due to extreme amazing thunderstorms the beach trip was cancelled. so i was able to follow my schedule like a pro. seems to be going pretty well so far. i am quite groggy, but nothing too severe. some nodding off right around the first hour after waking, or if i'm reading or studying, and then towards the last stretch before the next nap, although right before im supposed to take a nap the drowsiness has already passed. slightly out of sync. today the naps mostly felt like i never actually fell asleep, though during one i was sure that i'd overslept when in fact i woke up at around 19 minutes before the alarm.
my alarm clock is actually rain and thunder... i wonder if the recent thunderstorm extravaganza (theyve been happening several times a week lately) could end up somehow working against me... make me immune to the sound of thunder or something. or maybe it will just train me to wake up whenever i hear thunder, which i wouldnt actually mind too much...
the only weird thing that's happened so far was after my 11:30pm nap last night... i woke up and for about 5 minutes was having light hallucinations. when i moved my arm i'd see 3 or 4 um... images of my arm in its previous 3 or 4 locations. do you know what im talking about? there's a word or phrase for this that i can't seem to recall. like stop motion if you were to superimpose each phase of movement over the previous one? i know at least one of you isn't too happy to be hearing this, but don't worry because (a) i've experienced similar things with architecture-related sleep dep, and (b) if it keeps happening and i start going crazy(ier) ill stop.
but aside from the occasional bout of nodding i felt fine all day, and am pleased with how much i've been getting done in the past few days without even particularly having giant overeager to-do lists.
two other negative side effects: (1) i just spent about an hour trying to figure out the word i actually was going for in place of overeager.... i gave up. its hard to determine how much of this is due to sleep-drowse brain and how much is a general deterioration of english from just not using it as much. do you know what word im thinking of? when you set your sights maybe a little too high because you're motivated and maybe a little naive? there's a word for it. (2) my eye muscles have been pretty tense. this happens normally when i dont get much sleep, but its exacerbated by the fact that reading and studying takes up a majority of both my regular and my extra waking activities. though a part of me is always looking out for excuses to buy more japanese glasses, i dont really need my eyes to get much worse at this point. so... we'll see how it is in a week or so.
edit: overly ambitious. that was it.
1 comment:
also, the tendency for an exchange student to lose access to certain native-language vocabulary words is called "first language attrition" and it happens a lot to study abroad students.
there have been a few hypotheses as to why this happens, one of which came from the Anderson UO lab that you were a participant for back in 2005-ish.
our hypothesis was that when you are in the early stages of learning a second language, vocabulary words are simply alternative labels for abstract ideas and objects. when attempting to come up with the Japanese word for the idea of "resting at night", for example, you may spontaneously think of the English label "sleep". This is the incorrect label...and as a result, your mind inhibits this word so that it won't interfere with your ability to come up with the Japanese equivalent. If this occurs for a long period of time, you will find that many English words are difficult to retrieve. anyway, it's just one explanation, but I thought you might be interested.
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