We’ve returned to winter-like temperatures overnight, though
there still isn’t any snow play anywhere in the current weather forecasts.
There was a bit of a circus going on around the Emerson’s
house while Rowen’s parents were kept busy trying to get everyone fed and ready
for church in time to actually get there in time for the service. I managed to get through my Tai Chi with only
a couple of spectators before the barely-controlled chaos took over; and then
Rowen and I were running non-stop until we hopped into the car with Uncle Adam,
Aunt Leanne, and Emma Norton. Rowen’s
parents had the boys in the van with them, and Jessica and Lindsay got a ride
with Geraldine and her parents.
While we didn’t have to deal with most of our usual little
brother and buddy sleepover annoyances, but this afternoon, Rowen and I were
ready to just spend a few quiet hours hanging out in my room and lounge. We practiced our music; worked on a project
for school; played with Ethan and Ehlana; and watched a movie in the time we
had between lunch and when Rowen needed to be home for her family dinner plans.
It’s been a quiet evening here too, and we all opted for an
early night after staying up late on Friday and Saturday. I was in on the play time and Magi lesson
after dinner, but came upstairs to spend some quality time in my Jacuzzi when
Mom and Dad were ready to give Ethan and Ehlana their baths. I did the full, time-phased nightly computing
and study session after my bath too, though we don’t have school tomorrow; and that’s
when I learned something that was instantly my number one top news story of the
day.
Time phasing affects your biological age!
For the Magi of the future, that may not seem like a huge
revelation, but you won’t find anything in the archives older than this journal
entry – and the report I’ll be writing for Mom after I finish this – that even
really considers the possibility, let alone quantifies it. The measurement of the effect is actually
very simple – you age by the amount of time that passes while you’re phased;
regardless of how much time passes in the ‘real’ world.
That doesn’t sound like a big deal, and under normal
circumstances, it isn’t. If you
time-phase to get somewhere fast, or are only trying to do something in seconds
instead of minutes; aging by an extra few minutes isn’t even noticeable unless
you’re keeping track of it. Using a time
phase to slow everything down has the opposite effect – you age more slowly
than real time.
How cool would that be?
Maybe I should experiment with that some day and see if it would be
possible to do a ‘slow’ time phase at night while I sleep. Imagine if you could cut seven or eight hours
of aging off of every day of your life!
Would that make it possible to live an extra thirty or forty years if
you could sleep and be able to hold the power flows?
The reason I say that I’d need to study that sometime in the
future is the same reason why I need to stop doing these big, nightly time
phases – extensive use of time-phasing and puberty do not mix. In the two weeks that I’ve been experimenting
with time-phase studying, I’ve aged by nearly two days more than everyone else. Extrapolating that out, I’d catch up to Rowen
in a bit over a year; and add an extra year to my true age about once every six
or seven years. I definitely don’t want
to shorten my life by one-seventh!
Now, for those of you who have read all of my journals,
you’re probably thinking right now that I’ve stumbled onto the perfect solution
to my ‘crossing over’ problem; but you’d be wrong. Yes, if I could slow myself down for that
seven or eight hours a day; I could slow my aging down by a couple of days
every week. Most adults would love that
idea, and in some ways, it’s even tempting for me, but there would be some
parts of that decision I wouldn’t like at all.
Having the body of an eleven-year old girl when I’m fourteen
or fifteen wouldn’t be good, and I seriously doubt that I’d find dragging out
puberty for two or three extra years much fun.
Then there would eventually be all of those little biological issues
that would be very noticeable and unexplainable – like having menstrual cycles
that were a third longer than any other girls.
I also didn’t always enjoy always being one of the pixies in my grade so
much that I’d like to go back to being the shortest person again while dragging
out reaching my eventual adult size over several extra years.
Like I said, that will be a cool experiment, and maybe Mom
would like to try it herself, but even if it means I’ll end up crossing over
sooner than I’d like; this really is not a good time for me to be messing with
my biological clock.
While this does mean the end to my time-phase study
experiment for physical reasons, it’s only temporary; doesn’t mean that I can’t
still use time-phasing a little bit now and then; and I didn’t really answer
the question of whether the power demands are a net benefit or not compared to
doing my studying at normal speed.
For now, though, this will be my last early study night for
a while, so I’m going to wrap this up; write the report for Mom; and then get a
little extra sleep while I can.
Until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor; logging
out!
