I've been L-A-Z-Y!

No, actually, I’m just dead tired.

All I have energy for after work is to take my dinner out of the box, poke 5 or 6 holes (5 if it’s a square container, 6 if it’s oval or rectangular) in the plastic film covering the food and stuff it into the microwave.

A shower after dinner.

Some reading or TV.

Then it’s bed time.

At 10pm.

*clap clap for BabyMinz*

Work’s not physically demanding and I spend less effort on cooking (seriously, how effortful is microwaving ready meals?) so there really is no good reason for my tiredness.

Maybe it’s the quality of sleep I get, though. See, in Aberdeen, I had frequent nightmares. Here, the nightmares are gone but for some reason, I often wake up at 2am. At that time, I feel really refresh and rested. I feel like I could get up and go to work.

But no, even though my placement hours are flexible, they are not that flexible.

So, I go back to sleep and wake up again at 6:30am, feeling utterly tired, like I haven’t slept at all.

Very strange. Because I never had problems with my sleep before. At home, I was a super sound sleeper, no nightmares and pointless wake-ups. They can have karaoke competitions in the void deck, a whole funeral procession pass by, or wild cheering from the school kids having their annual track and field event in the stadium nearby and I would sleep right through. I get up when I have slept enough.

Since I’m feeling like such a grouch these days, CJ got the brunt of it when he called just now. He called to tell me that he is planning to rent a car the weekend I was visiting to bring me around. I was perfectly fine with that, looking forward to see the sights of Durham.

Then he told me he is intending to ask his friends along. And because I was not feeling very sociable that moment, I was not nice. I think I gave him a whole 5mins tirade on why I wasn’t particularly keen on that idea, that I didn’t know his friends, his friends didn’t know me blah blah blah.

Part of that was me just being crabby. But part of it also has to do with what I do. I meet people everyday. People that I don’t know. People that if I met on the street, I would not even think of having a conversation with. But because of the nature of the job, I have to talk to all these people all day everyday. Now, that’s fine. I’m definitely not anti-social and I quite like meeting new people. In fact, my highlight of today was meeting a new patient who told me he’s been to Singapore when he was young and he actually did some time in Changi Prison. Haha…

But sometimes, especially after a particularly long week at work, I just want to be around people who I can be "comfortable" with, not be conscious of social etiquette to smile or nod or say "uh huh", and not make "small talk".

It’s like, you are at a party where you know nobody else. You go from person to person, being sociable, getting to know people and end of having the same or variations of the same conversations with each person: "Hi, I’m XYZ, what’s your name?", "Oh, what is it you do?", "Yeah, the food’s pretty good." Now, imagine you’ve been partying ALL WEEK. Do you feel the need to "leave the party"? Back to your own home where you can kick off your shoes, sit with your legs crossed whatever which way, yawn if you feel like it and gulp wine (no, it’s your home and you don’t have to sip wine if you don’t want to. You can drink straight from the bottle if you so jolly wish.). Get the idea, now?

Ah well, he took all the crap I gave and we compromised. Eh, now that I think about it, we didn’t compromise! I gave in and agreed to his plan! I think because I was too tired to argue and I mean, he IS making a great effort to be a good host and entertain me. And to be fair, a few hours with his friends might turn out to be enjoyable…