Twice a year, we have to get around to changing our clocks. While this isn’t a huge pain, this simple act creates problems for me and a lot of other people. As mentioned previously, I don’t sleep enough. This process ends up altering my sleep pattern and causes more issues in trying to fall asleep. It also creates problems contacting other people. While most areas of the United States follow daylight savings time rules, some places do not. This makes it difficult to remember what time it is in other locations where friends, family, or acquaintances might live.

It’s not that the process of changing clocks is a hassle. Most modern technology does it automatically. While the recent change in the dates required some adjustment in computer software, a lot of things were able to have the flaw corrected. However, this does not hold true for everything. VCRs, and other non-Internet connected devices usually don’t have a reasonable way to correct this. And so, it reverts to requiring the manual adjustment. Again, not a hassle. It’s easy to do.

But the results of that one hour change are stupidly unnecessary. So we get an “extra” hour of daylight throughout a portion of the year. It’s not like that’s really true. We’re not relocating the United States to a location that actually gets longer periods of sunlight. We’re just moving our superficial measurement of time.

I just don’t see a real point to it.

There are certain musical groups/artists/etc. that I enjoy listening to more than others. For example, I really like the sound of a well-played piano. Because of this, I really enjoy listening to Ben Folds, Jack’s Mannequin, Coldplay, and many others. My musical interests certainly aren’t limited to piano, but that music is what I enjoy listening to the most. Other bands that I like include Cake, Green Day, The White Stripes, Reel Big Fish, and so many more.

Music just allows me to relax. It allows me to just sit and think. It allows me to feel things, both happy and sad. And I like feelings. They drive me crazy sometimes, but they make me me.

Now, I’m not someone that drinks a lot. Once in a while, I’ll sit down and have a beer or a scotch, but it’s not frequent. It’s not that I don’t like what happens to me when I do drink. I just don’t find it necessary to drink all that often. Part of it might be that I don’t have a lot of nearby friends at school, but even if I did, I don’t think I would drink much more than I do now.

Now, alcohol does generally affect me more than other people, especially those of a similar body type. I often begin to get a little bit tipsy after only one or two drinks, and it doesn’t take a lot more to get me drunk. This probably plays another part in why I don’t drink that much.I do enjoy the effects of drinking. However, I don’t find it a necessary feeling or something that I want to experience all that often. I’m very happy leaving it as an occasional thing…

While I don’t have a problem deciding to write a blog post, I very often don’t end up posting anything because I can’t figure out a good way to word whatever it is that I want to write. This is occasionally a problem with homework, too. I usually end up writing a bunch of things down, and after a lot of editing, I can make it work similarly to what I had originally intended.

It’s not that my vocabulary is poor, but I would say that it is a bit underdeveloped through a general lack of reading or failing to actually look up words that I don’t know in a dictionary. It also has something to do with a brain injury I suffered when I was 16. Tests were pretty conclusive indicating that I had a problem recalling words when I needed to. While I’ve learned to deal with this setback pretty well, it still causes some issues with things that I might not be all that passionate about.

Additionally, while I will occasionally use it myself, I really dislike the use of improper grammar. This also makes it difficult to word some things, as I don’t like to post something that is filled with grammatical errors. Though, I will let one slip by occasionally, if I don’t feel like it’s a major issue or if the mistake complies with improper standards set by society.

Regardless, I’m trying to develop the vocabulary (through reading and writing) and not care so much about saying things as elegantly as I’d like, at least for this blog. Homework still does necessitate proper wording, at least sometimes.

However, I want to point out that I don’t sleep very well in general. I have established times that I go to bed just about every night in an attempt to adjust my body to one particular schedule. I rarely am able to fall asleep quickly. Thoughts swirl around in my mind like a wild fire, and it usually takes me a couple of hours to actually fall asleep. This results in about 5-6 hours of sleep on a good night. There are exceptions to this, but it is the norm. While I usually wakeup groggy in the morning, I usually am able to fully wake up fairly quickly.

While this can lead to my being tired quite often, I really don’t like naps that much. While they feel great, and I feel awesome after a nice short nap, it usually delays the sleep even further. A one hour nap can take away 3-4 hours of sleep. That, I don’t really like much at all…

I like “swear words.” I think that they hold a necessary place in the English vocabulary and that they can be used to put emphasis on certain feelings that often need to go along with the words they modify. Other times, nothing expresses one’s true feelings like a little bit of profanity. I realize that in this type of context, the words are often far-removed from their original meaning. Language evolves. There’s not much more to say than that. (Or actually, there is, but I don’t feel like getting into it all. See Wikipedia for more information…)

That said, I don’t like to use that type of language all that often. I feel that they are used way too frequently in casual conversation when they really don’t add any true value to what is being said. I will use these words when I feel it’s necessary to infer the proper meaning.

I also prefer not to use this type of language in public all that much, because I don’t like offending people. While I don’t think that people should be offended by “properly used” profanity, I understand that some people are.

I suppose this shouldn’t be all that much of a shock, but in the past I have traditionally been someone that drinks only a small amount of just plain water and relied on other beverages to quench my thirst. However, recently, I’ve really developed a liking to just drinking water. I don’t really care how it tastes, as long as it isn’t really bad. In fact, I’ve mostly quit drinking other beverages. A couple of times per week I might have a soda, which is almost always diet. Other times, I might buy orange juice, but this is pretty rare. I also drink soy milk on a fairly regular basis, but it’s usually only for breakfast, either with cereal or as a drink along with toast.

Almost every other time I drink something, it’s just good old water from the tap. There is the notable exception of alcoholic beverages, but that post is for another day…

I am a procrastinator. Yes. I like to put things off as much as I can before working on them. For example, take this weekend, during which I spent Saturday studying very little for these two exams. Now I suppose you could say that I did actually study a little bit for them, but really, I hardly scratched the surface of the content of these tests. In truth, I’ve spent a lot of time studying for them today, and I am fairly confident in doing well on them. However, I still saved it for what I estimated to be as late as I could.

Now, I am getting better in this regard. For example, I started studying very early today, rather than later. This is a good thing. I like to think that I’m going to improve even more over the remainder of my schooling. I certainly hope so, because med school will be problematic if I save everything for the last minute…