Lifestyle Change

I've been telling myself to sleep earlier for the longest time. I can't stop myself from staying awake. My bad habits finally caught up to me, and it has manifested in a very real way: I got fat. Nothing like a protruding gut to get me motivated. 

I'm not used to having a big belly. Relative to the average American, my weight isn't all that bad. But I'm Asian, and standards are a little different for my build. I judge my fitness on one scale, and that's on my ability to fit into pants. I can't fit in half my pants anymore. That's to be expected when I pack on 25 pounds in 10 months.

I probably had no business fitting into my old pants to begin with. At the beginning of the year, I was severely underweight, just barely hovering above 100. That's not healthy by any metric. Since I got my job, I've stopped running. Lack of cardio combined with my lack of sleep has resulted in a pudgy body that I haven't seen since elementary school. 

Fortunately, I don't despair in the mirror. I buckle down and focus up. I'm doing three things to get back into shape:

1. Sleep earlier
2. Change my diet
3. Jog

Trying to do all three has really challenged my time management. With a little dedication and know how, it's amazing how much more I can squeeze out of every minute. As long as I stay on track, I'm in good shape.

Nightmare Inception

I've had some trouble sleeping lately. Sword and Scale must be getting to me. I'm pretty sure I'm not going crazy (that's what they all say), but it feels like I'm experiencing the burgeoning symptoms of schizophrenia.

I start hearing voices when I try to sleep. I chalk it up as a mental lapse. The brain relaxes and everything just flows out. It's indistinct, similar to crowd chatter. The voices get out of control when I close my eyes. I've even jolted awake because it sounds like someone just screamed at me. 

I've been having dreams within dreams. I saw something like the silhouette of a thin frail lady with long hair whipping her head back and forth at the base of my bed. I closed my eyes and the scene disappeared. I was in a dream then, and I was constantly falling in and waking up inside dreams. I don't have nightmares, but this is about the closest I could get to one. 

If I had to deal with this all my life, I would be feeling terrible and depressed. It's always around this time of year. I expose myself to more horror stories, and little by little, it creeps into my imagination and dwells there until I say enough is enough and I watch videos of puppies and kittens to purify my soul of the darkness. It's gotten to the point where I'm afraid of closing my eyes in the shower, man.

This ain't just right.

Something Happens

I found something new to do at work: listen to podcasts. I started off with a relatively recent and popular one called Serial. I've been on a true crime kick ever since. I've continued to feed my morbid curiosity with Sword and Scale and I've probably reached my breaking point for inhumane acts of cruelty, but not before learning a whole lot about investigations and court proceedings.

It's alarming how your entire future can hinge on a story. That's the point of a trial: to pit one version of events against another. While evidence plays a huge role, it means nothing without narrative. It's often the tiniest detail that tips the scales. 

It makes me think about those moments when I disappear, falling out of sight of surveillance. It goes to show that nothing in this world actually "happens" unless it is observed by a witness or camera, and even then, you get conflicting viewpoints.

I drop off the face of the earth for an hour at most each day, and that's an accumulation of disparate blocks that go no longer than 15 minutes. At work, home, and in between, I'm surrounded by family, co-workers, or other drivers. I'm rarely ever by myself. If anyone plans on abducting me, good luck with that tiny sliver. 

With our propensity to splash ourselves over social media, we should never really be out of sight. Take advantage and snap selfies at every opportunity. The last thing you want is to be implicated in a murder with no alibi. If there's anything I've learned, it's to always leave a trail. 

Unless you're the one doing the murdering.

Public Manner

Some weird stuff has been happening when I'm doing my business at work, and I don't mean the kind I get paid for. When I do my business, it's my moment of peace and the last thing I want is to be interrupted or distracted. 

I was minding my stall when everything plunged into darkness. The lights went out. There weren't any windows so it's pitch black in the restrooms. At least I wasn't in a position where aim mattered, but it's unsettling for everything to disappear. I already feel vulnerable enough with my pants down. I don't need to get anymore paranoid. Thankfully, power was restored in less than a minute.

Another incident was even weirder. I was doing my thing when a guy rolls up to the urinal. It's a one toilet one urinal bathroom. I could only see his loafers below the divider. He must've been holding it in for a very long time because the stream did not stop for anything. He was moaning like the urinal was giving him extra service. There's a difference between a relieved sigh and the nonstop excessive gasps of pleasure this dude was letting out.

As if that wasn't enough, he lets a loud one rip in the middle of all this.

When I heard the urinal flush, I thought that would be the end of it, but he kept on going. I can only imagine that his urine was so discolored that it necessitated repeated flushing to keep the surface clean, because he flushed not once, not twice, not even thrice, but five times in a single piss. 

It was like he had never relieved himself before but finally got to do it for the first time in his life, and I had the displeasure of being there to hear it in all its disgusting glory. I can't possibly fathom what'll happen if he was by himself. Whole bathroom would explode probably. 

Or maybe he exaggerated only because I was there.

For anyone using public restrooms, I implore you to mind your manners, please. We already have enough shit to deal with.

Dreamer

My lunchtime naps are becoming increasingly more bizarre. My sleep deprivation is getting to me. I'm not napping anymore, I'm full on dreaming. It's not a deep nap either. The mere act of closing my eyes sends me spiraling into an alternate dimension featuring cameos of people from the past, TV shows, and anime. 

When I snap out of it, I do a double take at the time because it feels like a whole day has gone by in a minute. My imagination has never been so vivid. If I don't do something about this, I'll be dreaming with my eyes wide open. Probably not the safest thing in the world, especially if I'm driving or something.

While I usually dream about my latest obsessions (video games, J-dramas, anime, etc.), my last dream was about work, and since I was napping at work, it was not at all a pleasant experience waking up to the realization that I'm stuck there for another five hours. 

I've always wanted to make my dreams come true, but not like this.

Same as the Old Boss

Parasites are the new nanomachines--or should I say, nanomachines were the new parasites. MGS4 used nanomachines as a crutch to explain everything weird from seemingly immortal super healing to personality transplants. MGSV does the same thing, but using parasites instead. I never expected an explanation for the powers the Cobra Unit possessed, but MGSV went ahead and explained them anyways.

On the surface, parasites being used to infect people who speak certain languages sounds like a stretch, but Kojima has a way of providing a strong enough extrapolation from reality that it at least seems plausible, and the same goes for the concept of metallic archaea. Only from Kojima can you get equal doses of hard hitting military realism, historical minutia, and pseudo science. It creates a package that can't really be found anywhere else.

For all its faults with the narrative, the Metal Gear universe is one that is so uniquely realized that no other series comes close. Nowhere else can you can find such strong anti-war themes wrapped up in the ultimate war game with some of the corniest, most dramatic, and silliest gags out there. I look forward to finishing this game and potentially raging at the ending. Whatever happens at the end doesn't matter, because this journey has been worth it.