21st February 2026

Waking up. Spending twenty minutes contemplating the ceiling. Waiting for my brain to boot up. Being late because it takes me ages to choose my bland-ass outfit. Running to the metro station. Seeing the local crackhead. Wondering if he still has a stain on his pants from last time, when he shat himself. Reading twenty pages from the same book I’ve been reading since January. The Childhood of Jesus, J. M. Coetzee. I love Coetzee. Going to class. Praying for X not to sit next to me. Praying for her to stop biting her nails. I didn’t know nail biting could sound like nail clippers before I met her. Trying to make her socialize with other people so that she doesn’t exclusively rely on me. Yesterday, while she was talking to them, I saw her lick her finger and rub it on her boots to remove a stain. She then licked the same finger, again, and rubbed it on her boots.

Earlier this week, at the library:
- You don’t study with X and Y anymore?
- I mean, we don’t have commutative algebra anymore, so…
- Oh, do you think they’re boring?
He meant: I think they’re boring. I know you think they’re boring.
- They aren’t more boring than anyone else in this university.
I meant: are you sure you’re less boring than them? He has no manners.
- Yet you look like friends in class, always laughing together.

Laughter doesn’t make a friendship. Tears make a friendship. I can’t blame him for wondering how the fuck I got to sympathize with all these people when we share absolutely nothing in common. I stopped talking to him a year ago because we disagreed over a movie. Started with: “what a shitty movie” and “how dare you?” Ended with: “you truly hate humanity”. It’s quite the opposite, actually. I love humanity as a whole. Human beings in general. Not necessarily in particular.

Two days ago, a classmate’s stomach was growling like crazy. Remembering how the day before, she told me that she had to go home to cook the chicken she had taken out of the freezer. The sound of a corpse inside a stomach. I want to throw up.

Feeling like Yeong-hye from The Vegetarian. But I cannot sense corpses. If she hadn’t told me about the chicken, I would have ignored the noise. The smell. When someone talks to me and they have the smell. My mother knows about it. She hides flesh as if she were ashamed of it. Shame is very close to guilt. Guilt: the awareness of having done something wrong. Sometimes she sounds like she’s been possessed by the devil. She puts butter in my food. Nervously laughs when I feel the taste. She didn’t do it the last time she cooked for me. She knows I won’t fight anymore. She knows I have a home now. I can calmly pack up my things and go back to where I feel at peace whenever I want.

Last week, I finally met my boyfriend’s insane catholic convert friend. He's going to give a conference very soon. On pessimism. On a book he read called Hopeful Pessimism. Pessimism: believing that there is more evil than good, more suffering than joy, more injustice than justice in our world, and that there is no reason to believe that things will get better. Hopeful pessimism: acting in a way that could change things for the better regardless of the consequences. Not thinking about the consequences at all. Thinking only about values and trying to stick to them. Never felt closer to a doctrine in my entire life.

Today, a homeless woman asked me for money. Gave her one euro. She asked for more. “Come on habiba, it’s Ramadan!” I stared at her. Waiting for her to see that there wasn’t any faith in my eyes. Why would she tell me that. As if she herself believed in God. She kept insisting. She wanted one more euro to eat a kebab. "Please habiba, I know you have it.” Yes, I do. One euro per person – that’s my rule. “Do you really think I’m going to ask other people? I’m not a beggar!” Yes, you are. You are delusional. You believe you’re not a beggar. You believe in God.

Saw the 2021 poet girl last Sunday. Made a sincere and true effort to listen to her, to be interested in what she said. She kept it purely descriptive. You can't dive deeper with someone who only wants to float. Maybe she has her reasons to do so. While speaking with her, I felt like she was already becoming old. Her worldview is now crystallized. She cannot see outside of it. It’s the tragedy of growing up. She’s changed so much from last time. A year ago, I was still charmed by her. Now she sounds so...

Sounds. Went to a Beatrio concert last Friday night. Felt bliss. Needed a reminder that there is beauty in the world. Edmar Castañeda. He stole the show, as expected. He plays with his body and soul. The sounds he gets out of his instrument are divine. Hearing the raw sound of the harp – the thick vibrations of the bass strings – was something I didn’t expect would make me feel so moved. “Del corazón a la cuerda, de la cuerda al tímpano, del tímpano al corazón.” Béla Fleck was also a great discovery for me. He made me forget he was playing the banjo (not an instrument I’m particularly fond of). Please, listen to this Tiny Desk Concert with Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain. Antonio Sanchez. Without him, the performance would have been bland. But I don’t understand how drum solos are supposed to be enjoyable. I will learn to enjoy them someday.

I no longer enjoy writing in English. I wanted to perfect my expression, but I can’t help thinking it’s such an ugly language. Maybe I’m just frustrated because I don’t know how to write beautifully in English. Maybe I’m frustrated because I don’t have anything worthy to say lately. What deserves to be written? I feel like a liar when I write in English. I write. Bland and simple words. I think: this is bland. I change the words. As if it could change my ideas. My bland and simple ideas. I don’t have any ideas at the moment. Every day I ask my boyfriend: am I stupid? Do you think I’ve become stupid?

I only write blog posts now. It's the only occasion on which I choose the words with which I want to express myself. I used to choose my words a lot when I studied philosophy. I got good at choosing my words because I hated myself for not knowing how to speak correctly. Self-hate can work so well with me. Speaking. Correct way of speaking. Writing. You have to write correctly. There’s a correct way of doing anything. But you’re always doing everything wrong.

I spent my bachelor’s thinking I was studying wrong. You cannot make a single mistake. A mistake is like a sin. I had a friend who was even more insane than I was. Orthodox convert. “If I didn’t believe in Jesus, mathematics would be my God.” He invited another friend and I to his house, opened a math textbook and said: we’re going to understand everything, from beginning to end. We’re going to meditate on every word. We’re not letting anything go un-understood. He said: stop going to class, it’s useless. Come home and study with us instead.

Last week, the local genius told me out of the blue: let’s study together. Did I think I was out of his league, intellectually speaking? Yes. No. Nobody is out of the league of nobody. I study with whoever wants to study with me. Smart, dumb, interesting, boring, good, and evil even. Evil, yes. During the study session, a random guy saw what we were writing on the blackboard, opened the door, and asked: can I join? I said yes. I noticed he had a funny accent.
- Where did you study before coming here?
- Jerusalem.

Wanted to ask the question so badly. I’m not Palestinian but I look very pro-Palestinian. He can’t hate them without hating me. Told my woke classmate about this encounter. “Oh, don’t worry he’s clean”. He’s in the Israeli communist party. He didn’t serve the IDF. I can’t believe we got outwoked this hard.

1500 words. Absolutely repugnant.