A combination of persistent poverty, attempting to adjust to a polyphasic sleep schedule, and the holidays do not bode well for trying to stay healthy and get a decent amount of exercise.  In my video titled, "Polymath's Dymaxion Sleep Schedule Experiment:  Cycle 4," I had temporarily managed to keep my sleep schedule consistent for one 24 hour period of time.  But with going back and forth between the Boyfriend's parents' house, and our apartment, I just haven't had the kind of consistency needed for the adjustment.  Right now, I'm back to a de facto Everyman Sleep Schedule.  I've been working on this now for at least a couple of weeks, and it's not getting easier with all of the mistakes I've been making.  I need some kind of a regular schedule where I can just be alone and do what it is I need to do.

I started trying to get healthier this passed summer, and it was working, but all of my effort is going down the drain with all the goddamn food that people want me to eat all the time.  That's one of the problems with being a young adult surrounded by older people, is that they always seem to think you're starving to death--when I clearly am not. 

No, I don't want that fiftieth helping of mashed potatoes!  No, thank you, I don't want any more chocolates, or muffins, or biscuits, or cakes, or pies, or cookies, or pig lard!  And you just can't say these things loud enough.  I don't even like sweets anymore, but these days it's like they're the only thing to eat.  The only breakfast carbohydrates available are in the form of danishes or cupcakes.  This Binge Fest people call the holiday season is probably one of the most infuriating times of the year for me.  And I love food!  Don't get me wrong.  But I really start to hate it when eating it is the only goddamn thing I seem to be doing with my time.  And being uncomfortably full makes it that much more difficult to wake up when I need to.

Not to mention, I've been worried about getting some exercise in when I'm adjusting to the dymaxion sleep schedule because I'm worried that working out before adapting means not waking up on time.  But at this rate, it's not going to make any difference.  The longer I wait to adjust, the more time I have to sit around and get fat, and it's driving me crazy.

When my sister got married, and I got a look at the pictures of myself, I had to face the facts:  I'm overweight.  I'm not fat, and I'm certainly not obese, but I'm getting up there.  My shirts don't fit me as well as they used to, and I only have on pair of jeans that hasn't ripped.  But being broke means I don't have the money to replace any of it.  And having to buy jeans that are one or two sizes bigger than what I wore a couple years ago is going to tear at my soul.

The Boyfriend's metabolism just burns up everything he touches--it's ridiculous.  And with all the eating we've been doing, even he has managed to put on some weight.  I can only imagine how much weight I've probably put on this week. 

Blagh!

I just want to feel the way I used to feel.  This weight just isn't comfortable for me at all.  I can't run very fast anymore--or very far, and these days I almost don't want to try.  I was going to the school gym in the mornings, but now that I've dropped the semester, I'm not sure if I still can.  I would like my early to mid-twenties NOT to be characterized by wanting to lose weight and feeling uncomfortable.  And it has to stop now.

Well, yesterday I crashed.  I left home without my alarm clock and I spent the night at the Boyfriend's parents' house, relying on him to make sure I woke up.  And despite the fact that I make sure he wakes up when he wants to get to work on time, he basically casually mentioned waking up to me, and then let me doze right back on to sleep.  Curses!

Consequently, I decided to take that opportunity to reevaluate my polyphasic sleep adjustment strategies.  As you may have noticed, I started the Budding Polymath Live Show on UStream.  I'm hoping that broadcasting live and recording my progress put me under a much more critical microscope.

I woke up from my six o'clock evening nap about 40 minutes too late tonight, which annoyed me.  I went on a little outing to the other side of the city this afternoon in an attempt to get some fresh air.  It helped some, but the bus was so crowded, it didn't give me much opportunity to get some reading done.  It also wasn't very relaxing, as I'd hoped it would be.

