This week the Lighten Up! sunrise simulator that I ordered arrived. Paired with a small lamp and 60 watt incandescent bulb, it generates a growing glow starting around 6:00 am and peaking a half an hour later at full brightness. I am convinced that it makes waking up more pleasant, and it also allows me to go back to sleep more easily when I wake up in the middle of the night. I don’t have to constantly check my alarm clock to tell what time it is — if it’s dark I know that I don’t have to get up any time soon. It’s comforting having something running routinely and automatically, so much so that I didn’t turn off the light over the weekend even though I could have slept in. During the week it is usually my alarm that ends up waking me up at 6:25, but yesterday and today I woke up around 7 to a light room.

Anyway, I strongly recommend the Lighten Up! device to anyone who has to wake up in the dark in the winter and doesn’t like it, or anyone who is fascinated by the idea of sunrise simulator but doesn’t want to blow an absurd $90-$120 on a fancy alarm clock with a built in light.

tags: experiment, health, purchase

Yesterday I got a flu shot. Two points of interest:

1) They were giving them out in the lobby of the SSA Building which was designed by Mies van der Rohe. The lobby is one of the nicest spaces on campus, and it made me sad to come back to our horrible, cramped-feeling, overly flourescent offices. I have high hopes for the renovated Illinois Bell Building which we are supposedly moving to in January.

2) Google can now predict flu outbreaks better than the CDC! This is so cool.

tags: architecture, health, info

Got my wisdom teeth out yesterday. Operation was fine, teeth didn’t hurt that much. They gave me a chocolate milkshake and I ate it on the car ride home because I had been fasting before the operation. Threw it up all over myself in the car almost as soon as I finished it. Came home, proceeded to throw up about 5 more times until it was just blood and saliva. Taste of blood in my mouth was deeply nauseating, so I would hold my nose continuously until my arm got tired. Mummy went to RiteAid to get more gauze and a swimmer’s nose clip but they didn’t have the latter. Tried applesauce and chicken noodle soup for dinner along with my penicillin. Threw all of that up shortly after, decided no more food or pills the rest of the night.

Today I am feeling much better. One of my cheeks is pretty swollen and sore but other than that I am not in very much pain at all. No more nausea. I’m assuming my vomiting was a reaction to whatever anesthetic they used to put me under. Going to ask the doctors when I have a follow up on Friday so I can avoid it in the future. I wish they had warned me it was a possibility so I wouldn’t have immediately scarfed down that milkshake on the way home. I ate oatmeal and yogurt for breakfast with no problems and took some ibuprofen and penicillin. What I really feel like is potato chips but I don’t think I can handle those for awhile.

Thankfully for lunch of Thursday Maurie and I went to Tastee Diner and I got the works — hot chocolate, sausage, egg and cheese on a English muffin, and fries to share. Enough greasy food to satisfy me for the week I think. Unthankfully yesterday Maurie left to go hiking in North Carolina. I miss her already.

tags: health

Recently an article by a Brown student (and friend of a friend) about her experience using Adderall has been getting some attention around the web.

The feeling begins about twenty minutes after you take the pill: a mental tightening, as though someone had refined your scope of vision into a narrow and penetrating line. All peripheral distractions disappear (you would make a very poor hunter or soccer player). There is a slight fluttering of the heart, and gentle, persistent waves of warmth that are not distracting unless it is hot outside. This is how I experienced Adderall; some people have panic attacks and others feel nothing at all.

Any actual amount of time spent under the influence is hard to describe, because time passes very quickly. It’s a euphoric drug, but also an alienating one. If I took a pill with my morning coffee, it would wear off by early evening. All of my work for the coming week would be finished, and I could take an aspirin, shower, and go to bed. Having missed the transition from day to night as well as all three meals, my dreams would be hysterical, but I always woke the next day feeling chipper and accomplished.

tags: brown, health, webloggish

By the time the nurse finished cleaning out all the pus, more had already started to form.

tags: health, photography

• One tube of Halls cherry cough drops
• One Z-pack
• One humidifier
• One SinuCleanse neti pot kit

The neti pot is totally amazing although it takes concentration not to snort the saline solution up your nose by mistake.

Other health things also acquired recently: CVS brand instant hand sanitizer with shea beads, Vicks digital thermometer, Airshield Immune Boosting Formula, generic Nasal Decongestant Spray, Tobramycin antibiotic eyedrops

tags: brown, health, list