The Samosa Synchronicity

It has been a crazy ride through this year since early March: the last time I posted an entry in this blog. We are now, from this entry, four days away from reaching the halfway point of 2020. I could not muster up any energy or wits to make any effort to write since then. It has been a year that I really don’t wish to put into any chronicle or commit to written memory for posterity. It’s bizarre that I’ve taken time to try writing now because, for one thing, I’m completely exhausted. I’m at the mercy of having to routinely readjust the circadian rhythms again to doing rotations. I really shouldn’t find it so bad, as I’ve had six weeks already to acclimate to it. However, this week overlaps and phases into a period of an unrelentingly loud construction project happening along my street, moving progressively closer to my building since it started four days ago. Enough said about that. On the one hand, I am scared of the realm of alternate thinking and surreal cognitions I get after prolonged sleeplessness and exhaustion, and at the same time, I yet can’t help but to be intrigued and curious about them as well.

Throughout this malaise, I’ve found one strange pattern of coincidental connections that I felt compelled to write out. Last night, while I was in tranced-out stupor, flipping through channels on the television, I came across the movie Pi, a black and white, late-90’s cult film. It was a movie that I had mentioned and explained to one of the people I serve just a few days ago.  I stopped flipping channels, and started re-watching this movie, which is centred on an eccentric, introverted, mathematical genius loner, who is burning out rapidly from doing his research, and suffering from migraines and various other mental afflictions, mostly anxiety disorders, later on including hallucinations and paranoia. Apart from having the genius level for maths, and the hallucinations and paranoia, I found everything else about him quite relatable at this time. It was the mission of the character to find mathematical connections, correlations, and causalities with pi and the stock market. He incidentally finds a mysterious number in his results which sets him on his adventure involving him and his various antagonists. In one scene in the movie, the character (Max) is greeted, (he reacted like he was cornered and accosted), by a lovely South Asian neighbour in his apartment building who was kind enough to offer him some samosas. I then yielded to my own exhaustion and soon managed to fall asleep in front of the TV right after that scene. I recalled as I watched that show that the last entry I wrote here was related to the subject of Pi. I reviewed it because I had nothing else to do. Shortly after doing that this afternoon, out of the blue, one of my neighbours, who is originally from India, approached me and kindly offered me, of all the possible foods she could have offered me, samosas. I think I reacted being quite weirded out by this wild moment of synchronicity, perhaps shocking her a bit by such an expression I’m sure my face had, freaking out in the inside of me at the realization of this coincidence, falling short of reacting the way Max Cohen did when his neighbour approached him.. The samosas were delicious by the way. The strange and fateful way at which they seemed to have miraculously manifested themselves to me made me appreciate them even more.  

It’s perhaps not as enthralling and fortunate as a story akin to dreaming of winning a lottery, and then finding oneself holding the prize ticket the next day, but delightfully strange and surprising, nonetheless. I debate to myself if this is an actual genuine instance of the so-called Law of Attraction, or if it is something else viewed through a more cynical lens. Through this huge onslaught of life being put on hold due to isolation, people being over-saturated in solitude, and with everything else of interest beyond our homes being postponed or cancelled, the modality of some people is to desperately find some means of creating some sort of connections through more unconventional instances and applying meaning to them, no matter how non sequitur they are. Maybe I’ve just become desperate to find some better examples of humanity apart from the constant barrage of social ignorance and political idiocy from the news each day; trying hard to find such a thing . . . looking to find it even if it comes as a currency of  little golden treasures of triangular crispy tidbits of yumminess. Four months is a long time to be forced to be isolating oneself, and then when you do engage with people, you’re most likely forced to be confronted and contending with the obvious dissatisfaction, boredom, negativity, anxiety/depression they are burdened with, on top of trying to manage your own. A simple kind gesture like this throws a brick through the mirrors and windows of negativity, especially to someone who is an essential worker who is risking themselves and who is giving all the time, and getting very little back during times like these.
  
Better days are coming I’m sure; I’m not completely pessimistic. My spirits lifted a bit seeing a project successfully completed and meeting up with my family last weekend, even though there was some pain to endure. Whatever comes as betterment during these times, I’m open to it arriving as some semblance of it feeling like the realm normalcy, and not just uncanny, but welcome, spontaneous manifestations of deep-fried savory pastries.

