That apartment in another dimension? If you didn't seeing it coming before, I had to get out of there. Not only was it weird, loud, and overcrowded, it was also illegal and poorly designed. So not only did I have to deal with my roommates switching to jobs where they needed to have the lights on and do stuff when I needed to sleep, but there were also unannounced flatmates moving in or out and a visit from the "owner" which required moving everyone and everything around and/or out of the apartment so that it would appear that there were only 3 people living there when there were in fact 9.
So.
At the end of April I found a room to rent in Lindfield, which is just a couple of train stops north of my job in North Sydney.
My own room. A nice bed. Ahhhh.
But I basically spent the first two weeks and weekends just working and sleeping. Sometimes like 12-13 hours of sleep a night on the weekend. The room is usually cold because of the old, "double brick" style of the house, but the bed is really comfortable and has an "electric blanket." (Which in Australia actually refers to a body-length heating pad used under the mattress sheet. They do have actual blankets or "doonas"which are electrically heated that you can buy, they're just much more uncommon.)
So my first month in this job I spent sort of "getting by" and then the second I spent recovering. Then last weekend I had an extra day off on Monday (since on night shift we cover concerns from the US and the UK and both were off for Memorial day), so I spent a couple of days and nights in the Blue Mountains.
 |
| More photos on FaceBook if you're interested |
I'm not sure you ever fully "recover" from working night shift until you just stop working it altogether. I feel alright, I haven't gotten sick or anything, but my thoughts go hazy a lot and I'm tired a lot more than I normally would be. This in combination with my new room being located about a 25 minute walk from the train, which I have to take to get to any grocery stores, it's a little discouraging in terms of getting out and finding new and interesting things. I managed to make it to the aquarium the other weekend, but it was absurdly exhausting for what it was.
Although, really, it's been 4 months and I'm ready to head out of Sydney. I've pretty much seen and done everything I wanted to here. My manager has told me that they are expecting they'll only need me through the end of June. So I figure that's one month to plan things out, try to get healthy (one tends to eat a lot of junk food/caffeine on night shift) and do whatever little things are left on my to-do list.
But really, I'm looking forward to sleeping at night.
