Friday, May 25, 2012

I Wake Up Exhausted, It's Not Morning

So no posts for a month and a half from me.  The first three weeks of that time I was probably just lazy or didn't have much to say but then we had this planning meeting at work and I don't think I've had a lunch break since that day.  I've been going in early or staying back late or both most days.  Some days I've been in at 8am and not left til 7 or 8pm and with a nearly two hour commute on either side of my day I've just been dead on my feet.  I thought at the start of the job when I wasn't getting home until 715 that I didn't have a life, but for the past few weeks I've been home at 9 and I walk in the door, have a Lean Cuisine, take a shower, and pass out.

This craziness should pass in about a week and a half and then it'll go back to "normal"-aka 12.5 hour days instead of 14-15 hour days.  We have about 150 students who have arrived or who are arriving shortly and all the work that goes in to getting them here and settled is incredible.  Tomorrow (Saturday) I'm up at 5am to drive to Sydney and go on an all day field trip to Featherdale Wildlife Park and the Blue Mountains.  It should be fun, but it's a long day.  The people I work with are all nice and helpful and have made me feel comfortable. I feel bad any time I make a mistake because even though we aren't saving lives, they are taken pretty seriously and with my long days and lack of sleep and stress, I've been making a few of them.  I hate that!  I like to be the best at whatever I do.

Last week, LC got married and I was in her wedding.  When I was at my old job, I had originally planned to take the Friday off and do wedding prep stuff with her.  With all the kids arriving right now, I told her I couldn't take the day off.  Because I had worked so long on the other days last week, I thought for sure I'd be able to take off by 4-4:30 and spend her last night as a single girl with her, but just as I was hoping to leave a bunch of work got dumped on my desk.  I couldn't help it, I went outside and cried.  I called her and explained the situation and she understood (good friend) but I felt like such a bad bridesmaid.  I don't mind working back or coming in early most days because I know stuff needs to get done, but that day I had just had enough.  I ended up being at work until 7 and then when I got to the our home train station our car battery was dead so I didn't get home until 10:30 that night.

Trying to plan a wedding and taking on this new job is hard.  There has been no wedding planning.  In 4 days, we will be 4 months out from the wedding-I should be planning.  I'm not sure this was the right time in my life to take this job.  I had this feeling in my gut that it wasn't the right time, but I didn't want to disappoint my parents. At 28, I still want to be their good, responsible kid.  I chide MOTH for being the same way, but at the end of the day, letting them down kills me.  The job is fine and I'll like it lots more when it calms down a bit, that's not what I'm saying, but the timing of it is off.  I guess it's sink or swim time and I'm doggy paddling my hardest.  The rescue ship is in sight and I'm sure I'll be fine.

This probably reads like a drunk person wrote it and I'm sorry if my thoughts have jumped around from this to that or if I haven't really explained myself coherently or in detail.  I'm too tired to be writing at the moment, but I wanted to update the blog so you knew what had been going on.  It probably sounds like I'm having a big whinge, which I kindof am, but I'm just still trying to adjust to this new lifestyle.  We talk to the kids at orientation about culture shock and I've gone through Aussie culture shock here plenty of times and reverse culture shock when I go back to California and I guess this is a version of culture shock- commuter lifestyle culture shock.  Hey, only 15,000 more train rides until retirement!