Making Do
Wow, challenge upon challenge lately. The 2 1/2 hours of homework I did yesterday and the 2 I did today didn't even put a dent in what I still have to do.
The humidity here has got to be like 9007%, except in my office at work, where the air conditioner pumps straight in, making everything a bone-chilling forty or so degrees and dry as the Sahara. Result? Staggering sinus headaches. I've been staving them off pretty well, but today was too much, and by the time I got home from work I pretty much couldn't move.
Thankfully, it's a bit better now, because I think my chances of staying simultaneously motionless and awake were, oh, nil or so. For now I'm a bit groggy--Stanford 3, maybe 3.5--but as long as I'm not trying to study (darnit), I'm okay. I'm permitting myself a few cups of half-caff tonight, partly to stay awake, partly to keep the headache at bay (because if it weren't for coffee I'd be taking Sudafed, and there ain't no sleeping on that stuff).
On the psychological front, I realized today how often I've caught myself "craving sleep", exactly as one craves a smoke or a drink or a chocolate or ten. Not, I quickly realized, for any other reason than that it's a nice long escape. My grandfather-in-law is the kind of person who never slept longer than three or so hours a night his whole life, by choice; he always said that some sleep was good for you but that most people indulge in it too much, and it begins to act like a drug. I would have laughed, but Buckminster Fuller said something very similar too. And my cravings since I've been "off sleep" for 6 days have a physical component, yes, but also a very strong needy psychological one. Hmm.
-PD
The humidity here has got to be like 9007%, except in my office at work, where the air conditioner pumps straight in, making everything a bone-chilling forty or so degrees and dry as the Sahara. Result? Staggering sinus headaches. I've been staving them off pretty well, but today was too much, and by the time I got home from work I pretty much couldn't move.
Thankfully, it's a bit better now, because I think my chances of staying simultaneously motionless and awake were, oh, nil or so. For now I'm a bit groggy--Stanford 3, maybe 3.5--but as long as I'm not trying to study (darnit), I'm okay. I'm permitting myself a few cups of half-caff tonight, partly to stay awake, partly to keep the headache at bay (because if it weren't for coffee I'd be taking Sudafed, and there ain't no sleeping on that stuff).
On the psychological front, I realized today how often I've caught myself "craving sleep", exactly as one craves a smoke or a drink or a chocolate or ten. Not, I quickly realized, for any other reason than that it's a nice long escape. My grandfather-in-law is the kind of person who never slept longer than three or so hours a night his whole life, by choice; he always said that some sleep was good for you but that most people indulge in it too much, and it begins to act like a drug. I would have laughed, but Buckminster Fuller said something very similar too. And my cravings since I've been "off sleep" for 6 days have a physical component, yes, but also a very strong needy psychological one. Hmm.
-PD
posted by PureDoxyk at 12:24 AM
1 Comments:
Wow. Just found your blog. To let you know where I am, I'm now approaching the end of day one (I consider my polyphasic sleep schedule to have begun last night at 10pm, with the first nap). And even at this early time I can identify immensely with two things: the feeling of having overslept (for some reason, now that I've actually started sleeping during nap times, they feel several hours long, even though I get up when the alarm goes off) and the emotional missing of sleep. I, too have encountered headache, and the only comfortable way I've ever known to deal with headaches is to take an analgesic, lie down, and allow whatever happens to happen (i.e. sleep or not, no matter). So to be stuck in an upright position, from which a haddock never seems to disappear for me, is a big emotional drawback. Enough to make me call it quits at this early stage? No, but definitely enough to make me wonder if, once through the adaptation period, I'll ever have the luxury of banishing a headache the "old fashioned way" again.
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