I just woke up from a coma of a nap.

After school today two friends of mine rode the bus with me back to my house so that I could get my debit card, and then we walked back downt to the mall.

One of them left, while the other one came to Second Cup with me, only my favourite coffee place of all time, ever.

We sat down and did a word search and a spot the difference and I just felt so so so sleepy. I only live about ten minutes away from the mall, and so does my friend, but we both got busses home.

I did a sketch of a painting I’m doing for a friends Christmas gift, which I’ll blog about at a later date, but immediately afterwards I fell asleep with my face down in the floor.

So, I put my laptop on my desk, got up and got in bed.

Just before falling asleep again I thought I heard the door open, but didn’t hear anything in the house, so I guess it was next door.

I woke up three hours later after having an intense dream, and feeling completely disoriented.

The lights were out, for one, and I don’t remember turning them off.

I texted my roommate to ask if she turned out my light, assuming she came back home. She’d left as I was walking into the house.

Her answer was no, she wasn’t back from the library yet.

So, needless to say I am amazingly confused.

I can’t for the life of me remember if I turned out my own light or not.

When I woke up I felt like I was in a completely different world. Admittedly I was really relaxed and warm, and it was a very nice feeling, but I just felt so out of place.

Sometimes naps shouldn’t happen, no matter how nice they feel.

I couldn’t see straight for about twenty minutes after I got up, and now I am sitting here just watching Glee.

I’m going to go write something now, I think. There needs to be some kind of productivity come out of tonight!

Emma

My health aide was supposed to come today.  She switched from Thanksgiving to today. I even called the office this morning to double check. They said she would be here at 1:30. Nope. I just woke up and could smell the garbage in the can. Zeke and I marched it out to the garage in the rain. I’ve been choking ever since. My lungs are still full of crud. I wonder if my aide is OK? Now I am worried about her. She is not like the first one I had. This one ALWAYS shows up on the right day and time. I’m thinking it was her office that gave me bad info.

I slept like a log for 2 hours. When I woke up I did not know what day or time it was. Then I heard what woke me up. Doug’s son must be upstairs He sounds like a baby elephant running from place to place. I actually LOVE hearing him up there. I miss my baby.

Next thing I know, Marge is knocking on the door. She gave me ziti in meat sauce. As we were talking, Zeke zoomed out the door and down to the office. Earlier the manager and Luc had given him 3 cheese sticks. He went right to Laura’s desk for an encore. Too smart for his own good! AND…what a spoiled brat!

Instead of looking better after my nap, my leg is now neon pink. Grrrrrrrrrr….I think it’s infected again. I have been having massive chills ever since my trip to the hospital this morning. Marge was appropriately grossed out.

My only piece of mail today is a letter from the state saying I have already reached my limit of 12 for doctor visits. It says my benefit year began in August and ends in July. The letter tells me to go to the ER for further medical care. Reminds me of the $440 taxi ride to the doc. The system is NUTS!!!!!!

While in the hospital today, Zeke was an absolute perfect example of a well-trained service dog. He got a zillion compliments. If they only knew what he acted like at home!

Now I am worried about Luc. His blood pressure is 210 over some other way too high number. He went to the drug store to check it because his wife and the maintenance man made him. Luc’s eyes are getting bloody in the white part. It looks creepy and is probably a very bad thing.  Their car was still gone when I went out. UPDATE: They just came to visit. Luc’s BP was down to 110 when he went to the  doc and she told him it was nothing to  worry about! He looks like somebody beat him…nice black eye to go with the red white part. Eeeeewwwww! The good part? Beth and Luc brought me treats from town

Aleka was being a clown when I was in the living room. She lies on the floor and uses her claws in the couch to propel herself the length of the couch, turns like an Olympic swimmer and pulls herself down the other way.

Mmmmmm…just got a new batch of Cortland apples. I eat the apple, Zeke eats the cores….

Ohhhhhh…..I almost forgot! I passed the place where I will be getting my IVIg infusion and stopped in to ask how long it will take. They have me down for 3 hours! Good thing I asked!!!!! It needs to go in slower or I get very, very sick. The bummer is my date to have it done is now a couple of days later. At least I’m getting it!

Today after work and really during work, I was exhausted. The kind of tired were you feel like  you just ran into a brick wall and it has left you bloody and lying on the ground, exhausted. So I got home, did a few things around the house, made dinner and crashed! I took about an hour nap on our basement couch and then another hour upstairs in bed, apparently my snoring was not conducive to my wife trying to work on a project in her workroom. Now I am up and I feel so much better, I probably could have slept through the night had I not been woken. I am actually glad I was woken, when I go into these power nap days, I have a tendency to screw up my internal clock and not be able to get up as easily in the morning. I think anyone that knows me though would argue how “easy” it is to be around me first thing in the morning.

