Bleh bleh bleh

As some of you know, I've been having a sleep problem for well over a year now. I'll fall asleep only to wake up every two hours or so, never really getting to the REM cycle. The months leading up to my trip were the worst and it had a major (and detrimental) effect on my quality of life.

I love sleep. I need sleep. I am cranky if I do not get sleep. I was wildly miserable for months and was pretty unpleasant to be around at least 40% of the time. Lack of sleep plus stress of putting together the trip plus saving money hard core plus work stress equaled one cracked-out Nicole.

Then...I get into Delhi, check into a non-a/c room in the August Delhi heat with flies buzzing around and noise coming from everywhere and fall fast asleep for 5 hours. With the exception of the night I spent in the desert (where I was too dazzled by the stars to close my eyes) I slept like a baby in India and Nepal. Same with every other country.

I come back here and a month later...blam! Back to the same sleep problems and same crankiness problems (though I am trying to get that in control). Yesterday, I had such a bad headache from the sleepiness that I started throwing up and it turned into a full-blown migraine. I went home and spent the evening sleeping fitfully and praying that my head would stop throbbing. I took today off of work and went to the doctor's finally to get this sorted.

He really wasn't much help. Sleeping pills and something for the headaches. He asked if I was stressed at work. HAHAHAH! Every since person in Korea is stressed at work. Seriously.

Well, that's part of the reason I haven't been blogging much, that and lack of internet. It's been hard getting myself out of bed to go running but that's the only thing keeping me normal and not-so-sluggish. I shall leave you with cute pictures of me and students to end this on a cheery note.

Internet-less...

Blogging opportunities have been thin on the ground due to the lack of internet access at my house. It's a long story that involved my flatmate Harry Potter and me taking a stand. Thank goodness I have my iPod for the necessities, like checking March Madness scores and email, but other stuff, like my gossip blog obsession, has suffered. Luckily, there's a very cute coffee shop up the road and I am making the most of it.

I've been in a major nesting mood and trying to make my home look as lovely as possible without spending too much of the money bookmarked for Europe. I am also beginning to throw out stuff in anticipation of my move in 11 months. I don't want to be stuck cleaning out the entire apartment in the space of a couple weeks so I'm going to start mailing stuff home in November and therefore avoid a lot of stress.

Yes, yes, it's nearly a year until I move (or 344 days to be exact) but I am SO EXCITED to finally move home to Seattle that I am doing stuff for it already.

Then there's the matter of my trip this summer to Europe that I cannot stop thinking about. Paris! London! Norway! Belgium! It's getting hard to keep my mind in the present, which is perhaps why I am devoting so much energy to making the home nice. Keep myself grounded or something.

New Year's Tiger Lanterns

The other week, my students made some awesome tiger lanterns for Seollal, Korean lunar new year. I got the activity from the awesome blog 4 Crazy Kings. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.