All Or Nothing

The GSE

Well, the GSE (Great Sleep Experiment) is officially over. For those of you who don't know what the GSE is really all about, let me explain. It's really quite a simple concept. Because I have displayed an uncanny knack for falling asleep and staying asleep pretty much anywhere and anytime, myself and a few of my friends decided that it would be a good idea to see just how long I really could sleep if I never had any reason to get up. And this is better than say, a Saturday when you know you get to sleep in, because on the Saturday, you hit about 3 in the afternoon, and start feeling guilty and thinking that you might better get up. Not, however, in the GSE. The whole goal is to stay asleep as long as possible, so there is no guilt involved. I am only allowed to get up for either some water or to go use the bathroom, and as soon as I am awake for more than 20 minutes, the whole experiment is over. Also, drug-induced sleep (i.e. benadryl or ny-quill) is not allowed, and staying up for an inordinate amount of time prior to the GSE in order to secure exhaustion is also against the rules. It has to be totally natural, normal sleep. I complied with all of these rules, and although the official end results stand at about 19 hours of total sleep time, I really feel that it could have been much more successful if I would have had better conditions to work with. Here is the breakdown:

4:30pm-10:00pm - couch in living room, which might not seem like the best place to sleep but was surprisingly quiet

10:05pm-9:00am - my bed, where I planned to log the rest of my hours, but was woken to some very loud Dave Matthews being played outside my room at about 9am. Now, I have no problems getting woken to some Dave, in fact that is probably a pretty preferable way to be woken up, but not in the midst of the GSE

9:10am-11:25am - my parents bed, which (after experimenting with some other options) is the only place in the house far enough away from the music to possibly be conducive to sleep.

11:25am-11:35am - still in parents bed, trying to ignore the fact that two of the windows in their room are now being banged on repeatedly because of being re-sealed or something equally detrimental to my whole experiment.

11:37am - GSE declared over

I know I had at least another 5-8 hours in me, so I'm just going to have to wait until the perfect set of circumstances come up and then try for the GSE2. The conclusions I came up with were twofold:

1. I have an incredible capacity to sleep, even when conditions are not optimal.

2. People around here definitely do not have the kind of respect they should for the GSE.

Storming

If there were only words to express how much I love the storms...I love the smell, I love the sound, and I love the sharp contrast they make in comparison to what we normally experience. It takes something out of the ordinary to make most people stop for a second and remember that it is a beautiful life they are living.

How Great Thou Art

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: "My God, how great Thou art!"

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

Mr. Gray

confusion wanders in
strides the evening like a king
chaos and turmoil prevail
bedlam reigns, hope is drowned
ah but strangely we settle down
resigned to the sinking ship on which we sail....
another night is getting late
I don't know which way to go
there's just this long white road
and I can't think straight
no I can't think straight

david gray

Nathan

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that my very favorite person in the entire world will be here, in Lubbock, TX, as of this Monday evening. Yes, that's right, my brother Nathan is coming. So be prepared....

ANNY OY YED

ANNOYED. I am at a loss as to how to spell the noise I want to make because of just how annoyed I really am. Any suggestions?

Ok. We got a dog.

Ok. We got a dog. She's a Jack Russell Terrier mix, and she's pretty cute, if I do say so myself. We are currently accepting all suggestions for names, starting....NOW :)

A Comprehensive Listing of What Might Happen in a Bad Day

A Comprehensive Listing of What Might Happen in a Bad Day:

1. One might have an extremely realistic dream in which a close and personal friend absoultely goes off the deep end and says/does every terrible thing imaginable

2. One might wake up from the dream, feeling as if it all actually happened and also feeling suspiciously as if they have been run over by a truck during the night

3. One might go out into their living room, only to be asked if they have seen their somewhat weird but beloved cat lately

4. One might then realize that not only have they not seen the cat, but also that he is definitively missing

5. One might not handle the discovery of their missing cat well and go around the entire apartment complex in their pajamas, calling for their cat and receiving various sympathetic/disturbed looks from random neighbors, and still never find even so much as a hint of their cat

6. One might take a break from the cat search and get on the computer, hoping to receive and read an email from a professor saying: "Yes, of course you can take your final early so that you can go to Waco and watch your brother in the state baseball tournament" only to find that their email is "unreadable at this time, please try back later" even though EVERYONE else's email is readable on the same sever

7. One might try and prop the door open in such a way as to allow their cat to get in while they are at work even though it means that people could come in and steal anything their little theiving hearts desired

8. One might then go to work, and subsequently allow their face (yes, meaning face and head) to become the target for baby vomit

9. One might then come home from work, hoping and praying to find their cat, but instead finding that not only is the cat still MIA, but also the door is now broken in such a way that what little chance the cat ever had of getting in is virtually gone

10. One might then go to the computer, desperately hoping to be able to check email and read the coveted statemtent (see #5) from their professor, only to find that the entire DSL line to the computer is disconnected, and upon switching to dial up, find that the professor has written back, but his message reads more like: "I cannot change the time of finals, you will have to take it with everybody else", thus crushing all hopes of seeing the state baseball game or the brother's performance in such game


Man, that day would suck, huh? Good thing it's all hypothetical.....and my cat is still gone. If you see him, please reprimand him and then bring him back home.

Baseless Fabric, eh?

These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

Prospero, from Shakespeare's The Tempest