Night Shift

It is almost 3am, started 10.30pm finishing 7.15am, night shift number 4 of 7. I’m at work, alone (on our floor). Each night to, at and from work has been a mini sleepless adventure.

First, my schedule and sleeping pattern was thrown around because of the Commonwealth Games, hence why I am where I am. I’m averaging 3 hours sleep each day. I’ve been going to the gym for about an hour before work, to make myself tired enough to sleep. So far, it’s only helping my fitness.

I tried using public transport to get home in the morning. The train and bus system heading away from the city centre was appalling! The first weekday instead of being home by 8am, as train and bus timetables suggested, I was home 9am. It was only going to get worst for the weekend. Taxi was too costly (around $50 x 2 each shift). Needless to say, I knew I needed an alternative.

Hubby being overseas, I was forced to drive our manual car. I rarely drive, and mostly only automatic. I am too uncoordinated for gear changing from neutral to first gear. We also own a little sports car, with a lot of front wheel horsepower drive. It has a lot of grunt. Everything is very responsive and manual driving is too fiddly.

Mind you, I asked to buy this car. I decided then (several years ago) to get my manual license. I knew I’d get too bored with an automatic car, and it’s still true, I am very bored with automatic. Anyway, long story short, I can drive only automatic. I’m petrified to drive manual. But I love our car and can't bear to sell it for an automatic. So I don’t get much practice driving, people are not even aware that I can drive. My skills are okay considering you can count with 2 hands the number of times I’ve driven. I have good offensive and defensive driving reaction, whenever the need arise. However, parking situations are messy for me.

I started driving to work on the 2nd night. I am an independent strong woman! I had a practice using our car 2 days before, realising the possibility of me needing to drive to work. I was more than capable of doing this!!...! It took me 10 minutes to reverse out of the flat and straight driveway approximately 15 metres long. My excuse… it was hard to see in the dark :-).

I got out, jumped to first gear and up, and headed for a petrol station. Now we all remember how scary it was the first time you had to fill the car with petrol, especially if you were a new driver. As this was my third time, I think, the first and second being many years ago, I felt all those emotions again.

All these nights and dawns, I was driving this really nice noisy sports car. I almost looked good… kind of cool. Except when the lights went green, I did bunny jumps from neutral to 1st and 2nd, sometimes all the way to 3rd gear. The gears/rpm were usually under or overworked too, which I think was made obvious by the exhaust noise…? I wasn’t feeling nor looking hip and cool those times, but people could see I was laughing at myself, so those with sense of humour laughed along with/at me.

I am also not confident on my ability to start the car uphill without rolling backwards. So every drive I sweated and prayed for the lights to stay green on uphills and for car park spots outside work to be easy to get into. I’ve been blessed so far. After taking about 15 minutes the 1st dawn to reverse into our 15 metre driveway, which was trickier, that I did many starts and over-revving; that I am sure I scared the wits out of our elderly neighbour (probably thinking I will go through her window); and waking up the neighbourhood with the noise; I decided to park outside next to the footpath. Parking inside the building was also not an option, too many stressful variables, as the incline is horrendous and the space is anorexic. Combine that with my lack of understanding how to park… too messy!!

At work, being alone in the “control room”, I needed to stay within it, or hearing distance from it. It is freaky walking or running around an empty office, especially after just watching ‘The Haunting’ on TV. I made many mad dashes for the ladies or for drinks. I did pilates, yoga or aerobic exercises to stay awake. I even brought some gym equipment to the room. It would have been a sight if someone walked in on me.

Doing many things in between writing this, it is now 5.24am. I am hanging in there, tired but not too sleepy. I’m considering using the skipping ropes to get some adrenaline going and stay awake. Or maybe I'll take it easy and make myself believe the preparation outside for the Games' marathon looks very interesting....