Simon Said .. take nap

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• Ha, I so need one of these….
• So excited about this new start because I am totally living out a “second chance” myself: a movement of people that would let radical integrity and radical grace consume them in their life and leadership.
• Took a nap on the couch tonight…so comfy and safe
• No cocoa for brownies….but popcorn when I woke up hit the spot
• New to me, free clothes make my heart so happy. seriously. 2 pairs of running tights and 2 under armor long sleeve shirts (plus, one with the thumb hole things!!! I am so set for running in the minnesota cold….) not to mention a cute tank top, other clothes and a fun bag.
• This looks totally awesome. I miss my bike and I heart Africa.
• Feeling the days slipping by so fast…
• We leave for debriefing and Cape Town on Saturday–what!?
• Why am I still up? Oh right, I took a forever long nap tonight.
• What are you up to?

I have to say that the 30 day mark brough us some interesting changes. For one, Everly now makes very little fuss when she is put down to sleep. In fact she does this really cute little ritual of playing with her hippo and talking. I think she is telling the hippo a sleep time story. We keep the hippo in the crib, so she only gets him at sleep times- creating novelty we are! It is so nice to just lay her down and she falls asleep. This was our biggest problem and it began to be solved, how lucky were we!

Then she started a new routine of consistent night waking and staying up for 2 hours. Needless to say, I was quickly eager to kick this experience to the curb, as I didn’t think it was beneficial to anyone in our family or entire household. I read an article about trained night feeders and another about the possibility of backsliding to multiple feedings each night because of night feeds for babies who really didn’t need them… a 4:30 am feeding becomes 4:00, and then 3:30 and then 3:00 and so on and so on… this is what was happening to us. Then I read another article about morning rituals and we were guilty of a confusing morning ritual as well… gawd! All of this googling happened between the wee hours of 1:00 am and 3:00 am while I was waiting for her to fall back asleep on Sunday night.

When we started the sleep training I just fed Everly when she woke up in the middle of the night. The first week of training the middle of the night was around 5:00 am (yes I know that’s not the middle of the night but it felt like it, lol). The week after that it was 4:00 am, and then 3:00 am and then 2:00 am. Each time I fed her she would go back to sleep for another 3 or 4 hours. Initially when the feedings were very early morning another stretch of 3 or 4 hours was perfect. However, once she was waking at 2:00 am, one night feeding became two and she started staying awake and wanting to play. This was not a habit I wanted us to get into because if she didn’t need it before, why did she need it now… well I realized that she needed to eat to get back to sleep. So we decided to eliminate any feedings that occurred before 5:00 am (a baseline time we knew she could comfortably do). I read a lot about how to know when a baby is ready to eliminate night time feeds and it looks as though she qualifies by age, health and size; I also have an appointment with our doctor on Thursday to confirm these findings. 

So, to eliminate night waking we have begun the process of gradually eliminating the 5:00 am feeding. Last night I let her eat until she was drowsy again and it took 15 minutes, so tonight she eats for no more than 14 minutes. Apparently once you get to 5 minutes and under the baby will eliminate the feeding all on their own. The night before last was the first night we tried this and she protested, oh did she protest! I was up for 3 hours in the middle of the night waiting for her to fall back asleep. I just needed to know if it was possible- and it was! Last night she didn’t wake up until 5:00 am again, so I got a blissful 7 hours worth of sleep. I feel a bit drunk truth be told

Our morning ritual was another speed bump that we had to level. When she would want that 5:00 or 6:00 am feeding, I would bring her into bed and lay down while feeding her and of course we would fall asleep. Now how confusing must that have been for her. No wonder she would wake in the middle of the night and be upset. She had no idea that 2:00 am was not 5:00 am, she just knew she wanted to be fed to sleep in our bed and that sometimes it happens, so we had to cut that out. Yesterday and today I fed her on the couch and put her back in her crib and both times she slept until 8:00 am (longer than she does in our bed!). So now I feel super guilty of course as I was confusing the crap out of her because I wanted to get in a little more sleep. Well I have now learned to not underestimate her. I thought she wouldn’t go back to sleep if I put her back in her crib at that time of the morning. Turns out that if she is still tired she will sleep- what a novel idea. I promptly apologized to her. She can still come in to our bed in the morning for a little play time so we can cuddle, I don’t want to give that up, that is my favourite part of the day, it’s when the 3 of us feel most like a family to me

So here’s to having another night like last night, but with only 14 minutes of eating at 5:00 am!

Daily dose of TVXQ moments:

Sleeping Jaejoong during TSC tour

Can I just say CUTE?!?!

It’s such an awkward position to fall asleep in and that just makes him so cute. His hair looks so floppy in this…just want to touch it. xD He also looks so peaceful sleeping like that. <333

But it does go to show how tired they get after hectic schedules/concerts that they can fall asleep anywhere. :/

–priya

]]> http://katherinewilliams.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/sleep/ Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:00:15 +0000 Katherine http://katherinewilliams.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/sleep/

This sleepy baby turns eleven months old today.  Happy month-day, David!

