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bedlamsbardMy brain has apparently chosen graduate school to be that period of time when my body ceases to want to function on a normal schedule. I used to be so good at going to bed and getting up at reasonable hours! Like, I still think I'm not that bad compared to some college students I have known (I am generally in bed before 1 am), but it is personally distressing to me to be getting up after 10 am. Today it was quarter to eleven. Since I have to catch a 7 o'clock train on Sunday...this should be fun.
Actually, one of the more frustrating things about this is that I am, actually, waking up at about 8:30 almost every day. I wake up, I get up and pee, and then I...go back to bed for another hour and a half to two hours. Almost every day. Except for the day when I have class at nine, whereupon I set my alarm for eight and actually get up at about eight-fifteen in order to get dressed and eat something. Two weeks ago I almost slept through an eleven o'clock class. And it's not that I'm not setting an alarm, because I usually am on days when I have class, even if it's only an afternoon class, it's that I'm waking up before the alarm, turning the alarm off, and then going back to sleep. Waking up, I'm so not doing it right.
I don't have an alarm clock -- I'm using my phone as an alarm, which is the same thing I did all through undergrad. I guess one solution might be to put my phone on my desk instead of on my nightstand, where I actually have to get up to go turn it off, but since my phone is also my clock, then I just won't know what time it is when I inevitably wake up at an odd hour. (I wish I had blinds rather than curtains, because the curtains here are hardcore and block out all light. Which is great for sleeping, not so great for waking up. I can't leave it open because then there's too much light; sometimes I twitch it open slightly, but sometimes even that much light bothers me. If the curtains are all the way closed, I can wake up to just a dim gray light that could be anywhere from six am to noon.) I guess I could also get a clock, but it would have to be digital, because I can't sleep with a ticking clock in the room. (Which is why I can't have my watch on the nightstand. Right now it rests on my desk and so far I've been unable to hear it, but during undergrad I had to wrap it in a mitten and shove in my desk drawer every night so that I couldn't hear it tick. No, really.)
*
So my goal is, as ever, to eat at least three meals per day. I've been keeping track of what I've been eating for what meals (I'm not tracking snacks, that way lies madness and also, a lot of the time I just tend to be constantly eating small things) in hopes that I can figure out what days I'm not eating which meals, and so far I have come to the conclusion that...there may be no pattern. *facepalm* This week has been particularly horrendous, since so far this week I have at no point in time eaten more than two meals in one day. (This might also be related to waking up late, sigh, so breakfast and lunch become more brunch-like. Also, I didn't have a nine o'clock class this week.) These meals are breakfast and lunch. Which is better than not eating a single solid meal all week, true, but I wish I was eating three meals a day. Interestingly, at times in the past couple weeks I have been eating three meals a day: breakfast, dinner at five or six, and a second dinner between eight and eleven. (I'm not keeping track of what time I eat, but maybe I should?) Lunch is definitely my most skipped meal, and I know this is usually true for me even in undergrad and on vacation.
It's definitely not lack of things to cook -- I have hoarding tendencies at the best of times, and I have a pretty well-stocked pantry, fridge, and freezer as far as only having one shelf in the latter two goes. This includes a couple things I can just toss right from the fridge or freezer to the stovetop, oven, or microwave. (Did I mention that I made potstickers from scratch about a month ago? AW YEAH. Then I froze them, so I can just panfry them right from frozen.) I have other recipes that take a little more time, but are still pretty low-effort. (The oh so classy pepperoni pizza bagel. This is America's contribution to the world, people.) And of course I have recipes that take a lot more time but turn out pretty darn good food. (Although one problem is that I only have one pot, which is pretty small, so I can only make about two servings at a time and don't generally have a lot of leftovers. And -- see again for eating second dinners -- on the occasion that I have had a second serving leftover, I've ended up eating it as a second dinner/pre-midnight snack or, once or twice, breakfast the next day. Fortunately I wake up so late right now that I have no problem eating lentil and caramelized onion soup-slash-mush for breakfast. To be fair, I also don't have room in the fridge or freezer to store a lot of leftovers.)
On occasion, one reason that I haven't eaten right when I want to is that I'll go into the kitchen and some of my other flatmates will be in there. I don't mind cooking at the same time as someone else -- we've had three people cooking a couple of times -- but it is a pretty small kitchen and the hob can get crowded pretty quickly. And there are some people I'm more comfortable sharing a kitchen with than others. But that's just a hazard of sharing a common kitchen area and usually I just wait an hour and go back later. (Plus I keep a lot of food in my room because there's not much room in the kitchen. I -- I won't go into detail. Like I said, I have hoarding tendencies, but at least when it comes to food, it's not hoarding, it's being well-stocked.)
*
Also I'm pretty sure I used to be a much better student in high school and undergrad. (On the other hand, maybe not? I mean, I do actually put a fair amount of work in, I just don't know how I stack up to the other students in my course, and I guess I'm not going to know if it's enough until I actually write my first assessed essay. Which is due next week. I thought it was due in two weeks, but hey, it turns out it's good to actually check the due date on the syllabus. At least I figured this out a week in advance, thus still having time to do research and write the paper. Uh, at least I hope I have time to write the paper, it's only 3K and I feel like I have, at this point, done an awful lot of research, though probably not enough.)