Pi Day Ponderings in Self-Isolation

I write this with a strange mixture of feelings and reckonings. Since my last post, and watching the ever more graver state of the news broadcasts, I am thankful that we squeaked under the wire for leaving and returning from our flyaway holiday just in time before the travel advisories and restrictions are starting to come effect for international travel. I’m also feeling utterly hapless with the fact that just because I did international travel, and then soon after started showing symptoms of sinus congestion and sore throat, that I’m relegated to self-isolate for a long while as a precaution. I have indeed been sick, most likely with some form the common cold. I dutifully reported my symptoms, after several attempts to contact the government health line, and I am still waiting for a response about any future action I may need to take. I’m certain that it is just the same old gross, phlegmy/snotty mess of a cold bug that I get almost every year during late February and early March, when the temperatures begin to wildly fluctuate as spring thaw approaches. I’m quite certain that it’s not Covid-19 (no shortness of breath or fever); just other stuff that coincides with all the remaining other Corona virus symptoms. However, given that I’m in a slightly weakened state, and my immune system is now compromised trying to manage this current bunch of junk, I don’t need to go wandering around and being pounced on by the Corona virus as well. If I do put myself in a place of sharing this wretched cold to a person in my circle of friends and work, who may be already even more immune-suppressed than I am, I further increase their chances for the actual acquisition of the Covid-19 thing while they are battling the same cold.

Sure, this virus can be potential fatal, for a select, vulnerable, cross-section of the population; just like the flu always was, is, and most likely continue to be. Last season, influenza killed more people worldwide than Covid-19 currently has now, a disease which is now on the decline according to some reports. However, for the flu, no one went crazy then and cleared out all the shelves in grocery shops. The thing that bothers me most about it is the absurd amount of hype, the fearmongering, and irrational panicking, because it is so novel as a disease; not as well-established historically as the flu is. The same way that terrorist attacks are over-reported when there are a relatively small number of casualties compared to the other types of tragic mortalities happening in the world that are set in a less dramatic framework. I'm grateful that this nation isn't yet so inundated with active cases compared to some others. We may not be much better as a population here in Canada in avoiding a full-blown epidemic, but we at least have a government that is more willing to put aside partisan issues to face this thing, who are more willing to listen to medical science, and are willing to work on the problem more rationally. We at least had a bill passed to secure the first stages of getting universal Pharmacare in place before this before parliament recessed in response to this outbreak. As far as this government's response, I'm at least thankful that we can perhaps respond better to all this because we don't have an Antichrist to science, like the Americans have who is leading their political shit show. I'm proud to say that Canadian researchers have been amongst the first to get successful steps for vaccine development for this thing. I’m not getting fearful or panicky, but I’m not going to be so stupid as to slough off prudence either. Given what I got to deal with, prudence demands that I have to self-isolate for a while as a precaution. I’m over the hump of it now, and I have been getting increasingly better. As much as I feel that that I’m getting touched in the head with some boredom, and feel that this is ultimately may be a squandering of my accumulated sick time, I’ll play the game right, and at least have a clearer conscience for doing so. Decongestants, drinking hot fluids, and some extra sleep have helped the most.

With all the extra time off, the mind tends to wander to far away strange places, in lieu of not allowing my physical self to veer far from home. My self-isolation phases into Pi (π) Day. I slapped down some random thoughts and observations to entertain myself mathematically whilst I’m here alone, doing my part to flatten the curve. In honour of this day, and since I’m stuck inside and have SFA else to do, I decided to apply pi (π) in a practical manner with respect to this latest pandemic.

·      They say now that generally the minimal safe zone for oneself out in public, to avoid contracting this new pestilence, is about a two-metre radius. With π in the equation, that means that there is a personal space circle around you that is about 12.6 m² of circular area around you that is your buffer zone. I have an easier, less abstract, and more convenient and discreet method of measuring to use for keeping people at their distance away from me. It is called a dog on a leash. The full extension of my dog’s leash is two metres long. I’m safer from everyone, as they are them from me, if they are beyond the range of the dog’s nose while I’m walking her.

