A week passed by

Seems the sleep study people lost my results. I'm just assuming that since I called them asking for my results and they went, "You seriously haven't gotten them yet?" and then still haven't called me back for a week.

Meanwhile, I'm still falling asleep at work and can't do anything to correct it that I'm aware of. From the couple people I've spoken to about it, I seem to exhibit a few symptoms of narcolepsy, a mild case for sure, but one that's affecting me nonetheless.

So yeah, bad night last night, up for 23 hours straight, falling asleep for most of it, started out in the upper 60s and ended in the lower 20s. A 40 degree drop in about 6 hours. You know, now that I think about it, it couldn't have been in the 20s. It wasn't cold enough, and it kept raining, not snowing. It was probably in the middle 30s.

Anyway, then I had trouble with some inmates not following orders, and so I wanted to dish out some relatively mild consequences, but my House Sergeant wasn't interested in it. I'm not sure if he did anything, but when he saw that I was getting frustrated at my standing, he told me to leave and go help some other officers outside the cell house. That wasn't really cool, and kinda exacerbated my frustration.

This is not to say that I was actually frustrated, just a bit annoyed. I was also not feeling well, being up so late and having so much caffeine in me that my heart rate was pumping at about 105 bpm, as opposed to the normal 60.

I hate to blame my inconsistencies and personal failures on something external like caffeine and lack of sleep. I really "should" have better self control, but I really "should" not anything. Should is merely hoping. I'll just not get as frustrated at my coworkers from now on.

I'm going to do some Tai Chi now (getting into it after watching a few videos. Makes me feel awesome.).

Also, if you want a good movie to watch that'll make you cry and give you long emotional nightmares, go see "Seven Pounds" with Will Smith and Rosario Dawson. It's fantastic.

Woot?

I just did 30 pushups. IN A ROW!

This summer I tried to do the 100 pushup challenge. I got to week 3 and got tired of it because I wasn't making any noticeable progress (my first day I did 21 pushups and was too exhausted to do anymore. My last day I did 22...). Of course, that was following their workout regimen which, I should have known wouldn't work for me. I've never made progress when other people have pushed me. I dunno what it is, seems like my body just needs a little more recover time than other people or something along those lines.

One thing that happened to me that convinced me of this:

My senior year in high school, I went out for the track team. I only went to one meet (music concerts conflicted too often with track meets) and I was last place in the 400 meter sprint. Now, first off, I never wanted to do the 400, and I mildly suspect I was put there by the coach as humilation because I sprinted the 100 and 200 better than his son, the supposed "star athlete." It's most likely not the case, but it makes me feel better.

Anyway, after 2 months of track practice, I couldn't run a full mile to save my life, and I wasn't improving my times at all.

Fast forward one year. Summer time, after my freshman year of college. I got so bored at home without anythign to do or any friends, so I decided to start running every day. Within a month I was running a full mile. My training regimen that I made up from day to day was pretty much "okay, today I'm going to run one block, then I'll see how I feel." and then I'd keep running if I felt okay, and I'd stop if I felt too worn out. Lo and behold, I was improving at a remarkable rate.

I have a few little examples of things like this that just lead me to believe that I will improve faster and safer if I do what feels right rather than what "experts" believe will get me the best results.

Now if only I had the ethic to exercise more than once or twice a week. Specifically, if I had the ethic to do cardio more than once a week (I weightlift several times a week at work).