interested. Still is, for that matter – and now we’ve been together since the start of October, which is pretty damn fantastic. It’s been an amusingly rapid relationship too – helped along by the fact that we’ve been good friends for a while, and that we both know what our lives will be like for the next few years, and thus have been forced into having “future” conversations a lot earlier than you might normally expect.
Then again, maybe “grown up” relationships do happen a lot faster. Whatever, all I can say is that it’s happening, it’s rather serious, and it’s right. 
Serious enough that we’ve met each others families and we’re doing a road trip over summer to have a look at the place she wants to be placed in for Phase 3 of med (did I mention she’s a med student in the year below mine?) and also to have a look at hospitals in the area for me to do my internship at so that we’re not too far apart.
I suppose that does count as rather serious. Yes.
Other than that, I recently compiled and published conversations, with you which should hit Amazon soon… complete with a slight grammatical error in the endnote. Ah, me. I’ve also began watching, with dear Meghan, several new TV shows – including Once Upon a Time and Hart of Dixie, the former being amazing, the second being schlock-y fun.
In fact, apart from a few episodes of Bowral Drama relating to an incident in the ED which has been ‘tidied up’ and a few other small issues… life right now is kinda grand.
I like that.
-Benjamin Andiyar
cherry-blossomed redemption
Oct 3rd
It’s been a little while since I posted – a few things have happened, and I’ll do a more detailed and thrilling exposé shortly, I promise. Right now though, I want to tell a brief story.
Those of you who stalk my daily life on Facebook may have noticed on Saturday just gone I posted the following as a status update:
What a fracking odd day so far. Slept in which was nice, breakfast at gastronome which was delicious and ran into a patient whose baby I delivered a month or two ago which was lovely, coffee at elephant boy which started well until… well, ran into someone very unexpected, then went to Dick Smith and bought DVDs to master MedRevue and found out that they didn’t work in my burner, returned them and… same damn problem with another brand & kind, so that’s irritating as all hell, and now I’m sitting at home feeling trifled with.
Odd day.
Now, some people know a little of the story, some people none at all, and in a way I’d wanted to keep it at that. It’s something that I’ve exorcised in various ways in the past, but as I found myself fuming down the pavement on the way home, a line from my on-again-off-again novel elohim came to mind – “no more ghosts.” Thus, this post.
When I was studying creative arts I made a group of very good friends, all amazingly wonderful people. One of them in particular at the time, I was taken with for quite an extended period. We did the good friends thing, the flirt thing, the coffee thing, lunch, etc. Everything was, how you say, “on track” until Something Happened.
Something? Yes. What? Who knows, honestly. To use a crude term that I write infrequently – I have no fucking idea what happened. We went from being very close, kind of dating, etc, and then boom, I was suddenly figure of contempt number one. I shrugged and tried to move on as best I could, but it got worse – all of a sudden any comment I made in a class, regardless, was punctuated by very interesting facial expressions and occasional vocal disparagement. I began to be excluded from social events, initially that she was organising, and gradually fell off the radar. By the end of the degree, I think a year had gone by where we’d have been lucky to exchange words half a dozen times – going from multiple emails/texts in a day to a wall of silence was something rather dramatic, as it seems.
At any rate, I did shrug and move on. I was seeing someone else, life was going very well, medicine was starting up, etc. She continued at the uni but I encountered her at a distance maybe once or twice – and by this point I’d given up on building that bridge and was now simply in a “forget, forgive” mode.
I attended the launch of the creative arts student magazine in 2009 then – some two years after we’d exchanged words. Facebook told me a few hours before that she would be there, but hey. I’d moved past any rancour, and I figured apart from a few pleasantries I’d spend the night chatting with other friends – and I tried. I did get a cold shoulder though… to the extent that I was physically ignored, and it spread from her to another friend as well. That was… disconcerting. After all, those that know me know that I tend to get along well with people – almost anyone, as a matter of fact. All part of the personal charisma, as Miles puts it. This situation though, with my creative arts ‘friend’, was a shock to the system.
Fast forward almost exactly two years and I’m sitting in Bowral in my favourite café, having a coffee and reading on my eReader, when a voice from the past says “hello Ben!”. No, not her, but a mutual friend who’s engaged to one of my other creative arts friends. We chatted briefly, and then she told me – oh yes, I’m here with so and so and such and such. Come and say hi! We’re right next to the door.”
