POST STRESS THOUGHTS

After weeks of wrestling with code debugging, I am finally making some progress in tracing and editing the culprit code lines. Just a few moments ago, I gave a triumphant yelp as the program pushed through; then, a couple of seconds later, a groan, as another bug floated up and showed its ugly face. Am I seeing another week of 'brain-fatigue-ing' exercise?

Well, I decided to rest my brain a bit. I needed it. Experience has finally convinced me that stress does take its toll on our bodies. I used to just shrug away my parents' and friends' and now my wife's comments about stress and its effects. Not that I am not aware of it, but I frown at the thought of something you enjoy doing giving you stress. Swimming at the beach is enjoyable. Is it going to stress me out? Now, clicking away in front of the computer all day and far into the night, coding, solving code bug problems, is something I enjoy doing as much as swimming. Perhaps I was really stupid but yes, I laughed at the stress-advisers and I shouted back at them: How can something that makes me feel good give me stress!?

After a few weeks of low-energy and respiratory troubles later, I found myself singing a different tune. Yeah, they did not literally say it, but I could almost hear them say 'I told you so.' Well, that's me. Most of the time, I have to learn the hard way to convince myself that what I am doing may not be right.

They say meditation is an excellent stress buster. I am interested in meditation and its related fields. Thing is, I find that I don't have the discipline to stick through the routine. I am the kind of yoga pupil who needs a guru who takes his pupils by the collar and pushes them roughly on the floor and keeps them there until they stop moving and holding in his other hand a whip ready to lash out at anyone who dares to even blink. Ok, ok, maybe a gentler one.

The method I am implementing right now is sleeping early. Whereas, I used to stay up in front of my computer until way past midnight, I now make sure I hit the sack by 10 o’clock in the evening. This, by the way, is a necessity as I have to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to get ready to bring my son to school. Grade 3 students’ classes start at 6:00 o’clock in the morning.

Stress. I’d probably discover some method that’d be most beneficial for me in the long run. With the need to earn money for my family, and to keep up with my need to learn (I am interested in a lot of things) and do new things, I am still not putting health matters at the top of my priority list, but I do keep an eye on stress now as I run along.

Today is September 25, 2008. I think blogging is interesting, even if it only serves to just have some of my thoughts recorded digitally and always a click away when I need to reminisce back at them.

Let's blog

Ok, after having downloaded several webpages of 'how-to-blog' files, and tons of pdf's and documents about the subject...and then never reading any of them, I finally decided to make my own blog. And this does not mean that i know something about blogging. I still have no clue about the 'blog'. What I plan to do is to just dive in, hoping the water is deep enough to avoid bumping my head under, and shallow enough for my head (or at least my nose) to stay above water. Then, from there, begin to learn to swim. I remember this is what I did with VB programming. I started out by immediately creating a file, then with a lot of 'trial and error ', made my 'hello world' program. The technique works, that's what matters.

So, to anyone out there who happens to stumble upon this blog hole, you can judge how far I've come in my self-education. For now, not only am I at a loss with regard to blogging, but also what more to write other than this pathetic starting paragraphs.


[This is my shout-out (what's a shout-out?) in my friendster account: "It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us."]