After sleeping in a little too much recently, I decided I needed to rectify my alarm clock situation. Too often , was sleeping right through my alarm clock. When I had the same problem back at BYU, I set up my computer (along with the relatively nice speakers currently loaned to Bobby) so that it would play Chumbawamba’s Amnesia (”Do you suffer from long-term memory loss? I don’t remember“) at a fairly good volume. It always worked, and my roommate was good to put up with the brief morning noise for such a good cause as getting me up.
I hadn’t really considered this approach for a while because my current desktop is a little louder than oasis was, and I really didn’t want to be leaving it on all night (its also a very warm and bright machine, which combined with its noise might interfere with some sleep). However, I finally decided that waking up was too important, so I went about setting it up on Monday morning. While doing so, I came across a very cool feature in the Windows task scheduler: a check box that reads, “Wake up computer to perform this task.” Well, this was news. Apparently, I could put the computer into standby mode, where it is quiet, dark, and cool. Then it will wake up and play music at me in a loud manner at the appropriate time. After a quick test found the system to be working, I set it up. The system has been working progressively better. A couple of days ago, I tweaked the system for separate MWF and TTh wakeup times. Waking up early has made it easier to do so, so the effect is self-reinforcing. I even made it to CSE 143 section on time yesterday, something I hadn’t done since the second day of class.
Furthermore, I’m getting more sensitive. Today, I awoke not to blaring music, but to the click my desktop made as it revived itself from sleep. I was able to act quickly enough to turn the volume down to a good listening level before the startup completed and the music started. It was actually a quite pleasant way to wake up.