The Hazards about Restless Dreaming or Not Sleeping

     I've mentioned here before about my frequent bouts of having problems sleeping.  Well, I've had many more of these problems this month.  First, in the the early weeks of December, I found myself lying on my back, which caused me to wake up immediately.  Now, I normally sleep on my side or stomach.  This position provides me with the clearest airways.  While I might switch sides a few times during the night, I almost never sleep on my back.  When I do, I am almost always propped up on pillows, because I have either a runny or stuffed up nose and this position is the easiest one to keep my breathing regular.  This time, I believe I was on my back because I was in that state that males get when their asleep, about four times per night.  I must have turned onto my back so that I would have enough room to protect that state that my regular sleeping positions wouldn't allow.  This was happening a few nights in a row.  Most of the time, I allowed that state to fade on its own, although I might have aided it at least once.  I usually fell right back to sleep.  Not only was I entering that state at night, I was frequently getting into that state at other times, with similar results into exiting that state.  I get this way every now and again, when I just seem to enter that state without even knowing it's happening.  Fortunately, these bouts only last a few days, although this last one seemed to last well over a week. At least there is a benefit from entering that state so much at night.  If I enter that state so strongly that it wakes me up, it must mean I was in fairly good health.  On the other hand, my latest round of insomnia has been the opposite.  It started on Saturday.  I woke up about 3:30, not in that state, and I could not get back to sleep.  I kind of slept, but not really.  I didn't think too much of it, as it was holiday weekend and I could catch up on my sleep.  I was wrong.  The same thing happened the next two nights, only earlier.  So, over three nights, I barely got nine hours of sleep total.  I was so bad off yesterday, I barely had the hand-eye coordination for Candy Crush.  Definitely nothing requiring more skill.  I even ended sessions early when I was in the middle of a bonus round, just so I could try to take a nap.  As it is, I have been so sleep-deprived, I am days behind on my year-end inventory.  And forget about taking down my store's Christmas decorations.  I'm lucky I've got someone in the car with me, or I wouldn't be trusting myself driving.  Last night, I woke up around one.  I think I managed to get back to sleep.  See, there were times last night that I couldn't tell if I was asleep or awake.  All I know is that I am finally starting to feel better this morning.

Understanding My Unusual Way of Thinking

     I've always had an unusual way of thinking, but I haven't always understood that.  One particularity of this is that I can change the way I think, going creative one second and logical the next.  Sometimes, this is a plus, but, to people who cannot work on my wavelength, it can be a bother.  It can hurt me too, if I have trouble shifting from one 'gear' to the next as it wore.  Let me show you an example.  During my years of working in retail, I have to apply various discounts and taxes to products.  While the cash register can easily handle this task, I sometimes have to estimate these amounts before keying the numbers in.  While it doesn't matter what order you perform the operations, I always put the discount in before the tax, as that is the way the register is set up.  Now, I don't remember being taught this in school.  Maybe I was absent that day, or I ignored the lesson because I was allowed to skip ahead a few chapters at times in the textbook.  Whatever the reason, I only really focused on this fact well after I was out of school.  While the order is unimportant, I have not really seen any explanation for it, probably because the long way of explaining just how to figure these totals out isn't really up to thorough examination.  For example, you want to buy something that is $10 with a 10% discount but with a newly added 10% sales tax.  Traditionally, one would be taught to first find out what 10% of $10 is [$10 x 0.1 = $1] then subtract that to the price [$10 - $1 = $9].  Next, you would find out the tax [$9 x 0.1 = $0.90] and add that to find the final total [$9 +  0.9 = $9.90].  Or, if the operations were done in the opposite order, tax first [$10 x 0.1 = $1, $10 +$1 = $11].  Then, one calculates the discount [$11 x 0.1 = $1.10] and subtracts [$11 - $1.10 = $9.90], you get the same total.  However, no one really explains why.  I don't do the math that way.  Normally, I do it like this.  When asking what a 10% discount is, you are really wondering what is left [100 - 10 = 90].  So, I multiply by 90% directly instead of subtracting 10%.  The same goes for a 10% tax [100 + 10 = 110].  This time, I multiply by 110%.  If you perform the operations this way, you still get the same totals no matter if you take the discount first or the tax first [$10 x 0.9 = $9, $9 x 1.1 = $9.90 or $10 x 1.1 = $11, $11 x 0.90 = $9.90].  Now, for those of you who forgot third grade math, this is the associative property of multiplication.  If you need to multiply three or more numbers, the order doesn't matter.  You still get the same answer [1 x 2 x 3 = {(1 x 2) x 3} or {(1 x 3) x 2} or {(2 x 3) x 1}].  So, from the example, $10 x 0.90 x 1.1 = $9.90 no matter how you multiply.  Now, if this were taught the way I think, the process makes much more sense with a strong foundation in basic math.  However, it doesn't 'show the work' as well, so I don't think this is the way it was taught in school.  At least in my time.  However, it does go to show that if someone says that their way isn't just the 'best' way but the 'only' way to achieve some solution or goal, they might be right, or it could just be their point-of-view.  Without showing exact proof, it could go either way.  There might be another way of achieving the same goal, just as fast but easier and with the same amount of proof.