  NAP o NAC es una iniciativa de varias organizaciones para dar un marco, o agregar una capa mas de protección a nuestros entornos. No podría ser de otra manera ya que la seguridad es transversal a toda la organización. Por ende involucra a todos los entes incluyendo a los fabricantes.

La idea de NAP es poner un Portero en la puerta de nuestra discoteca (nuestra red) que es donde interactúa la estación que llega a la organización (el punto de red).

NAP no es una solución antivirus, lo que hace NAP es revisar si la estación cumple con algunos parámetros de higiene antes de dar la autorización de entrar en contacto con nuestro santuario (nuestra red), – NAP pregunta a la estación – cuenta con estos parches?, tiene antivirus?, esta actualizado?, etc. en el caso que no cumpliera la estación, entraría en modo de remediación para que pudiera ponerse al día y poder cumplir con las políticas de higiene de la red corporativa. Esto es de vital importancia en ambientes donde hay muchas estaciones móviles, y VPNs en algunas organizaciones estas políticas se deben llevar a cabo en forma manual por el personal de TI. En la mayoría esto no se considera un Riesgo potencial que pueda comprometer su infraestructura tecnológica.

Los Ingredientes

- Víctima: Windows XP profesional SP3.

- Controlador de Dominio, DNS, DHCP, NPS, Windows Server enterprise 2008.

continuara….. todavía bajando Windows 2008

Ya a instalar en una VPC con 512, cronometró, nota al margen si a alguien le ocurre creo una VPC y al momento de dar START pum pantalla azul reinicio. lo mismo ocurre con las que ya tengo creadas ¿curioso no?

Tip: con el mouse puedes seleccionar un área de la pantalla de la vpc y en el menú edición indicar copiar, debería ser automático al momento de la selección pero bueno nadie es perfecto me parece NICE.

24 min. WOW no esta mal,

Ekkora jó filmet már nagyon rég láttam vagy talán még soha sem.
Szerintem nagyon jóra sikeredett, már nem premier,de a mozik még most is telt házasak.
A technikák nagyon fejlettek a filmbe és a történetről nem is beszélve!
Kb. 3 órán át izgulsz a film alatt,a látvány lenyűgöz.
Nagyon látványos,nem vontatott mint minden 2. film.

De miért is 2012? Talán igaz történet? =O Talán nem is mese?
Babona:

„Először a dollár fog elértéktelenedni a gigantikus államadósság miatt. Az emberek nem tudnak majd vásárolni, és éhséglázadások törnek ki Amerikában is. A kormány sem kap olajat dollárért külföldről, ezért a hadsereget vetik be, hogy megszállják a közel-keleti olajmezőket. Ezzel beindul a harmadik világháború, de ez még csak a kezdet. Sorra jönnek a természeti csapások, és a végén egy nagy üstökös csapódik a Földbe. Tudja, régóta megírták már, hogy 2012-ben vége lesz a világnak” – ezzel a váratlan apokaliptikus monológgal válaszolt egy washingtoni járókelő arra a kérdésünkre, hogy mit vár az Obama-korszak négy évétől. Terry Huff nyugdíjas rendőrnyomozó egyébként az új elnökre szavazott, de tart attól, hogy drámai idők várnak Obamára.

A rettegett dátum-  2012. december 21.
–az X-bolygó belép a Naprendszerbe,
–felcserélődnek a Föld mágneses pólusai,
–vulkánkitörések és a sarki jég elolvadása,
–a napfoltmaximum miatt összeomlik a rádiókommunikáció,
–földönkívüli lények jelennek meg a nagyvárosokban,
–feltűnik az Új Atlantisz, amiről a new age-guru, Edgar Cycle írt,
–beteljesednek Nostradamus jövendölései a harmadik világháborúról,
–trónra lép a Malachiás-listán szereplő utolsó pápa,
–totális kontroll alá vetik a gazdaságot és a kereskedelmet.

Napping is a known activity worldwide but only some cultures practice routine napping. Germans and some Middle Eastern cultures nap in the afternoon daily. US does not follow any established rules and napping at work is definitely out of question. Most employee handbooks list sleeping on the job (or any like activity) as cause for dismissal. Corporate executive offices have included a couch for many years. This couch serves several purposes one of which is a short nap when needed.

Nap is not real sleep but the body takes care of many functions done during real sleep time. Napping may not be a complicated activity but has many characteristics. The most common nap is the afternoon nap usually after lunch. This nap is usually associated with eating a large meal. People who work difficult schedules often break their sleep time into nap and sleep combined. I know a restaurateur who has followed this for forty years. He sleeps at 1 or 2 am and wakes up around 5 am to visit his restaurant and check things. His afternoon naps begins at 2 pm and ends about 5 pm when he returns to work again. This schedule may seem unusual but is quite common in the business world. An executive works anywhere from 65 to 110 hours weekly. I have worked such schedules (in retail management) for extended periods of time and can tell you firsthand no allowance is made for easy sleep time. The late hours result in difficulty going to sleep which shortens the night time sleep time. When the person wakes up in the morning, the chances of being sleepy and having a poor night of sleep are high. A nice afternoon nap balances this equation. This is not universally accepted in the American work culture.