·        The hoarding behaviour people are resorting to is ridiculous and getting out of hand. Over-supplying for yourself means under-supplying for everyone else of critical needs. You don’t have to be a Game Theory mathematician to figure this out. The real notable idiocy happening now being the hoarding of toilet paper. If you are guilty of doing this, here’s an equation (simplified)¹ with a practical use of π that might help you smarten up a bit:  N (1 – (πR₁^{2 /}πR₀²))/ [Δt] = S. With N being the number of squares in fresh new roll of toilet paper (usually listed on the package, you shouldn’t have to count), R₀ being the initial measured radius before usage, R₁ being the final radius measurement of your TP roll and Δt being the increment of time (let’s just call it a day) between initial and final radius measurement of the roll. That’s it! You’ve just computed your actual toilet paper consumption in squares of toilet paper per day in your household (S). Calculating S/N(14) equals the number of rolls of toilet paper you’ll likely be using for a 14 day quarantine period (Q). Subtract Q from all the surplus rolls of toilet you have bought and have in extra stock: E for excess. Divide that difference by Q: (E-Q)/Q =A. Assuming that you are within the realm of average as everyone else in terms of bathroom usage, that final quotient (A) then is roughly the number of people you’ve basically deprived of toilet paper, screwing them over and pissing them off with your irrational panic-driven stupidity for the 14 day quarantine period. The higher the number, the higher the likelihood that you are indeed a stupid prick with absolutely no sense of practical rationing, nor any concern for your fellow citizens. If you’ve hoarded toilet paper during this time, congratulations! Through π, you now have been assigned an ascending ranking numerical value of how much of an asshole (A) you are by creating more chaos and crisis by doing so. It somehow comforts me to know that there are quantifiable numbers with which to calibrate and apply to people on specific degrees of stupidity they exhibit instead of just using a fuzzy vague judgement or a glib opinion. Please note that if you are using more than one roll of toilet paper per day for yourself, you probably got a more serious problem going on than risking contracting Covid-19. If your number is negative, you do indeed have a shortage problem, and I’d then suggest that you definitely lay off the spicy food for the next while!

·       I can’t help but to notice that the shape and form of the Corona virus itself is a testament to the geometrical intricacies of π. If there were vertices attached to the outer protruding crown ends of the viral body, it would very much take the shape of a geodesic sphere, a structure intensively governed by the ratios of π.  If it weren’t so potentially deadly I’d find it rather beautiful in its unique sort of symmetry.

·      The number π is also used for studying population dynamics in various ways, used in weird and wild esoteric equations which I don’t have all day to study or explain here. It’s a constant in the bell shaped curve in statistics. No doubt it is now being used intensively to track the spread, and to factor in environmental conditions that prevent it from spreading. I would be interested in knowing if it could be useful in predicting any correlation between the likelihood of increased disease presence in a sample population where there are overt instances of hoarding behaviour in a particular sector. I would like to think that there would be a divine justice in store for those who are overly competitive and less cooperative.

I have a few more days to go before I can head back to work, and I’m sure I’ll be having to review and follow newer procedures for hygiene and prevention once I return. Pi might be less relevant in adjusting to the long lapse. I’m having less stress about this stuff with just living day to day, one moment at a time. It helps to avoid the news too; if it ever becomes worse, I’m sure it will find me somehow. As for now, I extend a wish for everyone else to stay well as we go through this course of enduring both of what is the dreamt up hype and what the actual consequential havoc is of this matter together, with hopes that this all transpires as smoothly and peaceful as possible; hoping it passes us all by sooner than later, with minimal troubles, grief, and suffering to my friends and family at risk of being directly and indirectly afflicted and affected. I’m confident that we’ll get through this ok. If I wasn’t my last entry wouldn’t have so much mentioned about toilet paper rolls.

If being penned up inside alone with nothing to do but clean my place, ration my foodstuffs to avoid shopping, binge watch TV, read, play music, catch up on TED talks, tile together jigsaw puzzles, and play with equations involving transcendental numbers for entertainment's sake and writing about it all is the worst it gets for me through this phase of clearing myself of pathogens, I'll consider myself lucky and be thankful for it, and use the time to work on myself for a change.

1 When determining the usable circular area cross-section area of a roll of toilet paper, you have to account for the interior hollow circle of the subtracted from the area of the usable part of the roll, radius dimension for that designated “r”. Thus, πR₀² – πr² is the true cross-section of material area of the initial whole roll, and πR₁² - πr² for the final measurement of the day. Conveniently, in the division, - πr² cancels out for simplicity. The equation is then converted to represent for proportional relation of a unit roll of toilet paper. I recommend measuring in centimetres, decimalized metric is easier to calculate and more precise. A square of toilet paper is roughly 10 cm x 10 cm if you want to test yourself with volume formulas. You’re on your own if you want to figure out your consumption per use by cm². I can’t say that I’m that bloody curious as to know that myself.