My internal monologue at that point was something explicit. That said… I did it. I ordered a second coffee to go, and went and said hello/goodbye. I actually got acknowledged, too, which was interesting, even if it was a smile and a nod that still had a flavour of contempt about them.
At this point, I left the café and wandered back home, eventually, semi-fuming and semi-upset. It’s hard to quantify why, she’s about the only person in the world who can make me feel like that. I suppose it’s a bit of dehumanisation – I wouldn’t look at a piece of garbage that way – and also the whole “what the fuck happened again?” that inevitably crops up when this goes through my mind. Maybe it’s because, unlike other infjs, I don’t really doorslam – and I feel that’s what’s happened here to me.
Anyway, I went home and started playing around, did the Facebook status – and within thirty seconds someone messaged me online saying “it was X wasn’t it.” We then had a very cathartic conversation – as my confidant knows me very well and knew the situation at the time, hell, we started dating at the end of it and were together for a few years. Anyway, she helped me feel a lot better about the whole thing, which is something I’m thankful for – I seem to have gotten a good friend back. So that, at least, ended the day on a positive note.
Names? You want names? Sure. Ask me in person. Otherwise, well, I leave you with a song by Gotye – it’s called “Somebody that I used to know.”
Sadly, or not, sometimes that’s all we get out of it. Actually – yeah. definitely not. And nowadays, that’s just fine.
-Benjamin Andiyar
a certain touch of zen
Sep 20th
I’m not a massive fan of this time of year. Sure. The plants are blooming, there’s some gorgeous flowers, the weather is beautiful, everything is green, etc… but. Well. It’s my birthday this week and, as you may know, I’m not a big fan thereof.
I don’t dislike birthdays, don’t get me wrong – I’m quite happy with a sing-along and a slice of cake, etc. I just hate mine.
No, it’s not some stupid bullshit about getting older or anything like that. It has to do with self-loathing and disliking being the centre of attention for praise/etc and…
Okay. I’m just not going to even try this week. Maybe later.
-Andiyar
finding
Sep 4th
Okay, this post is likely at this point to be several things. It’s likely to be morbidly depressing, quite possibly irritating to read, will no doubt contain some absolute pure arrogance, will sound at times like complaining and perhaps wistfulness, and will definitely make less sense that I would like it to. I apologise in advance, there’s just one or two things I need to get off my chest by writing them down, and, well, this is I suppose my forum for that.
Oh, some of the initial subject matter may be a little unfamiliar for some – for others, may sound like a broken record. I do apologise, again, for the quality of this post, its potential tone (as I think it through) and its potential for repetition. All right? Wünderbar.
The past few days to weeks have proven quite difficult for me in a specific way, and that is a way tied into personal identity and identification. It’s a constant source of amazement to me how unimportant this can be for some – possibly one of those NF personality things yet again – but for me, actualisation of self and being able to point at a (possibly arbitrary?) concept and say this is me is an absolute vital thing.
This came up in an email with a friend a while back, actually, when talking about apathy and the desire to improve. I’ll quote a few lines:
The easiest way to explain it is to say that I do seek to improve myself, but my mechanism of doing so is by helping other people grow. Thus, as your friend said it – I want to help others. Helping others helps me find meaning, and to people like me, we so desperately crave meaning. So when I say it’s not about me, it really isn’t. I’m merely a reflection of what I do for others.
The major reason I came unravelled a few months ago is I reached a state where I felt *no point* to life, and that I couldn’t find one – I’d lost direction and meaning, and in doing so, I lost my sense-of-self. That’s hard, Miles. I kind of anchor my world around that sense, and without it, I had nothing.
To expand on that: the sense of meaning is vital to a concept of who I am, and without that concept, I kinda unravel. I did that back in my psych rotation, as some of you know, when I lost my sense of self to the point that I felt like I was emotionally about to shatter. I came very close, actually, scarily close looking back. The reason behind it is neither here nor there, but had a lot to do with emotional attachment to certain people which were unavoidable and were eventually dealt with, through the magical means of poetic expression. Am I over that? No. Am I functional? In that regard, yes.
