March 7, 2021 11:57 AM
How to get more sleep at night
I was dealing with insomnia for about three weeks during this past month. I know quite a few people that have had trouble sleeping throughout their whole lives. But that's not me. When I go to bed, it takes me a few minutes to fall asleep, and then I usually end up sleeping more than 8 hours. I feel restless if it takes more than 5 minutes for me to fall asleep.
So you can imagine how maddening it was for me to not be able to sleep. I would wake up after a few hours of sleep and just stay awake for hours more, feeling so tired, but not being able to do anything about it. So, I did what I always do when I'm having a problem: I asked people for advice.
Just take some melatonin!
Nope, nope, nope, that's a last resort.
Try meditating.
Man, meditating is hard. I tried this over the past summer when I found myself consistently waking up way earlier than I wanted to. I don't think I ever figured it out.
Use a humidifier.
My nose gets stuffed up every night (and this is a problem I've had all my life) but it definitely makes it harder for me to fall back asleep. I think the increased humidity helps.
Take it easy.
Yeah, I know. I know this is mainly caused by increased stress. I cleared a lot of things off my plate at work. I started taking naps during the day. I took a break from most of my side projects. I think it helped.
Get more exercise. Do some yoga.
Taking long walks, helping a friend move, making my runs longer--that all was to the effect of getting more exercise. I think it helped. I thought about the yoga thing, but yoga is boring.
Turn the heat down in the bedroom and use a weighted blanket.
Okay I think this actually helped a lot. I turned off the heat completely in my room, and I started sleeping with three blankets. Thanks co-worker.
Call me at night to get your thoughts out.
"I know this is a saying, but I mean this literally. Whatever helps you sleep at night."
Thanks sister.
I don't think I feel completely normal again, but it's a lot better now. Better enough for me to write a blog post about it, and for me to make some ascii art.
.-~~-. / .", \ \ ; ; \ {`'~.,-.,',-~-. '. ; : .,_,' `'._.'`~. ! ,' ,'`'.,.' | .-~' ~' |,' .' `~-. |'-=' '. '| ,.,.,.,`='|,.,., A lot of the times when I try to make ascii art, it's a huge struggle. But this, this flower, let's call it a daisy, just kind of came together.
February 3, 2021 9:50 PM
This is what I love about my job
On Monday, I had an issue that I needed to investigate. I work on property tax software, and our client had asked why there was a pending refund on a bill from years ago. The business analysts (BAs) that looked into this weren't able to make sense of the numbers, so they asked for a developer's help.
So I'm asking the BAs questions on things that I definitely should have learned in my property tax training two years ago. I'm scribbling tax amounts in my notebook and doing math and getting confused because none of the numbers I'm getting match what our tax software was generating. There are taxes and fees and penalties and they weren't adding up. But I'd ask another clarifying question. And I'd redo my math. And I kept doing that, until it all clicked.
I explain it to the BA, and everything finally makes sense to him too. He in turn explains it to the client.
Client: Thank you for the detailed explanation, [BusinessAnalyst]! I will go ahead and approve the refunds to be processed now that we have a better understanding of why they were generated and how it was calculated. Really appreciate it!
Business Analyst: Thanks again on this one Kirsten. The county appreciated the detailed explanation (which I adapted from what you provided)
There's just something really satisfying about taking something complicated and confusing, making sense of it, explaining it to someone else, and seeing it all click in their head too.
January 18, 2021 8:11 PM
Highlights of my vacation
Well, more like highlights of my time-at-home-with-family
- Playing Merv with my cousins after spending an hour reading the instructions and another half hour explaining the rules to them
- Gambling my money on "Fish Prawn Crab" with family and seeing my grandpa laugh
- Getting sucked into watching Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist
- Teaching my cousin how to solve a Rubik's Cube, and seeing her make a story to help her solve the second layer
- Listening to my co-workers talk enthusiastically about 3D printing
- Making a meal for my dad
- Having arguments with my mom and aunt that turn into heart-to-hearts
January 17, 2021 9:26 AM
How to not work so much
This past week at work, I felt like I was running around like crazy. And I mean literally running. I've been working at my aunt's house, so I don't really have a designated working area. Sometimes I have a meeting where I need it to be a little more quiet, and I don't realize it until a minute before the meeting starts and I'm like "Shit!" and I run from room to room just to make sure I'm set up correctly.
So, it was Friday afternoon, probably around 5:30pm, when my friend pings me:
friend: you work too much
me: i know i do
This is not the first time she has told me I work too much. I tell her the same thing all the time. But it hit differently this time. I always have a reason for why work is so busy. But you know what? Work is not going to get any less busy. I told myself I would work less this year. It was even in my end-of-year performance review that I'm always swamped and have too much on my plate. But with the way things are going, I don't see 2021 going any differently than 2020.
I told my mom this. Her reaction? "You like work! Nothing wrong with that! That's just life!" Okay, not helpful mother. But then again, my mother also works a lot. My father works a lot. I am both my mother's and father's daughter. And so is my sister, and we're all a bunch of sleep deprived workaholics. I honestly don't know how to work less. Yeah, I could take vacation, but that only helps when I'm on vacation. I get back to work and I go from 0 to 100 almost immediately. I need to achieve work/life balance again.
So, I needed real, practical advice. I asked friends and other family, and this is what I got:
- Have a hard cutoff time at the end of the day.
- Plan to do things outside of work.
- Keep a checklist of things you need to do.
- Delegate.
- Find a way to take your mind off work. Take more walks.
Okay. A lot of this was easier before the pandemic. But it's still going to be a socially distant 2021, so I gotta make this work with the pandemic.
November 17, 2020 10:03 PM
My DDR quarantine goal
Back when the pandemic first started, I gave myself a quarantine goal of getting an A in every single song in Dance Dance Revolution Konamix. Now I love DDR, and I guess I'm decent at it, but not amazing. But this is a really old version of DDR for the PS1. Getting an A in Konamix means getting a FULL COMBO--nothing but Greats and Perfects. (Marvelous didn't exist in this version)
,=. .*. ,'. ,=. ,+ ,+ . | | . ,+ +. +. +. ,+ -----. + `.| |.' + ,+ +. .===== +. + =====' `+ ` ` +' + .'| |`. + '----- + `+ '+ `+ +' `' | | `' +' +' `=' `-' '-' `=' These arrows were a lot of work to type out.
All of the songs in Konamix have a level from 1-9, 1 being easy and 9 being the hardest. Nowadays, the highest level is 20. The hardest songs in Konamix miiight be a 13 in today's scale. So, getting a full combo on all of them? Totally doable.
EXCEPT, I'm in a second floor apartment and all I have are crappy foam dance pads. Each one seems to have a different arrow that's at least a little broken. Konamix also didn't have a lot of options. Pretty much everyone speeds up the arrows now, but you have to read everything at 1x in Konamix. And on top of all that the backgrounds are suuuuper trippy.
Anyway, this was a really silly quarantine goal, and to be honest, I didn't actually think I was going to finish this because of my pads misfiring ALL. THE. TIME. But! I was determined! And on Sunday I finally achieved my goal. It only took many months and many, many attempts at playing Drop Out.
<< More Recent Older >>