I Want to Push Me Up

     Two weeks ago, I decided to do something unusual for me that I had been thinking about for awhile.  For December, I have been going on a push-up challenge.  Normally, I don't do these kind of things, but I wanted to try something different.  I felt that I needed more exercise in my life, especially after my newest pair of 34 waist pants felt slightly snug, even with the stretchy waistband. I decided on push-ups as my exercise of choice because I didn't need any extra equipment to do them, just a flat surface and gravity. I started on December first by doing twenty-five push-ups without stopping.  Just the basic variety.  For the rest of the first week of December,  I did twenty-five push-ups, in addition to any other exercising I did that day.  No skipping days, and each session had to be done as a complete set without interruption.  Starting on the eighth, I upped my numbers to a minimum of thirty.  If I managed to do more than that, then that would become my new minimum number for the next day.  I also decided to add some back work to balance out all of the work on my chest.  Technically, pull-ups would be the bodyweight exercise of choice.  However, there is no easy or safe place at my store to do that.  So, I improvised with a modified form of inverted row instead.  I don't do them as often, but just enough to keep my upper body balanced. As of today, the fifteenth, I am up to forty push-ups per set.  After today, I will be adding variations to my schedule, mostly decline and incline variants, to the schedule.  These will either be as part of the main set or as a substitution to the regular push-ups.  I am hoping to build my way up to at least fifty reps per session by the end of the month, although I could go up much more.  I doubt it, but it is a strong possibility.  Now, this doesn't include my other exercise sessions for the week.  Although for chest days, I may have to cut back a bit just so I don't overtax my system.  I have seen items somewhere about how some people go on to do one hundred push-ups per set in the course of a month.  That is where I got my idea for this challenge.  I doubt I will make it to that point.  My shoulders wouldn't be able to keep up.  Still, I will try to get to as many as I can by January.

