Posted by Ryan
October 23, 2009
My mom doesn’t like the word moist, my friend Adam can’t stand the word grok, Carrie hates the term read-a-thon, Justin has a strong distaste for ‘webinars’, Brandon doesn’t like the word soil, Craig dislikes ‘loaf’ and ‘moist’ (but likes moist loaves of fresh baked banana bread), Alex hates ’should’, Lexi hates ‘whatever’, Missie is very picky and hates 5 words, Mandi hates ‘lowly’, Jenna hates ‘parabola’ and ‘bulbous’, Curtis can’t stand manager speak, Peter hates ‘quick’ and ‘poll’ (though that may be because I was conducting a ‘quick poll’), and one of my sisters can’t stand ‘toot’ and ‘tune’ (who tooted?!).
My least favorite words? While I share some dislike for webinars about read-a-thons wherein books about all things moist are discussed, two of the words I dislike most are ’sleep’ and ‘deprivation’, the former only when used in connection with the latter.
Long-term sleep deprivation has caused death in lab animals.
Insofar as far as we can tell, we are not lab animals. But still. You never know.
Tomorrow I intend to deprive myself of sleep by participating in a 24-hour read-a-thon. Yeah, I know. Not only is it a read-a-thon, but sleep deprivation is inherently required in the ‘24 hour’ part. Self-inflicted torture.
At least as long as I eat the right food I won’t have to toot much while reading. That’s the worst. You have to go find a new spot to read.
Anyone who wishes to bring me a loaf of banana bread is welcome to come over. I’ll even give you a dramatic reading of whatever I’m reading at the moment.
Posted by Ryan
April 18, 2009
I’ve now been reading, or walking and listening (to an audiobook), in Central Park for hours and hours. I’m writing this on my iPhone. Isn’t technology grand?
And yet, at the same time, it isn’t grand.
One of the books I’ve been reading is called The Power of Less by Leo Babauta. The book was gifted to me by a very good friend. I don’t intend to review the book, as I haven’t finished it, and because others are much better at book reviews than I am; however, the book is perfect in its timing, or rather, my decision to read it at this particular time was perfect, though I certainly don’t intend to suggest I am anything close to perfection, nor are my decisions.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about doing less. Don’t get me wrong, I have no intention of being less productive–this isn’t about being lazy–rather, it’s about accomplishing more with less, however trite that may sound.
Anyway, I’m at a park, enjoying a beautiful sunset, reading.
More about less I’m a future post.
Posted by Ryan
April 18, 2009
Five and a half, really, but five sounded better for a title.
My alarm sounded at 1:30 AM. An hour and a half wasn’t enough sleep, that was obvious, but I figured I would do better with at least a little sleep. On Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week I woke up at 4 AM, hoping it would prepare me for today. Perhaps it did, but not enough. I reset my alarm for 1:40. When that went off I reset it to 1:50, and 10 minutes later to 2:00. That was it, I had slept as much as I was able. Now was the moment.
I knew that if I sat down on the couch I would be tempted to lay down, then to get a blanket, eventually leading to the demise of my plan to read for 24 hours straight. Several times this week, however, I stayed awake at 4 AM by listening to audiobooks (Ender’s Shadow and then Mistborn: The Final Empire). I even laid on the couch while listening. The books were interesting enough to keep me awake, despite wanting, desperately, to sleep. I knew that it would be harder with less sleep. But knowledge does not always translate into action. Can you really know if you don’t do what you know?
If you didn’t catch the hint already, I fell asleep. I think I lasted about 20 minutes on the couch before I drifted off. I was awakened at 4 AM by my roommate’s return from a dance and made a half-hearted attempt to stay awake, but once again drifted off into the world of make-believe, or rather, a world of make-believe, for there are many. Sleep is one such world, reading is another. I find it fitting that at least I was in one of these worlds instead of, say, scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush, though that might have kept me awake.
It’s now almost 9 AM. Since awaking on the couch I’ve been listening to Mistborn. I will now commence reading a real book, perhaps The Alchemist? I’m not sure after that. The Power of Less? Lord of the Rings? A Narnia book in Spanish? High Performance MySQL? No, most definitely not that.
I will read until 2 AM, longer if I can. I’ll be posting updates on here and twitter throughout the day.
