Summer Sleep Cycles

As the summer draws to an end, one thing becomes painfully clear:

I am in no way ready to be waking up at 7 AM (sometimes 6:30) to go to school.

This thought has been occurring to me for a few weeks, but it struck quite painfully last night at 6:40 AM when I was sitting on my floor, staring out my window and waiting to watch the sunrise. I'd finally pulled myself away from video games at 4:30, and away from the computer at around 5:30 - I crawled back out of bed at 6 when I decided that no sleep was going to be happening.

So as I stared at the sky, it came to me that maybe going to bed at 6 AM and waking up at 4 PM is not the healthiest sleep cycle to adopt a week before school starts again.

I mean, sure, for half of the summer I was doing fine. I still had school (technically), so I was going to bed and waking up at perfectly normal hours (for me, that is; I can usually work on less sleep than the general populace). But that was in a time zone five hours ahead of what I live in. I got back and hey, I was waking up at 10 AM! It was mostly because of jet lag, but I had a nice cycle going on for a while there. However, good sleeping habits never last long with me.

It wasn't long before I started falling into the usual routine of waking up in the afternoon and going to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. And before long, I'll be a part of the sleep-deprived teenage masses, shuffling into the classrooms like zombies because as soon as summer hits, all reason is thrown out the window and we decide that it's better to be awake at night rather than during the day.

This morning, while I was sitting, I thought a lot. It was nice to take some time to think, especially when the world is still quiet and there aren't the usual distractions. I didn't see the sunrise; while my window faces east, it was cloudy and my house is surrounded by trees. This was a little disappointing, but I wasn't staying up any later to see if it would happen eventually.

In any case, let's hope I don't stay up that late (or early, however you look at it) again!

Greetings From England

I'm spending the month here in the UK, and it's been an amazing trip so far. I'll try uploading some pictures of Oxford (where I've been for the past week) later, if my camera ever decides that it doesn't hate me. I'll be in London starting Monday, and then it's off to other exciting places.

So I'm here doing a credit for summer school - we do school on weekday mornings and the rest of the time is exploring. For one of our first assignments I had to write a piece about myself based on Margaret Laurence's "Where My World Began". I've decided to share it, so here goes:

My world began with exploring other worlds, all vast with their own unique feel. You never quite forget just what a particular one is like, as they all feel like home sooner or later. My world began while I was wandering through forests and deserts, towns and castles. Defeating monsters everywhere I went, from the highest mountains to the deepest, darkest dungeons. These worlds span far and wide, including the bottoms of oceans and the furthest reaches of space. I learned in my travels to always work as hard as I could, because the evil sorcerer wasn't going away anytime soon and the kingdom wasn't going to save itself. Video games have shaped my life in many ways, maybe most of all giving me my will to help people. Some will say video games make you violent, but based on my own experience, I don't believe that. I've been gaming since I could use that blocky, grey Nintendo 64 controller, pathetically failing at Beetle Adventure Racing and Super Mario 64. And even when I just couldn't win the fight, I left the dungeon and didn't return until I was strong enough. I've played a lot of video games through the years; some good, some bad. The good ones - the ones that I love playing over and over again - tend to be saving the princess, the kingdom, the world... It may sometimes seem a little bit cheesy and overplayed, but the sense of accomplishment you get when the princess is thanking you, the kingdom is safe, and the world is still there is overwhelming. You feel good knowing that you've done something to help people, however real they are. All your time spent solving the riddles and making sure you were strong enough wasn't spent in vain, because your quest is finally over and all is at peace. You have taken the responsibility that was given to you, you've defeated the monsters, you've levelled and gotten strong enough to defeat that undefeatable boss, and the feeling you get from rescuing somebody - be it the princess or the entire world - is amazing. I aspire to be a doctor, one that saves people and changes lives, so maybe video games have influenced me more than I'd thought. I'm not really drawn to shoot-'em-up, kill-everything-in-sight first-person shooters as much as the classic save-the-world RPG, because I feel like that fulfillment is more important than shooting aliens. Saving and helping people leaves you with a warm feeling; it doesn't matter if they're just another NPC or a flesh-and-blood person, the feeling is still there. Having gotten that warm feeling from a young age has really helped shape me as a person. Once you help a person, you feel fulfilled. You want to feel fulfilled more, and you start helping people. Even if it's just a little thing, like picking something up for someone when they drop it, or a big thing like saving a life on the operating table, or even yet saving a virtual princess, it all counts. You've made somebody's day even just a little better, and doing so has made your day better too. After playing video games for all these years, I'm not a violent person. I enjoy helping people and making the world a better place. This is how they've helped shape who I am, and they'll continue to do so for the rest of my life.

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Wow... So sorry for the block of text, but I really felt like this should be posted.

I'm eager to see your opinion on this (or where your world began - a defining thing/moment in your life that has shaped you into who you are) in the comments!