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No Sleep Til Keystone
Jul. 31st, 2022 03:06 pmWe'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.
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.
