C A N D I D • r e f l e c t i o n s

Finally caught up with all new episodes of 24 this season. I've only watched seasons 1 & 2, but lost interest in the show on season 3, so I don't know what happened in seasons 3-5. I was really getting tired of Kim always hindering her dad's critical job duties, so I was glad to see that she wasn't in this season (although I liked her as an actress).  But somehow other members of his family manages to once again become great obstacles to his job.  I'd hate to have family like that.  Can the writers be a bit more creative?  The storyline is so redundant, which reminds me of the stupid show Daybreak.  Anyway, back to 24.  The fact that Jack Bauer has the strength and  ability to complete all his missions after he gets completely f*cked up by the enemy continues to amaze me in a very ridiculous way.  However, the show still manages to consistently raise my heart rate and anxiety levels (I don't know why I want this, but I do), so I tolerate it.

Prison Break has been getting less exciting this season.  Basically ever since the escaped convicts went their separate ways (after leaving the house/garage with Westmoreland's money), it's been an effort mustering the same level of excitement for the show as before.  Although it's human nature to want the innocent main characters to remain out of prison, I wonder if it'd be better for the show if they return to Fox River and have a showdown with the loathsome Bellick.

Lost has been the most disappointing this season. "The Others" barely arouse my interest at all, even though I've been waiting to find out who they are for the longest time.  It's a bit unfulfilling to finally discover that they look and act no different from ordinary people.  I was expecting something much more sinister.  Plus all the original islanders seem very separated now, so there's a lot less chemistry going on.  If this season continues to develop this way, I might not look forward to watching Lost at all, which is pretty sad since I've just waited for the long hiatus to be over.  Hopefully it'll get interesting again after Sawyer and Kate return to the main island.

To my dismay some other shows I like have been canceled, such as Happy Hour and Help Me Help You. I really liked The Loop from last year too, but that seemed to have been canceled as well.  Those damn execs are so impatient!  It seems to me comedies that specifically target the younger audience (20s-30s) are usually canceled more quickly than others.  Is it because we don't watch TV as much as the older crowd?  Or do we only like reality shows nowadays?  Other than Beauty & the Geek, which is hardly a reality show, they just aren't my cup of tea for some reason.

I've used del.icio.us for a long time, but seeing all those "add to xxx" buttons on blog posts made me curious to check out all the competition out there.  Shadows has a good-looking and modern interface, but the site was painfully slow.   Someone suggested Ma.gnolia is a spruced up version of del.icio.us, but the fact that it offers no previews and only shows a very limited number of bookmarks on one page squashed the deal for me.  I used to like digg, but judging from what's on top of the list recently, the digg population is getting too childish for my tastes.  I've briefly looked at furl and blinklist, and visited other competitors, but finally settled on diigo.  It offers extra features like highlighting, automatically adding to your other social bookmarking accounts, and some other bells & whistles I don't even remember.  I just wished it had a better toolbar for Firefox.  I especially dislike how the diigo toolbar keeps a mandatory folder on my local bookmarks, which is always empty.  I delete it everytime, but it magically reappears when I restart Firefox.  I'm figuring out a way to permanently disable that in userChrome, I am that anal.

Had a fling with desktop searches a couple years back, and decided to stick with Copernic (X1 was a tough contender). But I've finally decided to uninstall Copernic too.  Ever since the recent update, it's been using up a lot of memory, almost 500K at times.  I've also noticed I really don't use it much because my computer is extremely well organized due to my anal tendencies to immediately put everything where it belongs.  I pretty much know exactly where everything is, so the regular search would do just fine for those rare occasions.  No more indexing for me, woohoo!  I've always hated how my laptop's fans suddenly turn on after it's been left alone and not doing anything I specifically told it to, like defragmenting or doing spyware/virus scans.  Now my laptop is quiet when idling and instantly snappy whenever I return to using it. I like it when my slave is ready for my commands at any given moment. ;p

