Biphasic Sleep

So, I'm trying out something spiffy called biphasic sleep, which for me really just means taking a nap in the afternoon, usually after work when I'm tired anyways. The reason why I'm doing this is because it will help me have a better sleep schedule and just make sure I get more sleep in general because this sleep only at night thing just isn't working because, frankly, I have a life at night.

I have friends who don't hang out during the day and my house is settled down and I just feel freer at night. I mean, I want to be asleep at 3am, sure. But I'm totally awake at 1am. So I'm just gonna take a little afternoon nap everyday and that will ensure I get enough sleep without affecting the my friends and family.

You gotta do what fits, you know?

Of course, on my bike trip I dunno when I'll be able to snooze. I might have to become semi nocturnal because parks are usually closed at ten and yeah. I would rather sleep during the day than have to sleep outside at night when scary things might happen. I'll find some resources though.

I should've just posted last night

Now I can't remember all the awesomeness that occurred...

I had work in the morning for a while and reminded my gm that I was still interested in being trained for a shift manager position. I was happy when she told me "before we train you, we need to train your replacements!" Unfortunately though that means my replacement will take longer than one of my friends' as mine has to learn prep. Grrrr...

Anyways, D. came over to hang out and we watched the perks of being a wallflower which is a great movie. Everyone should see it. We talked about Emma Watson a lot and how awesome she was.

The next day I found a dog at the humane society named Emma and I didn't even think about them having the same names until now. I really badly want a dog. They're so cool. I met a dog named Jadyn as well. 'twas a pit bull, unfortunately. It's unfortunate because the poor thing has so many stereotypes. Amazing dog though. A sweetie, happy, beautiful...

I miss Jadyn.

I'm tempted to get Jadyn despite what everyone: like my parents and boyfriend, think.
:(

If I don't get Jadyn I may just get a mouse.

The whole day

Starting from 7:30am to 10:30pm I worked. The entire day. I'm crazy, I know. I'll like myself for it later, I promise. Like when I get passes for Valleyfair. And I'll go multiple times. *shrugs*

So it started out with my doing great on prep, which is cool. I listened to my musica full blast, again. It really helps out my speed. I don't even know of corporate is okay with it or not, now that I think about it...

All 3 of us morning employees got to have break together, which is always fun. We talked about Amsterdam and traveling, which I obviously need to do more of. The regular morning shift manager has been all over and it's really quite cool to hear about.

I was on back line most of the morning. This, obviously, made me happy. I'm pretty good when it comes to making me some sandwiches. I'm striving to do better though as I need to hit my goal of making Arby's my career.

The old assistant manager came in with her new baby. She and the baby looked gorgeous. I even got to hold the little one. It made me happy.

When the current assistant manager came in, my favorite person besides the morning shift manager, my day went even better. Sure there was a rush and we were ironically understaffed because two employees called in and one was almost an hour late, but it was cool and it just kind of went by.

I got switched to drivethru for a couple hours which I didn't mind, as I like variety. Then I was switched to frontline, which was also cool. Somewhere in all this time period I got a second break and yeah.

I'm so tired now,
Goodnight!

Yesterday

Sorry guys,
I decided I'd miss yesterday because it's a lot easier to write about the day before than try to write while the day is still occurring.

I worked, as usual, from 7:30 in the morning to sometime in the afternoon. Yesterday it was 1:30, and today it will be a not normal 10:30...
I was on back line most of the time, with some drivethru. It was a good day at work. Then I came home. I found out my older sister was coming home tonight, which was a good thing to hear. I also heard my younger sister was coming home this weekend, hopefully she won't be mega bored.

I cleaned out a little more of my stuff. Getting ready to nomad.

I also put my betta fish bowl on free cycle. It hasn't had a betta fish in it since Chessa died. I tried to keep a guppy or two in there, but it just wasn't the same and I was neglecting them.

One day, I will have another betta fish, but honestly, not within the next two years. I'd rather buy a new betta bowl two or three years from now then have broken glass in one of my like two boxes of stuff that aren't coming with me on the trip.

I hope to be totally "moved-out" of my parents house when I leave. Then they won't be tied down and neither will I when I come back. When I come back, I know I may or may not have a place to stay. So it will obviously be my goal to get a job that can pay for a place.

I'm thinking Arby's.

Don't look at me like I'm crazy. I plan to get as high up in the rankings as I can so that it will be a little easier for me when I come back. And I will. Come back.

-Alex

Old Objects, Old Memories...

I found some books of mine I no longer read and that I no longer need. So I brought them to the half price bookstore that's near me. I didn't get too much, but hey, someone else will get to read the books. Ya'know?

I almost think I would've gotten more by breaking it into 3 separate trips.

Anyways, I'm still going through some old stuff and I ended up opening the closet... The closet had two huge piles of stuff I used to have. They were ginormous! Mostly all papers. I've spent my evening looking through them...

