sunny

This morning there were clouds on the horizon, so I had to wait about 5 minutes for the sun to rise above that.

8 min. 35 sec.

finally a good day for a sunrise

This morning the sky was very clear and the sun was very bright. I watched the sun rise for 15 minutes. I tried to focus both eyes on it but I could not get my right eye to cooperate.

Here is a picture of what I look like with my eyes not working together.



I am watching the sun as it rises over the land of the rising sun. Or am I? Well at least half of me is.

Just before the sun came up, there was a colored tint on the horizon. Looking at that color with one eye at a time, I notice the right eye sees it much darker than the left eye. The same thing can be said when looking at the sun.

I remembered the technical term for the eye doctors. The ones I have seen in the past are optometrists and the one I should go see is an ophthalmologist.

2nd sungazing

This morning was partly cloudy but I did get a good sungazing experience. The sun came up out of the clouds and then went back behind the clouds. I watched it for 11 minutes and took video but you cannot see the round shape of the sun in the video.

Here is a picture.



I'm not sure if my right eye is focusing on the sun or not. If I close my left I, I can see it with just my right eye. The color of the sun and red sky is different in my right eye than in my left eye. While I was watching the sun, I don't know if I was combining the view from both eyes or not. I think I was, but then again, it was clearly a left-eye view. Next time I will need to take video of me watching the sun so I can see it later and see how my eyes look. I should be able to easily tell if both eyes are looking in the same direction.

I don't know why the color or clarity is not the same in both eyes. I have been to the doctor where you get glasses but the doctor does not see anything wrong with my eyes. I'm hoping the sun can clear up the problem. Right now, I'm not sure if maybe I should just focus with the right eye to make sure that eye is getting the benefit since it is the weak eye.

first sunrise

This morning, I watched the sun rise for the very first time. The sun rises early here in Japan. Today it was supposed to "come out" at 4:27, so I set my alarm for 4:20. The skies were clear this morning, which won't happen often this month, but I could not see the sun until 4:33, and then it appeared to be half covered although high enough to be fully above the horizon. It was a big orange ball.

I expect if you are not watching the sun rise over a metropolitan area, it will be much brighter when it first peaks. I thought it was not so bright and it did not bother me at all so I watched as it rose for quite some time. I believe I watched it until 4:47.

As I was watching it, I noticed a blue spot appearing where the sun is. This spot seemed to be like a sun shade. I didn't keep my focus on one point so the spot gradually got bigger and bigger.

So I had this built-in shade screen making the sun not so bright. When I blinked, I noticed the sun could be seen much brighter than what I was seeing it through this blueish spot.

One thing I hope for, is to fix my eyesight. My eyesight is not bad enough to get glasses. I've tried but can't get a prescription. I think my vision strength is slightly different in each eye therefor making my vision a bit blurry if I focus on something with both eyes. It is much clearer to use only one eye. This problem results in me not using both eyes and the right eye tends to look away. It's a lazy eye.

After I quit and came back inside, I had the blue spot still but I noticed something really strange. The blue spot only appeared in my left eye! I'm sure I was watching the sun with both eyes fixed on the reddish-orange ball. But I have no spots at all in the vision of my right eye.

As I type this up, the spot has gone away. The forecast for the rest of the month is for clouds every day. I wish I had taken a picture.

Pepsi-free results

It's the end of my Pepsi-free month. This month I did not buy any Pepsi or other sodas. Although, one time I bought a bottle of vitamin water from the vending machine which cost me 140 yen. It was morning and I just got to work. The room was hot. I was thirsty. I knew it wouldn't last long but I figured I could use the bottle and refill it with water. That was the only extravagant spending I did this month.

I did lose a couple of kilos but it was not due to the absence of Pepsi. I only lost weight when I didn't eat on my shift at work. I now weigh approximately 60 kg.

Aside from what might be found in a little bit of chocolate, I didn't have any caffeine this month either. I don't drink coffee or tea so Pepsi is my only source of caffeine. I didn't experience any benefits from being caffeine-free. I think it made it worse for me because I wasn't always able to be as awake as I otherwise might and that caused me to go to sleep sooner which just ends up in shorter sleeping periods. My shift work is the main cause of the problem but this month was probably a bit worse. Many times I would sleep for only 5 or less hours. So my sleeping pattern was not adjusted well and I lost a lot of time to sleep and lack of energy.

Another side effect was that I was not as well hydrated. I usually drink a lot of Pepsi at home, but with water I don't drink nearly as much.

My reason for the Pepsi-free month and reduced spending was to save more money. I was able to accomplish that so I met my goal. Tomorrow, I will go back to buying Pepsi at home but I will try not to buy any soda at work. The vending machines and convenience stores (here) do not deliver a good quantity for the value. For each 500 ml can of Pepsi (120 yen) I can nearly purchase a 1500 ml bottle of Pepsi at the grocery store (about 150 yen).

