Tuesday, September 24, 2013

(20) 90 in 90: Time Zone Fatigue

It's been awhile.

After two weeks of close friends leaving Korea, going back to a wedding in America and getting rejected from the three jobs I applied for earlier this year, I'm finally back in Korea. I'm back in my normal Korean work/teach/write mode and ready to start everything over again.

The last three weeks seem more like three years. Events came and went at such a rapid pace that they seem further away from the present than they really are. Being someone who usually likes to dwell and reminiscence about the past, the fact that the past seems further away than t is makes my time here seem that much more important.

When you're busy, when you're involved with things on a daily basis, time is something you never seem to have enough of. It leaves us in an instant and suddenly we're left looking back at the past, yesterday has become years ago.

Crossing time zones to go back to America has also made time more relevant in my life. I've learned the hard way that time zone differences, or rather 13 hour differences can play havoc with you body and end up making the day time, the time where you need to be at your most attentive and active, a time flow limbo in which your body chugs along with aching eyes and groaning muscles struggling to stay awake and active while time time left at school versus the time in your bed at home seems completely out of reach.

You can always tell when the fatigue starts to set in, even while wide awake, you can feeling it. Its a pressure that starts behind your eyes and slowly creeps to the top of your eye lids, a heavy tingling feeling that finds relief only through closing your eyes.

Even with your eyes closed, the pressure is still there. A reminder of just how exhausted your body is and the desperate need for your body to sleep.

For me its an indicator to let me know that I have still unsuccessfully managed to battle jet lag and still spend the first week coming back home, getting used to a new time zone and letting my body readjust itself. I hope that one day, I'll get used to this duel time zone thing and nip it in the bud before it becomes a problem.

Until then, its awkward sleep schedules and waking up at 5 AM until I master my sleeping habits again. I am struggling to write this simple update as I fall asleep at my keyboard. Traveling is great, the changes you have to get used to, not so much.

 

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