Groggy days

I didn't make it to the blog last night; I'll explain why in a minute

I woke up yesterday extremely tired, perhaps because I am sick, because I didn't sleep until midnight, or because my body is fighting this new me. Either way it was not an easy morning and I took extra long getting up and getting ready for work. I read quite a bit of online stuff and checked my email, but in terms of real productivity there was very little.

I stumbled off to work at 8:45, even though I woke up at 7. Still not quite fully awake, I got some baozi for breakfast (steamed buns) with egg inside and finally got to work at 9:15 - a slow walk.

My energy level was very low all day, but even so I pushed on as hard as I could. As soon as I got in I finished my probation period summary / application to become an official employee and sent that in. I made a list of things to do for the day and got right on it. I was as disciplined as I could be, but my energy levels were just too low, I was constantly nodding off, and I was easy to get distracted (probably because of the previous two).

At the end of the day I got about 1/3 of what I had hoped to get done, and actually fell asleep after lunch for about 15 minutes without even noticing. Sick and tired I still made my way to Wudaokou after work to listen in on a business chinese class, but unluckily it was cancelled.

My main accomplishment for the day was that I did not drink coffee or soda, and I ate mostly vegetables and drank soup and water all day. I even ate an orange.

I got home around 8:30pm and felt that at any time my body would give out and I would crash wherever in the room I happened to be standing. I persisted anyway and went to learn two new idioms online in Chinese. There is a website that has tons of interesting videos that teach different things in chinese in fun ways, called confucius institute online, and so I learned "be like mao sui and recommend yourself", as well as "sinking fish, falling bird beautiful". 毛遂自荐，沉鱼落雁。 After that, I did some singing warmup exercises, guitar exercises, and played a few songs on my guitar.

Malley asked me to play video games at about that point, so I played until nearly midnight - I couldn't resist. Self-discipline must be built slowly, just like weight-training, so I let myself sink into this habit after such a long and rough day. I finished the night off reading a little more of "what made jack welch JACK WELCH: How ordinary people become extraordinary leaders" by Stephen H. Baum. Still terrible writing, but he promises that he will teach me how to become an extraordinary leader; we'll see.

I had some interesting dreams last night. The one that standed out the most was that I was in Africa, but with a whole bunch of my high school friends and college mates. We were on some business and the leader was none other than Diana Chan, the person I would be working for under Henry in Hong Kong had I let them string me along for a few more months. She was extremely bossy and made my dream hell, forcing me to run around the village even though there were hooligans playing baseball and throwing potatoe chips at me (yes potatoe chips). The dream ended with me quitting the job because of Diana, as no matter how good a job seems to be, if you can't stand your boss you can't be happy in it.

I woke up today a few minutes before my alarm at 7:23 and just got up. I was still tired, but obviously better than yesterday. I got up, did some pushups and situps, listened to a chinese lesson from Chinesepod (about girls and acting weak/spoiled around men -撒娇). I wanted to read some motivational material, but I couldn't reach steve pavlina's site for some reason. I can get to it at work, so must be just a random glitch at home. I dressed up a little more professional today, which makes me feel a lot more motivated to be more productive at work - Kinda dress the part feel the part thinking.

I have to work on my energy levels. I need to sleep earlier (and better), eat more fruit, and start running in the morning. With such low energy levels I don't see how I can keep this up for much longer: it's not a discipline problem right now, it's a health problem. I always saw myself as in pretty good health, as I'm not overweight, I play soccer, I don't eat fast food etc, but it can be improved even more, especially now that I am asking a lot more of myself. These problems will also be diminished when this all becomes habit, and I don't have to force myself to do it. Building new habits expends a lot of energy. This road is long.

I've made good progress in the Chinese learning department, such as signing up for classes and doing morning / night small learning activities. Over a year's period I know with this I can reach my goal. I'm not spending very much money, so that is also a + for me. I haven't been focusing much on my guitar, as my addiction to video games, the internet, and my computer is strong. I can study chinese on my computer, but I can't play guitar on it. Dragging myself away will be a very big step - eventually I want to spend the majority of my time AWAY from my computer rather than AT it.

Ok, time to get going on today's stuff. I'm still a big groggy though.