The American culture has always been in favor of continuous labor at all levels. One of the basic assumptions of the informal labor code of America is that all employees are inherently lazy and seek to avoid work in any possible way. The majority of American employers treat anything similar to sleep as such and react harshly. Napping may equals laziness in many contexts but is a good practice to maintain health and performance. American employer has a hard time understanding many things and what contributes to performance is one of them. A typical employer brain is incapable of processing a short nap as a prelude to better performance. The battle for napping at work has already been lost unless one is management and not subject to supervision.

Many famous people were regular nappers. Regan, JFK, Churchill, DaVinci and Salvador Dali are a few. Dali is famous for sleeping with a spoon in his hand. If he were to fall sleep during his nap, the spoon would drop into a pot making much noise thus waking him. Reagan slept regularly on the job and referred to all these periods as naps. JFK slept after lunch daily and was not to be disturbed. These are not the only individuals who understand the value of napping for good health. The world is run by people who understand superior performance requires good health, mental alertness and high level energy. Exercise, good diet and plenty of sleep maybe the obvious necessities. However, sleeps takes away 1/3 of our lifetimes thus the obvious problem area for a busy person. Naps and sleep times must be combined to allow superior performance for long periods of time in American business. American culture does not understand many things because of its recent history. Only 20 years ago, computers and Internet made our world a smaller place but a more realistic one. Arbitrary and arrogant work rules that have been in place for decades could finally be changed. The relationship between good health and job performance is not considered a management topic of importance. The closest corporate America has come to this idea is accepting the high cost of health care and all possible means to avoid the costs. Napping maybe a practice with a long history but a poor history in the American work culture. This keeps millions of people from reaching optimum performance daily. Maybe America ought to force workers to stretch and exercise on the job as the East Asian companies do and allow a nap period similar to standard break times to encourage maintaining a fresh and alert mind at work.

*This duplicate post is from this week’s edition of Writing by Cush blog and is published early in World of Cush

I was generally in a good mood yesterday. My friends were fun to be with as always, performance tests and presentation went well, I didn’t eat too much or little and took care of things that I should have, assignments, applications, studies, essays, orders. I felt good about the things I’ve wrote, said and bought. Phone calls with parents and friends were all very delightful.

I am generally in a bad mood today. My friends are obtuse as always, classes sucked, ate too much chocolate, my stomach isn’t feeling well and I am very tired right now. Even my roommate went home to take TOEFL tomorrow. Clothings I ordered arrived and they are fine, it’s just that I am not perfectly satisfied with my body now. I think I gained weight in the last ten days or so. So even the 139,000 won worth of clothes failed to make me happier.

It is around 8 right now. I have two choices.

I can take a short sleep, for about half an hour, and study from then. I think I can afford that but the danger with this is that I might not wake up precisely at the time that I wanted to.

Or I can fight off the dreariness and start studying now. The downside of this choice includes less efficiency, dizziness, possibility of additional sugar consumption and worsening of headache.

You know my choice.

11:54. Watched ‘Eastern Promises’. Viggo Mortensen is great. The movie was way too explicit for me but strangely enough, cleansed my languor. To me, it proved that description of extreme violence in movies can convey something human, which, also, is the reason I wasn’t so petrified after such  scenes in which Viggo Mortensen, bleeding naked, stabs  right into the eyeball of an assassin with the assassin’s Turkish knife.

Movies provide a nice escapade time to time. As for the work, I guess I’ll tire myself during the weekend.

Peace! If you’re in the Indianapolis area, stop by to check out InfeRed making an appearance at this open mic night.

Should be a good time, Red never fails to put on a ill live set. If you make it out, let us know what you think on here!

Peace, and open your heart, to love.

Please try your call again later… …as all lions are currently down

nivver hire a kitteh 2 answer fonez.

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With all the traveling I have been doing, I was so exhausted yesterday, and decided to take a little nap.  I hadn’t taken one in such a long time, which led me to think about the disappearing tradition of siestas. Many people still think that in Spain we take a nap after every lunch, but sadly, as globalization happens, and the pace of life becomes faster, people don’t really have time to close their eyes in the middle of the day. It used to be that most stores would close from 2-5 pm, and restaurants from 5-8 pm, allowing people to eat, walk around, and nap, before going back to work. Today, you can walk into El Corte Inglés, our national department store, at almost any hour and not find any signs of a siesta.

There are many reasons why the siesta became tradition. In Spain, people typically don’t go to bed until way past 10 pm after the news. (In fact, many older couples even take their “evening walks” at 2 am!) Therefore, an afternoon nap was a way to re-energize after getting little sleep. Another reason for siestas is that in central and southern Spain, the summer and fall months are very hot, and before air-conditioning was common, the siesta was seen as a preventative measure against heat exhaustion.

