Wake me up
I think after a year I've finally adapted to a "first-shift" schedule. From 1993 until the end of last July, I worked the second shift--coming in at 3 in the afternoon and working until 11:30 at night. (Of course, in recent years that shift was often followed by either overtime work or internet surfing.) My eldest daughter had just been born when I started, so she, her stay-at-home mom and, eventually, her younger sister all ordered their lives around my schedule. We rarely used our alarm clock, except on Sunday mornings, the day when many people leave their alarms turned off. Generally we'd all get up when we were done sleeping, which meant any time from 7:30 in the morning for early riser Ga Dai's to 10:00 for the ever restful Siu Wan. Bedtime for the girls didn't come 'til ten or eleven o'clock, long after their peers were snug in their own beds. When we visited other families with children we had to remind ourselves about normal bedtimes, so as not t overstay our welcome. It wasn't a perfect life, but it was pretty darn good.So when this China venture started, I figured it was the first shift life for the lot of us. I remembered days of yore, when I would climb out of bed at 6 or 6:30 or so and enjoy the morning light. Well, it never quite worked out that way. I mean, yeah, I started getting up a little earlier, but the family kept on their normal schedule. I was still staying up past midnight and as for waking up with the dawn.... well, why force yourself awake when there's no pressing appointment? Once we got to China, the status quo altered but little. At the beginning of the year, Yau Neih had no classes, so our schedule was our own. Once she did started teaching, there were only two days a week that she needed to get up for an 8:00 class. My wake up time crept forward slightly--I started getting up between 7:30 and 8:30--but Siu Wan continued to stay under the covers til her beloved 10:00 am. I resigned myself to the fact that we had become permanent late risers.
It was a bit of a presumption on my part. For the past two weeks we have been staying with my in-laws, who are early risers of long standing. After a few days of jet-lag, I found myself waking up first at 7 and now at 6:30. Even Siu Wan has managed to glimpse the earlier side of 9:00 am. It seems that we can adapt to first shift after all! The incident that brought it all to my attention was my attempt to do some banking the other day. Ga Dai was on the computer, so I figured I'd walk up to the bank and take care of some biz. It was about 9:30 or so. Everybody's open by then, right? Ah, I discovered otherwise as I arrived at the local branch ten minutes before it opened. I can't recall the last time that I had to wait for something to open. (Well, actually there was the time that we hit the barbecue place at 7:00 pm and they hadn't put out the food yet. But that had nothing to do with our sleep cycles and everything to do with the odd customs of Yunnan?) (How can you people wait until after 7 to eat such good food?) So now I can once again enjoy the morning quiet. I wonder if it will last once we head back to China? Time will tell.
posted by John @ 9:46 AM
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