The 14th of 14 days

I just arrived home from work tonight, sitting outside on my deck and watching the supermoon in all its fullness, at least for a little while before it becomes enshrouded with the approaching inky black clouds. I'm thankful for the bit of a break from the cloudiness and rain that stuck itself here for the past few days. The thought of heading out for a nightcap somewhere came, but it quickly passed. The truth is that I'm frustrated and tired; so far away from being my ideal self to even think of wandering into some pub, or attempting to be social. I'm all "peopled out"; yet I need some safe way to vent. So, I chose this route.

Between my regular job and union business, I've had a fourteen day workweek. Today was the last day of it all, and the two days off coming up will be less than ideal weather-wise. I always used to look forward to this day: the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. But now, I'm less than enthused. I'm so bankrupt energy-wise. I only feel darkening days coming ahead, both figuratively and literally. Nothing but cloudy skies and rain is in the forecast, and a possible oncoming surge of swelling river due to the havoc happening in Alberta right now. There have been power outages, and probably more to come with the predicted thunderstorms. I doubt if it will be enjoyable, or long enough to refresh me, knowing that this coming Monday I'll just be stepping into a scene of negotiations that's going to make me want to go ballistic and tear my own hair out.

One thing that has been draining me is brooding with a lot of anger. As good as it was to attend my local's convention this past Wednesday and Thursday, gaining such an overload of information and sobering picture of the facts in the report card of what these graft-fed provincial and federal governments are doing to our Crown businesses, public sectors, healthcare sectors, and the stupid amendments of our labour laws, that impact not just unionized labour, but all workers in this province, has left me completely disillusioned with right wing politics. I've given up hope in thinking that anything political will ever serve as salvation a long time ago. We live under a regime that wants to control us by enslaving us with debt, poverty, and corporate influence, and they threaten us more with messing with the terms of hours worked effecting overtime pay, and stripping us of our right to take strike action.

I hope there is someone around next time to slap some sense into me before I allow myself to take on another string days like this again. I'll close this now before I get even more enraged as I start elaborating on the topic. The best thing I can do for myself for the next couple days is to do anything else than be a miserable bastard. I just don't know what or where in my private home life that I should pick up on out of the numerous things around here that seem to have been neglected in the past two weeks.

12/12/12

Other than coincidental order of the date numerals for this day, of this month, of this year, there is nothing especially notable about it, except for feeling perhaps the onset of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) coming on strongly within this past week: given the temperatures falling below -20 C, the wind, and cloudy snowy skies. I'm more de-energized than cold really. Walking to and from work, the bare minimum of exercise that I feel I need to do in a given day, only serves to drain me instead of invigorating and helping me to focus like it usually does. Nothing of significance at home seems to give me interest anymore, or I just can't seem to put my mind into whatever I'm doing: organizing and doing the simplest of tasks are just giving me constant headaches and overwhelming me. I'm totally unmotivated to even leave home, and knowing that I still have holiday shopping to do isn't helping me either. My appetite is gone, and when I do eat, I'm tending to fail to do so mindfully. I'm going to stop the complaining now, before the other myriad reasons, bad news, and negativity in work and life that are bringing me down get subjected to more examination, and start anchoring themselves in my head.

The latest thing I've been researching, since I got into skiing this winter, is Nordic pole walking. I've noted that the skiing has been improving my posture a bit, and I think it's due to strengthening my core muscles by using the poles. I'm hoping that the poles may help to normalize my stance while trying to walk on the icy streets outside may help in curing my sciatic pain. Hunching over, and staring at the feet constantly while trying to avoid slipping I'm sure is doing me no favours beyond fall prevention. Hunching over is also the stance of depression/non-confidence, and I'm desperate enough to try a remove the symptoms/remove the disease kind of logic. Re-posturing myself with this exercise may help reverse some of the psychological symptoms of depression as well.

I wish 12/12/12 would be something really special, since it's the only date that will appear in this form in my lifetime, but as it is, I'm just wishing that it were something else than it is now, or what I'm expecting it to be.

