thoughts from a day of play

i'm not one to just write what i did one day.. but today just seemed like life was talking to me so i'm gonna write it down.

it started so simple. one tone of.. beep. my eyes slowly opened.. and burned. it was dark of course, which was a huge contrast to the usual low sun that i was used to. i had previously decided to snooze for 10-15 more minutes before getting out of bed to pick up my friend to drive him to the airport. i also had decided not to brush my teeth or anything, and to keep my blanket in a covered position so that it would keep the warm in when i came back.

i managed to drive to the airport and back in half an hour, because traffic was tolerable. i got home, eyes burning less, and checked the blanket to find that it was.. still a bit warm. satisfied i crawled back into my cocoon in expectancy of a once again screwed up sleep schedule.

i ended waking up at 11 and getting a text message that i was being visited in half an hour. i eventually got up, with the previous 5 hours of memory surprisingly hidden and remote. maybe hidden by what was to come? lunch with old friends? softball with people you've never played with and also with those you've played with? then i learned that anticipation of good things clouds judgment.

i always wonder whether digging from the past was a good thing or not. over the past year it has felt like the answer was that it wasn't, and that i should hold onto the present and live in the present. all good things come to an end, and lingering in the past will do me no good. my anticipation for hanging out with old friends clearly denied that principle, and as lunch went along, i was sliced by the feeling of time flowing past me, without me. slices sting, and those old moments of strength, of reaching to people that needed that reaching, seemed to melt away into spectatorship. so is it a good thing to hold onto the past? does the disjoint actually matter? that is just the same question as the first one.

with time on my mind, it was about time to check for the next moment i will get incredibly angry. before i went for lunch, i was told to come back as soon as possible to drive my family's friend back home. not asked.. told. i went to lunch, and got two more phone calls demanding that i go home to drive her. anticipation clouds judgment. the aforementioned slicing was soon accompanied by the familiar rush of anger adrenaline through my blood. then a myriad of questions arise, such as where is the respect, who do they think i am, why should i listen to them and what inanimate object can i destroy to get the anger and disrespect out of me.

i did what i was asked.. i mean told. if the person that i was driving was not someone i considered a friend, and someone that i RESPECTED, i would have been unagreeable to converse with, but i was not that way. anticipation clouded my judgment, but there was enough sun peeking through to help me see respect. the sun helped me realize that it wasn't the extra effort that i was fighting for, because i gave my extra effort all the time. what i was fighting for was my own choices and choosing for myself instead of demands disguised as choices. as i dropped my friend off, we engaged in some small talk about my looking for work, and my explaining how more school doesn't actually help me. by the time it got to her house some 5 minutes from the field, she was telling me her experiences in life and how much difficulties she's had to deal with in her life related to work. that in life, we need to get used to not having things go our own way. so there is no use being stubborn and fighting so much for your way. then i thought about how the asian way is a dictatorship, and no fighting means never getting what you want or deserve. then she said to remember that everything is created and owned by God. our skills and our money and resources are all from God, the Father of lights. if He gives it to us to use, then we can use it.

i don't know when the next time i will see her again. whenever i talked to her, i've appreciated her wisdom, though i couldn't follow everything she said. i drove back to the field confused about whether to still feel angry about being bossed around, or be at peace at some of the wisdom i just received. i returned to the field and played some softball.

it approached 4 o clock. i saw teenagers with baseball gear approach the field, and memories of my softball gathering from last year's surfaced. those memories were simply that bayview village park is a permit park, where leagues can reserve the field. i knew that we will have to relocate, and i eventually came up with seneca hill. clearly my previous year's choice of elkhorn public school was a disaster, as the field was tiny as well as kid covered. i racked my brain and came up with seneca hill, a park which i haven't gone to in years, and secretly hoped for good results from.

the phone rang. the most dangerous part of talking on the cell phone while driving is pulling it out of my pocket. i reached and pulled for my phone and looked to see that i was being called by my tutee.

my goodness it was tuesday afternoon.

all that anticipating clouded my judgment. i picked up the phone, and already started saying frick. i completely forgot i had to tutor today, do you want to just reschedule for thursday? yes that would probably be best. see you thursday. i hung up, and the feeling of disappointment and unprofessionalism washed over me. i couldn't believe i was so stupid to forget something that was consistently scheduled on the same day every week. i ran out of words to say at my mistake, while others in the car consoled me.