My next nap is at midnight, and that's where the trouble is going to start.  Doing yoga and using Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap to keep perky will help, but I'm also hoping to get some cleaning/reorganizing done.  If there's one thing I can't stand, it's clutter--although the design of this blog may suggest the opposite.  Once I get the clutter situation under some reasonable control, I'm going to engage in another activity that fills me with immense joy:  making schedules.  I need to get my goals organized.  I'll be asking myself questions like:

• "How many fiction and non-fiction books would I like to read per month?"
• "Where should I shop (either in real life or in cyberspace) for the best soy products?"
• "How many pages of my novel would I like to write per month (at a minimum)?"
• "How many novels would I like to write per year?"
• "What kinds of time management and personal development endeavors will I be able to apply to a polyphasic lifestyle?"
• "Which days per week would I like to be studying math, and how many hours per day?"
• "How can I give touching gifts while horribly broke?"
  

etc.

Perhaps the burning desire to actually answer these questions and have concrete goals in mind will get me going faster.  Not to mention, I still have to practice waking up when the alarm goes off.  (Foiled again!)

Graghlshpein...

I've had a headache for a while now, and I gotta take some Advil before I lose my mind.  Is the headache caused by the adjustment to a polyphasic sleep schedule or by all this goddamn dry heat that's evaporating my meat-liquid brain...?

Yesterday, I had another mishap that wasn't as bad as my previous crash, but still rather annoying.  I should have practiced getting up with the alarm again, but I guess I got caught up doing something or other...  Transitioning to a polyphasic sleep schedule has made me a bit intolerable.  When I wake up from one of my naps I typically do not want to be bothered.  The Boyfriend is getting a little fed up with me; but I told him that the payoff would be worth it.  If there isn't a payoff, he's going to be pissed.  I'm pretty determined, though, and I just can't see myself being satisfied with a mono- or biphasic sleep schedule.  I'm tired of feeling mummified.  In any case, despite all of the irritability, I do find it to be a rather enjoyable experience.

Right now, however, I'm still awake and I'm trying to keep it that way.  I'm still considering taking an additional nap at three o'clock, but I think I've got a good momentum here and I don't want to screw it up.  Perhaps giving in to that additional nap is the only way!  I wonder.

On a positive note, I finished braiding my hair, and I think for a first attempt, it didn't come out half badly.  The roots aren't very tight, but I figure it's better that way.  I don't want to feel my throbbing brain while I'm trying to take my naps.  Kinky twists are a great transitioning style, and I'm going to try to keep this doo maintained for as long as possible.  If I have to, I'll occasionally pick a section and re-braid so I don't have to redo it all at once.

Success!  I don't know why I didn't think of doing this sooner!

So...  I'm still awake.  This may be due to my staggering resilience or to the headache, but whatever it is--it's working and I hope it keeps working until I'm adjusted.  I have a little over an hour until my next nap, and although the dymaxion sleep schedule is intended to be more flexible, I don't trust myself to get in an extra nap or to take naps too early or too late.  I want my schedule to be as regular as possible.

Again, besides writing and tweaking this blog, I haven't been doing anything productive.  I'd rather stay awake watching mindless action movies (like Spider-Man 3) than sit around reading the same page of The Architecture of Matter over and over again.

Again today, I didn't get any sun because I got caught up watching movies, but it's probably for the best.  If I'd spent my day walking around, perhaps I would have been too tired to take a short nap?  It's raining right now, and as far as I know, it's going to be raining all day tomorrow, so it'd probably be a good idea to go out and get some air, then come home and get in some chores.  I've been rather grumpy and lazy while adapting, and I'll be glad when it's over.

Someone commenting on another person's potential polyphaser's sleep log said that a good way to stay awake is to play video games.  Unfortunately, the PS3 I bought from Ebay is officially broken, so until I manage to magically get that fixed, I'll have to settle for Kongregate--it's a truly wonderful thing.


Gragh!  I apologize for the gruesome inarticulateness of this entry, and I apologize in advance for the state of future posts while I adjust to a dymaxion sleep schedule.  I just read over what I've written and I realized that it seems rather disjointed.

Although my absence from the intarweb has caused narry a stir to anyone but me (yet!), I'd like to update that I have been experimenting with polyphasic sleep, which is essentially power napping a few times within a 24-hour time frame. Polyphasic sleep schedules make the most sense for polymaths who are looking to make the most out of each day.