The current situation stems more from a word I’m uncomfortable with, namely, charisma. In the past few weeks, six of my friends (or similar) have referred to me as charismatic, or to my “personal charisma”. This has been difficult for me to process, not just because of the word itself, but because of the emotional reaction I’ve had to it – and the further reactions it has dug up.
Apparently, I have a great personal pull. I am likeable. I am ‘popular’. People ‘love’ me. I attract people. People listen and value me greatly.
What. the. fuck.
Okay, yes, I get on well with people. I admit that. I like people. But I have never, ever identified as popular, nor as a centre of attention, or as having personal pull or charisma. If anything, I have always felt the opposite and have considered the evidence, as someone pointed out, to be rather one-shot or aberrant rather than ‘a thing’. Being forced to face this has actually made me incredibly upset internally and uncomfortable – recall what I said a few paragraphs back about meaning and self? This little word has destroyed my current sense of self. Yes, okay, I admittedly must say “I suppose it’s true”. But I never really accepted or processed it, and so now I’m feeling existentially fucked over. A friend told me “you’re seriously complaining about being good at too many things. Seriously. You need to value other people’s opinions more, that’s really it.” For me though, that’s hard.
I identify as many things. I identify, firstly, as intelligent – I mean, this is probably the arrogance talking, but well, rather so. I identify as talented with language. I identify as caring & thoughtful of others. I identify as a loner and someone who needs space. So I’m going through a crisis of self here, brought on by a very positive comment in every instance.
It’s affecting me elsewhere as well. I’m feeling like I’m becoming emotionally unstable again – this afternoon, for instance, I was at a family barbeque, had a great time seeing everyone for Father’s Day, was feeling great, drove back to Bowral and got out of the car and felt “wow, it’s amazing to be home, weather’s fantastic, love it here, etc” and then half an hour later was feeling absolutely shit mentally with no reason nor rhyme, and just could not get back on top, until I had dinner with a house mate who gave me a big boost and then I did the ironing while singing love songs and feeling great, and now… I’m sort of in the middle.
There’s no major life stress I can blame right now for it. There’s no real agonising decisions to be made, I don’t have a major issue occurring in the next few weeks (apart from my birthday which I plan to ignore as much as possible as god I hate them) and… that’s it.
I’m just not sure what’s going on upstairs with me right now. I was almost morbid before, as… okay. Sometimes I’ve described living as me as a bit like acting – I put on a different mask for every group I’m with, just about, and it’s rare that people see through them – there’s two people I know outside the immediate family who have actually punctured those masks, which is damn well horrifying at times to a control freak like me. That said, I begin to wonder how much of me has become the mask – and how much of this charisma bullshit is because of people seeing the external face and thinking it’s the inside… and then I tunnel down and it’s still there and I freak out because I’m losing control of me. It’s like wearing someone else’s skin, but the skin is changing the inside, rather than the inside hiding away behind the mask.
The only bright spot was a touch of idle googling finding me this:
INFJs tend to question and examine their own motivations constantly. In moderation this is admirable, but some go so far as to decide that any “selfishness” (which often translates to taking care of themselves instead of others, for once) in their desires is completely unacceptable. Needless to say, this can cause a great deal of stress for the INFJ in question, which they sometimes resolve in a rather convoluted manner: by deriving a Higher Principle from the “selfish” need. (“It’s not OK to object to the proposed menu for the company dinner dance because I don’t like it *myself*, but it *is* OK to do so because it’s not nutritious, or doesn’t take into account ethnic preferences, vegetarians, etc.” — all of this subconscious.) Like all NFs, INFJs care deeply about people, both as individuals and in terms of humanity as a whole. INFJs are notable for their exceptionally strong empathic, even psychic abilities, which can sometimes cause them discomfort and even pain in their dealings with others. Perhaps because of this, INFJs truly open up to only a few intimate friends–usually very long-term relationships or obvious “soul mates.” Paradoxically, INFJs often appear to be extroverts to most of the world; they are almost always friendly, sympathetic, and interested in people, and sometimes positively charismatic. This can be puzzling and disappointing to those (usually I’s) who are drawn to them in search of a non-surface friendship, and find they just can’t get very far.
So… it’s not just me? Doesn’t make it any easier. Maybe I’ll start looking under rocks for how I’m supposed to put my worldview together again when it managed to fall off a shelf and break. Who knows. Might find something else there I’m apparently like.