The tradition of the siesta has led some people to think of Spaniards as ‘lazy’ but what most don’t realize is that we actually sleep about one hour less than the average European!

I wouldn’t mind if the siesta trend made a comeback!

-Rocio

They’ve finally all started rebelling against doing the dishes. We’ve rolled for who is doing the dishes tonight. Now the three kids have a set order of who has to do the dishes when. No more arguing.

My place where my tooth was pulled last Friday still hurts. I’ve just had two pain pills. They’ll wear off before I have to take Jess to martial arts. Although I doubt she’ll want to go. She’s Menstral! Driving me nuts. I’m in pain. Made me cry. She’s in her room taking a nap. Best thing for a bitch is a nap I always say… even to my son. lol

I hope the rest of the night is calmer and pain free.

We made it! Gravity Jones presents InfeRed’s brand new mixtape No Turn On Red. Pick your favorite file site to download from below the artwork…

InfeRed – No Turn On Red links: megaupload | rapidshare | sendspace | zshare | mediafire | limelinx | filefactory

Gravity Jones presents InfeRed’s 2009 mixtape “No Turn On Red.” MLKjr said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets, even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.” Tony ‘InfeRed’ Graves feels his path is leading him to record and perform honest music. If it’s true that your soul should speak truest and loudest through your actions, midwest rapper InfeRed’s soul preaches through every line. In the vein of some of Hip-Hop’s most candid and ground breaking artists, Red works with a passion and dedication to his lyrics and each message they encompass. He is often likened to Jay-Z, Common, Royce Da 5′9, Elzhi, and, more recently, Wale. Download the mixtape, analyze the lyrics, scrutinize the songs, love it and hate it. Peace and much love.

Also, check it out, rate it, comment on it at datpiff.

Please spread it like wildfire!! Feel free to copy any of the links, artwork, music, burn it onto cds, whatever…just get it out there!! Electric grass roots style…
Also, please let us know what you think…
and while you’re at it check the official video for the single
The Higher:

Peace, and much love!!!

I tracked our Crimson Maple changing color -

Do you think Bruno and Sebastian can sense the season changing?  Smell it in the air?  Wonder if they realize that their afternoons of fresh air are coming to an end?

A cool frame, stranded on my camera disk, from an October Caromal Colours workshop -

Marks birthday -

Captured the moment of Nick laying by the heater vent…  anyone else do this?   My FAVORITE -  cranking the thermostat up a good five degrees,  grabbing a couple blankets – one to lay on,  one to tent over the cabinet doors (creates a heat pouch), and then climbing into the heat pouch – Bruno always joins in as well.  Great way to take a 30 minute power nap -

And then we woke up and it was November!

]]> http://bertrame408.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/dear-paper-cut/ Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:30:53 +0000 bertrame408 http://bertrame408.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/dear-paper-cut/

I have a paper cut on my pinky and it hurts pretty bad. I hate paper cuts.

Don’t know what to write about. I’m in class once again. Today has sucked. I just want to nap, but I have a meeting after this class, and then I’m going to nap for like 30 minutes and then heather will want to go to dinner, which is fine because I’m currently starving. ug

NaNoWriMo Update: I’m at 29,300 words. Pretty good. I’m still ahead by like 3 days, so I need to get writing, which is what I’ll be doing tonight. I’ve been getting through a really long creepy part and that’s been a blast. I’m not done with it yet which is very exciting. I love the story I’m writing. I really like where its gone. I wonder… Would you guys like to read an excerpt? haha Cause I’d like to get a little bit of feed back. I’ll put it at the end of this entry.

hmmm. idk what else. Nothing is really going on. This weekend was pretty awesome. My family and i went out to dinner for my mom’s birthday, which was actually yesterday. I only stayed until saturday. Didn’t get anything done while I was home, but I got a lot done sunday. Megan’s birthday is tomorrow and I got her some AWESOME presents. that’s right presentS. plural. She’s going to love it. And we’re going to Shamrock…aka Shammys. So I’m excited about that.

THANKSGIVING BREAK IS NEXT WEEK! SHANE IS COMING! My family didn’t tell me but the last week was kind of up in the air when it comes to Shane coming to thanksgiving because he didn’t know if he could afford it, BUT HE FIGURED IT OUT AND HE’S COMING! I’m glad my family didn’t tell me because they knew it would depress me and I’m in sketchy moods as it is, that would have made me never want to leave my room. But Shane promised, and I’ve known for a long time that he would be coming, thank god. Its tradition and when it doesn’t happen, it ruins it. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because i get to spend the ENTIRE time with my awesome family and our extended family; the pattons. hehe or Shane. Cause the other pattons don’t always come. But Shane usually does…except last year and that stunk. I love thanksgiving! WOOT. Thanksgiving rules. I like thanksgiving more than Christmas or any other holiday.

Alright, I’m done. i can’t think of anything else to talk about. leave me something to talk about in the comments people!

