Day 61

Good day everyone. Again, I say that it amazes me. I'm sure you're thinking "What amazes you?" Well the answer is this. It amazes me about the fact that coming in 2 hours earlier to work than what you used to 'shouldnt' make that much of a difference. In fact, the way I think about it, you should really not even notice that much. But when for over 6 months of working here, I have been coming in at 8PM and working till 6AM. So yesterday when I came into work, 1) it was still bright and sunny, where as I'm so used to it still being sunny but getting dark. Hell, during the winter, quite often it was dark already when I drove up.

So, that's one weird thing, starting work with it nice, bright, sunny, and HOT. I guess when you're so used to starting with it dim or even dark, the sun at times kind of hurt my eyes. I would patrol outside, walking around the entire campus and as I came back up the other side, I would be walking facing the setting sun, and be squinting pretty hard. 2) I was so tired last night. I hadn't gotten much sleep thursday night/friday morning, and then I tried to take a 3 hour nap friday after noon, laying down around 2 hoping to fall quickly asleep and get up at 5. Well, I layed there for an hour and a half at least. So after waking up at 5, I showered, got ready and came to work. For the first hour or so, my eyes were not cooperating with me. It was like I had a fog covering them that I was trying to look through. That usually happens to me a lot of times because of tiredness.

Sometimes I can clear the fog entirely so that I am wide awake, alert, etc, but it depends. Last night after I met up with the other guard at 10:30 (we had double coverage because there was no maintenance working last night and then there will be none tonight during 3rd shift as well), after we patrolled till after midnight, and then went over to south campus to check doors, we came back and went back to the office to take a break *and for him to snack on whatever, and me to heat up and eat dinner I brought from home*. When I take a break of any kind, be it a 15-20 break, or a 45 minute break, I most of the time have a book with me. Currently it is the first book of the sword of truth series called Wizards First Rule.

Well last night when we took our break, the other guard munched on some corn chips or something, and did cross-word puzzles out of a little magazine. I heated up my dinner and at, and then pulled out my book and figured I would read for a little while. I always decide ahead of time on what time I will be heading back out for the next round. For instance, I might decide to take a break at 7:45, and tell myself that I will head back out at 8:15. Then it might be 9:20 or 9:45 when I break again, but maybe I only hang out for 15 minutes just to get a drink of Mt Dew or water, and then continue walking around.

While I was reading, I could feel the tiredness hitting me hard. And I do mean HARD. I kept trying to shake my head to wake myself up. I knew it was because of the amount of sleep I got that day, and the amount I had been getting all around lately. I had been drinking the mt dew 20 oz through out my shift, but with too little sleep, caffeine will only help so much. I've noticed if you are sleep deprived, caffeine will help to some extent but not enough. You have to get a good rest, and then while you're working caffeine will give you much more of a boost.

When it was about 1:30, I was desperate. I was trying to think of what I could do to wake up. "Damn, 12 hours. I still have almost 5 hours left and I'm sinking fast already!" Then it dawned on me. When I was chatting with one of the housekeeping guys last week, he said one day he was so desperate to wake up that he took one of those packs of instant coffee and pretty much ate it straight, chugging down mt dew after wards to wash it down hoping he wouldn't taste it as much.

I am not a fan of coffee at all. I do enjoy the starbucks bottled cold coffee beverages, I think those are good! However, regular coffee, hot or cold, so nasty! I don't know why. Back when I worked for Ashford as a security officer, I worked 2nd and 3rd shift, 2 nights of 3pm to 11pm, and 2 nights of 11pm to 7am. Because of the split shifts, it was difficult for me to stay awake over night. My body wasn't programmed to be able to stay awake all night, because of the nights when I would get off at 11 and sleep at night instead of during the day.

Well at least here at the hospital, I'm straight 3rd shift, so I'm a lot more used to it than when I first started. It's no problem for me at all if I have gotten a good sleep. And by good sleep I mean like 7 hours. 5 is ok, if I get 5 hours then I can 'function' just fine, but sometimes I still get tired easily. But if I can get 7 or more, then I'm doing pretty good. And I mean "straight" sleep, not sleep for 2 hours, get woken up by whatever, go back to sleep for 3 hours, woken up again by someone coming in the room,then back to sleep another 2 hours. If you sleep like that, it's like little naps, but not as recouperative.

In closing, I'm going to go ahead and sign off for the night. Tomorrow Lex is heading to grandmas in KC for the month of June, so that will be fun. I'm not sure what's happening, if Erin will drive her to des moine to meet her while I sleep, or if I will be going too. Who knows. Personally I like the idea of sleep better than drive and having to nap in the car. Come on now, that's not recouperative at all! :P So anyway, thanks for reading. Will write more tomorrow.