(We shall not even discuss the state of my PhD applications.) (Unbegun.)
Actually, one of the more frustrating things about this is that I am, actually, waking up at about 8:30 almost every day. I wake up, I get up and pee, and then I...go back to bed for another hour and a half to two hours. Almost every day. Except for the day when I have class at nine, whereupon I set my alarm for eight and actually get up at about eight-fifteen in order to get dressed and eat something. Two weeks ago I almost slept through an eleven o'clock class. And it's not that I'm not setting an alarm, because I usually am on days when I have class, even if it's only an afternoon class, it's that I'm waking up before the alarm, turning the alarm off, and then going back to sleep. Waking up, I'm so not doing it right.
I don't have an alarm clock -- I'm using my phone as an alarm, which is the same thing I did all through undergrad. I guess one solution might be to put my phone on my desk instead of on my nightstand, where I actually have to get up to go turn it off, but since my phone is also my clock, then I just won't know what time it is when I inevitably wake up at an odd hour. (I wish I had blinds rather than curtains, because the curtains here are hardcore and block out all light. Which is great for sleeping, not so great for waking up. I can't leave it open because then there's too much light; sometimes I twitch it open slightly, but sometimes even that much light bothers me. If the curtains are all the way closed, I can wake up to just a dim gray light that could be anywhere from six am to noon.) I guess I could also get a clock, but it would have to be digital, because I can't sleep with a ticking clock in the room. (Which is why I can't have my watch on the nightstand. Right now it rests on my desk and so far I've been unable to hear it, but during undergrad I had to wrap it in a mitten and shove in my desk drawer every night so that I couldn't hear it tick. No, really.)
*
So my goal is, as ever, to eat at least three meals per day. I've been keeping track of what I've been eating for what meals (I'm not tracking snacks, that way lies madness and also, a lot of the time I just tend to be constantly eating small things) in hopes that I can figure out what days I'm not eating which meals, and so far I have come to the conclusion that...there may be no pattern. *facepalm* This week has been particularly horrendous, since so far this week I have at no point in time eaten more than two meals in one day. (This might also be related to waking up late, sigh, so breakfast and lunch become more brunch-like. Also, I didn't have a nine o'clock class this week.) These meals are breakfast and lunch. Which is better than not eating a single solid meal all week, true, but I wish I was eating three meals a day. Interestingly, at times in the past couple weeks I have been eating three meals a day: breakfast, dinner at five or six, and a second dinner between eight and eleven. (I'm not keeping track of what time I eat, but maybe I should?) Lunch is definitely my most skipped meal, and I know this is usually true for me even in undergrad and on vacation.
It's definitely not lack of things to cook -- I have hoarding tendencies at the best of times, and I have a pretty well-stocked pantry, fridge, and freezer as far as only having one shelf in the latter two goes. This includes a couple things I can just toss right from the fridge or freezer to the stovetop, oven, or microwave. (Did I mention that I made potstickers from scratch about a month ago? AW YEAH. Then I froze them, so I can just panfry them right from frozen.) I have other recipes that take a little more time, but are still pretty low-effort. (The oh so classy pepperoni pizza bagel. This is America's contribution to the world, people.) And of course I have recipes that take a lot more time but turn out pretty darn good food. (Although one problem is that I only have one pot, which is pretty small, so I can only make about two servings at a time and don't generally have a lot of leftovers. And -- see again for eating second dinners -- on the occasion that I have had a second serving leftover, I've ended up eating it as a second dinner/pre-midnight snack or, once or twice, breakfast the next day. Fortunately I wake up so late right now that I have no problem eating lentil and caramelized onion soup-slash-mush for breakfast. To be fair, I also don't have room in the fridge or freezer to store a lot of leftovers.)
On occasion, one reason that I haven't eaten right when I want to is that I'll go into the kitchen and some of my other flatmates will be in there. I don't mind cooking at the same time as someone else -- we've had three people cooking a couple of times -- but it is a pretty small kitchen and the hob can get crowded pretty quickly. And there are some people I'm more comfortable sharing a kitchen with than others. But that's just a hazard of sharing a common kitchen area and usually I just wait an hour and go back later. (Plus I keep a lot of food in my room because there's not much room in the kitchen. I -- I won't go into detail. Like I said, I have hoarding tendencies, but at least when it comes to food, it's not hoarding, it's being well-stocked.)
*
Also I'm pretty sure I used to be a much better student in high school and undergrad. (On the other hand, maybe not? I mean, I do actually put a fair amount of work in, I just don't know how I stack up to the other students in my course, and I guess I'm not going to know if it's enough until I actually write my first assessed essay. Which is due next week. I thought it was due in two weeks, but hey, it turns out it's good to actually check the due date on the syllabus. At least I figured this out a week in advance, thus still having time to do research and write the paper. Uh, at least I hope I have time to write the paper, it's only 3K and I feel like I have, at this point, done an awful lot of research, though probably not enough.)
(We shall not even discuss the state of my PhD applications.) (Unbegun.)