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.