Enrollment

This week kicked off the process (finally!) for getting enrolled in fall classes. I haven't finalized my schedule so no sneak peeks—not that anyone should really care besides my immediate family—but I should be able to achieve that will in-time for classes.

There's also all the usual documentation and orientation rigmarole which seems designed precisely to thwart its stated purpose—ensuring a straightforward onboarding for new students—and that will probably be continuing until sometime this autumn. That won't really heat up for another few weeks still, though, which gives me a window to take care of some of the other tasks I'd like to take care of before then.

Probably the most significant this week will be trying to order a new pair of glasses. I went to the optometrists a few months ago for a new prescriptions, but couldn't find any frames that I felt happy with. Of course, at that time I was both under a good deal more pressure and also unspeakable cold for the whole experience. Evaluating the possibilities should be significantly easier in more pleasant weather.

In the meantime, my behaviorism experiment continues with mixed results. It remains continuously tempting to stay up far too late, which stands in the way of incentivizing early rising. More practical incentives will be arising soon for reasons implied above, but maintaining a 24-hour sleep cycle would be immaterial were I not trying to interact with those around me.

Behaviorism Followup

I think setting up a strongly-positive incentive gradient for my days is, unsurprisingly, working, though it's a bit more difficult to maintain when other people are involved. I'm going to try continuing this in the coming week, perhaps transitioning towards more desirable projects. It's very easy, in an obligation-focused environment, to forget what you actually wanted to do (instead of what some vague other supposedly expects you to do).

Behaviorism

I'm doing a theme week again!

Specifically, I have probably mentioned before that I am not a morning person. This week, I thought about why that is. Right now, there isn't any particular reason to dislike mornings, besides the process of getting up. Why do I dislike that? At the current point in time, no rational reason! I can set my own hours, do what I want when I get up, and arrange my schedule more-or-less as I so desire.

However, this was not always true. Over the years, I developed a strong negative association with getting up in the morning. This can be attributed to a number of factors: school starting at a developmentally-unhealthy time through almost the entirely of K-12, massively insufficient sleep during a good deal of college, unpleasant obligations upon waking—years of this before I decided to develop the usual chemical dependency! The opposite result should be more surprising.

The theme for this week, then, is going to be attempting to reverse this situation. My plan is pretty simple: since there wasn't all that much on the agenda this week anyway, I'm going to start the day doing something fun. I want to do this as early as I can, and continue for a significant period. My hope is that, by the end of the week, I'll be looking forward to getting up in the morning, rather than internally resisting the change.

If this doesn't work, I'm willing to extend the project until school starts, but it may not take nearly that long to change my attitude. Once that occurs, I can start in on constructive activities earlier and earlier in the day (particularly since I have more discretion in choosing my agenda than I did before receiving my degree).

Short Update

I'll probably have a post up in the next week or two over here or at the new blog, depending on how discussions of the content matter go with some friends this week. I might have published it sooner, but Dad has been off work for nine (9) days now and that's really not at all friendly towards my goals.