Dammit, I'm apparently way more productive with coffee in me. DammitDammitDammitDammit.
The nice thing about flying halfway around the world and the resultant jet lag is the ability to sleep for 10+hrs for a week or so and wake up completely rested at 5:30am. I'd start my day wide-awake, just looking for things to do before heading to the office. I watched the sunrise over Beijing, went for a run/ride, or just putzed around on the internet looking at bike stuff (to get it out of my system before work). I'd get plenty of work done at the office and my energy levels would be pretty well sustained throughout the day. It was nice. Unfortunately, normal people don't go to bed at 7 or 8pm. In fact, that's when some people are just leaving work at my office (not me). So eventually I recouped enough zzz's to get to bed at a decent hour and still manage to be productive and alert in the mornings. 10 o'clock... 10:30... 11:45... Oops its getting late... Wait, it's now 1am and I need need to be at work in 6hours for an East Coast conference call?
I've slowly fallen back to my normal ways, though it's still rare for me to have a 2am nightowl session (They're a h00t!). I find myself unable to fall asleep until after 11pm despite valiant efforts to get all my stuff done beforehand. When my first alarm clock goes off (I set several), I hit snooze and zonk out for another 30 to 45 minutes. Getting out of bed is not exactly and up-and-at-'em moment either as I drag my groggy ass to the shower. And the fun doesn't stop there. I tend to coast through the work day too. Even simple tasks seem to drag on and on. I'll occasionally fall asleep in a meeting or seminar. Thankfully, a majority of these are done via webconferencing so it's not completely obvious to those not directly adjacent to my cube. Still, that's no way to get through the work week. And a newish life goal of mine is to not be a slouch in whatever I'm doing. (I say newish because it's something I've always been driven to, but never put into actionable objectives)
I was happy, proud even, to have shaken free of the death grip coffee had on my life less a year ago. A morning French press before work, a shot or two of espresso as soon as I rode into the shop, and more shots throughout the day even if I didn't particularly need it. And don't get me started on soda or as I like to refer to it: "liquid candy yum yum". I wasn't so much functionally dependent on caffeine as I was just completely reckless and ignorant about my intake. Having an espresso machine 4feet away from your workbench will do that to you. I'm away from that scene now, but it still took a while for my shaky hands and heart murmurs to stop. And like I said, I was feeling real good about myself and not drinking much coffee. I'd treat myself to a small Americano twice a week, usually during my Chinese tutoring lessons, but I never actively sought out a caffeine fix. I don't own a coffee maker of any shape. Hell I don't have any kitchen equipment period. I'm that much of a bachelor pad dirtbag at the moment. This week I've had coffee almost every morning before work and I've come to the unfortunate realization that a cup of coffee in the morning makes life a helluva a lot more tolerable at the office. I gotta figure something out. Paying 21kuai for a tall Americano at Starbucks isn't exactly breaking the bank, but I'm not all about funding their reign of terror on the coffee bean. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll spend some cheddar on some nice tea and maybe invest in owning a cup or similar drinking vessel for the bachelor pad. There's good tea here, which in theory should help me steer clear of its more aggressive, beanier cousin.
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