One of the first words I learned when I started studying Japanese was “jisaboke.” Literally “jisa” means “time difference” and “boke” means “stupidity” so combined it means “time difference stupidity.” But jisaboke really means “jet lag.”
I’ve never had such a bad time with jet lag before. I’m usually a night owl, staying up until 3AM, but since I got back from Japan, I’ve been staying up until 6AM or more, and sleeping all day. My schedule is completely backwards. But I am finally recovering a normal schedue, today I managed to get up at 9AM after getting to sleep at 1AM.
I was worried I’d have terrible jet lag problems when I got to Japan, you really have to live on a daytime schedule because the trains stop running at midnight and you have to go home or else you’re stuck wherever you are until 5AM when the trains start again. I even got a prescription for sleeping pills in case I had trouble getting to sleep. But I never needed them at all. The moment I got to Japan, I got up with the sunrise (which was about 4AM since they don’t have Daylight Savings Time) and I fell dead asleep about 9PM.
But now that I’m back, my schedule is in shambles again. I feel lethargic all day, and some days I sleep 4 hours out of every 8, it’s like my day is 12 hours long. I can’t keep my mind on my work, I feel like the past week has been a total loss.
I used to joke that I lived on Tokyo time even in the US, waking up and going to sleep at roughly the same times as people do in Japan. But I wasn’t really that close. Now I know what it’s really like to be that far off the local time zone, and it’s wearing me out.
Anyway, this is a sort of apology for not having blogged much since I got back from my trip. I’ll get my life back in order shortly. I mean, really REALLY get my life in order, I decided to quit smoking and I start on the nicotine patch tomorrow morning. I have a feeling I’ll have a lot of nervous energy I’ll need to channel into something.