Getting started for TOK

EDIT: Holy crap that was a long post O_o

Alright, I just created this for a school class of mine called "Theory of Knowledge." I'll probably post links to this on ZFGC and Orange Lounge Radio in the very near future, so Mr. Wilcox -- don't be surprised if there happens to actually be comments on here :O

Anyway, several years ago, I was really reluctant to starting a blog because at the time it was almost the "in" or "cool" thing to do. Being a geek and not within the mainstream, signing up for things just because so many other people are doing it is just stupid. At the same time, even if I was only just doing it for me own reasons, other people could easily think that I, too, am "being a part of the crowd" which I really don't like to be in.

So in case you haven't noticed already, I'm typing this at around 5:30AM. The reason for this is because I'm currently attemping a custom type of what's called "polyphasic sleep." (You can find some general info on Wikipedia if you want) Since polyphasic is a general term for sleeping across multiple periods, I'm going to elaborate a bit what my specific sleeping schedule is (or attempt at it).

I sleep for only 2 periods a day, AKA "biphasic sleep." I currently sleep from 1AM to 4AM and from 3PM to 4:30PM. The reason for these lengths is because human sleep cycles are generally 90 minutes. Waking up in the middle of one of these cycles is what can cause massive grogginess (for massive damage maybe? -- Sony E3 2006 joke) I originally was trying a triphasic schedule, or 3 naps a day. The difference was I had a 1 hour nap from 12:30AM to 1:30AM and an hour and a half from 5AM to 6:30AM (the 3PM to 4:30PM stayed the same). But I was getting owned by grogginess from the 1 hour nap, so I did a bit more internet research and discovered the sleep cycles. For more extended naps (not the lighter 20-30 minute naps used in schedules that use 4-6 naps) sleep cycles are very important since you can take advantage of the arleady present sleep cycle, preventing you from having to struggle majorly for about a week as your body adjusts to the shorting sleep-length so that it can actually get some deeper, REM sleep. [woops, minor tangent] Because of the grogginess, I changed the 1 hour nap to a 30 minute nap to hold me over until my 90 minute nap at 5AM. That made me too tired from not enough sleep, so then I combined the 2 night naps into 1 longer one.

So far I seem to be doing very well. Though, I have overslept a bit by falling back to sleep after turning off my alarm, but then I moved it accross the room. Now laying in bed listening to the alarm for around 5 minutes helps. My alarm is actually my Nintendo DS (phat version, AKA the original non-Lite). I have it running a program called "Morning Timer" which is what's called a "homebrew" application -- unofficial software that required some "homebrew-loading device" to get it to run (an M3 Perfect Lite in my case). I have my DS play a random audio file (formatted to OGG vorbis and MP3, FLAC is too big -- they stay on my PC's HDD) stored on a microSD card that my homebrew divice reads. I then have my DS hooked up to a battery charger so it doesn't die in the middle of the night. Lastly, I have PC speakers with an amplifier plugged into it, with one speaker right inbetween the wall and my bed situated on top of a wooden beam surrounding the base of the mattress.

Though, since my mom sleeps in the room right next to mine, I had to place the speakers as to amplify for me and be quieter for anyone outside of my room. It's been working so far, though she did wake up once, but turning the volume down seems to have fixed that.

The reason I'm doing polyphasic sleep is because I really want more time in my day. It's not that I'm busy, but I utterly hate the fact that school takes up about 8-9 hours. Also, I have issues going to bed at night because I know I'll have to wake up and go te school in the morning. This sleep schedule allows me to stay up later and gives me 2 hours and 30 minutes before school.

I think that's all the details I'll go int ofor this intro post. I'll probably talk about my PC setup and about the disorder I've been diagnosed with called aspergers.

NOTE: If there are any spelling mistakes, it's because I have my PC's screen brightness all the way down and the contrast at 40% giving me a dark enough picture that you can't see the glow of light from outside my bedroom door (since my parents don't know about my biphasic sleep schedule yet; I need to make sure it's worknig fine before I tell them) Having the screen that dark makes the "misspelled-word underline" in Firefox nearly impossible to see.