schedule – Page 2 – The Diary of The Deranged Writer

XXXVI: The Nocturnal’s Struggle of Waking Up Early / Notes to Self XVI

If you have been following The Diary lately, you should know that I’ve been making gradual changes in my life. One of those changes is waking up early for work—ideally at 8:00am. I did just that on most workdays after ToyCon 2025, and there were times I even woke up at 6:00am. (That’s a feat for a nocturnal person like me, and even my family is shocked by the fact that I woke up before they did.)

Now it’s beyond the middle of August 2025, and I admit that I haven’t really been waking up as early as 8am lately… and that’s fine.

(Buckle up because this is going to be a long post.)

10-Minute Warning CLXXXII

All right. Before I do my Monday night ritual, what can I share here under 10 minutes?

After following a seven-to-eight-hour sleep schedule for the past few weeks, I slept at 11pm, and then I woke up at 9am. That’s a few hours later than I wanted to.

But I have to say: it was the most satisfying ten-hour sleep since my therapist, Dr. M, prescribed me to sleep that long. That’s in 2019.

I quote my therapist, Dr. M, “Sleep is medicine.” She’s right. Yes, I have been sleeping seven to eight hours lately (sometimes I go for six, which is not recommended) because I want a few extra hours for activities like work, writing, enjoying my other hobbies, and spending time with my loved ones. But last night, I fell asleep after watching Person of Interest’s Season 1 episode “Witness” (I’m doing my annual Person of Interest marathon again), my body did a forced maintenance without warning, and I didn’t wake up to my alarms. And when I woke up, I was so energized, and I did so just in time for work. Thank goodness for that beauty sleep, and for being able to do work from home.

Moving forward, I will sleep for seven to eight hours usually, but I will sleep for ten hours whenever I can.

And oh… how was work today? I have never been this productive at work in weeks. Sleep is medicine indeed.

Anyway, my 10 minutes are not up yet, but I’m going to end it here to prepare for my Monday ritual. See you in the next post, and have a nice week ahead!

Song of the Moment LXXI: Philip Glass’s “Metamorphosis: One” (Again)

Have you ever had a dream so happy that you wish the dream would never end? That’s the kind of dream that I had last Sunday, and I woke up feeling happy… and then my smile turned into a frown. It was only a dream.

“But Dewey, it was just a dream. Don’t worry about it.” That’s the thing: It was only a dream.

Since then, I have been struggling to bounce back. I had a hard time fixing my sleeping schedule. I had a hard time finishing my work tasks faster. I had a hard time basically being fine. If I were to add a piece of melancholic background music to my current predicament, it would be “Metamorphosis: One” by Philip Glass. It is one of my favorite sad songs ever.

Philip Glass’s “Metamorphosis One”.

And coincidentally, a year ago today, I also blogged about “Metamorphosis: One” as a Song of the Moment. I only found out after searching the old post. (If you click on the aforementioned link, there’s a spoiler warning if you have not seen “return 0”, the final episode of my all-time favorite series Person of Interest.)

Anyway, even if I’m sad, I will try to keep going. I have to.

Header image: Danila Perevoshchikov of Pexels. Edited in Adobe Photoshop 2025.

Published on February 19, 2025 at 11:07pm. Edits were made at 11:26pm.