Sleep

I've never been very good at sleeping.  I can nap pretty well, but at night time I can't fall asleep, I don't stay asleep, and as a consequence of this, I am no good at getting up in the morning.  It's been this way at least since I was in high school.  After 10 years of this business, you'd think that I would be used to it.  But I'm not ... especially now that my body and brain have decided they might rather be on Central Standard Time than on Central European Time.  This means that I am wide awake at midnight (and often at 1 and 2) and wake up often through the night, but am very, very tired at around 6 am (11pm in Chicago) and stay very tired until around 1 pm.  I'm not sure if this can be attributed to lingering jet lag, the desire to be awake when my people are awake, or just my normal weird insomnia issues.  Regardless, it is no fun at all.

I spoke Spanish this morning without thinking about it, which was weird.  Normally, it requires some amount of thought, and if someone at the bus stop comes up to ask me a question, I just say that I don't really speak Spanish.  Today, I was so tired that I just responded to the question in Spanish.  Maybe I need to be really tired to speak Spanish well.

I apparently signed up for the school bus to work today, since I got on the bus and 6 of my co-workers were already on the bus.  We ended up getting off early to take the "shortcut" to work.  Normally, I take the bus to the closest stop (less than a 10 minute walk from work) that sort of overshoots our office building.  Today, we got off 4 stops before that and cut through a huge outdoor amphitheater (out of use so far as I can tell) and a wooded path.  It's a much longer walk, but you're on the bus for less time - I don't think it's that much shorter, you're just outside more.  I rarely take this route when I'm by myself because some trees on the path make me sneeze like crazy ... plus, I'm usually dressed in grown up clothing, so cutting through an amphitheater, going down a hundred or so stone stairs, and walking on a path that is only partially paved for 15 or 20 minutes isn't my favorite thing to do.  I'm glad I wore flat shoes to work today!