For as long as I can remember, I've hated sleeping. My mother has rather exhaustively described how, even as a baby, I remained wide awake into the wee hours of the night, babbling and carrying on in my developing meat-liquid brain. And as an older, but no wiser, primate I have come to resent sleep more and more. About a week ago, the boyfriend stumbled on some article on polyphasic sleep and I was in love! I quickly retreated to my room to engage in some obsessive research which lead me to thinkers like Puredoxyk and Steve Pavlina who have successfully experimented with polyphasic sleep with no discernible adverse effects.

I am essentially on the "Everyman" sleep schedule right now, but that's because I'm trying to adopt Dymaxion and it's been a bit of a bumpy ride. I'm sleeping about 5 hours per 24 hour day, and I'm still working on getting to two. My main problem is waking up during the midnight to dawn stretch. At some point I end up turning my alarm off and going back to sleep for two or three hours. No good. I'm hoping that I can get this down by the Spring semester.

To combat my instinctual morning snooze-pressing, I used a tip from Steve Pavlina: for an hour I practiced getting up as soon as the alarm went off. I set my alarm for five minutes ahead, I crawled into bed with my stuffed leopard, and I snuggled under some comfy blankets--as if I was actually going to sleep. I even closed my eyes and zoned out. After five minutes, when I alarm went off, I immediately planted swung the covers to the side, planted my feet on the floor, turned the alarm off and went to the kitchen to make tea. I did this every five minutes. At noon, when it was time to actually take my nap, the alarm went off at thirty minutes after, and I swung the covers to the side, planted my feet to the floor, and turned the alarm off. I think in my head I thought I was still practicing. I'm going to get in some more practice tomorrow, and hopefully it will be second nature to me soon.

I'll tell you how that goes...

I had heard of A. Garrett Lisi some months ago when there was a short piece about his accomplishments in theoretical physics, but I hadn't "officially" heard about him until a couple days ago when I happened to stumble upon some article about him in a UK online newspaper/magazine--the name of which escapes me at the moment.

And in case you haven't heard--and you most likely haven't--Garrett Lisi is an American man who graduated with a PhD in theoretical physics and then decided to live a nomadic life with his seemingly long-time craftswoman girlfriend in Hawaii. As a van dweller he worked on a paper called "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" (when you can read online for free) that seems to be the only viable rival to string theory in combining all the known forces. I think he's at least on to something big, and the Hadron collider will most likely be one of the determining factors in whether or not his theory is given any more credit.

He's often been described as the "surfer dude" who came up with an alternate theory of everything, but that description doesn't do him much justice in my opinion. Just because he doesn't have any university affiliations or tenure-track professor position doesn't mean he should be dismissed. People seem to think that scientists are completely reasonable people who lack the idiotic feelings of exclusivity and superiority that plague us peons--but it's not true. The reason why his alternate theory of everything has not caused more waves is because he's not part of the club. Period. I'm sure if Brian Greene had decided to apply the E8 shape to the theory of everything, then he would be given a preemptive pat on the back for solving the problem of the universe. Such as it is.

The following is a brief talk he did with TED:


So... Garrett Lisi is my newest hero because he is one example of an independent researcher. Of course, he had to get a doctoral degree before he was able to work on his independent research project, but he didn't have to be a part of The Club in order to get noticed, although it's going to be a little more difficult for his new alternate theory to get any credit. On the other hand, it's very possible that his "Exceptionally Simple" theory of everything is nonsense; because hearing him talk about the beauty, elegance, and symmetry of nature makes me cringe... just a little. Because I think that kind of corny rhetoric is just tasty fodder for creationists and idiots in general. But we'll see.

This morning, for whatever reason, I found myself thinking about my Post-Katrina New Orleans Summer of 2006. Unfortunately, I haven't been back since. I'd been to the South before then, having traveled to Alabama and Mississippi to visit family, but I had never encountered the kind of South that New Orleans embodies. The decadence coupled with the bizarre, and perverse, and poverty-stricken. And I don't say this disparagingly, mind you. I wished that I had encountered New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina, because there seemed to be this dwindling energy about the place that I could only vaguely tap into. It was tense, and intense, and it changed my life. It was so easy for me, as a stuffy north eastern darkie to pick up and leave when I could no longer handle the place, but the people who lived there had to rebuild their lives from the bottom up--their homes were shattered and dispersed, and they were just trying to be strong.

