Well, for anyone wondering, I made it to Montreal. I met Shaju at the Airport and we just checked in at the hotel. I signed on to the free wireless service, had a shower and now we're going to go see what kind of fun (read: trouble) we can get ourselves into! I hope that by the end of this short trip (I'll be home by Monday, folks) that I'll remember enough French to understand the jokes/puns on billboards.
That said, I'm going to stop looking out the window at Montreal and go experience it!
I've been working since the 4th of June with one night off (which, incidentally, I didn't really want off and ended up screwing my sleep up even more). That's twenty days... well, nights really. That's over 250 hours.
So now that things on our project have been winding down as the unit comes back online, I have a lot less to do. I'm not familiar with how the plant operates, so I can't do testing. The first time I looked at a logic sheet was only a couple of days ago, and I'll be damned if I can make sense of it enough to be of any use. Yes, there are still a few things for me to do in terms of support for the people doing the testing, but they're trivial tasks, and usually involve a lot of go-fer work.
Since it's Friday night, and I've been beyond over-tired into the realm of over-exhausted, I asked for the first few hours of my shift off. A friend of mine is celebrating her birthday, and I thought I could show up for an hour or two before work, get some extra sleep in and eat a decent meal. But I was told that if I showed up at midnight, not much would be going on anymore.
Well, here it is, 12:30am and I have yet to accomplish anything today. I spent the last two and a half hours sitting in a chair waiting for things to happen. I could have shown up half an hour ago and done the same amount of work I've done so far today. So why couldn't I come in at midnight? There's no way I'm coming in tomorrow night, even if they tell me to. I'm done, I'm worn out and I'm going crazy.
So this rant goes out to all my peeps I haven't talked to in a month! I miss you! Peace.
You know that feeling of familiarity, when you feel you've done something or witnessed a scene as it happens (okay, I'm sure everyone is familiar with the term "deja vu" -- French for "already seen")? I started having this feeling when I was quite young, and over the years it has progressed. Not only will I often get the feeling of deja vu, but some time in the future, often years later, I'll get a similar feeling, but this time I'll remember back to the first incident of deja vu. I'll also sometimes dream situations that I am suddenly living out. It usually leaves me feeling weirded out, a sense of being out of myself for a moment, and I have to withdraw for a moment to get over it.
I understand that routine breeds familiarity, and the repetitive nature of our daily lives can make the concept of deja vu difficult to accept, especially when a term like "future memory" is thrown around. Sure, the skeptic says, something will feel familiar if you've done it every day for years on end. But what always gets me is the details, the specifics that spark a particular memory or recall a dream. It's happened to me a few times in the two months I've been working out at site, and tonight's incident has left me a little shaken.
I think what disturbs me most about these flashes is that long ago, the possibility of this event taking place was slim, that there were so many courses I could follow. To find that a dream I had a year before I had ever seen the project office in which I'm now working is unnerving, to say the least. The details are clear to the point of words on a screen, the people around me, the motions I make - I've seen it all before. There always comes the point, however, where the awareness of having seen this all played out before interrupts the vision. Can you have a vision wherein you realize that you've seen this all before? That would be a new one for me...
Many count downs now... The first day of summer, the shortest night, the summer solstice. The shortest: the time until this work is done. Hopefully the end of the week. And then people start to leave. A rooomate moves out, friends move to different countries, people return from their respective other places and I have a departure date. A week, two weeks, two months.
I can't stop thinking about it. Two months doesn't seem long enough to do all the things I need before I go. It won't be soon enough, but it will come before you realise. (I was told a couple months ago, "That time will go by before you know it." But I know it's passing, and I enjoy how quickly it passes. I am tired of waiting. And I heard what was really meant in the statement: "You'll be gone before I know it." Too bad the speaker cares little for how quickly it's passing, lost in a world where I am already absent. I was absent when we met.)
I am looking forward to rejoining the rest of the world, now. I want to see people who sleep at night and work during the day. I want to sleep for more than four hours at a time. I am beginning to feel sketchy from the lack of normalcy, at the long hours. It's June, it's beautiful outside and I want to enjoy it. And I want the people I care about to be around, so we can enjoy it together.
I just read my last post... I don't remember writing it. A week ago seems so long, so many hours, so many nights and days. And yet, it seems like the boys just got back from all their respective other places... now they're all leaving again after the five days they spend at home. Five days already? But I hardly saw anyone!
I lose track of time, I'm derailing. I'm a bit more rested but it's never enough to get back to par. There are so many details that slip past: what time do I eat breakfast? Did I eat today? I can't remember when I filled up the car last, or when I washed it, or how many days it's been raining. There is only the pressing needs of the immediate future, the present bearing down on me to accomplish those things that need to be done before a certain date. What day is it? It's not even day - it's night. I need laundry soap, I need to shave my legs, I need to laugh more. I need a hug.
