Last all-nighter (sort of) for now

I spent this afternoon sleeping because I'll once again be spending the night in the library, this time in preparation for the exam at 9:15 tomorrow morning. I realised over the past few days that I had more energy and better productivity for thinking of ideas when I'd been in the library overnight; rather than lose that momentum by changing my current temporary sleeping pattern, I thought I'd keep it up for another night.

Also, if I've been awake a few hours I'm more productive than if I'd been awake for one or two. I don't want to wake at 7:30 or 8:00 tomorrow and still be sluggish in the exam. At least by my chosen way, I'll be active.

Now pretty much better

With the exception of the occasion flareup of coughs, I have, in essence, recovered from my recent illness. The bad throat has gone, as have the poor sleeping patterns: I'm awake in the day and sleeping properly during the appropriate hours of the night. Good times again!

Second full day

My second full day here at university has mostly been a quiet one. I had a headache in the early afternoon and so I spent a couple of hours sleeping to ward it off. Afterwards, I went for an hour's walk or so around Clifton, both to exercise a little and to purchase a few items that I needed.

Tomorrow, inductions begin. I have a couple of things to complete tonight, which are related to my course, before I head off to bed.

Evening showers

For years on end, I've taken my showers in the mornings; however, in the past couple of weeks I decided to switch and take them in the evenings. Why? For the purposes of me sleeping better.

For much of this college course, I've had difficulty sleeping on the nights when I've had to awaken early the next morning, which has led to me receiving less than a handful of hours of sleep for a day's worth of classes. Since I've started taking showers before I go to bed, I've been able to fall asleep after only a few minutes in bed rather than been struggling to sleep at 2:00am.

I'll keep this up for the time being to see how it goes; when it's time to be in bed, I should be asleep rather than fighting for sleep.

Where did that come from? (2)

After a good night's sleep, today I awoke feeling greatly improved from yesterday. While I have a minor cough and a slightly runny nose, the bruised head feeling has been erased and I no longer ache. I was able to attend college today without any health issues whatsoever; I helped out with raising money for charity again.

Hopefully, after another night of good sleep, I should feel even better tomorrow.

In early

While I did not have any timetabled lesson today, I arrived at college early (8:00) so that I'd be able to work on assignments in the library for a few hours before lunch. Since Wednesdays and Thursdays are my days off, I often put in some extra sleep before getting ready and then arriving at college around midday to work in the afternoon.

As I have an assignment due in on Friday, I figured more time in the library was worth more than some more time in bed. Judging by the (significant) amount of work I completed today, I think it was a wise decision and one I'll be repeating tomorrow.

From half an hour to two hours

When I returned home from college this evening, I was exhausted, to the point where I had been fighting drifting off to sleep on the bus. I thought I'd re-awaken once I'd exited the bus and for a few minutes, that was the case; however, after being back for about half an hour, I started drifting off again and struggled to remain awake.

As such, I went to bed to sleep for thirty minutes before dinner. I figured that rather than sleep my way through my food, I'd rest for a bit. Unfortunately, I underestimated how tired I was - my half-hour sleep evolved into a two-hour rest instead!

To be fair, I needed the sleep; I have had a busier-than-usual week at college and I have not slept as much as I should have. I just hope that when I return to bed soon, I won't be up for half the night trying to return to sleep!

Cramp, headache and warm

My waking up this morning was, to put it mildly-yet-bluntly, unpleasant. I was rudely awoken to massive cramp in my right leg, which caused me to hop out of bed and down the hall in agony. If that wasn't enough, both my feet developed cramp, too.

The end of my morning tribulations? Not at all. I was experiencing a headache, possibly brought on by yesterday's heat and my going to bed incredibly late. On top of my cramps and headache, I was hot and sweating, which was likely caused by my headache.

The result? The various discomforts forced me to sleep in for an extra three hours this morning. As I've said a few times before, I loathe being in bed during daylight hours, so my confinement to my bed with a headache, cramp and heat was, again, unpleasant.

Fortunately, the additional rest meant that I was able to fight off the headache and the heat, although the pain in my leg from the cramp has moderately persisted throughout the day. Eh...I should probably go to bed - my head is still somewhat dazed from the headache.