Old yearbooks
Assignments
Letters

Everything I pick up brings me through gates to my childhood.

Did you know ever since I was a little girl I've wanted to get better at art? I didn't.
And how about my lyrics? They were all stories with an attempted melody.
How about the art that became designs?

I found them. I found them all.
I really miss the little girl I used to be.

So many memories.

The start of a new week

I start my weeks on Mondays now... Sundays are too much of a Saturday for me. They're my one day off usually. Also, you can't do as much on a Sunday, most places are closed. Therefore, my week starts on Monday.

I've been doing more work with my freelancer on the bike trip project and we've been working on a couple ideas for things and I almost keep wondering if I even want to end at a year, maybe more like a year and a couple months because I'd like the opportunity to take a seasonal job somewhere at like a Guest Ranch or something cool like that.

But hey, I've got the time to figure all that stuff out.

Until then I'm trying to come up with Training. Training as in biking, eating, drinking enough water, and logging what I'm doing. I think the log part is most definitely the hardest.

I just can't remember to ever log things... But you guys will keep me in check, right?

Going Through My Stuff

Nothing about this bike trip will be harder for me than going through and getting rid of my stuff.
Not because I'm materialistic, no. Because I am HEAVILY sentimental.

Today, however, I have come up with a way to go through my clothes easier. I'm going to wear each article for a while. And while I'm wearing the clothes, I'm going to be going for different "looks."

Punk rocker style clothing gives me the feeling of being free and confident, therefore any clothing I have that fits this look will make me feel better about my stuff.

Professional clothing make me also feel confident and more serious, like I can get things done. Having professional clothing makes me ambitious.

Laid back outdoorsy clothing like cargo and yoga pants makes me feel comfortable and attuned to nature. Keeping a piece or two of this style clothing will keep me from getting too stressed.

Lastly, porcelain doll girl clothing and accessories, the elegant look, keeps me feeling put together. There's just something about it that I enjoy. It gives my inner feelings their own happy inner feelings. A few key pieces will keep me sane. And creative, it tends to boost my creativity as well.

So I'm going to try to combine all those looks into as small of an amount of clothing and accessories as possible. It'll be fun and will help me to narrow down what I should bring.

As for the rest of my stuff, we'll have to see what I come up with.

As for my daily update,

I went to an "I lost 50lbs" celebration for my friend's mum. It was pretty cool. We played a lot of games at the park including a major snowball fight, nukem, and ninja. I certainly got MY exercise today!

D. and Dav. picked me up from the park and we stopped at Caribou to chat. I got a hot chocolate which I was disappointed in and we left to pick up Joc. who has been dealing with a lot of crazy issues.
My goal for the night was to make her laugh as MANY times as possible.
I did.

I'm posting really late again because I'm lame and procrastinated.
-Alex

4 hour shifts and EarthFest

Sorry it took me so long to post, sleep called. So this is the post for yesterday:

Hello there fellow Earthlings!
Today I took a couple magical journeys.

Journey Number One: The Four Hour Shift.

Waking up early wasn't something I minded for a job such as mine, in fact, it's quite required. What I mind is no matter how much sleep I get I am always groggy when it is time for me to awaken. I'm barely able to get up.

This wouldn't be so bad if I weren't scheduled for 8am. Now, many of you notice that's 30 minutes LATER than normal... Good eyesight.
Simple math though:
7:30am start, get done, Maybe, by 9:30. Go on required break. Come back in time to help out before first customer walks in.
8:00am start, usually not so much luck.

So I get there and find out that basically I do prep and I get to go home because they're cutting people today... Fine by me :)

Journey Number Two: BCHS EarthFest
The EarthFest is basically where a bunch of vendors come and have booths where they either try to tell you to buy their nature friendly product or they try to tell you what you can do to change the world. Pretty cool stuff.

I got some fliers and bike maps and such and learned about a walk for the humane society I could do, etc.

Then it hit me.

There was bike stuff there. Biking is a means to make the earth a greener place. Maybe next year or the year afterwards I can have a booth there and let people know about my idea. Help show them how biking and limited living is possible.

It's an idea.
-Alex

Just another day

So, I stayed up pretty late last night. 2 or 3am. It was pretty interesting. I caved and went to sleep when my silly stomach decided to get upset. I don't like my stomach most of the time. This time was no exception. It did it today, during work, as well. It tends to act up quite often. Some are guesstimating I have IBS. It's possible, but I don't like it.

Next week I work about another 30 hours, which is great for my trip planning!

I found out I can get a "phone upgrade" in 6 months. So, in November. This is great because then I could get a larger memory or whatever iPad mini. Which would help, again, for the trip.

In other news, I watched mean girls 2 today. It's a great movie. In my opinion it might be even better than the first, but I suppose they're both kind of different movies, actually. Maybe I like it better because I feel more connected with the second movie's protagonist. We have similarish feelings towards things.