Black Friday/Buy Nothing Day

Today was payday, and a day off. A typical kind of day where I devote a bit of my morning to tabulate my budget and pay my bills. Just for shits and giggles; just to force myself to think outside the box a bit, I performed the whole operation with one of my desk toys: a Chinese abacus. I sometimes use it for place holding numbers when I don't have a pen handy.* Most of the time though, it's just a fidgeting toy that I use when I'm lost in contemplation, like some sort of more scientific form of rosary beads. I suppose I keep it around as a reminder that sometimes solutions to majorly complicated problems can be found by using and focusing on the simplest of things.

An interesting bit of math trivia: if you used an average of one
 second to move the counters, non-stop, on a 13 column abacus,
like this one, to represent each and all of the total possible counter
 positions, just once, it would take 659,839,939 years to do it.
(. . . and no, I didn't calculate all that using this thing.)

Noting what today was, I couldn't help but to assume that budgeting and bill paying are the complete opposite things of what many of the Americans are doing right now, that is going overboard and getting deeper in debt with manic episodes of shopping. That is, today is also Black Friday, the day when the neighbours to the south go berserk and stampede into shopping malls in a greed driven frenzy. Reading an article about it in a complimentary issue of today's issue of The Globe and Mail prompted me a little more to look into this phenomenon, of how the cross-border shopping is impacting Canadian retailers. To be honest: either probably because I'm that disinterested in shopping, or I'm that indifferent or oblivious to the traditions of American holidays, I never even heard of the phenomenon of Black Friday until relatively recently in my life, probably about five years ago. That seems to be when Canadian news media started to shine more of a spotlight on this insanity. Now, there are even Black Friday sales here in Canada at this week of the year, despite the fact that our Thanksgiving Day is in October.** I notice "Cyber Monday" is becoming a bigger hyped-up deal here each year, to get supposedly big savings, with an adequate window of processing/shipping time before Christmas for online purchases of material items made at some domestic and US vendors. I've included this Wikipedia link about it, which better explains the how and why Canada's burgeoning involvement with this retail world wildness. What floors me about the figures in the table lower on this page, just before the references, is just the ever rising Total Billions Spent after the year of the big American financial crisis. All the news during the years of record high home foreclosures, and personal bankruptcies, and the consequences of being overburdened with debt didn't apparently sink in with the American consumers around holiday time. 

 

It's a ridiculous time of year when I hear the odd story about how many people got trampled to death down there when crowds charge at the doors when the malls and stores open for it. I'm sure I'll hear the other odd report about how many morons died of exposure because they had a tent pitched and camped outside a store two days in advance of its opening. I'm not at all sympathetic to such people. If they are that idiotic to allow themselves to forsake their own safety to get a discount iPad or a cheap pair of designer shoes, and willingly be at the wrong place at the wrong time, I say screw'em. That's just Darwinism doing its thing. I really won't shed any tears about there being a few less idiots, and greedy shitheads walking the face of this Earth. The topic of Black Friday only jolted some interest and concern in me because my parents are on a holiday tour in the United States right now. I'm hoping that they, and their tour group, had some good sense to steer clear of the insanity in their shopping malls down there today. Businesses and corporations control most of the mainstream news of course, so sure there is a lot of media hype about Black Friday on the business perspective to make the year end sound positive, but we sure as hell don't hear much about the following reality of "In-the-Red January" from the consumer end of the deal in the news.

 

My fourth Friday (or whole weekend) of November tradition is coming to be "Buy Nothing Day", an idea promoted by Adbusters magazine, to use it for anything else besides shopping and needless consumption, and to stop business/corporate control of the holidays. I'm also not keen on being part of the hyped up madness of Boxing Day sales: the Canadian equivalent to Black Friday. That leads to the question, what can one do to get into the spirit of the season, without spending money on anything? I thought of these things as answers to give:

 