The Trials That I Have Thwarted

    This past spring, I expressed some fears that I wouldn't be able to keep up with my weekly blogcast due to various complications.  Specifically, I was serving Federal jury duty, and I had started back with my online graduate school classes.  Well, that didn't happen.  Here's why.  First, I got a conformation email two weeks ago that my jury service had ended.  Still haven't gotten a letter, though.  I actually knew about my service even earlier, at my previous call-in.  I heard that there were no other cases on the docket until after my service had ended.  In fact, I only got called in twice.  I don't know if that is typical or because of the pandemic, but I'm glad that I wasn't called in more.  I didn't have to serve either time.  In fact, I was one of the first jurors eliminated each time.  Frankly, I'm not sure how well of a juror I would've been.  At least my duty has been fulfilled.  I'm just sorry for those jurors who missed their first call-in.  They still have another six months to serve.  If they received their summons the same time I did, then this means that they will have been on call for over two years before their terms end.  On the other front, my classes weren't as hard to deal with as I thought.  My summer course went quickly, but not to the point where I had to make any drastic changes with my time.  I don't think I will be taking another accelerated course any time soon, though.  This fall, I took two more courses.  The first was Early Dramatic Literature.  I had to read one, usually short, play each week; write a brief essay on it; respond to another person's essay; and write a major paper for the final.  The paper was the hardest part.  I was having a difficult time finding works to cite.  I also had to rewrite the conclusion multiple times.  I still wasn't completely satisfied with it.  My other class was Advance Poetry Writing.  For the class, I was supposed to have eight to ten chapter tests for the textbook, write four pairs of poems with at least eight lines, workshop everyone else's poems, and turn in a portfolio of four poems ready for journal submission.  The class didn't turn out that way.  First, many in the class had a hard time getting the textbook.  Even I had to go through the college book store, and I wasn't able to get a used book.  I had to spend twenty plus dollars more on new.  Then, the chapter tests were late starting due to not everyone having their books.  When the first test became available, it had a duplicated question.  The third test was a little late.  Then, the tests stopped.  They were going to be put up all at once so that those who could read ahead could take them when they had the time, but the tests never came and the professor ultimately declared that the remaining tests would not be taken. This means I spent extra money on a book that I would not need, featuring examples from poets I never heard of.  And, I discovered a mistake, at least it seems that way to me.  As for the poetry submissions, the first group took a little long for everyone to finish.  One person submitted theirs after the deadline, and I never got to look over those poems.  I only realized this fact this morning.  The second workshop session took extra long, as there were multiple submissions after the deadline.  Because of this, the third submission was reduced to only one-poem-needed and submitted before Thanksgiving.  The workshop session is taking place over finals week.  I uploaded my responses to the last group, along with those for two others who submitted after the deadline, this morning.  I was doing the last response on the site, after I discovered their lateness.  As to the portfolio, there hasn't been any news or links to turn one it or how the poems should be presented.  If there's nothing up by this afternoon, I will have to send a message to see what to do.  I'm guessing that this part of the class has been reduced as well, since many students won't have their last responses by the last day of finals and not everyone will have had the minimum four poems workshopped.  I find it a shame, especially since I found the experience quite easy.  It only took my about twenty to thirty minutes to compose a poem, once inspiration hit, and another thirty minutes to type them up, editing as I typed.  Each one was different, and they have been posted on my literary blog.  Gong over the poems of others wasn't so easy.  Some of the choices weren't the ones I would have made.  I was pretty much the only one who went beyond free verse, including a sonnet(!?!?) for my last submission.  I don't want to say that some of the poems were bad, but there were a few I saw that might not have made it to a literary journal.  While I don't consider myself a poet primarily, I have to say that I enjoyed the work and found it very satisfying.  As of right now, I might be taking another semester off, as the opportunities for spring a bleak.  Still, my blog has survived and is ready for another year.

A Countdown Decades in the Making

     I've decided to do something that will be both reckless and innocuous at the same time.  Starting next week, I will be doing a countdown of all the songs that were number one the week of my birthday.  Every day, on my Facebook page, I will be including a link or other posting of each song.  I will be going in descending order, so that the songs I like best will be closer to my actual fiftieth birthday.  Ouch.  However, I won't be telling anyone that I will be doing it.  I will just be posting random songs, mixed in with my regular posts.  I wonder what people will be thinking, if they never look at the link to my blog page.  Seriously, people will think I'm crazy by posting links to the worse songs these first few weeks.  Sure, they went to number one, but that doesn't mean that they held up well to the march of time.  If someone asks, I will tell them the reason, but only to those who ask.  I want the surprise to build.  Somewhere around the top ten, I will announce the reason, but not before then.  I got the idea from when I was posting songs/mix tape list to various friends on their birthdays.  Unfortunately, there aren't that many birthdays this time of year, or that many friends I feel confident enough to send them such things without ticking them off.  Anyway, I am currently sorting through my list of songs into four categories.  First, there are the songs that were just plain bad, but somehow reached number one.  I'm talking about one-hit wonders, flash-in-the-pan rappers, and artists from the 60s (or 50s) trying to make a last-ditch comeback.  Next, there are the songs that really weren't too bad, but they just didn't connect with me.  Mostly, these are the artists and genres that are outside my wheelhouse.  After that are the songs that were critical favorites, but I still didn't really like.  These are the songs that won awards or reached great milestones, but I still don't care about them.  Still, they deserve to be place high just on those accomplishments.  Finally, there are the songs I really, really, like.  Some might be good, but they might be bad.  These songs could be easily forgotten (actually, most of those are in the first group), but I am fortunate enough to have a pretty good variety of great songs to chose from.  I'm guessing about a third of the songs could be placed here.  This might make my job harder.  I'll mention something more closer to the actual end date, probably the entire list.  I will have to include an addendum for the song that is number one on my birthday next year.  Hopefully, I won't have to change the list too much.