Alarms

Day 30


Well it’s the start of another month, and let’s just say I wasn’t too eager to start today. As you know, the last week was Spring Festival, which is Chinese New Years. We welcomed in the new year of the Golden Bull with parties, clubs, dinner, and a whole lotta fireworks. Way to many fireworks. Instead of roosters to wake up to, it seems that people here like to use their vast arsenal of fireworks. I’m glad that’s over. I wasn’t glad to remember that I had to go to work today. Today….Sunday! I use my iTouch for numerous things. I use it for music, videos, games, and the handy dandy alarm clock. Loaded with many different sounds, I have chosen three that I use the most: Alarm, Digital and Strum. Alarm is one that goes: WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH…. Digital goes: BLIDEHS DLIBHHDIE BLCDOOIE KLKDIVNEPPQOE…. And Strum goes: strummy strummy strummy nice…. With these three alarms, I am guaranteed to always wake up and be on time to everything. The alarm function also has this cool function where I can set it to only go off during the weekdays. Do you see where I’m going with this? So I reset my alarms for Strum at 6:34, Digital at 7:01 and Alarm at 7:43. You might be scratching your head wondering why I’m so weird that I would pick these random times. Why not 6:30, 7 and 7:40? Well after seeing the movie “Pre” I have always been a follower of the idea to set times that aren’t so easy to remember and those times we take for granted. If you set a time like 8:27 instead of 8:30, you will make sure you make that before 8:27. Or at least that’s the idea. So I’m sleeping like I do every night, and I wake up around 4 in the morning. Frustrated with myself I try to cram as much sleep as I can in the next 2 ½ hours before my alarm goes off. I wake up around 6:49 wondering if my alarm went off at all, so I go back to sleep cuz I’m lazy. So I’m sleeping and dreaming and like so many times before I just suddenly wake up. It’s 7:54. WHAT?!?!?! I’m confused as to why my sure-bet alarms didn’t go off. So instead of getting outta bed, I turn over and start to ponder as to why my alarms didn’t go off. It takes about 36 seconds for me to realize I was stupid to think that it was Monday and not Sunday, so I finally get outta bed and get ready for work. The entire day, I thought it was Monday and not Sunday. It was one of the weirdest days, and definitely not one of the most exciting.


I have found though that this happens to me a lot. So many times I will wake up at just the right time. When I fall asleep in lectures at school (sorry, but it happens), I will wake up right when the professor is in his closing remarks. Every time I fall asleep on the bus, I always wake up one stop before mine so that I can situate myself and no stumble off the bus. And when my alarm doesn’t go off, my back back-up alarm goes off, and I end up being early to work. It’s crazy but it’s cool, I just hope I don’t get too confident in my 9th sense. I have only been “let down” once, and that happened about a month ago. I was flying into Shanghai when the pilot announced that we have about 30 minutes before we land. I decide why not take a little nap before hand because they always mean 1 hour anyway. So I fall asleep and I awake to this woman shaking me and yelling at me. I wake up in a daze, blinded by some light and see empty seats all around me and the flight attendants staring at me. Some smiling and some scowling. I stumble out of my seat, and try to get my bag out of the overhead compartment. I am dizzy and I really have no idea what I’m doing. I just walk around the airport until I find the customs and find that I have a huge gash from when I was taking my luggage down. It has scarred now, and it will always be my reminder of my trip in Shanghai, and also that even my back back-up alarm has a snooze button.