The End of Another Era

The two people who follow this blog the most are probably going to be pretty upset or really blaze (with an accentuated “e”) with me about this.

Once again, I’ve decided to stop blogging.  I don’t really come on here that much to post, and I really prefer reading my friends’ blog posts rather than posting my own. Besides, hanging onto a thread with this blog is really killing my time. Other than that, I’ve noticed that this blog has been very depressing despite what I usually write and feel. That’s negativity that I just don’t need to experience; my usual life style seems to have slipped a bit from the happy-go-lucky type. (My friends are probably remembering high school and scratching their heads a bit right now, but you know it’s true to some extent!  For these reasons, I feel that this blog has been tortured and exhausted to its fullest, and so have decided to close it, like many before.

I’ll probably start blogging again later on, but it’ll be less personal. I really don’t think anyone is interested in my life.

You know it’s true.

It’s funny to think that I actually started blogging purely by inspiration from another blogger, who is now just trying to relax and complete a degree at USYD. I wish her luck for the rest of her life, and hope she’s doing better at uni than I am.

So..

So

 

Not this again.

I have a confession. I am addicted to tea.

Well, to some of you, this will be old news, but something that’s happened since the last time I blogged solely about tea is that I started going to uni. On my way to uni, there is a bubble tea store called EasyWay, where I would stop almost every day just to order large sugary teas.

I knew it then and I still know it now.

It’s a waste of money.

Lately I’ve been thinking of a solution to this problem, and have finally come up with something plausible. Every time I pass an EasyWay, I will bar myself from buying it, and when I get home I will get a pack of some other tea at Woolworths for less than $5. I will do this for a week, probably accumulating a few hundred teabags in the process, and then stop. From there, I will bar myself from all EasyWay purchases period. Thus, I will not only have saved money, but I’ll have also satiated my tea addiction when I get home. Further, I will be much healthier, since I drink tea without any additives at home anyway, and my family will also benefit from a larger variety of tea to choose from.

It’s foolproof, I hope.

Progress report when the week is over.

Engineer’s Hide and Seek (v1.0 Beta)

A week before the holidays started, a bunch of engineering comrades and I set off on an adventure of epic proportions. We would play hide and seek… in the university.

Clearly, this is an awesome feat at any university, and practically impossible without any well-defined rules. So we brainstormed, and eventually came up with a decent few. While it is still a game in the process of being debugged, I guess you could call the following set of rules part of the v1.0 beta stage:

1. There must be at least two teams each containing at least 1 person. Just putting it out there that two teams of many people is probably the best way to play.
2. Each team must have at least one means of instantaneous communication with the other teams, whether this be via SMS, phone call, social networking, etc.
3. One team must be elected or volunteer to be seekers, the other teams are hiders and must get out of sight as soon as the seekers are determined.
4. The seekers must wait at least 5 minutes for the hiders to hide in some area of the university/park/typically huge  (but still familiar) area they are using as a play zone. No one is allowed to breach the boundaries of the play zone, they are only allowed to stay within it. After the 5 minutes are up, the seekers may begin hunting down the hiders.
5. The hiders, upon settling on a location, MUST in some form indicate to the seekers through their means of communication where they are in a cryptic form, most notably a riddle. They must then stay in this location for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, they can go to a different location and repeat this step.
6. The seekers must use the riddle to figure out where the hiders are located, find them, and without their knowing get a clear photograph taken of them in their location. This photograph must be sent to them through the preferred form of communication. The photo must be clear! If it is blurry for some reason (eg, motion blur) or the photo is of the other team running away, then it doesn’t count!
7. If the hiders make eye contact with the seekers, they are permitted to immediately run away and find a different hiding place. The rules then repeat from 5.
8. If a clear photograph is taken and successfully sent to the hiders, the game must immediately end in the case of two teams and restarted from 3, merely swapping roles rather than going through another decision process. If there are multiple teams, the found hiders become the seekers and the seekers that found the hiders that became seekers become hiders. The other hiders must be alerted of the change and the game restarts from 5, and all the other rules before 5 (eg, no breaching of the play-zone boundaries) still apply.
9. The game ends when you get tired of it.
10. Have fun. Don’t cheat.

Enjoy, friends!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

2.22 am. As I gaze around my room, I wonder upon what to do. Homework? TV? My regular list of procrastinaries cross my mind. All the while I know the answer should be get a head in that assignment or do those problem sets!

