Mood: Calm 
Vaping: Vozol 12000 Puffs Watermelon Bubble Gum
Drinking: Almond Milk
Weather: 28°C, Clear
Location: Mont Fleuri, Mahe, Seychelles
I got the new vapes. The first one is Vozol 12000 puffs watermelon bubblegum and the second one is Geek Bar’s 600 puffs pink lemonade. Neither of them taste that good, I should have stuck with cool mint.
First a general review of the pink lemonade flavour by Geek Bar which I bought for SCR 200 (US$14): it reminds me of an electronic shisha stick that I bought in China for 3 yuan (US$0.50). The smell of the vape stick is strong so you’re thinking that you will get a good flavour but when you’re actually vaping, the flavour is barely present. While sucking out air, the stick and vapour feels warm which is great if you’re into that kind of thing. There is a very slight hint of “ice” which is good. But the entire experience feels like you are vaping something cheap. I don’t know if this has been sitting out for a while. I’ve had Geek Bar before, the flavour was quite intense and sweet so this one in particular feels like a replica product. My reason for purchasing this one is because I wanted to try out the pink lemonade flavour which I was told was both “sweet and tangy”. Would I purchase again? Strong no.
Second, a quick review of the Vozol 12000 puffs watermelon bubble gum flavour: my second Vozol vape. the flavour is quite subtle, a very clear watermelon and “tutti frutti” taste, also with a slight hit of “ice” feel which is good. There is a possibility that I have vaper’s tongue at this point. Nothing wrong with this vape, but I prefer the cool mint flavour and I should have just stuck with it.
I remember telling myself that from now on I will only order mint flavour, but the curiosity made me decide to go with something new. Should have stuck with something I was enjoying. The issue that I was having with the mint however, is that it was a bit too cool sometimes, which I could feel at the base of my throat and that mint lingered for longer than I wanted it to. There is a chance that this vape will last longer than the previous one because it’s not as enjoyable.
Uneventful day, my sister and I went to ISPC to replenish my stock of edamame, and I also decided to buy Fry’s Popcorn Chick’n to try it out. I had a small portion with eggless mayo for dinner, it was quite alright. We then went by my mother’s place to bring her some coffee because my sister keeps drinking and taking from my mother’s stash, lol. I had to drink the coffee with sweetened soy milk because it was a bit too strong for me. I am not a fan of coffee, and I do what I can to avoid caffeine (I have caffeine sensitivity). We noticed a large yacht called “CloudBreak” making its way into the marina, it’s got a helicopter on it. The marina is quite interesting because you think a massive yacht is moored right in front of you and then an even bigger one appears. Someone I know used to work on a yacht that was moored in Europe. His monthly salary was almost 5k Euros a month and his job was to keep the yacht clean. They would just hangout all day on the yacht, and the owner wouldn’t even use it all the time. So he made it sound as though he was paid to vacation on a yacht, earned enough to afford some of the fine things that life has to offer. I expect that would be some people’s dream job. I was looking at the young guys on this yacht as it entered the marina and that’s what crossed my mind – that they were having the time of their lives.
Earlier today my employee asked to take her break 30 minutes earlier than normal but needed 5 extra minutes on top of that because she had something important to do (she told us what it was, it’s just not my place to share it). It was something that couldn’t be rescheduled, so I told her that I was okay with it and that she could go. My sister later got irritated with my response, told me that it was agreed that she would deal with staff, and told the employee that she would have to pay back that 5 minutes from her lunch break, which I had no issues with. The thing with Seychelles is that there is a strong culture here in that employees are allowed to do certain things, and there is very little employers can do about it. When I agreed to let her go do her thing, I didn’t expect the employee to not give back the 5 minutes. I suppose it was almost expected so it was an unspoken thing that I did. That part was my mistake – it should have been clearly stated that she would have to pay back those 5 minutes. But our hands are pretty much tied with employees to some extent. She is the only one at the store, and if she decides to quit, we will have to first go to the store and work there while we find someone else, and then we will have to stay there until the new employee has been adequately trained. I’m in no mood to go back to work at the store as a cashier. So yes, I just approved her request without adhering to any kind of standards.
Prior to writing this evening’s journal entry, I was talking to my sister about social anxiety. Everyone experiences anxiety to a certain extent at some point in their lives. But living with debilitating anxiety is not a “normal” experience, and it truly deserves awareness, especially in people that do not understand how anxiety can be debilitating. For instance, my sister told me she was reading or watching something recently where a woman was talking about how she was able to get to a point of being a “high-functioning depressive”, in that she made a habit out of doing certain things, and because she was able to turn them into habits, they were things she was able to do without overthinking these things. My sister then told me that she does sometimes feel some level of anxiety at points where I see her just say “I think I’ll give this person a call”, picks up her phone and dials the number. But she’s turned these things into a habit and so the anxiety eventually fades away.
I explained to her that the issue with social anxiety – especially what I experience which was most likely result of the bullying I endured as a child – is that we don’t think this way because we are being irrational. We are socially anxious because what we think keeps happening exactly the way we expect them to – it is a calculated expectation. So this cycle of trauma continues and the social anxiety never ends. It’s simple for anyone without social anxiety to say “just go to the post office, get this mail registered and everything will be fine.” But you see, I’ve done that before, it wasn’t entirely fine and if I do it again, it will be as horrible of an experience as it was before, possibly even worse. There is an overthinking that happens: we play out every single possibility, and then if what we were thinking (which is usually the worst case scenario of a social situation) actually happens, there is an embarrassment we feel and a validation to ourselves that our thoughts were correct about people. The situation doesn’t end there. We then continue to ruminate about what happened, and continue to feel embarrassed, and this will stop us from ever putting ourselves in a similar situation ever again because our thoughts are accurate. For social anxiety to stop, every single person around us needs to be properly trained when dealing with people in general, and what is the chance that everyone in the world can be properly trained?