Friday night

I am quite tired tonight, but I am not sure how much of this tiredness is to do with the early rising experiment, and how much it is just my usual end-of-the-working-week tiredness. It is quite normal for me to hop into bed at 8pm on a Friday night (ostensibly to read), only to be fast asleep by around 8:30pm.

I am not sure why I am always so tired on Fridays. My theory is that it is because of all the talking and interacting I have to do over the course of a week, helping students and dealing with colleagues and so on. I am one of those people who finds socialising tiring; I dislike parties or large gatherings and find them draining. I don’t come across as the shy retiring type, and can make idle conversation quite well, but I do need my time to recharge. This would be why the experiment has been so good for my frame of mind generally, I think – I am benefitting from the additional quiet time.

Israd asked if I have needed naps during the day; I haven’t so far, but then it hasn’t been possible as I have been at work, and napping under my desk would be frowned on. I do like my afternoon naps, so it will be interesting to see if I succumb over the weekend. [Edit: this might give the impression that I have felt the need – I truly haven’t.]

Embarrassingly, I dozed off during one of the presentations I had to attend today, but I blame it on the stuffiness of the room and the soothing monotone of the presenter’s voice. In my defense I nodded off during the part of the talk that was looking at technical specifications and search features – and again I don’t think it was just because I got out of bed at 5am, as I have fallen asleep during talks in the same room before! The presenter himself wasn’t being particularly boring, as he came across as being genuinely interested in the database he was trying to sell us (on journals from the 18th century). He was quite funny as well, and didn’t take himself too seriously. (I did apologise to him later – I think he was quite surprised that I would bother to say anything 🙂 )

Some of the other presenters were far less interesting, referring to the people they deal with as markets and the countries they visit as territories and how they need to leverage the feedback we give them to maximise response, yadda yadda. That sort of jargon just leaves me cold.