Monday, June 16, 2008

The Fight To Stay Awake After Lunch

Is it just me...am I the only one who finds that around the one hour mark after eating lunch at a restaurant sleep-itis takes over my body so suddenly that it's like someone slapped me into that state? Of course, I am talking about this happening on weekdays when I have to go back to work after eating said lunch. I find that, since being in Paris, this ALWAYS happen when I eat at a restaurant for lunch. I don't know if it's because the restaurant I usually eat at gives a huge 3-course meal. That may have something to do with it. All I know is that every day I have eaten out for the last two weeks, an hour after getting back from lunch, like clockwork, I would get sleepy at around 3pm and would get barely any work done until 4pm. During this one hour torture, I would struggle and nod off and go to the bathroom every 15 minutes (seemed like eternity) to steal a 2 minute shut-eye in one of the bathroom stalls.

The last time I had this problem of falling asleep after lunch was last summer when I had my most interesting job yet, doing what I would like to be doing when I start working 'for real' - programming. The work that I was doing was great and extremely interesting and allowed me lots of independence on how to implement the program I was developing. However, sitting in a cubicle all day with minimal interaction used to bring on the snooze. Now, I am here in Paris, working at a job that is just a filler job to earn some money while I am here but it actually looks good on my resume as it is related to my field and it can be very interesting as well. Again, I find the sleepiness taking hold so now I am worried about when I start to work for real. How on earth will I survive just sitting and coding all day, not interacting much with other people in a real office? I know I can code all day, but not without taking breaks or chatting every now and again (I think this goes back to my ADD post earlier).

You know what else the sleepy state reminds me of? Those times in church where as soon as the pastor starts preaching you get hit with the sleepy slap and spend the entire pastor's sermon fighting sleep, knowing you look funnier trying to control your bobbing head and jerking awake every few minutes than if you had just stopped trying and bent your head like you were praying and gone to sleep. That reminds me of my father who has no shame when it comes to sleeping in church. He still does it now but the worst was when we were in Jamaica.

When we were in Jamaica, my aunt and mother were correct in describing my father's weekly sleeping position in church by saying he was like Jesus on the cross. This is because he would have both his arms stretched along the pew. One hand would be behind my mother but the other one was sometimes behind other people. He had no qualms about putting his hands behind other people. He usually asked them if it was ok and being in church they never said no. His feet would be crossed and stretched out in the pew so that no one could pass without having to either do an awkward climb over his feet or hit him to wake him up. Then there were the times he would start snoring. When I was thirteen and this was a regular occurrence, I used to think I was going to die from embarassment!

3 comments:

Case No. i3KXX82c5 said...

Lol!!! I vote for yielding to sleep at the pew and pretending that you are praying : )
It is TORTURE to do the head bob-head jerk thing.
Although maybe y'all just ain't going to the right church, girl. Praise 'n worship & studyin' the Word of God should energizing, not soporific.

tibs4eva said...

Actually this mostly used to happen to me in Jamaica when I was younger and sermons there are much longer than here. Since I've been in North America, this has only happened a handful of times when I've been really tired.

tibs4eva said...

But my father will sleep no matter where he is..We always worry that he has narcolepsy as he will fall asleep anywhere anytime even after sleeping in the night. You could be having a conversation with him and you might turn to answer a question from someone else and in that time he WILL fall asleep.