Love Emily

EXCERPT:

Kate was running along when she noticed a large dark shape out of the corner of her eye. Startled, she stopped quickly, nearly falling over in the process. She turned and saw that the large shape was a cabin. Old and in need of repair, but a cabin. She walked through the woods towards it, and stood in front of it. It was small, and all the windows were blackened. The front porch was slanted from years of disrepair. The screen door was barely hanging on to the hinges, and the door behind that had a large hole in it. It had two levels, and a back door that was partially open. Kate stood at the back, staring at the door.
To enter or not to enter she thought, hands on her hips. She circled around to the front again, looking around. There was a garage down a path a little ways that looked to be in the same shape. The windows were blackened out again, and there were plants and grass growing around the large door and the regular side door. No sign that anyone had been around for quite a long time. The cabin was the same. Grass and plants had started coming up through the wooden stairs that led up the porch. Kate took that as a sign that the cabin was abandoned and started up the steps. Kate was about to push the door open when two arms wrapped around her from the back and pulled her away. Kate screamed, her headphones falling from her ears.
“Oh, my god.” The person said from behind her, laughing a little. Kate shoved her elbow back and whoever it was groaned. Kate twisted herself away, turning around to see her attacker. Luke was standing behind her, bent over a little, but still laughing.
“Holy shit!” she said, bending down to pick up her MP3 player. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“I called your name several times.”
“I couldn’t hear you!” she said, holding up her MP3 player. “You couldn’t just tap me or something?”
“You still would have freaked out.” He pointed out, standing up straight. He was in running shorts and shoes. Kate suddenly felt like there was too much skin showing on both of them for having just met. She crossed her arms, and he noticed. “Anyway, I had to stop you from going into the cabin.”
“Why? Does someone live in there or something?” she asked.
“No, but no one goes in there.”
She looked at him, watching as he smiled at her. He was cute, and he had really great abs.
“Why not?”
“Cause of the guy who used to live there.” He said, turning and stepping off the porch. “Come on. I will tell you on the way back.”
She stood there, arms crossed. He was amused. Luke could tell she was embarrassed that she’d freaked out as much as she had, but this was too fun.
“The guy who lived in there liked to kill children.” He said simply. If she was shocked, she didn’t show it on her face. Her thumb did do a quick swipe across her middle finger though.
“Really?” she asked.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Not really.” She said, shrugging. Luke was enjoying this.
He walked up the steps and pulled the screen door back. He pointed at the door frame where there were several spots that were less dirty than the others.
“That’s where the police tape was hung up when they found him.”
Kate looked closer, leaning in front of Luke. He got her ponytail in his face, and backed away. Allison would be so pissed if I smelled like another girl he thought.
“That could be anything.” Kate said, looking at him,
“Fine.” He said. “Look through the window. There’s still a ton of police tape up in there.”
Kate stood on her toes and looked inside. There was police tape up. She stepped away, looking at Luke, wondering if he was serious or if this was a new girl prank.
“Still don’t believe me?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, look it up.” He said, laughing. “It was all over the news.”
“I will.” She said, nodding.
“I’m heading back.” He said.
“Me too.”
They ran back together, not talking. When they reached the hotel, Luke slowed down and motioned for her to follow him. She pulled her headphones out and followed him down the hallway.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“The library.” He replied, nodding at two large doors in front of them. It was a small library. A regular hotel room had been converted into a room with bookshelves living the walls. In the middle of the room there was a bank of computers. Luke sat down at one and Kate stood at his side, looking around as he typed things into Google. “Ok. No one in town really likes to talk about what happened, so I wouldn’t go around asking.”
He leaned back, pointing at the screen. Kate leaned over him, reading the article. It was short, just telling people that they’d solved the murders that had been outstanding in the town. Kate read it fast, Luke watching her eyes move from left to right quickly. There was no doubting that she was pretty and Luke knew that was going to lead to trouble. Before Allison, Luke had had several girlfriends, all of them trivial and mostly meaningless. Allison was a serious person, meaning their relationship was just as serious. Luke would have been lying if he had said that this was ok with him. The first girlfriend he’d had where he wanted to put in a serious effort and he ends up with Allison, who was at this moment, probably planning their future wedding so they were “prepared when the time comes”.
Kate stood up straight, putting her hands on her waist. She was reminded again that there was a shocking lack of clothes in the room.
“Ok, I guess I believe you.” She said. Luke smiled a little.
“Good.” He replied.
“What happened to the guy?”
“He’s dead.”

I will apologise in advance for this post, as it will be rather short, mainly due to the fact that I can’t be bothered writing the same thing again and again.

It’s rather funny, me and my oversleeping. I really haven’t grasped the concept of actually keeping awake and to schedule, with my motivation sagging when I am tired. The early hours of the morning seems to go far too slowly, and I cannot seem to function well enough to do much work, which is a huge disadvantage. Every morning now that I oversleep, I seem to reach the conclusion that this isn’t working out, I am killing myself (well, I feel like it anyway) and that I should either give up or swap to an Everyman schedule, despite the fact that it would take longer to adapt to. Later on in the day however, when I don’t feel like someone is constantly jabbing me in the head, I feel like everything is working out ok, and that I am all good to continue. I suppose they even themselves out, but I just wish I was more motivated in staying awake in the mornings.

