Tips & Tricks

I've found myself making some minor but important changes (both intentional and unintentional) to my habits and routine, and they seem to be having a positive effect so far. I'm hoping that I'll be able to keep the momentum and make these improvements last.

First of all, I've been trying to keep a more consistent morning routine. While I have been using a Timer app to plan out my routine, I've nonetheless struggled to find the energy or motivation to get out the door in a timely fashion.

A Pair Of Independent Observations

I try to stay away from caffeine. It helps me to concentrate when it first kicks in, but, after that, I feel quite a bit worse physically. It's especially bad when I've had a large volume of caffeine, which, fortunately, hasn't happened yet. However, I can bet that I will lose myself to caffeine zombiehood in the next couple of days.

I wish I had realized how lucky I was growing up. Like most kids, I harbored a little bit of resentment towards my family when I was younger, since I didn't really have the perspective. Plus, I was even more sheltered than I am now; my peers were either as fortunate as me or 'kept up with the Joneses' and made a decent show of it. I don't think I really got anything approaching a 'realistic' worldview until college.

Caffeine is Bad

There are few worse things than being mentally tired but having so much caffeine in your system that you couldn't nap if you wanted to. I'm almost surprised that my heart didn't leap out of my chest from racing so fast. And the worst part is that the only way to keep the mental tiredness at bay is to... get more caffeine in your system and let the problem get even worse. I just hope I can get some sleep.

And I turned in my thesis draft. Yay me.

The Joys of Writing Long and Tedious Papers

Thanks to the tea I had, I had a great deal of trouble getting to sleep last night; while trying to get some shuteye, I ended up spending my time downloading TV off of Morpheus and mindlessly surfing the web.

I was eventually able to get a small amount of sleep. I woke up and did some work on my prospectus before going to class. After class, I ate lunch and continued work on the prospectus, though I was interrupted midway by a call from my sister. She told me about the trip that she and her friend took to San Francisco to see Lily Tomlin in the play The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (last year, Chrissie did a one-woman performance of the play). They were able to see Lily Tomlin after the performance; she signed their programs and took a couple of photos with them.

I finally finished my prospectus with just enough time to spare. I turned it in and had dinner, after which I kicked back a little before going to the library for a some reading. I haven't finished the reading, though; hopefully I'll be able to work on that later tonight.