I grab a bowl of Weet Bix in the end to prepare me for that assignment, but upon grabbing my laptop, I couldn’t help but write about something that’s been bugging a few of my friends lately. Given the circumstances, I couldn’t help but write about sleeping, that is.

Sleeping, as you know, is important. What’s more important than sleeping is getting sleep. It shouldn’t be some noun that we all know; when people refer to sleep in regular conversation, it should really act as a verb more than anything.

Given that, you should be sleeping! Whether you are reading this in the early hours or the late hours, you probably have some sleep issue. If you are though, I forgive you. Maybe I can even help out a bit.

There are so many views on sleeping and how much you should sleep. Really, the most common one would be 7 or 8 hours for people in adulthood, and 9 hours + for those in early childhood. However, I’ve even come across articles that say you don’t even need that much sleep every night, that your requirements change with the activities you perform in each passing day. There are even some who swear by polyphasic sleep, which if you’ve been reading my blog for a while is actually a hellbound path, especially if you’re having trouble sleeping as it is. (DON’T, I REPEAT, DON’T DO THIS!! IF YOU’RE ALREADY HAVING TROUBLE SLEEPING, YOU PROBABLY DON’T HAVE THE WILLPOWER TO SURIVE THE EARLY STAGES OF BECOMING POLYPHASIC ANYWAY, AND IF YOU CAN SLEEP WELL, FOR THE LOVE OF CHEESE WHY WOULD YOU TRY AND RUIN THAT?)

Whenever I have trouble sleeping, there are quite a few things that help me get drowsy. What you are about to read may be socially OK or may be completely unorthodox, and in some eyes, retarded, but they’ve worked for me, nonetheless.

Drinking a cup of tea before bed warms the stomach and body and calms the nerves. Just any old western black tea probably wouldn’t cut it though, especially if you are an avid tea drinker like me. Go for herbal. Chrysanthemum really does wonders, I would definitely recommend it, but I probably wouldn’t recommend teas such as peppermint because the strong flavor might stimulate your senses far too much. I’m sure there are some teas designed to stimulate you anyway, so obviously don’t go for them. Oh yeah, while we are on the topic of liquid beverages, stop drinking coffee. Drinking coffee is just stupid, it’s a drug designed as a stimulant to keep you awake during the day. Unless you have some sort of important appointment, I would really keep from coffee.

Drinking water throughout the day will keep you awake, and it will prepare you for sleep. Most of the reason you would feel tired in the day is because you don’t drink enough water, since a dehydrated body quickly tires. Oh yeah, hardcore coffee drinkers (or rather, anything-but-water drinkers) probably would benefit most from this. Drink 4 litres. Yes, drink 4. Not all at once, but throughout the day. It would be around 8-10 glasses, to give a vague estimate (depending on glass size, this could even be up to 16 glasses, probably for those water dispensers with flimsy cups).

Get sick. I mean ill. I mean… well whatever I mean, I don’t mean become cool or awesome. If you become sick, your body will be under attack by microorganisms designed to use your body for their own gain, this ranges from mere inhabitation to cell destruction. This will automatically make you tired, regardless of the strains your body takes to fight back. Obviously, don’t get sick if you have allergies to medicine, or any important engagements that you wish to keep up, and don’t go and catch something like Chlamydia, don’t be stupid. Give yourself a month to just get nice and sick. With Winter looming, that really shouldn’t be too hard. If you’re enthusiastic about this method, get nice and friendly with someone who is already sick. Share the love.

Exercise, duh. As if you haven’t read that before. Exercising in the night will do one of two things: make you really tired or make you really untired. It’s all a gamble, really. I would exercise in the early morning or at night. When I was doing the HSC, I would take jogs around the neighbourhood at 4am to get over any sleeping issues. Lately, I’ve been going to the park every now and then to just expend energy (cartwheels are fun). Just be careful of your safety, above anything.

Oh boy, this post turned out to be quite long. Well to summarise, drink herbal tea, drink water, get sick (do it, get sick brah) and exercise. I’m actually getting a bit sleepy now, heh. Maybe blogging at 2am should be on that list…

Also, don’t expect any one method to just magically work. Trial it for a week or so before discarding it. I actually mended some terrible sleeping patterns though other means (a method most disappointing to probably all readers), but it wouldn’t have worked out if I didn’t stick to it.

This is me, so does this mean I’m socially awkward?

Click it, and just read.

Just read, readers.

I’ve never seen such a relevant article in my life.