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[Pnx]

Excel is typically pretty good with graphs and charts if you know how to set it up correctly. It can sometimes be a bit tricky to get it exactly how you want it though.

[Sappho]

Whoa... *groan* Hormones finally broke, which is code for "after over a week of expectation, I finally got my damned period." I think the periods of PMS are getting longer and more difficult over time. I've got to start keeping very careful track of when I start to feel "hormonal" and how long of a wait it is from then to the breaking point. This time I'm sure it was at least 2 weeks, with the second week being nightmarish in terms of emotions and physical issues (including sleep).

Yesterday around 6 pm I felt like I needed a nap. Fair enough, since I hadn't slept much the night before and I was still hung over. I laid down and passed out almost immediately. I vaguely remember waking up several times from increasingly strange and unpleasant dreams, then at 3.30 I woke up enough that I needed to go to the bathroom. I was awake for about another hour, then fell back asleep and didn't wake back up until 8. Now I've been up for 20 minutes but I still feel like I haven't slept at all. I'd crawl back into bed and let my body do its thing (the first day is always incredibly painful and draining), but I have to go get a temporary visa extension, since they still haven't approved my long-stay permit extension yet, which will take at least a few hours and includes a half-hour bus ride there and back...

[Siquo]

How well can I actually customize these graphs? Can I take data from different workbooks and add them to the same graph? Or if it's not so good, can someone recommend a program for generating graphs using lots of data?

Yes, it can. Unless you're doing large amounts of data (>50.000 rows) or science-level statistics you'll be fine.

[Sappho]

OK I'll do my best with Excel then.

Been in bed for most of today. Did go to get my visa, which was a nightmare experience for various reasons that I don't feel the need to go into. I've got quite a nasty-sounding cough and some chest pain, but I'm not coughing anything up just yet, so I'm hoping if I rest up it'll get better quickly. I suppose I should have known I was getting sick when I slept for about 14 hours with so few interruptions. It's interesting, actually. There seems to be a very high percentage of teachers who, immediately after the school year ends, develop problems in their lungs: chest colds, bronchitis, even pneumonia. Other illnesses are common, too, but I know at least three other people (from different schools, who I haven't seen in person lately) who have chest colds or bronchitis. Non-teacher friends all seem fine. We all say that the stress of the final weeks made us sick, and we were just "holding on" to get through the end of the year before we were finally able to relax and "allow" ourselves to get sick finally. I wonder if that's really the truth. Seems to happen too often for it to be a coincidence. Thoughts?

[Siquo]

The stress keeps you going, but it's taxing on your body. Relaxing allows you to stop and fight the disease. It kind of makes evolutionary sense; No point in coughing all the time if you're outrunning lions, coughing can wait. There's also the retirement-heart attack: The year you retire, you have 40% more chance of a heart attack.

[Sappho]

Taiji was nice this morning, but also quite taxing. 4 hours is a long time to focus on any one task, especially something physical. Not decided if I'll go to the afternoon session or just take a rest (I'm still coughing).

I am finally entering my data into the computer. It's a lot of work - I have about a month of sheets. So far I've only looked at the drowsiness measurements. I discarded the first few charts (the ones without a numerical value describing intensity). Crossed out columns on each sheet were left blank (Excel automatically ignores these, which is good). 0 = not sleepy, 1 = tired, 2 = very tired / want to sleep / heavy limbs, 3 = hardly able to stay awake / sleep attack. Here is the raw data:



Here is the average value for each hour plotted. There are clear trends here. First of all, I am always very drowsy when I wake up, never feeling rested or awake. Second, there are several jumps in my average sleepiness: late morning / lunchtime, around 5 pm, around 7 pm, and before bed. At no time is my average drowsiness lower than 1, indicating excessive daytime sleepiness.



Here I have plotted the average drowsiness on sunny vs rainy days. It appears that I am, on average, less sleepy when it's sunny.



And finally, average drowsiness on hot vs cold days. There doesn't appear to be much correlation to temperature.



I'll take a break from this for now. I will probably do brain fog next, followed by anxiety/panic. Maybe later today.

[Kirbypowered]

I know Excel creates graphs and charts, but I don't know how powerful it is.

Hehe, this reminds me of a 7 Day Roguelike I played a little while ago made entirely in Excel, complete with most everything you'd find in your usual roguelike (even an inventory screen). =P Pretty fun stuff.

Seeing you're data there, I realize I never put the daily weather in my own charts, that I can remember. Sorry about that. However, I will note that I don't feel less happy on rainy days compared to sunny, and often I find myself more happy on them. I recall being drowsy on both sunny and rainy days, so that's...something. Honestly, I kind of miss the daily tracking now...might start doing that again.

