The itch to spend

Hello! I’ve returned from a brief one week hiatus. Thanks to daylight savings time changing the clock one hour forwards, I spent last week recovering from the regulation-imposed jet lag. Even a person like me with relatively clean sleeping patterns struggled to acquiesce to the time change. Going to sleep at the new “normal time” was difficult, and so is waking up at the new normal time. For the first time this whole year, I actually hit the snooze button. Groggy. Where did the sun go in the morning?

It went to the evening hours, obviously. I concede that it is indeed quite nice to still have some semblance of sun after getting off work. Last Friday I had a lovely time with my friend and her pet dog at the local park. I guess on that alone, I would vote to keep daylight savings time constant, rather than having standard time year round. What the powers must do is simply pick one! All this time change nonsense absolutely wrecks our circadian rhythm for at least one whole week. It’s not healthy in the slightest.

You know that feeling when you’ve got some free money in the bank account, and you get that itch to spend it? How can we not: we get bombarded with advertisements every single day. The Internet services we know and love are basically advertising machines. I have started paying for YouTube Premium, however. No ads when I watch YouTube. Ever.

So I was looking at (finally) getting a standing desk to replace this IKEA Galant that I’ve had since my college days. In the name of health (I’d be able to adjust the height of the desk specific to me) and novelty (who doesn’t like a fresh new bamboo work surface?) I began a search on the Internet. Turns out the major players in the standing desk market all seem to be having Spring sales. What would have been a thousand dollars - for the specification of table I want - is now only $700.

After sleeping on it, I decided against buying a standing desk. Primarily because it feels wrong to throw away a perfectly good table, albeit one that cannot adjust height. I don’t want to spend the time playing the Craigslist games in trying to sell the old one. Trashing such a bulky item also isn’t as simple as putting it in the bin. My IKEA Galant remains a sturdy and useable desk, so it remains.

View fullsize

Here, buddy!

DST blues

Another March, another move of the clock one hour forwards just so we can enjoy some modicum of sunlight past 6:00PM. Losing an hour on Sunday absolutely sucks, and the following workweek to come is even worse. At least on the Sunday of time change you can sleep in a bit to ward off the DST-induced “jet lag”; no such luck on Monday!

Good news for me is I typically wake up way earlier than I really need to for work. Therefore I have the option of sleeping in a little, if waking what is effectively one hour earlier than usual proves to be too challenging. I understand that most people are not like me, so ruined sleep patterns for the rest of you it is! At least for the first week after the clock change anyways.

I am going to keep complaining about daylight saving time until the powers at be get rid of it. I don’t care which timezone configuration they use: just pick one and stick to it! Why must we torture ourselves for two days out of the year voluntarily? I’ve yet to meet a single person who actually likes it when we forward or retard the clock on hour.

Since I’m a morning person, I actually would prefer we keep constant standard time, as opposed to always daylight saving time. My circadian rhythm is better suited to an early sunrise and early sunset. I hate it during the summer when the sun is still up past 8:00 PM, delaying the signals to my body that it’s time to wind it down. Again, I realize I’m in the minority here. I bet if there’s a public vote on which of the two to keep forever, daylight saving time would win.

But please, no more changing the clock. Pick one!

View fullsize

Best cuisine in the world.

Waking on time

It’s been, what, two months since the clock moved forward an hour for daylight saving time? It has taken that long for me to finally readjust my sleeping schedule. For the past two months, I’ve been content with not setting an alarm, and letting myself wake up whenever. Usually that occurs at around 6:30AM, about half and hour later than my usual 6AM alarm. On certain mornings it would be past 7 o’clock. Must have been tiring days prior.

Well, the natural wake experiment is over. Due to my tendency of scrolling through twitter in bed for at least half an hour, waking up just whenever is costing me time. The obviously solution would be to stop reading twitter in bed, instead of waking up earlier, but that’s far too logical and prudent for me. I enjoy my morning twitter read, the equivalent of reading the delivered newspaper every day.