Hours to go

There's not much more to say at this point. The election is now only hours away, polls are still indicating that there will not be a clear victor and all main parties stand to lose ground to smaller ones. Results will start to arrive in around 24 hours time. My brother has stated that he will spend the night following the election but I will be going to bed; he'll text me notable results as they come in.

The massive headache

I experienced something excessively unpleasant yesterday afternoon. During my mathematics lesson, I started to develop a headache; I thought I would be able to control it by having some water and by taking a nap during the class break.

Alas, this wasn't the case. My headache worsened by the minute and, because I found the room unbearably hot, I had to leave the class and attempted to listen to the lesson from the hall. The assistant that we have in mathematics came out to chat to me but, sadly, I ended up having to cut the conversation short when I rushed to the bathroom to be sick.

That wasn't the end of it, though; usually when I have a headache being sick clears it but not in this case. I had to wait in the hall again, where the assistant asked if I had been sick and said that that often cleared headaches for him, too. When the lesson finally ended, I packed all my college items away, made some hasty goodbyes and went to my bus. The bus ride back home wasn't fun because I had to restrain myself from being sick for the duration of the journey and when I returned, I was sick for a second time.

The headache persisted, so I went to bed and rested for a few hours, after which my head felt bruised but the pain had dissipated. I remained awake for a few hours before returning to bed for the night and I've felt fine today.

That was the worst headache I've had for several years and it annoys me greatly that it caused me to miss part of a lesson. I think it was caused by a combination of late-night revision the day before and up incredibly early on the day with my being in a hot classroom. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I forgot to bring with me yesterday any painkillers for headaches.

Asleep on the bus

When I rode the bus back home from college this evening, the person whom I was sat next to was asleep. They were sleeping for the vast majority of the journey and the usual noises of the bus appeared to have little effect on waking them.

I hope that they didn't miss their stop and that they made it safely to their destination. It becomes dark early here at this time of the year and it's cold outside. With any luck, the worst that will have happened is that the bus completed its loop and the person travelled past the point where they boarded.

The event reminded me of when I returned from Manchester on the train back at the end of September. When my train arrived in Nottingham, a guy asked me where the train had just stopped; I replied that we were in Nottingham. He and his friend were supposed to depart the train at Sheffield but had slept past their stop.

Music influencing a dream

Have you ever experienced music influence a dream? I'm not referring to listening to a song prior to sleeping and it shapes what you dream about — I mean sleeping while a song is playing and the real-time music manifests itself within a dream. Your mind's "characters" and the "you" inside an affected dream will be aware of the music and will often respond to it.

I have two memorable experiences of this. The first time was over four years ago: I was dreaming about riding in a pickup truck with Dad, travelling down a lengthy onramp onto a freeway. I turned on our vehicle's radio before we reached the freeway and Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" started playing inside the dream. In reality, my actual radio had activated and was playing the song; my brain had reacted to the song by having a character — me, in this case — perform an action so that the song would become a part of the dream.

The second time was this morning. The dream involved me attending a fancy event with friends and family; at one point, I sat down with a handful of friends and family at a coffee table surrounded by couches. A large radio — unlikely to ever be present at the type of event my dream was portraying — started to play "Broken Strings" by James Morrison featuring Nelly Furtado, and both I and at least one of the other characters reacted to it. Both the radio and the song were irrelevant to the rest of the dream — the song playing on a nearby outside source brought it into my thoughts.

I have had this happen several times between these two dreams, but these two are the most memorable: the first dream is my original experience into outside music altering dreams and the second is in my recent memory. I like it whenever it occurs because the outcome is always an enhanced dream, although I have to be in a light sleep for it to happen, however, as my dreams don't appear to be affected by music if I'm deeply sleeping.

I attempted to learn what the exact term for this is, but I was unable to find it. Is this something that you have experienced? I know members of family who have and I am interested to learn if it has happened to others.

24 hours

In early June of 2010, my family and I moved from the United States back to the United Kingdom; in November of 2012, the United States held its 57th presidential election. The two events by themselves are completely unrelated to each other, but there is something significant to me that links them.