• Make an appointment to donate blood/platelets: A way to be charitable without giving money. Go to your Canadian Blood Services clinic(or your nation's respective agency clinic for blood donations). If you never have done it before, at least get tested for eligibility. Everyone has it, everyone needs it. The best gift you may be able to provide is to help someone else survive to see another Christmas.***
• Sort through closets/drawers; donate clothing and other articles to good will charities and agencies: The thought of irony that really disgusts me is knowing that there were probably some Americans, perhaps during some moment in prayer with their families, who were stating how thankful they were for whatever type of abundance they have during their Thanksgiving dinner; who now a day later, some of these same people became part of the stampeding hordes of assholes who would trample over someone else to get through a WalMart entrance somewhere to buy more shit to hoard. That seems pretty insincere to me. If you are really that fortunate and secure with your so-called abundance, you wouldn't need to walk over somebody's face to get some cheap piece of crap made in a sweatshop. How greedy can you get? Abundance means you don't have to charge out anywhere to fetch something in near panic mode. Abundance means having more than you actually need. Sort through your crap to know just how much you do really have; if you've outgrown it or neglected it too often, just give it away.
• Turn off your TV, or else make an effort to watch commercials conscientiously: If you choose to watch TV, take a count of exactly how many commercials you viewed, note what the products are, think about how much money you would have to spend that day if you absolutely had to buy each and every one of those products that was pitched to you. Think about how many hours of work and financing that it would really require to both acquire and maintain the product. Ask yourself, "Is this thing really going to make me a better person?", and "What can I do/use instead of that is cheaper, costs nothing?" The outcome of this exercise should hopefully make you angry with allowing yourself to be a tool, and for being dazzled by so much magic in advertising, and this meme-warfare that you are being subjected to every day.
• Walk/Run/Move Your Ass: Start making an effort to take off more pounds during the season than the ones you'll be gaining with all the treats and parties between now and the end of the year. Move around six days a week, binge a bit on the seventh. I didn't say that you can't enjoy the parties, you'd just have to work for them. If you do a well enough job keeping the lard off before New Year's Day, you should have an easier time committing to your resolution after Jan 1st. Don't you think that one reason people are buying clothing so often, is because of exponential weight gains due to inactivity and overeating. Take measures to make it less likely to happen.
• Sit down and make a budget: Make a plan to pay off bills and any other debts you may already have, and live within your means. You don't have get too crazy by using an abacus to do it. Small steps are better than no steps, or totally veering off wildly in the opposite direction.

 “The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket.”- Kim Hubbard

All this stuff that I mentioned could easily keep me occupied throughout the course of Buy Nothing Day. Happy non-shopping everyone!

*- Which is surprisingly often. I use a pen so seldom in my office now that when I do find one, usually while I'm on the phone, more often than not, the ink is dried up in it. An abacus needs no power, and no ink refills.

**- Better now than in October. Out of respect to the veterans, I absolutely refuse to put up Christmas decorations, or even consider holiday shopping before/during Remembrance Day.

***-Another thing that peeves me: hearing a person who talks about, or has actually endured, being poked enough with a needle to be decorated with tattoos and piercings, but admits to me that they would never attempt to donate blood. That's a true sign of a person being shamelessly selfish.

   

 

One Quarter Left: of the Year ... and of Me

October began yesterday, so now we're into the beginning of the final quarter of the year. It opened with me making a platelet donation at Canadian Blood Services, and then going through the futile process of trying to rest before doing my stupid night shift.

I gave up in frustration with trying to rest through the day to prepare for it by trying to bore myself to sleep with studying. I ended up starting and processing a bunch of other household stuff. I hoped that the later sunrise would allow me more wind down time, but it wasn't so. I have three more of them to do before year's end. I do my best to push myself through when I do work them, but I've resolved to not put myself through any future hell of doing anymore of them. I have enough vacation hours and banked stat time to allow me to do so. It's better for both me and the people I serve if I avoid them. I don't want to go to any job, or do any task, or sign up for anything else where I'm reduced to being only 25% (or less), of the kind of person that I want to be; when it becomes such that it reflects both mentally and physically in my performance, which is what is effectively happening when I commit to doing these shifts.

So, I've been awake for more than 36 hours now. Here are a few more peculiarities that I'm noting and learning about me while I'm stricken with this degree of insomnia, with my senses working overtime, and depleted of a few less discretionary mental faculties:

• I try to chill out with music, giving eighties alternative/indy artists a good play over (The Cure, The Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees, David Bowie, The Jesus & Mary Chain, XTC, Joy Division, old school R.E.M., et al.).
• Anything I tried studying the previous day is just not in memory, thus wasted time and a total write off. I have to redo the last unit from my programming manual.
• I get strange and ridiculous surges of hunger that interrupt sleep, and for very carb-loaded foods too. This time I did something out of character and made pancakes ... for myself , after I came home, a true sign that I'm having some sort of a mental breakdown from exhaustion.
• I purposely isolate myself at home to prevent myself from making impulsive purchases while having less than adequate decision-making ability.  
• I get really geared to do something to fix myself better, despite the fatigue, with problem solving strategies by exploring productivity improvement sites, like Mind Tools™ (only after when my eyes aren't hurting too much to read).
• Gobbling up any pain-relieve pill that will sooth the headaches and muscle/eye-soreness, (I usually avoid anything in pill form if I can).
• I try to vent my general edginess and frustration through blogging, hoping that sleep will strike me down soon afterward.

