Posted by Ryan
November 15, 2008
My schedule this whole week has essentially been this: wake up between 7-9, work until 3 AM (with a few breaks here and there), sleep; repeat. It wasn’t like that every day. Friday wasn’t.
Today (Saturday) was going to be a little different. I was planning on waking up early and working until the evening and then going out on the town, or something. Instead, I slept 6.5 hours longer than planned.
So I guess I’m all caught up on the lack of sleep I’ve been enjoying, but now my day is shot. Wheeeeeeee!
Posted by Ryan
February 21, 2008
Approximately 57 thousand minutes ago (6 years, 6 months) I was laying in a reclining chair, watching blood in a tube. No, I’m not describing a dream. I didn’t get to watch very long. I fell fast into a drug-induced sleep, my eyes closing involuntarily. I remember trying to itch my nose, but for some reason my arm kept getting pushed back down. I was having my wisdom teeth out. Thankfully, I don’t remember much about the surgery.
The next thing I knew I was being led down the hall by a nurse. I could barely walk. I was laid down on a little recovery bed, I have no idea how long I was there. I remember waking up, my hands and arms outstretched in the air, trying to find the mouse and keyboard to my computer.
Even though I was drugged up, I quickly remembered where I was. I sat up. There was a window, and I looked through it. I saw a nurse. I remember feeling stupid, thinking she was probably wondering what in blue blazes my arms were doing flailing in the air. I wonder if I’d been trying to type.
I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember (I suppose I should ask my parents when I actually started to enjoy reading). When I got into computer programming (circa 1996) I kind of forgot that I liked books about other things. I remember reading a lot of non-computer books from 1996-2001, but the more entrenched I became in programming, the less I read other things.
I like to think that had I been reading some science fiction book at the time of the oral surgery that I might have woken up, sword and shield flying around defeating some horrible enemy instead of looking for the mouse and keyboard. Then again, perhaps I was the geek hero in the dream. Who knows.
In the year 2005 I had a realization: “hey, books are awesome.” Some people can manage 100 books in a year. I’m not there yet, but working on it. I’ve managed to finish 6 books so far this year (I think I read 12-14 books last year, 16 the year before that). At this rate I’ll only have read 36+ books by the end of this year. I really gotta make more time to read! My goal is 80 books this year. We’re in the 8th week of 2008, leaving just over 44 weeks left. That’s almost 2 books a week. Yikes! This is going to be fun!
For the record, I think it’s completely fair to count audio books as “read.” 2 of the books I’ve “read” so far this year were audio books.
Anyway, so about dreaming. Those 2 audio books were book 1 and book 2 of the Artemis Fowl series. Since I started listening to them I’ve noticed that I’ve remembered far more of my dreams. While I haven’t woken up wielding any imaginary weapons, the dreams I’ve remembered have been more interesting (though still weird). I wonder if it’s the specific genre of books (Science Fiction / Fantasy) or the fact that they were audio books? I read a fairly wide variety of books, from religion to history to fiction to self improvement; I don’t remember the science fiction books I actually read, or the history books I listened to as having an impact on my dreams. Perhaps I forgot or it’s the combo of audio book + science fiction/fantasy. Anyone else noticed anything similar?
P.S. A podcast I listen to, Windows Weekly, was offering an Audible promo for a free audio book. Anyone can use it. You just go to http://www.audible.com/windows/ and you get a free audio book. You have to sign up for a monthly subscription, but there’s nothing stopping anyone from getting the free audio book and then canceling before your card is charged the following month. I’m quite excited to have the subscription though, so I’m keeping it.
Posted by Ryan
January 6, 2008
In wondering what to write today I came across this quote, by myself:
I’ve mentioned before that I have had, at times (every single time), a hard time waking up in the morning. Actually, that’s a little misleading. It doesn’t matter what time of day I wake up. It’s always hard.
So yesterday I woke up early! It was a holiday, no work! Independence Day! Whoo hoo! My alarm went off at 7:45 AM, I jumped out of bed and got on the computer. Then, I had this overpowering urge to go back to bed. But it wasn’t really overpowering because I overpowered the overpowering feeling, thus causing the overpowering feeling to not be overpowering because I was overpowering it with overpowering thoughts.
I wrote that in July 2007 and saved it in a draft post. For all I know I changed it a bit and actually posted it, but I’m not gonna go look for it.
I’m posting it now because I read it and laughed at myself. I know, so very humble.
No really, I’m posting it because I’m going to bed earlier tonight (I’m actually going to bed when it’s nighttime) than I have for the past two or three weeks. I figure I need some pretty overpowering thoughts to overpower the overpowering feeling with which I’ll feel overpowered (but not really because I’ll overpower it) when my alarm goes off. In other words, this post is a reminder to myself of what I am capable of: waking up without pressing snooze 4 gajillion times.
That’s right.
I rock.