When I woke up in Portland, Oregon for day of our flight, I stayed awake for around 24 hours. I was not bored when waiting at the airport, I was completely alert on the nine-hour flight (I was the only one of us not to sleep on the plane), still not tired when in Amsterdam or even when we had to wait for well over an hour in Manchester for my grandparents to arrive in the minibus to pick us up. It was only during the minibus ride the exhaustion caught up on me and I had to fight to keep awake (before then, it was unprecedented for me to sleep in a vehicle).

On the day of the presidential election, I woke up around 7:00-7:30am; I wanted to stay up for the results, and since the United Kingdom is five hours ahead of the East Coast of the United States, I knew I would be staying up for the night. Sure enough, I sailed past 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, and 6:00am without any drowsiness; the lack of sleep caught up with me when I reached the 24 hour mark of being awake, and by then the result of the election had long been announced. I again found myself fighting to not fall asleep, and ended up going to bed for a few hours at the time I usually get up.

From these two events I learnt that if I want or need to keep myself awake for 24 hours or more I can, but once the situation I have to be awake for concludes, the need for sleep hits me...and with a vengeance. For the minibus ride, our flights were long over and we were back in the United Kingdom; with the election, I knew the main result by the time 24 hours came around. With the main goals resolved, why remain awake?

I'm sure there will be many more occasions for me to keep awake for 24 hours or more, only to rapidly fall into a deep sleep when the event is over. The worst part is not keeping awake or even, in itself, falling asleep at the end...it's sleeping during the daylight that bothers me!

Back to a normal bed and mattress

Back in June of 2011 I wrote a short, positive review about inflatable beds/air mattresses. In the next couple of days I will be returning to a regular metal framed bed with a normal mattress.

I still stand by my opinion from back then that inflatable beds are very comfortable to sleep on. However, I also stand by what I said about the problem with the air chambers inside them popping. Unfortunately, my parents have had at least three inflatable beds pop since that post, and it became a huge pain (not to mention expensive) replacing their bed every three months. They ultimately made the decision to invest in a proper bed.

About a week ago, my brother's inflatable bed popped. Both his bed and mine had lasted well over a year to that point, making them the longest lasting air beds we've owned to date. While my bed is still okay, our beds are being replaced by normal beds, rather than with another inflatable one each; it may have been over a year since we received new beds, but no one should have to replace a bed every few months or every year.

If you get the chance to sleep on an air bed I strongly recommend it: they are truly lovely to sleep on, but given their susceptibility to popping they aren't good for sleeping on in the long term.

Short Stories: The Garden Dance, Part III

"Hello?"

A feminine voice knocked me out of my thoughts. I turned to my left to see a young woman standing next to me; she had lengthy, wavy light blonde hair; was only slightly shorter than me, and had a yellow dress on. She was incredibly beautiful and I assumed her to be a little older than myself.

"Hi!" I replied a little too excitedly, mainly because I was surprised.

"Are you waiting for someone or something?" she asked. "For the last half an hour I've been watching you stand there."

"Half an hour? I've been standing here for a minute," it was true: when I glanced at my watch it was more than half an hour later from when I previously checked the time.

This bothered her slightly but she shrugged it off. "Will you dance with me?" she then asked. "I'm Heather." She had a posh accent, like a higher pitched Joanna Lumley; there was also an interesting combination of a "giggling" tone to her voice mixed with confidence.

Once again I forgot all about the mystery of my surroundings. "Yes, of course," I answered with a smile.

Heather smiled back, took my hands, and we began a slow dance in the courtyard; I had never danced before, yet somehow I knew exactly what I was doing and everything just felt "right". Despite Heather initiating the dance, I gradually found myself leading it as we talked. Our conversation mainly involved learning more about each other and talking about our town...we were really getting along together, and our discussion flowed perfectly...until we reached the topic of the garden dance.

"Have you noticed anything strange about this place?" I asked.

This created the first pause in the conversation, and I could see that Heather was thinking my question over. After a minute, she answered: "Yes, can we talk about this elsewhere?"

"Of course," was my reply. We exited the main dancing area and made our way to the back of the garden; most people were now in the courtyard but a few were still wandering around the garden.

