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July 20, 2005
blogging as a form of procrastination
here is a new one -- its 3AM and i have work to do. i have something that i told my boss that i would get done by tomorrow morning, or should i say this morning. which actually means in a few hours. and yet, i have absolutely no desire to get started on it. its kind of sad actually. i've been surfing for a few hours, and now an entry to prolong the wait until i actually do the work.
why am i such a night owl? i like to say that its because my parents raised me with a strict bedtime of 8:30PM. . . .until the tenth grade. that's when i negotiated and got them to move it to 10:30PM (this is why i didn't follow my dream of becoming a hostage negotiator). no, i wasn't raised in an amish household, my parents were actually quite forward-thinking and chose logic over tradition in what they taught me. but they strongly believe in a good night's sleep (and still do). another sleep-related rule, while in high school, i wasn't allowed to drive unless i had gotten 8 hours of sleep.
unfortunately, that is one lesson that i can't seem to take to heart. i started staying up late in college, but then again, everyone does that. for many, its the first taste of absolute freedom (especially if you move out of your parents' place). when i first started working, i actually treated it like college too, which wasn't a good idea (cutting class is much easier than blowing off work). i did try to live like a normal little drone occasionally, sleeping early to get up early, but i kept finding things to occupy the late night time. Online chatting, computer games, surfing. . .it also amuses me that most of my friends have realized the benefit of that good night of sleep and are hitting the sack at midnight or before, while i still stubbornly keep crazy hours. That's another reason I think I stay awake -- its a (very stupid) way of saying that, "Hey, I'm young, I can still pull this off". Although in all honesty, its harder to do 5 hours of sleep and be fresh the next day. I think my body compensates by crashing for extra hours on the weekends, when I used to not need that.
And the next big excuse I have for this is back when jenn and i were dating. we got into this habit of being homebodies most nights we saw each other and eventually catnapping before we had to wake up and I'd drive her back to her parents' house at in the wee hours of the morning. Which made me wide awake (ok not that awake) once i returned home. I think that's when I (finally) got into networked FPS computer games, specifically Castle Wolfenstein: Return to Enemy Territory. Why?
a) I finally got high-speed internet for the house for the first time in my life, having exhausted the excuse of "hey, i have it at work, why pay for it at home"
b) this particular game is a free download. Why yes, I am cheap.
That *really* started screwing up my system when I would drop Jenn off at 1AM or so, get back home, and get on the game server and play until 5AM, and get into work at 10AM or so. I don't do that anymore, although I do play now and then.
Naomi's sleep habits are my newest excuse for being up at these odd hours. As a matter of fact, we put her to sleep on my side of the bed tonight (sometimes, she likes sleeping in our bed) so when i *do* finally go to sleep, it will be on one of the futons.
hey, what do you know? i'm actually feeling tired now. i must be boring myself to sleep. there's a thought.
Posted by spoof747 at July 20, 2005 03:16 AM