Recently realized that I've almost entirely stopped drinking pop (which was once a daily thing for me), notably meaning that I've pretty much stopped consuming caffeine. Interesting how easy it feels, despite being pretty much addicted to it for most of middle and high school. I can barely stand a single can nowadays.

[Sappho]

Kirbypowered: No worries about the weather. I don't think I ever requested that information. I wrote it on all mine because I wanted to see if my moods correlated with weather. You're welcome to take more notes, of course. I'll compare your data to mine soon, but the more I have, the more accurate it will be.

Sorry for the break in posts. I'm in a strange sort of place at the moment, a bit of a limbo state I suppose, adjusting to the summer schedule. Only a few days into the month and I'm already having a hard time remembering what day of the week it is. I'm getting up early each morning and going to Taiji training (from 8:00 until 11:30), but I haven't been going to the afternoon sessions (from 16:00 until 19:00) because I've been too exhausted. Make no mistake, however relaxing Taiji is, 3.5 hours of nonstop training is incredibly draining. It's good, though. I'm learning a new form! I'm very pleased. I hope I'll get used to the schedule soon and go to the afternoon sessions at least sometimes. Yesterday I also got a massage, which was much-needed. A good way to begin my new, more relaxed lifestyle!

In the afternoons I'm having a motivation problem. The weather is nice and I have plenty of time, but I lack focus. I'm not used to having this much time and my instinct is to use my (formerly scarce) free time to just relax. I need to get used to it, though, because even when the next school year starts, I'll still have loads of spare time. At the moment I'm wasting most of it watching films and TV shows and playing video games. I have been reading more than before, but not as much as I could, and I'm not really going out except for training. Today I did manage to start a painting, which I got about 50% done. But I feel I lack motivating short-term goals at the moment.

I really want to write a book. I've been discussing it with several people and I think it's time I took all my observations about myself and others and did something useful with them. I want to write a book about living with asperger syndrome including descriptions and explanations of what it's like as well as advice for how to improve social skills and live independently. There's such a lack of information out there for adults and I really feel I have the skills to fill that niche. But I need to get started on it, and I'm a bit paralyzed. I need some way of organizing and motivating myself. My goal for tomorrow will be to figure out a system for writing, and hopefully to start the writing process.

I haven't been tracking myself on the charts for the past few days. I definitely won't have a chance to do it during trainings. I need to focus on what I'm doing, and most of the time I don't even know what time it is. I'm not sure if I'll do it the rest of the time, or if I'll just take a break for a while and focus on other things. Maybe I'll wait until the end of summer and start tracking myself again when I start my new job. It will make an interesting comparison.

I'm drinking absinthe now, which is probably a bad idea. It'll keep me awake. I need to get to bed! Another early morning tomorrow...

One thing worth noting: I have not been taking any naps this week. I haven't felt the need. It seems my sudden sleepiness is really directly tied to stress, which I haven't been feeling much of now that I'm on vacation. On the other hand, I have still been generally tired and foggy all the time. Even when I have energy, it's restless energy, and I can't seem to focus it. Brain fog is definitely not improving even with the removal of stress, which worries me. Maybe it's finally time to see a doctor. I certainly have time now.

[LordBucket]

Something to possibly try:

I once went three days eating exclusively BBQd meat and BBQ sauce. Chicken, turkey and...something else, might have been pig. I don't recall. No beef. Beef sometimes give me headaches. Anyway, for those three days my whole body vibrated with energy. I was happy, energetic, and I felt...clean.

I'm not sure whether it would be a good idea to do it long term, but for those three days I felt like a car used to having swamp muck mixed with the gas, suddenly running on pure gasoline for the first time.

[Siquo]

Not drinking caffeine for a week:
Results: Total failure. Felt mostly tired, perhaps a bit less agitated but not much. Could not perform adequately at work.

So I've decided to take up caffeine again, but maybe in smaller quantities.

[Sappho]

It seems my summer schedule is not very conducive to self-research. I still have not tracked anything. The good news is I'm eating almost no salt now. I'm not adding any salt to the food I cook. I have eaten in restaurants a few times, but aside from that my sodium intake is extremely low.

I have finished the bottle of B12 pills. I don't feel any improvement whatsoever, so I guess I can cross that possibility off the list. I am trying to persuade myself to go see a doctor on one of my free days. I'm stalling because I'm not sure how useful it will be. The only doctor I can see using my insurance is more like an emergency room kind of deal than a personal physician. It's the kind of place you go to get a doctor's note so you can miss work without penalty. I went there once with a terrible flu and all they did was ask me about my symptoms, look in my throat, and then write me a bunch of prescriptions for antibiotics, decongestants, and expectorants. Not the type of doctor to go to for real assistance. My only hope, I guess, would be that they could at least refer me to someone who might help.