But I also miss being up during the tranquil hours of early morning. On both days this past weekend, I forced myself up right at 6AM for various activities. Being up and active during those ungodly hours, while everyone else is still sound asleep, is the magic of having an early sleep-wake schedule. Nothing better than reading a book in absolute silence with a cup of coffee in hand, while the view outside the window does it morning color dance. Or a stroll through San Francisco chinatown before any shop have even opened.

This is why I’ve once again set an alarm clock for 6AM - everyday. No more “sleeping in”; morning hours shall be utilized to the maximum. The past few days I got my hour of daily reading in before I moved on to breakfast. It’s really nice.

View fullsize

Porsche of the morning.

DST can go die

I keep saying this, and I’ll keep on doing so until they stop: I hate changing the clock for Daylight Saving Time. Would the powers at be just pick one time and stick with it for the whole year? Why are we voluntarily giving ourselves essentially jet lag for no good reason? The agony is especially acute in the Spring, during which we lose an hour of time on that Sunday. I felt horrible yesterday, even though I did the same as I usually do every Sunday.

It’s going the greatest of day when congress passes a law mandating either we keep DST or standard time forever, and never changing back.

Until then, the best we can do is cope with the difficulties. Even though today is a work day, I still woke up at the same time before changing the clock forwards. I can afford to do this because my normal wakeup time is well before when I have to actually get ready for work. When the alarm rings, it isn’t the ultimatum like it is for most people. The snooze button isn’t some penalty I am going to have to pay for later. This freedom is rather nice, though obviously I also go to sleep earlier to compensate.

Instead of forcing myself to wake up at this “new” time, I’m going to slowly allow my body to acquiesce. I’m not going to set an alarm; whenever I wake up is whenever I shall wake up. There’s no need to set a backstop alarm, because I would have to oversleep for over two hours before I’d have to begin panicking about getting to work on time.

This begs the question: why set an alarm at all? If I have such freedom of hours before I have to get ready for work, why not “naturally” wake everyday? Surely it’s better than being rudely interrupted by an alarm. I reckon this is worth exploring.

View fullsize

Morning paper.

California: vote YES on prop 7

I’m convinced daylight savings time is one of the worst inventions of man. In the immortal words of John Oliver, how is this still a thing?

Indeed every time the clock switches to or from daylight savings, I automatically rant about it on this blog, and heck yeah I will keep doing so until the powers at be get rid of it entirely. In California there’s a ballot measure up for a vote tomorrow allowing the legislature to either enact DST year round, or return to standard time, all the time. I’m fully ready to end friendships if I find out people did not vote ‘YES’ on proposition 7.

It is said that “fall back” - turning the clock back to standard time during Autumn - is physically easier to deal with than "spring forward” in March. The extra hour gained can be used productively, contrast to an hour lost in Spring inducing the equivalent of jet lag. From the experiences of yesterday however I would say that is not totally accurate.

Due to daylight savings time ending, this past Sunday was the longest day of the year if you count by hours - 25 of them. While most people implements the one hour into additional sleep time on Sunday morning, I elected to keep schedule as if the clock hasn’t changed, figuring it would be an antidote to whatever weirdness that typically manifests. Sadly, it wasn’t all that effective.

Yesterday I woke up at 7am (8am DST equivalent as I usually do) to go running, and for the rest of the day time felt like it was going super slowly. I went about my schedule as usual but every time I glanced at the clock it was much earlier in the day than what my body sensed in should be. It was so confused with the time discrepancy that at around 2pm I hit a wall: I was tired even though I’ve been doing the exact same tasks as the Sunday prior.

Can people be more productive with that one extra hour? It’s certainly possible, but for a regimented person like me, that one hour does more to discombobulate than assist. Next time - assuming DST is still on the books - I think I shall acquiesce to the new clock immediately instead of fighting to stay on the old one for one more day.

Though it wasn’t completely bad: I got the bonus hour of sleep today because I went to bed last night still in accords with daylight savings time. Preserving that hour for the day you have to go to work is much sweeter than a Sunday morning where you can choose to sleep in anyways.

Like the brush-strokes of an artist.