Working for the weekend (eventually)

Oh Internets... I am so ready to be done with working a bazillion (OK, 55 or so) hours a week. It's exhausting!

On the other hand, both of my jobs are going really well right now. My current students at my part time job are some of the best I've ever had. One of them even brought me an energy drink this evening (which suggests that even my students think I'm crazy for teaching in the evenings after work.)(This is probably why my brain is wide awake after midnight despite my body's desire to sleep. Darn you, caffeine!)

I really like my new main job so far. Of course, it's hard to say whether my enthusiasm will last. I am fairly distractible, and the newness of anything wears off after a while. (I have a friend who is fond of saying that the best two days of any job are the first day and the last. After all, sooner or later you'll realize that your boss is crazy and/or that some coworker really is going to drink a tuna fish smoothie for lunch.)(Right by your desk.)(Every single day.) But so far, I really enjoy my coworkers and the stuff I've been doing. I actually talk with people regularly throughout the day rather than once or twice a week. It's great.

The downside to all of this working is that I haven't had much time for anything else - Achilles, friends, commenting on blogs, my Netflix queue. Of course, this situation is very temporary, and I mostly feel incredibly lucky to be overemployed after my recent sticky job situation. In a couple of weeks, I'll be back to writing stand up, making boring condo repairs, expanding my knowledge of Japanese film, and beating metaphors to death on this blog and in your comments sections. In the meantime, I'm doing the best I can to enjoy the hustle and bustle while it lasts. As for Achilles - don't worry; he and I commute, run, and eat dinner together most nights. Secretly, I think he's enjoying the opportunity to play a few extra video games while I'm at work.

Anyway, this is all beginning to sound very disjointed. (My brain is ready for sleep. My body is ready for sleep. Now I just need my heart rate to get ready for sleep. No more energy drinks, even to be polite!) I'll be back in full force soon. In the meantime, take care of the Internets and yourself.

Talk of Circadian Rhythms

Dear Internets,

Whenever I don't have to get up for work (or, in the past, school) for more than three days, I start becoming nocturnal*. I've been this way my entire life, to the frustration of my parents, older sister, several roommates, and probably even my dog.

It always seemed kind of strange to me that my off-kilter sleep schedule upset everyone so much - I was careful not to wake or keep anyone else up, as much to preserve my solitude as their slumber. Still, it made them uncomfortable. They just didn't understand why I wouldn't just go to sleep at a decent hour like a normal person.

I love being awake late at night, though. In college, I used to take my dog on long walks after dark when I didn't have morning classes the next day.** I loved the way the streetlights separated the darkness into neat paragraphs, and that I could actually hear my thoughts click against the pavement with Bailey's footsteps.

Daylight overwhelms me sometimes, with its million sounds and people and things and ideas refracting in a million different directions. The night is well-edited.

Get some rest, Internets.

Love,
Jane

*[This phenomenon is kind of bizarre, because when I'm on a "regular person" schedule (8 to 5, M-F, or something similar) I fall asleep at my normal bedtime (whatever it happens to be) like I'm punching a time clock. Some friends once dragged me to a rather scary club on a trip to Houston, and I apparently slept through a loud fight with my head on my friend Lyn's shoulder.]

**Then I watched too many episodes of Cold Case Files and realized that it wasn't an entirely safe habit.