I don't have a job passion however. If I were to regret anything about my current life it's that I don't know "what I want to be when I grow up." Maybe an author, but that's about what has stuck with me. Hence why I'm going to participate in this nomadic journey. It just makes sense.

I have a ton of book ideas for this journey, and probably for now, too, actually...

...

I was picked up one of my best friends and his friend today to do a little bit of filming for a project. It was cool, we went to a park and spent a good chunk of time there. Then we spent nearly an hour at Caribou, one of my favorite places to go.

My best friend De. wasn't too thrilled about the idea at first, but after he found out how awesome their hot chocolate was, he chilled out. We spent a lot of time talking about movies and cinema and some people I didn't know about and some weird but awesome comedy routine.

After Caribou came Cub Foods, which is open 24/7. Poor employees. We didn't get anything but I did stop by the redbox to pick up some dvd's. I wanted to get Django but they were out. Instead I got Argo, Hansel and Gretel, Perks of being a wallflower, and Les Miserables.

My favorite actresses are as follows:
1. Emma Watson
2. Emma Stone
3. Anne Hathaway

So two of those movie choices are obvious.

After cub, we went to dav's house and watched Argo, because I figured De. would be especially interested in it. It was amazing, and everything was based off of a true story.

All in all a good night.

It was made even better by how I felt about myself. I put together a strong rocker meets elegance look and it just, it matched me. That rarely happens.

Sleep Well Everyone!
-Alex

Snow

Yep, that's right. It is snowing in the middle of April. I keep acting all surprised but in all honesty, I'm not. We've been having crazy weather for a while. It is getting to me though, all this snow and the dreary skies. My moods are quite affected by weather.

I'm a big fan of warmth. And it's... Not warm...

I have work tomorrow... At 7:30... In the morning... Until 4... Pm... And it'll probably still be snowing. I'm really not a fan of snow. I mean, I am, kind of... But not from mid-March on...

As for an update on how the bike trip is going:

I made a stop at CC's military surplus store to find they have a LOT of helpful stuff. They have an I think 45-gal backpack with a spot for a water bladder and with external pockets and a lot of internal sectioning, which is pretty cool. They also have a big rain poncho. A reusable one.

I've begun looking for a price check on the camelbak water filtration thingy, because I'm going to special order it because they run out a lot... And then when they have the 3 liter bladders, I'm going to get one of them. They had a 2 liter, but I figured I had time to wait for a 3. Who knows, maybe I'll love myself for it later.

I'm also taking a look at their sleeping bags, which fold smaller than mine, and are good down to 30 degrees for one and I think mine is only good to 40... I could also get one down to 20 or 10 but they're more expensive.
And slightly bigger and weightier.
I'm trying to cut down on bigger and weightier.

Anywho, it's almost midnight. I'm tired and work in the morning. Goodnight my fellow interweb dwellers!!

-Alex

Preliminary Planning

So I'm on this freelancing site called elance (which is free to join) and I decided I'd post a job. I made it about my bike trip, of course. It's to basically have somebody else help me figure out how to do everything I want for the trip.

So far communication has been good. Their job is pretty simple. Brainstorm. The hard part is some of the scenarios.

I'll put up updates on that later as they come in.

As for other things in my life, I got to hang out with my three best friends yesterday night. Things were cool and silly as they normally are. Constant silly fights. Anime. YouTube videos... It's what's normal. And I'm oddly comfortable with that.

It's actually kind of funny. I remember a big issue I had with an ex of mine, actually with most of them, they always wanted to do the same things. For one it was cuddling, for another it was video games and movies... Actually, it appears any person I've ever even hung out with seems to prefer those for activities. And it IS a good fallback... I still like my variety, but I'm not nearly as pushy about it as I used to be. (Sorry J.)

I don't have to go to work tomorrow, which is good. I mean, I like work but one needs breaks. Often. Besides, it'll give me more time to work on blogs and freelancing and such.

My boyfriend says he wants to hang out tomorrow so maybe I won't get toooo much done ;)

Anyways, I'm off to pet my giganto cat of doom now!
-Alex

Hey Guise!

Here's a little blurb about me. I am currently nineteen years old and living with my folks at home. In my house there is my mother, my father, sometimes my older sister, my dad's friend, 4 cats, a turtle, a bird, some other fishies and my younger sister during some weekends, holidays, and summer time.

Oh, and me.

My favorite thing to do is ride my bike. I have a lot of other activities I like to do, most things I like to do actually. Most hobbies that is. So like drawing, writing, sewing, YouTube... Etc.

It's amusing.

I work at Arby's currently, as a team member, but soon I'll be training to be a shift manager. This is usually good news. So yeah.

So this is the little blurb about me. And this is my blog.

-Alex