"I have", Heather said when we reached our destination, and she took my hands to start dancing again, turning so that neither of us faced the view of the mountain range and the lake. "Nothing has been consistent since I arrived this morning: one moment I was here on my own, then suddenly I am surrounded! Sometimes time is fast, other times it is slow...and it's not my perception of it either! I found everything, no matter how extraordinary, making sense to me until I saw you!"

"I remember my brother and I arriving here first, and we were told by the doorman that we were early," I responded. "I then recall everyone suddenly showing up when they weren't supposed to be here for another twenty minutes. No one else is noticing, we seem to be the only ones..."

"Excuse me, cutting in here," an attractive, middle-aged woman with short, thick, and curly hair interrupted. She took me from Heather's hands and started to dance with me; I attempted to free myself from her grip, but she was too strong for me.

"Who are you and why have you cut in?" Heather asked angrily. "Let go at once!"

"Now now, as the host I'm entitled to dance with whomever I wish, and I can't have anyone spoil the festivities with questions!" the older woman smiled.

"You're The Landlady!" I gasped. "Can you explain what is going on?"

"Explain what?" she asked with a smile. "Why do you need an explanation? Why not just appreciate the moments for what they are?"

"I do appreciate moments," I replied, looking around for Heather but noticed that she had disappeared and that the hedges had changed to block the way back into the rest of the garden. "But when it looks as though time itself is acting out of character, I want an explanation."

"Tsk...well if comes to that..."

Suddenly, the place where I had just been standing, the hedges, and The Landlady had all vanished. Time once again behaved strange, as the fall from my previous position to the surface of the water felt like hours, even though it was only fifty feet up. Then, as soon as I did reach the lake...


"Hey, wake up!"

I was abruptly awakened by Jimmy hitting my face. I stood up and had a look around to see where I was: I found myself back at the chairs where Jimmy and I drank our iced hot chocolate. The dance was still in progress, but the only two people in my immediate vicinity were my brother and someone who I partially recognised.

"You fell asleep," the person said, and I noticed they were holding our empty cups of hot chocolate. "I've never seen anyone fall asleep to hot chocolate before!" It occurred to me that this individual was the faceless man, but they had a face now.

"Asleep?" I asked. "No I fell in the lake...how did I get out?"

"Lake?" asked Jimmy. "No, really, you've been asleep for the last few minutes. Come on, get up and go back to the dance! Heather's just arrived and she's waiting for you!"

I could not explain it. I had a clear memory of arriving at Ketterland Mansion with Jimmy hours ago and could remember all the oddities of the place, yet judging from Jimmy's reaction and the faceless man now having a face, I was now unsure if it really all happened, or if it did but in different manner to how I could recall it. Did I really dream it all? Though if that was the case what about all the strange occurrences before I dozed off? Who really was The Landlady, and why was I sent into the water when I asked for an explanation? None of it mattered anymore...for the final time my thoughts on the matter faded, and I returned to the garden dance to join Heather.

-------------

That concludes The Garden Dance. The story is based on a dream I had in the last couple of weeks, and this piece has more of a clear ending than my actual dream did: the only parts of it I can remember were the pond area with my brother, Heather's appearance and me dancing with her, The Landlady cutting in, and then I was thrown into the lake.  

Anything that appears to be a plot hole is intentional...the story is meant to be like a dream: inconsistent, a complete mystery, leaves the viewer wondering what happened, but is beautiful nonetheless. I had a great time writing The Garden Dance, let me know what you think!

Nose, throat, and a lack of sleep

I spoke too soon in hoping yesterday would be the worst part of my cold: I have the same symptoms today as I did before, but "lack of sleep" can now be added to it. Despite going to bed early last night, I estimate that I go no more than an hour's sleep; it was strange because no matter what I did, I could just not fall asleep. It was one of my worst nights in several months, and it felt as though it was lasting longer than it really was: at one point I looked at the clock and saw that it was midnight, and when I checked it again at a time I assumed was then two or three hours later, it was only five minutes to 1:00am.

On the bright side, I am feeling better mentally today, and I was able to get some sleep this afternoon. The sun has also been out today...less dull skies as with the past few days! Dad's cold has been steadily fading, and he is a lot more cheerful than he was about a week ago.