If I'm still not able to sleep after this, my next manoeuvre is to review my stack of scans, sketches, and scribblings to see what of these non-ongoing things are most likely achievable within the next three months. Part of my problem with the lack of headway in some things is the degree of interest diversity I have, and trying to do eight or nine things at a time, rather than just narrowing the focus down to one or two items. My To-Do list really needs to be abbreviated.

I Couldn't Sneak Out Of This One

Since the year began, doing my extra program position time, I have been pretty successful in legitimately getting out of doing my stupid once every four week Monday night shift. I must say that six months of avoiding such a thing has been a pretty good stint. However, I'm aware that situations or people can't accommodate 100% of the time, and fate has to bitchslap me the odd time back into the reality of dealing with them. Of course it would have to happen tonight just because it's less than ideal. I'm pressed into doing it when it's only ten days away from summer solstice, when there is enough bright late evening daylight (even when cloudy like now), and a super early sunrise to screw up my systems really good.

I worked from noon until 3:00 PM today, and threw myself into bed at around 5:00 this afternoon. Amazingly, I did get some sleep, but not nearly enough to cope with tonight. The fates conspired to send some friggin' quasi-mongoloid child to do some loud and random play-shrieking in the school playground close to my building just to alarm and awake me at those exact points that make me feel both disoriented and physically unrested at their respective maxima.

I couldn't return to sleep if I wanted to, at least not in my bed. I felt too hot. The spot where I laid was like a furnace. I noticed Ella, even while she slept, instinctively somnambulated to the furthest corner of the bed to avoid my intense thermal chalk-outline. I finally dared myself to look and see what the actual time was. It was 8:10 PM.

I thought my next best move would be to combat the bodily stiffness I was already feeling, and I was starting to feel hungry. I ate some steak, bean salad, and greens, and had fruit with whipped cream for dessert.

It strikes me now, the major reason that I think I hate night shifts so much: I have never found the mental trick, or special magic override button, to make my body think that forced wakefulness is somehow enjoyable, when all it wants to do sense aches and pains in my joints and muscles, and curl up into a fetal position. I hate it when I can't conquer my own body. No mental tricks are happening because my mind is suffering as well, and it's doing every desperate measure to switch over to self-preservation mode, to ignore all the other secondary systems, and trying to avoid experiencing the physical havoc that the rest of my body senses. I hate watching my wits erode, and being crippled by foggy-headedness and absent-mindedness. These are some of the physiological symptoms of shock. Night shifts are bad and unnerving for me because my body is sincerely and literally undergoing a such a thing. I hate them because there is no such thing as possibly being able to work at my best when I'm stranded there this way.

I see it's nearly 10:00 PM, and I work in another hour. Writing about this was no help for me; all I can do is try to make things go over as smooth as possible. If I still have any marbles left, I'll have to finish this when I wind down next morning.

It's 11:30 AM next morning. I only slept two hours. I was awoken again by a combination of an abnormally vicious hunger and stray noise from outside (even with earplugs in). One more thing to generally mention as a reason as to why I ultimately dislike night shifts: I abhor, and won't tolerate any longer, anything that makes me less of a person than I am, or which steers me away from the kind of person I want to be. I put some kind of effort into improving my fitness by running and strengthening myself everyday; then when after I'm pressed into doing a night shift my body feels too weak to stand after being deprived of any moment I need to recover, leading to sometimes days of clumsiness and restlessness. It violates the standard I set for myself to be better physically. Prior to yesterday, I was balancing and solving complex equations, and reading and texting in other languages. Today, I'm trapped in physically feeling awake, but mentally incapable of even doing simple arithmetic; not remembering where I just placed something, or even what to call something in plain English. This violates the standard I set for myself to become a better person mentally. I was calm and at peace the day before yesterday, confident enough to face adverse and uncomfortable conditions resiliently. Now, I'm irritable enough to stand on the throat of anyone who doesn't let me have any peace. A night shift brings me closer to violating a standard I set for myself for being composed emotionally and having a character integrity that works for the better.

