No Sleep Til Keystone

[pshaw_raven]

We've got the camper popped back up to do some preparatory stuff to it, later this week I'll clean up and stock it and get some photos. Namely, we're now doing things like testing our gray water disposal tank and seeing how cold the fridge stays during the day so we can minimize surprises while we're on vacation.

I'm not having a terrific day. It's not bad I'm just out of it. I've developed a pain in my thumb, probably from my fairly obsessive Hades playing lately, and I've got these little shocking pains that shoot down the hand from what feels like right around the cuticle. This started last night around ten,and I haven't slept since. Last night it would give me three little zaps in quick succession, then nothing for thirty seconds to a minute, then three more zaps. It drove me so crazy that at one point I was biting my thumb as hard as I could to try to stop it. I know that makes no sense, but I was running on maybe an hour of sleep at that point. I also learned that it's very difficult to bite yourself so hard you break skin - or at least it is for me. I'm trying to give the thumb a break for now and lay off any major gaming, though I'm going to stream Stray for someone in a couple of days. That game doesn't exactly require a lot of lightning attack reflexes so I should be fine.

So you can imagine how little brain power I have at this point in the day, LOL. Oh yeah, and because I'm a glutton for punishment, I still went on a long run this morning. Hey, it's good practice for a longer ultra, when you'll have to run on little to no sleep through the night. Since it was early on a Sunday I figured it was safe because there's very little traffic, and I was correct. There were some people out on the roads, but I saw maybe a dozen cars.

My hyperfocus of the week is Kowloon Walled City. I started reading up on it out of idle curiosity and it's turned into a major rabbit hole of research. I'm also reading up on Hong Kong's "coffin apartments," and the general crisis in housing there. There's nothing quite like the old Walled City now, but there are highrise buildings packed just as densely with people in tiny quarters. It honestly triggered a certain amount of anxiety looking at some of those places because ... what are those people going to do if a fire breaks out? I mean, I know what they're going to do - they're going to die.

There's a German language documentary I found on YouTube that someone's added English subtitles to, but I haven't gotten around to watching it yet. I've also found several interesting books, but they're all in Japanese. The Japanese were fascinated with Kowloon Walled City and did some extensive documentation of it before the demolition began.

Speaking of Japanese, I was just realizing something that ought to have been pretty obvious to me by now. I've always been interested in language and linguistics, and I like studying languages. I just never let myself do it much because when I learn, I develop a capacity for reading and writing that far exceeds my ability to speak, and I keep telling myself, Well there's no point in doing this if you can't learn to talk, you fucking idiot.

Why, though? Who am I going to be talking to? Reading Japanese is a hell of a useful skill. Because I forced myself to put it aside, I only read at maybe a kindergarten level, but if I just take a little time to study kanji each day, I find I retain it pretty well. When Fox and I were in Tokyo I could make some sense of the signs and notices on my own. So ... maybe I should go back to doing that, even if I never have to ask directions or say "I have forgotten my math assignment."

Anyway my brain is more fried than usual. God I hope I can sleep tonight.

Comments

[cdayzee]

Good idea to test things out to minimize surprises, as you said!

Uh, oh - gaming injury. Time for a break I guess ;)

Yeah, seeing how people live in other countries can be stressful & anxiety-inducing.

I took a linguistics course in college, thinking I was going to do fairly well in it, given my interest in things along those lines. However, I believe I ended up dropping it. My brain simply didn't have the bandwidth to be productive in college. I did try but I quickly became overwhelmed with everything going on in my life at the time. In thinking about it now, I feel like I never fully recovered from the experience. I put it in a mental box & stuffed it behind a heavy door. I never went to check on it again. It's too dark & scary down there...

lol - ah being able to say you've forgotten your math assignment in Japanese may be worth seeing the look on people's faces!

Were you able to sleep?

[pshaw_raven]

I guess some surprises are to be expected, but it's better to be prepared and have things tested beforehand. For example, we couldn't figure out why the hot water had sand or something in it, and the magnesium rod in the water tank was oxidizing. It's supposed to, but you're also supposed to replace it every so often.

And yeah, gaming injury LOL. I get sort of caught up in what I'm doing and start squashing the buttons harder to ... I guess make something hit more? I tried out a game this evening but was a little more cautious and it feels fine. I eventually got to sleep the other night, but just a few hours, and then the next night I slept like a log. It was great :D

I think college would have gone more smoothly if I'd at least been aware of some of my mental health issues aside from the anxiety. Just knowing what I was dealing with might have made it feel less like I was constantly swimming against the current, and thinking I was the only one struggling that hard. C'est la vie, non? I managed to get through it, but I've never wanted to go back, for any reason. I enjoy teaching myself things and learning on my own but I couldn't do another round of college.

[cdayzee]

Yay for sleep!

I still don't know what my issues are, if any, beyond anxiety. In college, I was experiencing depression though but it felt normal to me. If I hadn't been dealing with so many other extraneous things, I might have done better in college & been able to stay the course. It was just too much for me to handle.

...swimming against the current, and thinking I was the only one struggling that hard.
omg, yes, this! And now even just you saying this makes me feel validation for what I was going through then. I had no support. At least I had the wherewithal to go ahead & drop out, knowing I was struggling too much. I just forged ahead with life & closed that chapter behind me. I never knew what I wanted to do as a career anyway. The jobs my interests pointed me to didn't interest me at all. I still don't know what my niche is. The thought of going back to school doesn't interest me either. But without a degree, I'm dead in the water. It's terrifying to think about, so I try not to lol.

[expandranon]

I want to see you play 'Stray'. That'd be super cool.

[pshaw_raven]

I keep thinking I should do a more public Twitch stream of it or something.

[dorchadas]

Shadowrun: Hong Kong takes place mostly in an area that's very clearly "what if they had basically rebuilt Kowloon?"

Reading Japanese is still a useful skill! Even with my weekly tutoring, my reading is still better than my speaking but that lets me play games in Japanese and follow Japanese twitter accounts, which I wouldn't otherwise be able to do. Plus reading signs, like you say--when my father was in Kyoto visiting me he mentioned that at least in Europe he could look at the signs and get a general idea if he were going the right direction but in Japan he had no idea.

[pshaw_raven]

I just checked out the Steam page for Shadowrun and it looks like I could really get into it. All the games in the series look good but the Hong Kong setting has obvious appeal :D

I found that recognizing a handful of common kanji in Japan was incredibly useful. Directional signs, train stations, a few restaurants. And, of course, "disaster," which is on all the fire extinguisher boxes.