I've always had sleep issues.  My mom told me ever since I was a baby, I didn't like sleeping at night and would cry frequently throughout the night to get their attention so they'd play with me (I pray to god my baby won't be like me).  In Asia, napping is almost a tradition, but I hated taking naps, no matter how much I needed them.  I actually want to throw up once I wake up from a nap.  My family always complain how abnormal my sleeping habits are, but I have a sense that I was born a night owl, or a vampire to put it more disturbingly.  I've always envied people, mostly men, who have that "off" switch for sleeping (and everything else).  When they're tired, they just go to sleep, no tossing and turning, no waiting period.  I feel cursed when it comes to sleep.  It's a love hate relationship.  When I'm wide awake, no matter how much I yawn, I have no desire to go back to sleep.  I do what I do, and don't want to stop just because I'm sleepy.  I can be sleepy for hours on end but refuse to go to sleep if I'm not done with what I'm doing.  And when I'm finally done, I'm dead tired, my eyelids shut themselves, but my brain still races a million miles a minute.  It's a horrible feeling when you're so tired you can't sleep.  Hundreds of thoughts fill my head and won't go away no matter how hard I try.  Since my serotonin levels are usually pretty low by then, I'd have the most negative thoughts and pessimistic feelings, which don't help with sleeping at all.  Thoughts turn into worries and before I know it, I've spent hours tossing and turning.  This sucks, it really really sucks!  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy sleeping once I'm asleep, I just don't like to be interrupted by the need for sleep.  5-HTTP and melatonin worked wonders for me, but their effects wane after a week of use.  I'm assuming prescription sleep aids are the same way.  I've heard countless times to wake up earlier so I'd get tired earlier.  But that doesn't work for me because I don't function well with less than 5 hours of sleep, which happens quite often since I can never fall asleep right away, and I hate getting out of bed.  I actually don't mind working at all, but having to wake up at a definitive time and that moment when I'm forced to open my eyes kills me everytime.  Even when I manage to wake up earlier than I have to, I don't end up sleeping any earlier.  I do get tired sooner, but that doesn't change anything.  I used to read books until I fall alseep, but now, that only gets my eyes closed, but my brain refuses to give me a break.  Being tired doesn't lead to sleeping for me anymore, and it's been ingrained in me for so long I can't seem to change it.  It appears the older I get, the harder it is for me to fall asleep.  I'm already dreading the day I become an insomniac senior.

Read this essay earlier about structured procrastination and I immediately felt better about myself, although I get this guilty feeling I'm not supposed to.  It talked about how procrastinators aren't completely useless and they seldom do nothing at all, which is so true.  I hate it when people automatically assume procrastinators are useless pieces of garbage.  I admit I tend to avoid doing things that are a top priority, but I do everything else.  I'm not excusing my behavior, but I'm far from useless just because I procrastinate.  When I do work, I can be very hardworking. I can work 10-12 hours straight without feeling tired, eat, or needing to take a break, as long as I'm doing something I like.  But once I feel I'm tied down to a task, something I have to do that's not as easy as 1-2-3, I get scared, then work on something else.

The biggest irony is my quest for a GTD system that works best for me. In a previous post, I mentioned that I've settled on MonkeyGTD, but that doesn't stop me.  I'd still go check out new stuff and play around with them.  Being the perfectionist that I am, I'd find flaws with them, try to tweak them, and if that doesn't solve the problem, I'd move on to another one.  My so-called quest has become the best excuse for me to not do the work I'm supposed to.  I spend lots of time inputting tasks in my tiddlywiki.  I'd work on all the small stuff and get a huge satisfaction everytime I check them off.  So in a way it's helping me complete my tasks, just not the big scary ones looming over my shoulders, the ones I'm really supposed to be doing.  This is a disease.

