This coming semester--my last! woo hoo!--I teach classes on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at . . . 8 a.m. As far back as I recall, I have never had to do anything as early as 8 a.m. In fact, 8 a.m. is closer to my bedtime these days than my time to wake up. Undergrad days were easy to schedule afternoon classes all the way through. Law school had a few mandatory morning classes, but none as early as 8 a.m. Even back in my elementary and high school days, classes started at 9.
I have slept through 8 a.m. for most of my life. It has become so foreign to me that I can only refer to it in italics.
As for work, I've usually tended toward swing-shift--back when I made phone calls for the deaf, a job that deserves a post of its own--or graveyard, when I dealt craps at an Indian casino in Washington state (another blogworthy job). Even as an attorney, I either set my own hours as a contract attorney (doing other attorneys' work) or at my own office, where I tended to roll in about noon. When during an interview, a partner asked me what my hours should be at his law firm, I replied, "I'll start at noon." That gave him pause; but he hired me.
Some lifestyle changes will be in order. To get up at 6-6:30, I'll have to be in bed at 10-10:30 p.m., when I am normally having lunch. I'll have to resist waking up in the middle of the night for dinner.
I'll be living an entirely different life. One with sunlight.
At the beginning of each semester, an Iggy Pop lyric tends to creep--pop?--into my head right before I begin my first class:
Well, that's like hypnotizing chickens.
The lyric sounds right, but how does it apply? Am I the hypnotist, or am I the chicken?
I think I have the answer. I started as the hypnotist in 2010. But somehow between then and now, I have become the chicken.
I have slept through 8 a.m. for most of my life. It has become so foreign to me that I can only refer to it in italics.
As for work, I've usually tended toward swing-shift--back when I made phone calls for the deaf, a job that deserves a post of its own--or graveyard, when I dealt craps at an Indian casino in Washington state (another blogworthy job). Even as an attorney, I either set my own hours as a contract attorney (doing other attorneys' work) or at my own office, where I tended to roll in about noon. When during an interview, a partner asked me what my hours should be at his law firm, I replied, "I'll start at noon." That gave him pause; but he hired me.
Some lifestyle changes will be in order. To get up at 6-6:30, I'll have to be in bed at 10-10:30 p.m., when I am normally having lunch. I'll have to resist waking up in the middle of the night for dinner.
I'll be living an entirely different life. One with sunlight.
At the beginning of each semester, an Iggy Pop lyric tends to creep--pop?--into my head right before I begin my first class:
Well, that's like hypnotizing chickens.
The lyric sounds right, but how does it apply? Am I the hypnotist, or am I the chicken?
I think I have the answer. I started as the hypnotist in 2010. But somehow between then and now, I have become the chicken.
I'd say I feel for you but my early shifts at work start at 5:30 am.
ReplyDeleteThat's not the wake up hour, that's the be to work and ready to go hour.
However - I hope your transition goes smoothly... or rather that it doesn't so we get some really good insomnia inspired posts from a deranged mine of a guy who hasn't slept in months.
Those will be epic!
Starting at 5:30. Wow. I'd be fired in 2 days.
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