I kept a Xanga account at the time, which I used to chronicle my experiences. Upon my return, I promptly deleted it. I wish I hadn't.

I often describe myself as an atheist, although I enjoy celebrating the changing of the seasons... the natural cycle of the year. So, in some ways I consider myself pagan, but it may be more accurate to describe myself as a heathen. I don't believe there's any overlying purpose to the changing of the seasons, but I don't see any reason not to celebrate the ever-so slight daily shifts of hue, the soft cold of an Autumn day, and the vague hope that it'll snow by Yule. The world can be a beautiful place without a heavenly overseer...

To be quite honest, holidays such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas don't give me a nostalgic feeling at all. All I feel is fear of expectations not met, money not made, bills not paid, family in shambles. In order to focus, I'm going to have to set some kind of monthly goal system. Maybe each month I should try to lose five pounds until I'm down to the weight I was back in my senior year of high school. Maybe every month I should try to read at least one book and write at least one novella-length story from start to finish no matter how shitty I find the idea. This is going to have to be in addition to remembering holidays, people's birthdays, making money, studying, socializing and attempting to plan for the future (within reason).

SIDE NOTE: I'm going to have it make it a new rule to carry around a laptop just in case I want to write some kind of paper, or jot something down. That would also go well with some of my other hypothetical monthly goals.

I just feel like I make too many plans to get more organized, but the actualized organization is lagging slowly behind. And during times like these, it's important to be able to appreciate all of the transient good fortune I've had so far this year, and make sure I don't get my family too worried about me.

After a rather speedy rejection from Demand Studios and maybe two weeks of waiting, Examiner.com has accepted me as their Newark College Life Examiner. WritersWeekly really gave it to Examiner for not providing its writers with a decent livable wage--and I think those criticisms are completely warranted. However, like one former Examiner.com writer commented, if you don't have any experience, and you're willing to write for maybe $100-$200 (average) a month, then Examiner.com is for you. As a broke soon-to-be college graduate, I think writing for $100 a month is a lot better than writing for $0.00 a month. I figure I'll apply to Demand Studios again once I have some more clips from Examiner.com. At least with Examiner, you don't have to contribute lengthy pieces. It seems very possible to be able to abide by the 3-4 articles/posts per week rule and at least make some extra pocket change.

I've recently attempted to re-invigorate my AssociatedContent.com content by contributing a couple articles. They were quite shittily written and I hardly made any money from them, but it at least gave me an idea of what kind of money they're willing to pay for original, well-thought out writing. Basically, whatever doesn't fit with my Newark College Life Examiner will go to Associated Content.

Scribd.Com has become another interest of mine since I decided to start focusing on my writing again. It seems it is the Facebook of writing, and I think it'll be a good resource for someone like me who is going to need feedback and criticism from people with experience. If I can achieve my four pages a day for the month of November, then I can use December and January to promote the finished product and maybe even get a small press to pick it up. Of course, the publishing part could potentially never happen... Actualizing my writing and scientific dreams is going to take some time, and since I don't have anything better to do with my life, I better get this show on the damn road.

In another direction entirely, I've been giving some thought to getting an Associate's Degree in Mathematics from a community college in NYC for Fall 2010-Spring/Summer 2011 and then trying to apply to Columbia's School of General Studies and NYU's Special Post-Graduate program. I think getting an Associate's Degree before the second Bachelor's would serve as positive reinforcement for the long journey ahead and would be a way to make sure I get recommendations and a solid math education. Not to mention, community college would be a hell of a lot cheaper. Also, I think living in a place that doesn't require a daily drive to do just about ANYTHING would be the ideal situation for me. I dig public transit-friendly places. Living somewhere where there are a lot of free and non-free things to do would be nice.