Habits

So, sitting here in my first class of the day, I have found myself thinking about habits. These habits are not necessarily bad habits, but are definitely detrimental to my continued well-being, mostly on a mental consideration.

The first of these is the alarming habit of not sleeping. Well, to revise that statement, of not sleeping enough. I find myself puttering about, either talking with friends in the kitchenette or doing stuff while watching Firefly in my room, until well into the next day's morning, occasionally turning in as late (or early) as 05:00 (though usually more like 02:00 on "school days"). I have also found that, after a certain point, my body refuses to wake up at my 07:15 alarm, electing instead to skip over my first two classes, waking at 10:30 or so. (As a side note, I have found that this can be mitigated--at least for now--by having my clock alarm set as an unknown threat. I have yet to not wake up to my watch thus far (the last three days), despite the time of my bedding) This, needless to say, is not an optimal situation, though my first two classes on the MWF schedule are Calc III and Discrete Structures, two classes I am not worried about in the least. I will be attempting, much as I had to do around this time last school year, to find a time for myself to interrupt whatever I am doing and head for sleep.

A second habit I have found relates to, well, relationships. It seems that Brittany has completely and utterly vanished from the North American continent. Her schedule no longer exists at the University of Waterloo, she has not returned an email or IM in several months, and I am getting the distinct feeling that I have been implicitly "Dear John"-ed. I am pretty much OK with this, as we really had little more than a slightly creepy pen pal relationship. I wish Brittany the best, and will close that chapter of my life. [2022 edit] hi, it is me from the future. This was a really...weird...time in my life and I was super creepy around Brittany and...yeah. I was dumb and horny and should have known better.[/edit]

However, that leaves me a little stuck. Because I have literally never yet in my life had a romantic relationship, I have no idea how to start or maintain one. Thus, I feel myself at the emotional development level of a mid-range adolescent, especially given my relatively recent discovering that members of the female species were, well, female. I am having some difficulties right now adjusting to this, especially since a number of our (the CSLC) "adopted" (from Daddy's Girls, at the other end of the floor) women are very cuddly people. I do not mind at all, as I tend to be a bit cuddly myself, but it is (shall we say?) distracting...

::mmm...but welcome distractions...::

...moving on, I either need to find a way to suppress (I know, I know, bad) these feelings, jump-start my emotional development to a better level (not likely), or just bite the bullet and deal with it the way that all young men have done since the first time (unfortunately, pretty much the only option).

A third observation (not so much a habit, so far as I can tell) is how much I have changed since I first got here over a year ago. I had this driven home to me a bit recently, as I had cause to review the LUG IRC logs from around this time last school year (I needed to stitch together a number of files to use as feed for our stats generator). To be blunt--I was pretty much an uppity moral bastard with a fairly major case of holier-than-thou attitude. I am pretty much glad I (seem) to have gotten past that--I cannot imagine that I was terribly pleasant to talk to on IRC during that time. Well, OK, I exaggerate a bit, but the point still stands that I have distinctly and noticeably altered my view of the world, I think for the better.

I think that is probably enough rambling, so I will close by saying that I was quite happy to see Esther yesterday evening, though I was a little sad to hear that she needed to get another job. I am also pleased with my new-to-me little Fujitsu Lifebook B-2545. Having multiple batteries for a laptop that each last around two hours makes a very nice wireless day.

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