More thought went into this installment of PocketBlog. More thought than what is going into my homework, anyway.

A New Way to Fall Sleep

I suffer from abysmally bad sleep problems. It usually takes me upward of 45 minutes to fall asleep, and even then I toss and turn a lot and do not get rest. My roommate said he watches Futurama on Netflix and just falls asleep during that. On a whim, I decided to try it. I set my PS3 to shut off automatically after an hour, and my TV to shut off after the PS3 turns off. When I woke up the next morning, I realized I had fallen asleep during the first episode I had started playing. That means it took probably about 15 minutes for me to fall asleep. Awesome.

I have a theory on this. I think that what causes me to have trouble falling asleep is the fact that my brain cannot turn off no matter what, and it is always racing and keeping me awake from stress. In addition, any time my fan rustles a paper it startles me and makes me more alert, basically resetting the "process" of relaxing and falling asleep. Having something playing from Netflix helps because I can listen to it as I fall asleep. Not only does it allow my brain to calm down and center on one thing until it relaxes enough to catch up to my motionless body and send my to dreamland, it also causes me to ignore other noises from papers and whatnot, and prevents me from becoming startled or nervous. Finally, the auto shut-off means that my mind can enter REM deep sleep and won't be kept from doing so by the sound from the TV. It's awesome. I still don't get a lot of rest (need to get medical tests to figure out why I am always still tired), but now that I have sort of solved the problem with having trouble actually getting to sleep, I can take another baby step.

Musical Ambition

I'm thinking about starting a band. Nothing special, really. I already compose electronic music under the title of The Lovely Sins, so recently the though has struck me that I should recruit a female vocalist and shift a focus from completely electronic music and incorporate duet vocals, piano, and strings. I have since decided that one of the first things I will do if this happens is cover this excellent song from The Joy Formidable. Imagine the song with a bit more of an electronic hook, strings & piano, and a male/female harmony. It's part of a focus recently on covers I would want to do. Other covers I would love to end up doing would be Bloc Party's "Like Eating Glass", Placebo's "Meds", and A Perfect Circle's "A Stranger".

Obviously, it wouldn't be all covers. I've been playing for a while with a concept of a slow, instrumental album chronicling the death and eventual journey to the afterlife of a young girl, with perhaps a final reawakening in the real world with her family. It's something I've been trying to put together for a long time, and it's a story that means a great deal to me so I want to get it right.

Hanna

Admittedly I have developed a minor obsession for this film. Upon my first viewing, I was transfixed by the visceral visual style of the film, a harsh and colorful aesthetic that would make Tom Tykwer proud. I also fell in love with the brilliant, adrenaline-pumping soundtrack from the Chemical Brothers, already a group that had found their way into my heart several months ago for reasons I can't remember. Actually, I might have ever become a fan after hearing some samples from the Hanna soundtrack, and then worked my way backward through their discography. I think that's it. Regardless, it's awesome and it'll be totally worth it if I end up actually blowing out the speakers on my car. But I digress. Prior to my second viewing of Hanna, I did some research on the film and realized that director Joe Wright intended the film as a sort of subversive fairy tale. It fits, with a sort of "evil witch" villain that works alongside a character who is, in retrospect, the absolute best human embodiment of a Big Bad Wolf that I have seen in film in many years, with his creepy whistling rendition of the Chemical Brothers' "The Devil is in the Details" (See below). That's not to mention the mushroom-themed house Hanna visits and the other strange and wondrous locales she sees. This, of course, will make for an excellent blog entry about how films can create a subversive version of a fairy tale. I'm thinking of incorporating Inglourious Basterds but I need more suggestions if you have them, please.

Misunderstood

We all have our disagreements with the people we work with. I have my fair share, and have even become infamous for my aggressive managerial style and tendency to get very cold when someone messes something up. That's fine. I also like to joke around, and I have a dry sense of humor that isn't always easy to read. Unfortunately, some of my humor (I cannot imagine what I said) has been misconstrued as a personal attack on my immediate supervisor and now someone has been spreading rumors that I am preparing to stab her in the back and take her job. We had a heart-to-heart today, and it honestly hurt to hear that someone thinks I want my supervisor's job. Granted, I do not always agree with her, but she's still great at what she does. I need to get everyone I work with to realize that this is the case, before the rumors get out of control. It's frustrating and upsetting that this happened, but as long as my supervisor knows the truth, I guess that is what is most important. I should also probably keep an eye on the things I say, even if they seem inconsequential.