As if procrastination isn't bad enough, I have to wrestle with a long family history of perfectionism.  I'm not a perfectionist in every area, but when I am, I am relentless.  On top of that, my closest family members are big-time perfectionistic critics.  Even when I'm not anal about certain things, they are, and they'll put that on me.  I have to please my own high standards and I have to please theirs.  That's close to impossible!  So basically I procrastinate most of the time because I'm afraid my work won't be perfect.  And why do them when they're going to be substandard?  Especially when it came to schoolwork, and thank god that's all over with.  I was so ashamed of presenting or turning in something imperfect that I would simply not do them at all.  I'm lazy, and it's not worth it for me to do something that's not going to be spectacular.  Again, this is a disease that has yet to be cured.

I actually enjoy writing a lot, especially my thoughts at the moment so I can review them later.  But that becomes a hassle too because I go back to read my posts sometimes, and I think: OMG why do I sound so stupid?  And when it comes to a blog, other people read them too (albeit not many since my posts are pretty boring), so not only do I sound stupid to myself, I sound even more retarded to others (in my mind everyone has super high standards, and others are just out to criticize me).  I know there's always a private blogging feature, but I enjoy getting feedback or comments for some of the stuff I write, so that wouldn't work for me.  That's the reason why I've stopped blogging for such a long time, because I don't want to sound like a failure.  Now I'm trying to get over that fear by writing whatever the hell I please.  I don't have to make any sense, I can go on and on without ever making a point.  That's my goal for this blog, and I think I've just accomplished it.

I was so shocked to hear Anna Nichole Smith died today. I'm not a big fan, or a fan at all, but it was so out of the blue, and she's still quite young and has a new baby all those men are fighting for. It always saddens me to hear someone I recognize has passed away.

To brighten up, I went to look for cute animal pics again.  They always do an amazing job lifting my serotonin levels.  I found these particularly adorable:

Dorablue

Dorami

I've recently been looking for a GTD system all over the place.  I've tried out a bunch of them and decided on MonkeyGTD, an adaptation of TiddlyWiki by Simon Baird.  Although I've never read David Allen's book, which someone has told me is overrated, I knew I needed a GTD system to organize my random thoughts, ideas, goals, and most importantly tasks, dozens and dozens of mundane tasks.  MonkeyGTD suited me well because it had a dashboard that serves as an overview of all the things I need/want to do.  At a glance, I can easily see what needs to be done.  The TW interface is also easy to use and very flexible.  You can basically make it anything you want it to be.  A blog, a website, a notepad, etc.  TiddlySpot offers to host your TW for free, so you can access it anywhere without worrying about bringing a flash drive.  But most importantly, it is customizable in the way it looks.  Call me superficial, but I'd be a lot more motivated to use it if it looks good, and I really need that extra incentive, being the world's biggest procrastinator and all.

I had close to no knowledge of css, other than the bit I got from editing Firefox's userChrome, my Friendster & Myspace templates, and some html.  But I saw the potential of a great GTD system, so I went to work. After a lot of copying and pasting, adding some extra plugins, and much trial and error later, I was finally satisfied with what I have.  I'm a super girly girl who can't live without pink, so my theme is very girly to say the least. Here's a screenshot:

Preview

I wish I had one of these when I was in school, but I didn't.  There are many GTD systems available now, but most of them probably won't appeal to the younger crowd, and lord knows students really need a GTD system.  Kids nowadays are all about appearance, and honestly most GTD systems out there aren't exactly eye candy, maybe except for a couple apps that cost upwards of $90.  All the TWs I've seen look pretty generic and masculine.  While that's not much of a problem for adults, it's a different story for teenagers, especially girls (I'll be first to admit aesthetics is one of my top priorities).  I hope my theme, which is essentially a modded Bunnylicious banner here on Vox (by IdeaCodes) merged with the style of one of the TiddlyThemes, would appeal to girls (and possibly women too) to use MonkeyGTD to help manage and organize their lives.  If you like the way it looks, here's the empty file for download.  The banner, background, and colors can be easily changed.  Just wanted to show the possibility of a portable GTD system that's free, works and looks cute all at the same time. =)