This Is My Normal Bed Time Now

tl;dr: Sleep is good. RTM, Google Calendar, Inbox Zero. VeloCity vs mathNEWS. Ignoring my health, at my own peril. VeloCity peeps keeping me sane. Sleep will have to wait.

So, this post is nearly three weeks overdue. It was supposed to be a collection of remarks on 3A thus far… and passing the halfway point of my undergraduate career. Alas, my less-than-perfect time-management skills got in the way, and so here I am, reflecting on something like 5/6ths of it instead.

I think the biggest change this term has been my messed-up sleep habits. Once upon a time, I went to bed at 10pm and woke up at 8am, and all was good. Sure, there was the odd late night, but those were the exception rather than the norm. This term has been characterized by spending many nights awake between midnight and five or six AM, and sleeping just about any other moment where I can sneak in an hour or three. It’s dreadfully unpleasant because I find that I can’t remember what’s happened the day before, let alone in the past week, but on the other hand, working in the middle of the night is so blissfully free of distractions that I’m going to really struggle to find a comparable work environment during the daytime. Joe Collins was right – sleep is good.

I’ve adopted various tools and techniques to help keep my life in order and compensate for my poor memory: Remember the Milk, for a running To Do list, Google Calendar, to see where I need to be right now, and I’ve been striving towards “Inbox Zero” (although I admit I haven’t gotten anywhere near it in the last few weeks.)

With regards to extracurriculars, I’m reaching the point where I have to start prioritizing and saying no to people. While I still wrote for mathNEWS, I don’t think I’ve attended more than one “full” production night this term; the alternating VeloCity dinners happened to sync up with the fortnightly production nights. I’ve tried to keep up with other duties (March Break Open House, FIRST Lego League, Math Endowment Fund) and try new things (attending the Canadian Undergraduate Software Engineering Conference), although I think I will need to cut back somewhat in the Fall.

On health, I’ve been neglecting it somewhat, primarily due to tight finances from last term. I still have not had my wisdom teeth removed, nor have I obtained a spare pair of glasses (even though my primary pair failed the morning we went to CUSEC). I don’t eat all three meals every day, and I’ve had mood swings (combination of hunger, fatigue, and unrealistic expectations).

On tangiibles, I’ve placed an order for a Raspberry Pi. I was hoping to start using it this term and return Robert Elder’s old laptop, but the device isn’t slated to ship until May. Alas. I am further indebted to him again.

It’s the wonderful people here at VeloCity that help me keep calm, carry on and get through the troughs in the roller coaster of life. Way too many people to list here, although Jinny, Joanne, Fang-Ying, Alcina, Christophe, and Patrick Leo Tardif are definitely at the top of the list. Where else can you wake up at 1 AM and have someone remark to you, “It snowed wonderfully outside last night, so we went outside to trample all over the field”?

So, it’s like, 7:59 AM, EDT. Normally, this would be bedtime for this term. Except, there’s an 8:30 AM lab today. So sleep will have to wait a few more hours. Alas.