I hate night shifts because they weaken me; when I do one, I am then forced to reflect and admit to myself that I'm still stupid enough to allow all this to happen to me.

Rainy Rest Day Reflection

I’m rather thankful that yesterday was so soggy and cloudy, as it gave me incentive to rest and heal up my legs properly. I only had a three hours of work yesterday, and today is a whole day off. Today, I hit the indoor track and the weight room, as the weather is a continuance of yesterday’s rain and gloom, but tomorrow it will be a 14.5 km trial outside, no matter what the weather throws at me in the morning. The remainder of today was used for menu planning/meal prep, reading, watching a classic comedy on DVD, and throwing on the random Genius mixes of my iTunes player to welcome a little bit of musical serendipity as I did some other research and while I wrote this.

My interests have been drifting all over the place on page and screen: from biomechanics to nutrition; from programming to practical application formulas; from wood-working/carving/cabinetry to container gardening; from travel to navigation/orienteering to mnemonic techniques and linguistics. Just random stuff, I couldn’t nail any one topic down to study with any great intensity or single mindedness; I couldn’t even think of anything that all these things had in common to use as a more meaningful basis for something to focus on. The orienteering stuff was inspired by a trip to Cabela’s today. I always wanted enough practical knowledge in navigation to get myself in and out of the wilderness, or through parts unknown, when I choose to veer off of the beaten paths while hiking, and to be able to do so with simply a compass and map rather than relying on GPS gear with limited battery life. Perhaps looking at the rest of the stuff was me just grasping at any intellectual pursuit to avoid all the cleaning and other household chores I need to do around here.

I know retreating into studying random stuff is probably one habit I use to cope with anxieties: turning instead to the external factual world rather than dealing directly with any internal irrational nervousness I may have. I think I am feeling a bit nervous because I dared myself to sign up for a race that is far ahead in advance of the half-marathon for which I’ve been training, and the realization how soon this new event is approaching has set me a little on edge. It’s only 10 kilometers, but with the little bit of extra added pressure, along with new unknowns, it might as well be a hundred. I have enough awareness of the physical aspects of running: getting to know intimately the limits of my strengths and weaknesses; the psychological part however is still very much a work in progress. I purposely threw this challenge in my way because I really needed to explore how I’d mentally deal with this radically different running environment* and take some of the shock away before I tried my bigger challenge later on this summer. Races are supposed to be fun and interesting challenges for oneself more than anything. I registered for this spontaneously to try to keep it so. Overtraining for any one event only piles on high expectations, and makes things seem more like a duty, and the pleasure in doing it for pleasure’s sake gets lost out of the equation. I’m trying to convert the nervousness into healthy excitement.

I’ve never learned how to settle myself very well when it comes to competitions, examinations, or testing. I always had, and sometimes still have, terrible bouts of performance anxiety. It continues to natter at me sometimes, despite formally studying psychology in some of my adult life. I’ve been guilty of frequently deluding myself and coming up with excuses that were less plausible and crazier sounding than the actual core issue. No test I ever took accounted accurately for what I honestly knew or could do, and I never had a teacher or instructor who ever cared enough to see that pushing through this quirk of mine was the bigger challenge for me than having knowledge of the actual test/subject material.** I don’t need to regale in all the instances and complexities during my lifetime where I’ve suffered badly from it, or how some assholes took advantage of me, and actively exploited/betrayed/ bullied me because of this weakness of mine. What is worse is the anger and rage I feel for myself for allowing it to happen. Admitting this now is hard enough to do; I don’t need to tip my hand any further by explaining how it manifests itself for me. The ways and tools I have at my disposal for dealing with this now are as equally personal and complex. It’s probably the greater part of the reason why I largely prefer to be left alone and independent while I work, play, learn things, or for generally doing almost everything else.

The Saskatchewan Marathon this coming Sunday will be my official inaugural step into the world of actual racing. The truth and reality is such that for now, I’m just a casual jogger; it isn’t until I begin competing alongside with others and wearing a race entrant number tag that I will become an actual runner.

*- I’m used to running alone all the time; running amidst and around throngs of other people is a radically different obstacle to reckon and adjust to for pacing myself.

**- A main reason why I have such a contempt for the education system (or at least the kind that I endured through as a youth). I liked learning; I loathed school.