-Andiyar
so very. damn. tired.
Aug 25th
It’s 10:30pm, and at this point I’ve been awake for nineteen hours, and taking out the two hours of sleep I managed last night, I was awake for some 15 hours the day before with a horrific migraine. So two hours of sleep out of thirty six, and a migraine gently reminding me in the background why it’s a good idea to take domperidone during aura phase.
Ah well.
Life in Bowral is, at the moment, kind of awesome, despite the tone of my prior post. Oh, there’s still some melancholia ticking along but it’s mostly backgrounded now – my dear friend who was away and was my closest person in the house is back, and I have someone I can talk with again, instead of spending all my time talking with Ben Upstairs.
Incidentally she asked about him. He’s doing fine, although he’s discomfited that other people realise he’s about, and he needs to shut up sometimes so I can get some damn sleep. Seriously, thoughts going over and over in my head is not a productive method of producing sleep.
It’s interesting, actually. Apparently this is abnormal, but I almost always have a conversation going in my head, normally with myself or with aspects of myself, where I will talk through what’s happening, give myself my opinions about things (especially things I’ve done), etc. This goes away when I’m working/focussed – for instance, typing this now – but when I’m just lying there trying to sleep, or walking down the road without music, or sitting idly about, my mind never shuts up. I’ve been told by several people now that “that’s weird”, I’ve been told by several INFJ people online that “yeah, completely normal”… so yay for being odd in yet another way?
At least I try not to reply to myself out loud when there are people around. That always gets me the “crazy?” looks. I used to joke that I was talking to the most intelligent person about… but hey, that’s a little narcissistic, and I dislike being narcissistic.
I’m alive and I talk with myself. All the time.
Ah well. Isn’t that fun. I was going to talk about women here… but I won’t at the moment. Suffice to say: dammit, etc, butterflies, etc.
One day, Jessica. One day.
-Andiyar
is it me you’re looking for?
Aug 15th
So the last entry here was… melodramatic? Perhaps. It’s not often I use an ellipsis to title things these days except perhaps as an expression of “i am lost for words.”
I was lost then. In some ways, I still am now, but at least I’m being semi-verbose around the issues. Ah, life.
This evening had a surprising event contained within. I was sitting in front of the gas heater in Merrigang, watching my eyes in the mirrored glass, and found myself telling that reflection, “I just wish I wasn’t alive right now.” That was a slightly disconcerting moment – I assure the gentle reader that I am in no sense suicidal, so please do not immediately leap for the telephone, but there was just an incredible detachment there, as if it didn’t matter.
The weekend however has been full of ‘stuff that matters’. I was part of the production crew and cast for MedRevue, which was a hell of a lot of fun – as I told Miles, I love theatre and I hate theatre, the hate being the five minutes before and five seconds after I walk onto the stage, the love being everything else ever about it. The show was fantastic, the cast were really amazing – we have some wonderful talent. True, there were a few moments where I was ready to tear my hair out from stress, but (for you, Jessie), a friend called ScarfGirl was perfectly placed with a few words, a smile and a hug that just made the stress melt.
A pity that… ah. No. Not tonight – to continue:
Right up until open, of course, but when the audience burst into laughter we had them. The second night was tougher, but the show was tight and once a seductive parody of an Irish neurologist swaggered onto the stage I knew we had them for the second time, and we were golden. Afterwards, we broke down the pieces and went to my absolute favourite of venues, being a bar, where I had a single drink (of the non-alcoholic type), chatted in the corner with a few people, and then left reeking of cigarette smoke.
Interestingly, I was shadowed most of the evening there by my poetry swapping Miss Butterfly friend. I’m not sure what’s going on there at this point.
Anyway, went home, had a few hours sleep – I’m close to nine hours in three days now, hoorah – and then attended a gathering of my mother’s family today, catching up with cousins, including some second/third cousins I haven’t seen since I was, oh, not old enough to recall. That was… the easiest difficult thing. Actually, I met (again) my mother’s cousin, Phoebe, and it was an interesting moment. I walked through my grandmother’s kitchen door (between the kitchen and the dining room and she just stood up, her face went a little pale, and she just mouthed “oh my God, that’s Ben.”
