Current mood:	optimistic
Current music:	orbital's the altogether for the first time in a while

i'm a changed man
i've grown up with a misconception that has affected deeply my approach to life. i figured that people grew into the adults that they would become, you start off with your 'formative' years, build your habits there, and those habits become you. i'm not a morning person, i'm positively terrible at keeping to a schedule. i've been that way for as long as i can remember, it's not a habit or a phase i went through for a few weeks, but it's a character trait that unfortunately embodies me.

wrong.

so wrong. one thing i've become more aware of in the last few years is you don't stop maturing when you enter adulthood. i'm just beginning to realize that it's possible to reinvent yourself from the inside out.

it took a wakeup call to made me realize how necessary it is. on thanksgiving, i had home cooking for the first time in a long time. i filled my plate with as much food as it could fit, i ate everything on it, then i did that again. and then i did dessert. and i don't think i was full by the end of the night. this might have something to do with the fact that i had no eating habits whatsoever. my cousin mentioned that i look skinny- now my cousin has known me all of my life, i've always looked skinny. if he says so, it means something. i had a conversation with my aunt about my school situation... usually i just tell my relatives that my "plan" is to head back in the coming semester (i say this irrespective of which semester is currently going on), but this time i was honest. i've been putting off my reapplication because #1 i'm scared of graduating, and #2 i'm scared of myself. i'm scared of graduating because for the first time in a long time, i'm not sure what i want to do next. i love playing piano, i love getting paid for it, and although i did love software design and i like (scratch that, need) the challenge, i didn't like/couldn't fit in with/couldn't handle the corporate lifestyle. regardless of my own (in)ability to follow someone else's schedule, let alone my own, i do still kind of gag at the thought. i'm scared of myself because i've reapplied to wpi before. i told them, and more importantly told myself, that i've learned my lesson. i was as surprised as anyone to find out that i hadn't. i guess i'm not quite as introspective as i thought, and i've had to go back to the drawing board to try and figure out why i had no idea what was going on with my life.

when i got home, it wasn't long before i went to sleep. it wasn't the tryptophan (it never is, says science, but urban legend aside), rather it had more to do with the fact that i had slept for just 4 hours the night before. my sleeping habits had been non-existent, my body never knew when it was tired, only when it could and couldn't function. i woke up on friday at 5:30am with a clear head and a desire to do something about life.

i'm sorry, ravi. on black friday, i went shopping. i bought groceries. milk, bread and other sandwich-making materials, dish soap. the essentials. i was out.

i toyed with the idea of writing my own routine-tracking webapp, but ultimately decided to go with Joe's Goals, even if it has a coarser grain of control than what someone with no habits to speak of like myself might want. since friday, i've gotten out of bed with my alarm clock at 7am every day, except for one day when i slept in until 10:30am. my body felt as though i had slept for far too long, but 10:30am used to be early for me. i've been to bed by midnight every night since monday.

congratulations, i'm almost a normal functioning person now. and for almost a whole week. i'm a changed man.

i've been afraid to improve my living habits because i'm so perfectly horrible at following through- simply, i haven't had any habits to speak of. we all go on health kicks or kicks of one sort or another, and i've never been able to identify when i'm acting in the moment, and what constitutes a prelude to good habit.

somehow i need to make sure this isn't a kick. i'd say wish me luck, but i'm not sure i believe in it.