Pepsi-free

This month I'm going Pepsi-free. At least, I'm trying to. I've been keeping track of how many 1.5 liter bottles of Pepsi I buy in a month. It looks like I buy more than 3,000 yen worth a month. Plus, I often buy 500 ml can of Pepsi when I work. So I've probably been spending well over 4,000 yen a month, maybe even more than 5,000 yen a month on soda.

This month, I'm going to do some saving and not spend any money on soda. Pepsi is the only soda I buy, so I'm calling this a Pepsi-free month. I'll just have to drink tap water.

sungazing discovered

Last night, I discovered this thing called sungazing. Some people actually look at the sun. And guess what? Their eyes are fine. There are also some purported benefits to it as well. I could write more about what I found, but if you are interested then you can find out about it by doing some searches, and I'm too tired to write any more now. I just wanted a post to reference when I first heard about sungazing.

If I do it, I will write posts here. If I think about doing it, I will probably write some posts here. If I don't do it, I won't write about not doing it.

sleep

I went to bed very late last night. It was around 1:00. I got up around 8:40 I think.

sleep

I went to bed last night at 0:07. It probably took 30 minutes to get to sleep. I got up at 8:08.

sleep is difficult to count

Last night, I went to bed at 23:30 and again I woke up at 5:00 but stayed in bed and slept more. I think I got out of bed after 9:00 but I was awake for a long time and just thinking. It's hard to quantify exactly how much sleep I got. It took me a little while to fall asleep in the first place. Probably, no more than 8 hours of sleep in total.

early to bed

I went to bed last night at 22:00 and it probably took 30 minutes to fall asleep.
Then I realized I was awake at 5:08. But I stayed in bed for another 3 hours, probably sleeping and waking and sleeping.

it's working

Yesterday, I finished work in the morning, came home, and then went to the supermarket. Then I ate lunch and took a long nap from about 13:00 to 18:15.

Then I went to bed and slept from about 22:30 to 5:50. Almost 7.5 hours. But wait! It doesn't end there! I didn't get up right away so I had a few more dreams. But anyway, I'm up now.

This seems to be working much better than my previous attempted methods. Before, after I finished my 2 days followed by 2 nights of work, I would try to stay up all day or maybe just have a short nap of about 3 hours. For some reason, with the short nap, I was not ready to go to sleep at night and would stay up late and then sleep in late the next day. Or by not taking the nap, I would fall asleep early, like at 20:00, but then only sleep 8 hours at the most, get up for a while, then get sleepy again and sleep another 6 to 8 hours during the day. It was because that first sleep was not long enough to make up for my sleep deprivation and then the second sleep would come during the wrong time. After the 2nd sleep, I was fully recovered but then awake at night again.

I have one more 2d-2n shifts to work this month. Next month, I will have to work 2 days and then have 2 off, and then work 2 nights. So it's going to be a totally different thing.

9 hours of sleep

I slept from 21:00 to 6:00. I awoke at 4:00, but didn't get up, so I could fall back to sleep right away.

5 and 3 quarters

I slept from 21:15 to 3:00.

nap

6:30 to 8:15 nap.

seven and a half hours of sleep

18:05 to 19:05 nap yesterday. And then I slept from about 20:00 to 3:30. (7.5 hours)

almost 6 hours of sleep

I slept from about 22:30 to 4:20. I stayed in bed until 6:00 hoping to fall back to sleep but I couldn't.

5 hours sleep and a dream

I was up past midnight last night. I'm going to guess that it was between 0:30 and 1:00 when I went to bed. I just got up. I woke up before in the night but went back to sleep. I last woke up at 5:53. So I could count this as 5 hours of sleep at least. Combined with the sleep I got during the day yesterday, I should be fine all day and be able to go to sleep at night tonight.

The weird thing is, I was sitting here using my computer and then I started feeling a little bit weird, maybe woozy in the head. While I was noticing that, then suddenly my vision got all messed up. My eyes were not looking in the same place and then everything became quite blurry. So I decide to lie down and if possible, sleep. Luckily, I did fall asleep quickly.

I had another strange dream. I was playing indoor volleyball and then like, eating. And so had to clean up the table. And there were some really weird new rules. And then there was all this wooden furniture on the court and players were cleaning and scrubbing the tables and so the serve became delayed.

7.34 hours of day sleep

I finished work this morning and then slept from about 12:00 to 19:20. Instead of doing like last time where I took a three hour nap and then went back to bed at night but could only sleep a few hours, I am taking a different approach. I think that the sleeping of just a few hours can cause you to get used to that in a way that makes it hard to stay asleep. I don't want that to happen so I'm going to try to just sleep for long periods and hopefully, somehow rotate the schedule back to sleeping at night.

3 hours

I went to bed at 1:00 and got to sleep but woke up around 4:00 and couldn't fall back to sleep. Just 3 hours of sleep.