#270 - saying hi, wavicles, the problem with sleep

whoa! a three-part blog today? what's going on? this is what happens when i have the day all to myself and my brain keeps running along with no one to tell all my dumb, i mean, incredibly brilliant thoughts to that pop in and out of my head throughout the day. then all those gems of brilliance pile up in my head and i've finally got to purge them in blog form. like today, i woke up WAY early (9:26 am, but i'll get to that in part 3), got a visit from the 3 yo nephew and sister, made and ate breakfast, went to the gym, grabbed lunch, bought a pineapple, went to the beach, got rained on at the beach, almost left the beach, saw clearing skies, stayed at the beach a little longer, came home, cut and ate previously mentioned pineapple, had dinner, watched so you think you can dance (too bad they kicked off that philip guy last week, that dude was sick, in the good way), and now i'm writing this post. uh, my point was...

PART 1 - saying hi
i went through the whole day today with minimal social interaction. on most non-work days i'd probably call that a success (see previous post detailing my sheldon-like tendencies), but since i'm not working at all this summer i could probably use a little more human interaction in my daily life. doesn't mean i try to avoid people, i just have this combination of shyness and egocentrism that makes me come off as aloof sometimes (or so i've been told, the aloof part, i mean). i try to say hi to people, but it gets awkward y'know? like when you see someone you know, but not too well, walking toward you from a distance, when do you lift your head and finally say "hi?" if you're too early then you get the awkward silence as you're both still walking toward each other with nothing more to say, or you feel like you have to fill the void with inane banter until you pass, and then if you look stupid if you try and pull topics out of mid-air or if you actually do pick a conversation starter then it's awkward when you finally get to each other and then have to decide if you're going to stop and talk or keep going. and then if you make eye contact too late they'll think you're rude or maybe you both do it at the same time and then you both say something dumb at the same time and it's too late for anyone to recover! it's a mess.

anyway, so i've been trying to be more friendly to random people. it's easy at the beach, especially with haole tourists, but recently people have not been very friendly to me. like i'll try and make eye contact and say "hi" or "nice day" or "small waves, too bad huh?" or something dumb like that, but it's not so easy to get eye contact back, and then i look like a weirdo. but what's been even harder has been trying to say "hi" to my neighbors in this townhouse complex. man, it's so hard to get anyone's attention. i mean, it's cool that everyone kinda keeps to themselves and doesn't really bother with other people (i actually LOVE that about this neighborhood), but sometimes you just wanna say hi when you're walking to the mailbox and lately i've been getting the shaft man, geez. what's up with that? need more practice i guess...

PART 2 - wavicles
another thing i'm trying to do this summer is read more. i think reading would be a good "pass the time" hobby, especially at work, haha. anyway, i've been reading a book on quantum physics. i never liked physics in high school or college because thanks to phiga and her ill-conceived tofu tub experiment i've learned that pretty much any physics experiment that you do on the planet earth will fail. energy equations, friction coefficients, mass calculation, they all depend on pure conditions... of which we have NONE on the planet earth. but, theoretical physics is all about failed conditions and not actually producing results (of course, in order to back up those theories you have to tinker with the math or demonstrate principles or create matter, haha, but no one thinks the results are absolute). so the research into grand unifying theory and membrane theory and supersymmetry are totally fascinating to me. i read this book at the beach today (in between rain showers) that was describing the basics of quantum physics, the history of how we came to regard matter as an atom, then the parts of the atom, then how those parts act as particles, and how those parts act as waves, and how light can only sometimes be explained as being a particle, and sometimes be explained as being a wave and how it's so much more appropriate to think of it as both, a "wavicle." anyway, i'm just getting started into to, but i like reading about this kind of stuff so way more than fiction novels, with all that grand romanticized writing and overly elaborate phrase-work, barf. who needs it? get the point and stay there (and when you don't understand what that point is, turn on the discovery channel and have them explain what supersymmetry is).

PART 3 - the problem with sleep
man have i been having many sleep troubles recently or what? and not even recently. thankfully i haven't been having any of those bouts of waking up drenched in sweat in the middle of the night anymore since summer started, but i have been on the craziest sleep schedule. the other day i went to bed at 12:30am (just after midnight), couldn't actually fall asleep for at least an hour, and then woke up at 12:20 pm the next day (just after noon). what the heck? this morning was the very first day i actually woke up before 10 am and stayed awake for the rest of the day, but who know what'll happen tomorrow? i mean, at least it's summer so i can afford the sleeping in, and it would be okay if i was just like "catching up" on missed sleep, but it seems to me like i'll be sleeping this way forever. it's weird. plus y'know how your stress hormone levels rise to help you wake up? man that's been giving me the worst dreams. recently most of them have been about me worrying about still having to get my master's degree even though i'm already working, i keep dreaming that i've still got my research project to do, or i've got one semester of classes still to take and i think, didn't i do this already? and then i wake up SUPER relieved that it was just a dream. crazy sleep. crazy dreams.

well those are all my thoughts. wait one more, i kind a want a new camera. something's gone funky with the washout on this one, see? i guess i could keep tinkering with it, but it's probably time for a new one. and a new phone too. but anyway, so i'm gonna try and sleep well tonight. surf's coming up a bump tomorrow so let's see if i can get out there before noon?