I didn’t have a beard the last time and I would have been in my primary school years – sure, there’s some resemblance, but no, more the fact that she was best friends with my mother I think. All in the eyes, I told her later, and she said that, the carriage, the slightly twisted/curved lip-smile, and just a certain indefinable something – a je ne sais quoi, perhaps.
I suppose that’s part of the contemplatory part of the evening, there. I love my family dearly, and I don’t see them often, especially the extended extendeds, and that, I think, is something I shall have to rectify in the future. I am a trifle uncomfortable with it all, I must admit – there are certain subjects I avoid and don’t discuss often, although I’m getting a few digital (scanned) photos in the next few days from cousin Phoebe, which is something I didn’t really think I’d want, so… that will be interesting. Possibly difficult to deal with, but as yet, I am unsure.
Lord. Lady troubles, death, family and theatre. I was going to talk medicine as well, but I don’t know that I can tonight. I need to go and read some fiction and then just fall to sleeps, I think. It will be nice, I can sleep in tomorrow without any issues due to the magic of schedule-free day (although I pay for it with a Fuck-you Tuesday!), and I should be receiving my new computer in the mail tomorrow… yay for new technology!
I wrote another letter to Jessica this evening. It was hard. I tried to write a poem. It was impossible. Too many issues with ‘X-Girls’ to pick one, too many fragments, too many memories, uncertainties, and just too much damn feeling.
Sigh.
No more ghosts.
-Andiyar
…
Aug 10th
Oh hello there, soul-crushing paranoid melancholic loneliness. I was wondering when you were going to come back. Was it something I said?
God I hate this shit.
letters and stories
Aug 8th
Hello world.
It’s been a few weeks, really, hasn’t it? There’s been a very rapid period of change going on, change that yes, we can believe in. I’ve moved house, I’ve started working in a new place, I’ve spent money, I’ve read books, I’ve done some singin’ and dancin’ and actin’. All told, it’s been a mostly good month.
There’s been emotional rollercoasters, of course, it’s me. But it’s been mostly good.
I’m some four weeks in to Phase 3 of medicine now, and am loving the hell out of it. Two or three days a week at the GP practice, a day of ED a week (second one tomorrow, scary fun!), some clinics, some hospital work, and living in Bowral again which is just delightful. I feel like I’m actually contributing to care and patient work up here, as I’m involved in the practice and the hospital and my opinion actually matters – scary a little, but still it’s pretty damn awesome.
My two GP bosses, Penny and Mark, are phenomenal teachers too. Penny’s a GP-Obstetrician so that’s nice (delivered a baby on Friday with her!) and both of them have hospital as well as GP patients, so I’m doing a mixture of things that’s proving pretty damn cool. No real time for proper study study yet, but I’m working on the next phase of the textbook I’ve been writing over medical school, and the plan looks kinda cool. Glass Houses. It’ll be great.
Today, as last Sunday, I wrote a letter. Last week I wrote two, one to a friend in Wollongong with whom I hold extended facebook conversations and swap poetry, the other to my sister Gracie. Today, I wrote a letter which I stuck in the draw, for a couple of reasons – the biggest being I’m not sure who it’s written to. Maybe one day, she’ll enjoy it, when I figure out who ‘Jessica’ actually is. Too many fragments, not enough people – yep, there’s the rollercoaster. It doesn’t help that I’m exposed to people for whom I hold great affection on a fairly regular basis, nor does it help that I swap poetry with someone I’m fond of, nor does StalkerBook make it easy not to pay attention to people who are interesting… ah, me.
ENFJs. You’ll be the death of me, all of you. I swear to God.
More to come soon, I promise. Have a fun week.
-Andiyar
briefly
Aug 1st
I apologise for the lack of recent updates, having poor internet plus moving plus a new phase of degree plus busy = bad blogging time. A few brief things – I have a new scarf, coat and wardrobe that makes me “look quite European”, my GP preceptors in Bowral are amazing, I’m doing theatre in two weeks and am both scared and exhilarated at how it’s coming together, I wrote two handwritten letters over the weekend and posted them, I joined both a gym and a public library, and I have been swapping poetry online with a charming young lady who has been mentioned here earlier.
More to come soon, I promise. Maybe tomorrow if I can manage it. Otherwise – I’m doing pretty okay.
-Andiyar