softball restarted again. things seem to calm down as things seemed to finally settle down. i got no more surprise phone calls, and the group of people playing came to equilibrium. the clutter in my mind cleared away just a bit for me to realize what i was doing. i looked around and saw that i was the only university graduate among a big group of students playing softball because they just finished a difficult few weeks of exams. and i've been looking for work for approaching a year now, and people that have jobs don't play softball during the day. was this an embarassment? or is this a time to appreciate friends who happen to be in a different life stage from me, and that this is my time to share with them? which one is it? should i be proud of myself or embarassed at myself?

maybe it was all these questions going through my head that made me make mistakes during softball. it's all psychological i'm telling you.

i have more thoughts come to me for the rest of the night when i was at fairview, when i ate dinner by myself, and when i watched kickass (why do i have deep thoughts after watching kickass?), but when the day finally ended and i stopped to think about how overwhelming a simple day was, i realized that everything was the same.

everything asked me who i am today.

the problem of sleep #4

final fantasy xiii.

on march 9th, the thirteenth installment of the final fantasy series became available in canada, and on march 10th, my own copy arrived in my own mailbox. i did not hesistate to open it up and get cracking. some of you probably know that i've played and completed final fantasy 3 (6), 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 all close to 100% completion, and my standards for this final fantasy surely will not change. my final fantasy 13 play file is at 80 hours now, which some ppl may be shocked at, but this is nowhere close to my other final fantasy files. this is just the beginning.

so it's been practically a month where i've been dealing with sleep issues again. it's been a while since my last entry about sleep, but the problem that i've been dealing with is as follows: sleeping in until i no longer need to sleep, but that would make me sleep later at night, which causes me to sleep in even later. it's a never ending cycle that doesn't and wouldn't break.

for a very long time i've been trying to find a way to break the cycle. but while i've been experimenting ideas, since i AM awake at night with nothing much to do, i fire up final fantasy and progress my team. sometimes ppl would ask me why i'm staying up so late to play final fantasy. but i would say that it's because i can't sleep that i'm playing final fantasy.

that's what i think. but as time progressed, i started to doubt myself. can i honestly say that final fantasy was having a positive effect on my sleep schedule? i couldn't. but was it having a negative effect on my sleep schedule? i also couldn't say. i was left with arguing with myself which one it was.

life was becoming way too affected by my unconventional sleep schedule. a lot of times i would miss work because i wake up too late and it was just weird to go to work so late. when normal people are tired, i'm not tired at all. and if this was all caused by final fantasy? has my lifelong dedication to the franchise been gradually leading to my demise?

in my days of thinking and working toward my future, i decided to take a course in waterloo on project management. it was a three day course, starting at 9am and ending at 430pm. with an average wake up time of 130pm on a regular basis, waking up at 8am for 3 days in a row and staying awake for 8 hours straight is most certainly impossible with my track record. i had to start thinking of a contingency plan. i tried staying up all night and then sleeping early next day after tiring myself out, but that generally led to sleeping over 12 hours. i tried staying up late (or on time) and then waking up early for church the next day.. and then with 4 hours more sleep than the all nighter method, i tried sleeping early. but i still ended up sleeping some 13 hours, and couldn't sleep early the next day. it got to a point where i considered taking sleeping pills early in the evening and then sleep, but the only thing that deterred me was how i would explain to my mom why i want sleeping pills... and also how it might screw up my body. in the end, i decided to put myself through the pain of putting my alarm clock not only hard to reach in my room.. but completely outside of my room. i put my alarm clock high up on a desk outside of my room and gave it a shot. the first day, i got up to turn it off and then went back to sleep, and slept for 2 more hours until 1pm. seemed like a failure. but the NEXT day, for some reason i was able to wake up at 11ish. and the next day after that, i was able to wake up at 10. and then by sunday, i woke up just fine for church, and monday being the start of my project management course, i didn't have too much problem getting up at around 830am. and i did get up for 3 days consecutively with not much problem.

i'm starting to feel a bit like a normal person again. i wonder why in the world i start feeling tired before midnight, but apparently everyone is like that. but if things go well, this may be the last mention of the problem of sleep. i guess now i feel like i can play more final fantasy.