The brain fog is just as bad as ever, perhaps worse. I'm getting loads of exercise but my overall energy levels have not risen at all. Today I didn't go to training just because I felt too lethargic and couldn't get myself out the door. I did some reading and watched a couple of movies, but didn't accomplish nearly as much as I'd hoped to with all the free time. Tomorrow I will go to training for sure.

I am noticing that sometimes I feel quite happy for no apparent reason, which is nice. On the other hand, I still feel depressed quite often, even without hormones, and even though I spend most of my time training with a group of really excellent people who make me laugh a lot.

I have made three notable accomplishments this week. The first was making friends with the sword. I've been unable to learn sword form in my taiji training because of sensory issues trying to hold the sword and learn the proper movements. I borrowed a practice sword from my teacher for two days and spent a few hours playing with it and now it feels comfortable in my hand. I should be able to learn the form now.

The second accomplishment is finishing this painting: http://airavj.tumblr.com/post/54921006313/the-things-i-see-watercolor-on-heavy-paper

The third is something I did today. I've been planning to write a book about living with AS for ages now and I've finally gotten started on it. Today I organized my notes and made some plans. I should get started on writing bits and pieces tomorrow. I have made a thread on the WrongPlanet forum explaining my plan and asking for input and assistance. I know there are plenty of people with ASDs on this forum as well, so feel free to head over there and contribute whatever thoughts you have: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt235071.html

[Sappho]

This past week has been up and down. The weather was consistently nice. I went to Taiji training every morning except Tuesday. The only afternoon I went to was Monday. I've spent too much time playing Avernum: Escape from the Pit, but I've also done a lot of reading, a bit of writing, and some socializing. The socializing was always fun, but by the end I was exhausted, as always. I'm definitely getting plenty of exercise, between training and doing strength training at home.

I'm still having bouts of depression, nearly every day. Most often when I'm home alone, but a few days I was even depressed at training. One morning I actually had to fight to not break down crying during our warm-up exercises. When we went through the form (which takes around 20 minutes), I found that focusing on it allowed me to leave those emotions behind - but later in the day they came back. They hadn't gone away, just taken a break.

I'm not really sure what to do. I don't understand what's causing this. Even if it's totally chemical, clinical depression, the amount of exercise I'm doing should be releasing enough happy chemicals in my brain to shut the depression down. And normally I only get really depressed in the winter. All these sunny days in the park should be helping.

I wonder if it's related to my relationship status. I  have great friends, but many of them are couples in very happy relationships, and it can be painful to see them together. I'm jealous of the intimacy they have which is missing from my life. There is plenty of physical contact during training, but no intimacy. It's not sex that I'm missing, really (and that would be easy enough to get if I wanted it), but that feeling of being really close to someone. The feeling of knowing someone cares about me and wants to be physically close to me.

I've always said I'd rather be alone than with someone I'm not really happy with. I'm in love, but I have no idea if the feeling is mutual or even when I'll see that girl. I'm terrified that I'll never see her again.

Thoughts and advice are welcome. I'm not sure what kind of experiment I could devise that would help me here.

[Reudh]

Something to possibly try:

I once went three days eating exclusively BBQd meat and BBQ sauce. Chicken, turkey and...something else, might have been pig. I don't recall. No beef. Beef sometimes give me headaches. Anyway, for those three days my whole body vibrated with energy. I was happy, energetic, and I felt...clean.

I'm not sure whether it would be a good idea to do it long term, but for those three days I felt like a car used to having swamp muck mixed with the gas, suddenly running on pure gasoline for the first time.

I'd attribute that to the high protein levels in meat. I have felt the same way when I went a tad vegetarian for the fun of it for a few days - quinoa, tofu, brown rice, also high in protein.

[Sappho]

I'm afraid BBQ is not readily available in Prague (at least not for a price I'm willing/able to pay), but I have been craving and eating loads of protein lately. Not too much meat (it's still expensive) but loads of eggs, tofu, soybeans, etc. It's not helping much I'm afraid. I'm still just as consistently lethargic and fatigued as always, even during training. : (

[Mephansteras]

I'm afraid BBQ is not readily available in Prague (at least not for a price I'm willing/able to pay), but I have been craving and eating loads of protein lately. Not too much meat (it's still expensive) but loads of eggs, tofu, soybeans, etc. It's not helping much I'm afraid. I'm still just as consistently lethargic and fatigued as always, even during training. : (

Iron deficiency, perhaps? I know my fiance has that issue during her period if she doesn't eat red meat.