One of my biggest crimes, as I have stated earlier is my habit of taking extra naps, in the hope that it will aid me in functioning properly and reduce the chance of crashing. Unfortunately, it turns out that it does the exact opposite, for every time I wake up, all I can think about is sleeping again, making me either reset my alarms for an extra 25 mins (which are usually set wrong, pm instead of am for example, but this could just be my subconscious being tricky =D) or simply to just lie back down and fall to sleep.

Another bad one is the setting of just one alarm instead of multiple ones. Because my wilpower is so low, the chances of me sleeping through an alarm is astoundingly high, and to counteract this I set as many alarms as possible. Unfortunately, I only have my mobile phone (which can have up to three, one that repeats if not told to shut up) and my computer (which I can set as many as I like, but I dare not set it to loudly as to wake up other household members) to wake me up. An interesting idea that I just had would be to put the lappy on the ground next to me. Then I will definately hear it =)

So, for tonight (and tomorrow morning) I have written a basic list of things that I can do. Unfortunately, they are almost all computer games as my head never seems to like revision or homework at the early hours of the morning if it isn’t essentual, and other activities (mixing, piano, swordfighting, taming cougars etc.) tend to make far too much noise. What I can hope for is that eventually many other friends may join in a similar quest (or just stay up more) to fight against sleep, providing entertainment throughout the night. Until then I will just have to look at Messenger and Facebook sadly, with 0 friends online.

Moving on, today my 1 am sleep was ok, but I felt slightly tired after waking, getting exponentially tired after about 30 mins. At 3 am I took a nap, which ended up as two naps, falling into my trap. Amazingly, I was able to get up and survive for another hour until 5 am, where I had 4 naps in a row, the last one turning into core sleep until about 7:15 when I was awoken. The morning was probably one of the worst that I have ever experienced. I got up utterly exhausted with a huge amount of convincing from my mother, and promptly sat on the couch, staring upwards realising how screwed I am for todays chemistry (redox) and maths (calculus) tests. I managed somehow to find the time to have a nap for about 10 or 15 mins on the couch before going to school (probably around 7:45, although the actual time excapes me), and this nap dramatically helped in keeping me awake, alert and functioning. Sure, I definately wasn’t 100% (more like 50%), but I was up and running. As I got to school, I progressively awoke from my haze, and did my tests. Funnily enough, I am almost certain that I got A’s in both of them, and I bet that if I didn’t get my nap at 7:45 I would have probably gotten a C or worse.

This brings up an interesting conclusion, that being that I am halfway adapted to Uberman, and half Monophasic. I can’t seem to survive without oversleeping, and yet the only sleeping that actually feels restorative is the REM sleep naps. The long ‘core’ naps, that go for over an hour make me feel horrible and groggy on awaking, but the naps make me feel great (even if I start to feel tired an hour later). This is both motivating and worrying. Any evidence that I am actually progressing with my sleeping schedule is fantastic, but will this damage my normal sleeping? Well, I have never heard of anyone yet that can’t readjust back to monophasic sleep, so I think it will be ok. I’m just fearing that the transition between the two schedules back to monophasic could be a bit of a challenge in itself. Then again, I will have melatonin on my side rather than against me, so I think that would be fine.

So yeah, the only other event was that I set my alarm wrong at 5:25 pm (was talking to mum about the DPRK, got carried away) and slept until 7:00, awoken by my nextdoor neighbour (thank you!). It seems strange that I can now oversleep in the afternoon… It never used to happen. Oh well…

Just at this very moment I found out that Uberman polyphasic sleepers take 2 – 4 weeks on average to adjust. Wow, so I am not all that unusual after all. That is rather relieving, as I really need motivation to keep me going with this.

I said this was going to be a short post.. Heh, I guess I lied. See you tomorrow.

Jimmi.

PS. Wow, turns out I have nothing to complain about in comparison to these insane people: http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2009/07/24/uberman-too-wussy-for-you-try-tesla/ – I am so trying that if I can ever get polyphasic sleep to work for me!

Relax. Nap. Best friend. Jessie. Zach. Feature films. Shorts. Stephanie. Joe. Chinese. Fortune cookie fight.

I sent in my first internship application today.

I went to Urban Empowerment this morning, a black-style non-denominational church. I went for a project for my cross-cultural psych class. We’re supposed to immerse ourselves in a culture different than any of ours. So, we each find a group that we don’t fall into.

I am not black, but this was not the first time I was the only, or one of the only, white people in the midst of black people. Living with Erica has exposed me to a lot of such functions. However, I also have been the only American around all Japanese people. I’ve been hetero amidst LGBTQ. I’ve been the youngster at nursing homes. Or the Christian talking with Buddhists.