And it's obvious how tired I am -- we all are -- in little things (as well as big). Tripping up the steps. Forgetting to turn the lights off or lock the door as I leave. Losing my fleece. When this is all over (when will it be over? the work is never completely done, there's another unit to start designing for next October's shutdown), I'm going to sleep for days. Or nights. Yes, that will be a nice change when this is all over...
I think I've totally adjusted to working when it's dark out. Now, When I pass by a window and see daylight, I think to myself "I shouldn't be here." The great thing about this night shift is that I do in fact get a chance to see daylight, to sleep in the sun, or golf or rollerblade. I figure I have a chance to do exactly ONE other thing each day that isn't sleep, work, or eat.
Hell, I'll even go so far as to say that I like night shift! If only it weren't so long, it would be much better.
There's something hilarious about everything at the end of a twelve hour night shift. Everybody is looking forward to going home, the end approaches and exhaustion marks its presence in the giddy way things become funny. It's the end of a night of good work done, and the camaraderie makes the inside jokes stick.
We now have a guy on the crew who's known as "Doctor Love," the sexual healer. While shouting out cable numbers (which take the form of 3 numbers followed by two letters: ###-@@; to avoid confusion we often replace the letters with words), we heard him yell, "Doctor Love in the Rear!" You might be surprised at how funny this is to a crew who's been working all night, but trust me. I'm still giggling.
Our night shift crew is shrinking, though. We have half the guys we had the first night. Hopefully we'll still get more done than day shift. It's become a bit of a competition to see if anything noticeable has been accomplished in the 11 hours we've been away. I also wonder if day shift gripes about how little we get done as much as we complain about them.
I think I'm beginning to get used to this. My stomach is not, but I'll beat it into submission before the end of the week if that's what it's going to take.
I've decided that I like night shift... up until about 3:30 am, when my body decides that it shouldn't be up any longer. I like the night, the comforting dark, the bright lights that keep me awake while I'm working. I enjoy knowing that most other people are tucked into bed safely, while I'm up and about. A night owl, out on the hunt? Not really, since I'm out in the middle of nowhere, but I do enjoy seeing what few others get to see.
There's also more focus at night: only a few projects are big enough to warrant around-the-clock work, so there's less running around in different directions. From what I hear of the day shift, the engineers in charge of the project are being pulled in several directions at once. On the plus side, at least they're not bored. ;) I'm not bored either, but the atmosphere is a lot more relaxed now than during the day. It gives me a chance to post something like this.
Of course, the major work is yet to be done and we have been falling slightly behind schedule. Come Monday night, we'll most likely feel like we could use another person. I can't wait for the excitement to start!
It's finally here: the shutdown we've been working towards for over a year now. All the planning and design will finally pay off during the next couple of weeks. I have been put on night shifts; tonight is the first and I'll be doing this every night for at least the next 22 nights, possibly more. It's not like it will be too hard to figure out when to sleep, it'll be convincing my body that it's ready to stay awake all night and sleep all day that will be difficult at first.
Night One
It's very quiet tonight, since work has only just begun. I am currently the only one in the project office, doing some last minute paper work. Soon I'll go down to where the work is actually being done and will "hover," as the other engineers put it, trying to observe and absorb as much as possible. 2030 The first two hours have flown by, but the project office is too warm. It's making me drowsy, so I've put on a pot of coffee. The donuts left over from the morning shift look a bit stale, but they tempt me just by sitting on the table in front of me. 2230 I can feel my "second wind" coming on -- usually it's around 10 pm that I begin to feel energetic again. "Lunch" break is at 11:30 pm, but tonight it's an hour earlier because the contractors showed up an hour early. I'm not hungry yet... 0100 Finally did some actual work work, which stirred my appetite. Mmmm... Risotto I cooked this afternoon before leaving. Over halfway through the first night shift and I'm not even close to sleepy yet. 0200 Back in the project office, having eaten I feel the lull of sleep. Between the quiet and the drowsiness of a big meal, I'm beginning to have a rough time keeping my eyes open. The solution: another coffee... 0545 As long as I'm not just sitting in front of a computer, I'm okay. But sitting down now, when all the contractors have gone to Humpty's for breakfast and there are only two of us left, I find myself dozing off at times. We just spent half an hour trying to figure out a problem that should have taken us only ten minutes to solve. The morning crew will get here soon and then we can tell them all our troubles and successes, then I get to go home for some breakfast. This sounds weird to me now, but by the end of the shut down I'm sure I'll have the routine down to an art.
One of the more confusing aspects of the night shift is the concept of days. I started working yesterday, and I'll be going back today. For me, though, this morning is still the same "day" as last night, and when I go back tonight, it'll be my tomorrow. It makes discussions that deal with these concepts difficult to understand. Who's tomorrow are we talking about? I will most likely post more about this night shift experience tomorrow. Or, I should say, later today...