Finally, I promise that I will post something different tomorrow: I would rather not complain too much here about how I am feeling from my cold!

Christmas and family 2011 (2)

Prior to going to bed on the 26th, Mum informed me that Dad would be up at 7:00 the next day in preparation of leaving early for Nottingham. So, you can imagine my Dad's frustration when he got up at that time, had his shower, sorted out some things in the living room, etc., only to go back upstairs and find us all still asleep! (Well, in all fairness I was half-awake.) I overheard the conversation between my parents in regards to getting up early, and had to stifle laughs when thinking about it while eating my breakfast.

We arrived in Nottingham around 10:00, and upon greeting us my grandfather was remarked how surprised he was at how early we had made it there. Nevertheless, he was very pleased to see us and he let us in. To begin with, he prepared some drinks while I had to rest (not sleeping, just sitting down) on the sofa for half an hour for my stomach to settle from the journey (I am prone to car sickness, and the roads we travelled on the way up to Nottinghamshire have an abundance of twists and turns). My grandmother soon joined us.

My grandparents did have gifts for us: I received some clothing (I had some nice new shirts), chocolates, a Kindle, a phone, and some CDs I had requested. The phone is actually second-hand, and my brother received one too, but receiving second-hand gadgets from our grandfather never bothers us, as the items he gives us are always useful (such as my Vado camera). The only thing I found bothersome about the gifts was that I wished we had given better items to our grandparents!

Rather than having a large meal in the evening, my grandparents had set the main course for lunchtime. They had prepared a ham, salad, pickled cabbage, chips, pasta, and cranberry sauce. Both of them are fantastic cooks, and the meal they prepared for the six of us was as good as the food they had prepared for the party last Christmas. The meal was so satisfying that we all decided to delay eating dessert until later on in the day.

Much of the afternoon was spent in my grandparents' living room chatting. My Dad helped sort out a problem with the sound system on my grandparents' television: while he did this we ended up watching an episode of something called Family Fortunes, and afterwards half an episode of Mork & Mindy. It was not something that had been planned on...but it worked out!

The evening meal was light...consisting of leftover turkey on buns, followed by dessert. There was a choice of mince pies, or a plum-cake with icing that one of my cousins had made by herself. Being impressed with her cake from last year, I was eager to try the one she had made for this Christmas. Unsurprisingly, it was wonderful, and I was glad it was an alternative to the mince pies!

My aunt then came over after "dinner" to say hello, although she did not stay long as my uncle would soon be back from work. Not long after she left, we said goodbye to my grandparents and headed back home; the return journey was uneventful (it is easier for me to travel as a passenger in a vehicle at night).

As far as I am concerned, the day went very well. As per usual, I am looking forward to the next time we go to Nottingham, or when family comes to visit us!

Christmas and family 2011

We have recently returned home after a spending the day with my grandparents up in Nottingham. I will have a more informative post up tomorrow...once I have rested!

The bird on the roof

At 6:00 yesterday evening, my brother and I were sat in my room when we heard something on the roof. We dismissed the brief noises as some light rain on the house, but then we heard the noises again, and this time we heard what sounded like claws scraping down the roof. It became clear to us that there was a bird moving about on the roof, and the most likely type of bird up there was a pigeon.

We heard the bird continue to scrabble about up there until we had to go to dinner; upon coming back up to my room after the our meal, the bird was still moving around on the roof and above my room in particular. It briefly walked over onto my parents' side of the house before coming back over to mine; the bird stopped sometime after midnight, but resumed at two in the morning for a few minutes before either stopping again or I fell asleep.

I heard the bird briefly again this morning, but it stopped. However, as I have been writing this, I can hear some activity up on the roof: I am not exactly sure what it has been up to with its rooftop antics, but it is certainly an interesting noise to listen to. Will it fly off eventually, or return each evening?

Resting cows

I went out for a walk this afternoon, and during my time out, I took this picture of some cows resting in a field:

I love that one on the left laying down on her side: you do not often see them in that position, and I always find it fascinating when they are (horses are another animal that rarely lay on their sides, and they are fun to watch when they roll in dirt). These cows were content with resting, but a group I encountered further down the road walked towards the gate hoping that I had food for them!