--> divine angst: time change

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

time change

The switch from Daylight Savings (or is it TO Daylight Savings? I never can remember) has my circadian rhythms all off.

Firstly, I am waking up earlier because of the light, no matter how late I go to bed. Last night, for instance, I was up until about midnight, when the networks called Ohio. Yet I still was stirring awake by about 7 am—which, by the way, is a full half-hour earlier than I usually get up.

And now it's the end of the day, and I am getting ready to leave, and the growing darkness outside has me confused, too. It's so dark! Am I in the office too late? Did I lose track of time? What's going on?

My undergrad was located about 30 miles west of the time zone shift from Eastern to Central time. When Daylight Savings changed in the fall there, it was so much worse than it is here (several hundred miles farther west). There, I'd go into choir rehearsal around 5 and it would be dusk; by 6:15 when I'd be heading to dinner, it would be pitch black. So I really shouldn't be complaining too much, here in the heart of Central time.

But I am. I don't like being awoken before my alarm goes off by the light; I don't like feeling the day is over when I am just leaving work. I don't like it. The only good thing that comes with the time change is the promise of cooler weather. (I am actually wearing my favorite sweater today...yay!)

Not that my bitching is going to change anything. It's just one of those things that gets me at 5:20 in the afternoon when I still have choir rehearsal. Some things never seem to change.