Thursday, April 7, 2016

Back in the Saddle, Plus More!

So, by now you all know that I'm hit or miss with blogging. I always hope to fall into a regular routine, but it ends up being very difficult for me. Part of that struggle is that when life is interesting, there's no time to write... but when I have time to write, it usually means I'm not up to much of anything.

With that in mind, I'm considering running a series of stories from our adventures on Flogging Molly's Salty Dog Cruise 2016. We had so much fun, and it was so awesome, but the level of detail to do our adventures justice would require multiple posts. We've already put down the deposit for our cabin next year, and I HIGHLY recommend YOU come with us!! We're already planning hijinks.


After we returned from the Cruise [and our accidental pit stop in Denver, thanks to a combination of food poisoning and bad weather], my quarter started at school. When you factor in the wedding, this is my first quarter with ZERO distractions--I am able to focus entirely on school and learning. It helps that Matchu is so supportive. He takes care of a lot of the little things so that I don't have to stop what I'm doing, and I can stay at campus longer and make sure my assignments get done on time. So far, it's been paying off! Surprisingly, my entry-level engineering course is actually the most work, and I'm not struggling much with Trig. Java... well, bless his heart he's trying to teach. It's not great. But, I'm having a lot of fun fooling around with code.


This is the very first mixed media project I did.
I keep it hanging over my desk.
Part of the reason that I think I'm doing better this quarter is that I am embracing my true nature. "To thine own self be true," said Mel Gibson. Just kidding, it was totally Polonius. But yeah, embracing yourself is much easier than fighting against yourself. What do I mean by this? Let me give you a couple examples. I've taken a lot of pressure off of myself to focus or complete one task entirely. Instead, I will do bits and pieces of things until I get settled. It may seem disorganized, but I've actually managed to accomplish more by doing this than by dreading every task ever. Another thing that I am accepting is a biphasic sleep schedule. I've written about this before, and I've done this before, and now that I can control my whole life, I keep coming back to it. Again, it helps to have a supportive partner who holds such vomitously cute beliefs as, "as long as you're sleeping next to me, and we get to cuddle, it's like spending time together."

For some reason, the days that I have every class, I come home exhausted. I'm not sure why--it's not like I have to hike up a mountain or walk to school or anything. My guess is that either a) using that much brain power to concentrate, think, focus, study, process information is tiring; OR b) being around that many people in one day is exhausting. I wish I could explain this idea in more depth, but think of it in a metaphysical, personal space kind of way. Either way, the days I only have one class, I am much less tired. But on the days I have all my classes, I have to take a long nap. Instead of fighting  to stay awake and making myself miserable, I can make the best of it and adjust. I usually sleep for 2-3 hours, and then either go to yoga or do homework. Then I'm free to stay up til at least midnight, which is a much more natural time for me to go to "bed." But since I've already gotten one sleep cycle out of the way, waking up around 8 am is no longer a miserable ordeal. I'm actually settling into a nice routine of taking out the pup, making coffee, etc.