As I encourage everyone to do. I learned more about who I am, what I believe and why I believe it in these situations than I ever would otherwise. It’s so easy for white people to always be comfortable. White people can always find people who look and believe like them. In America, even when surrounded by different groups, white people maintain white privilege. That feeling that I never have to feel out-of-place.

So, anyway, I enjoy breaking out of that. I like feeling like maybe I don’t belong somewhere. Because, for me, that’s a few hours out of my life, whereas for so many groups in our society, it’s constant. Or at least once a day. Or at least once a week. Which is way more than I.

Also, I enjoyed going today because it’s nice to worship unrestrained sometimes. I like going to a church where they expect you to clap and dance and verbally affirm. And they clap on beat for the most part. It was fun. I’m not a huge fan of “faith-healing,” since I believe we should pray for wisdom, strength, guidance and peace for people going through sickness rather than praying for it to go away.

“You are now healed from your head to your toes,” doesn’t comfort those who go back to the doctor, only to find out their son is still going deaf. God hasn’t abandoned them, and she does answer prayer. However, God doesn’t answer to us, nor does she exist to take away every obstacle. Instead, God leads us and carries us over the obstacles.

Anyway, all that is not what made my day, though it was nice. What made my day was taking a nap with Adam lying on my belly. He’s actually still sleeping. Unfortunately for Erica, he is not sleeping tonight.

¿De qué trata?: Basada en dos historias reales, la última película de Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle 1993, You’ve Got Mail 1998) Julie & Julia 2009 narra la historia de Julie Powell (Amy Adams), una joven que siente que está desperdiciando su vida y que decide dedicar un año a preparar todas las recetas de “Dominando el Arte de la Cocina Francesa” (Mastering the art of french cooking), clásico libro de cocina de la célebre cocinera Julia Child (Meryl Streep) Así, Julie decide aprender a cocinar a su manera con la legendaria cocinera Julia. Durante el año que supone su experiencia como alumna de Child, escribe cada día sus experiencias en un blog que ganará múltiples adeptos.

            Si bien Nora Ephron no es santo de la devoción de casi nadie, puesto que a pesar de alguna película interesante no ha dejado una gran marca en el séptimo arte, no se puede objetar que el atractivo reparto y ese toque de dulce comedia que inspira la película es una poderosa razón para acercarse a ver Julie & Julia. Lo mejor de la película son sin duda sus actrices: Meryl Streep y Amy Adams vuelven a juntarse tras la fuerza que ambas demostraron en ‘La Duda’, haciendo que Julie & Julia tenga dos de las mejores interpretaciones femeninas del año, dándole un punto a favor para no ser otra comedia del montón. En cuanto a la parte cinéfila se refiere, subrayar el realismo en cuanto a localizaciones y temporalidad se refiere.

            La película además posee una narración curiosa, pues cuenta dos historias paralelas y entremezcladas muy parecidas, las de Julie y Julia. Pero no en el mismo tiempo, pues mientras una trascurre en 1949, la otra sucede en el 2002. Más que una comedia romántica, Julie & Julia es un manual sobre la superación personal y el alcance de metas imprescindibles para nuestra satisfacción. En este sentido, se presenta la historia de Julia (Streep), que en los años 50 y siendo extranjera allá donde iba (países o aprendizajes: mujer americana en Europa), superaba las trabas de los prejuicios con tal de exprimir hasta la última gota de su creatividad y de su vitalidad, lastrada además por su incapacidad de tener hijos a los que alimentar. Y en el Nueva York, post 11 – S, Julie (Adams), una treintañera más, perdida en la insatisfacción de una generación destinada a lo superficial, a lo práctico, a lo acomodaticio, que encuentra en el legado de Julia y en su vivaz espíritu, la brújula para reorientar sus pasiones, sus ambiciones y su ansia de vida.

          Y aunque hacia la mitad del metraje este se vuelve excesivamente repetitivo y no aprovecha historias ya presentes, Ephron tiene tal pulso emotivo en lo dramático y en lo cómico durante la primera mitad, que todo se perdona, más contando con dos actrices tan extraordinarias como Adams y Streep, que asumen el timing cómico y la sensibilidad de la historia. Tal vez Un poco menos de duración no hubiera estado mal, ya que al película se llega a sentir un tanto cansada, desluciendo grados de ese sabor que la sustenta.

Al grano: Lo mejor es ver esta película con el estómago vacío porque al salir de ella, estarás deseando degustar una buena comida o cena. Y para terminar una pequeña frase repetida por Julia Child: ¡Bon appetit!

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11/9/09

After writing this I took a nap.

An Ode to Naps

It’s Sunday and I’ve just eaten

My team just played, and were badly beaten.

I think you know what I’m getting at -

It’s time to take the example of my sage cat.

A yawn, a stretch, and a sleepy grin,

On my couch I’m nicely tucked in.

I close my eyes and I’m in another place

My thoughts slow to a crawling pace.

That food I ate was heavy, just like my eyes,

And then I’m asleep, which should be no surpri-zzzzz …