15th September

Tuesday Morning 15th September 1998

Just after 3:00 am again, can't sleep. Was up until 5:00am the other night because of the same. Might try to kick through till dawn and hope that I can stay awake till 5:00pm. Probably not, but it might be what I need. Haven't done any productive work in what seems like ages. Getting quite a bit frustrated because I'm stuck trying to make the last two most difficult compounds. Broke my Schlenk line today (a very expensive bit of laboratory glassware) and so spent most of the day cleaning up. Only got up at 2:00 pm, so Monday was a complete write-off.
Too many things are going on at once, my life seems to be too full, I wish there was a way to need less sleep, because every waking hour I know that there is something that I should be doing. Writing reports up, finishing off lab work, demonstrating, writing overdue emails, trying to get a million and one things done which aren't getting done otherwise. I wish the world would stop, I want to get off…
Want to take a break, go see Ben Hur on the big screen while it's down here. Definitely need a chance to relax, sometimes I feel like an enormous bundle of nerves ready to pop. Been meaning to get up new images on my site, or have I? I haven't been at all motivated to do any "personal exploration" in weeks, mainly I think because I've been so stressed out. "These are times sent to test men's (?) souls…"
I think I have come to the conclusion that I need 9 hours of sleep a night. I can predict that if I get to bed at 5:00am then I'll wake up at 3:00pm…2:00am equals wake up at midday, it's really annoying. Why the heck can't I get away with just 6 hours!!! I'm a bit pissed off, because 9 hours is over 1/3 of the day which is just wasted… I feel completely unproductive, and I feel as though my life is just slipping away through my inactivity. Its probably not bad to be unproductive for a few days, but it feels like weeks since I've had any real motivation other than rank last minute panic.
FUCK… just remembered, haven't marked the 1st year lab reports which I was supposed to do over the weekend… shit, shit, shit. Great, yet another thing I have to remember to do, what bloody chance do I have for staying awake until 5:00pm today, not bloody much… shit. 4:00am now, still not tired, but I will be by about 11 am, I'm going to be dead on my feet. Damn it, too many things to have to remember. Damn email account is almost full as well… have to get a new printer cartridge so that I can print out the old email then delete them so there is room for the new stuff… more work, and it's not even work related… *sigh* where will it all end… It's like with the dirty glassware, no matter how I try to clean up the loose ends, I just generate more mess. It's a vicious circle which I can't break out of before it breaks me…
Why is it that I'm so hungry of late? Ever since insomnia has forced me to sleep most of the day away, I've been having the midnight to dawn muchies something chronic. Because I didn't get to lunch or breakfast, I didn't have a single thing to eat until dinner at 6:00 pm, and dinner was really festy and so I had about a half a dozen pieces of toast which might fill you up for a while, but they don't keep you going for 10 hours at a stretch. Depending how bad it gets, I might have to cycle into civic to the 7-11 and get a loaf of bread, if I even think about having another piece of chocolate I'll throw up. That's the only thing you can get late at night unless you want to freeze your butt off cycling to Dolly's which isn't much better. Recently I've been having fresh bread cravings, which is might seems slightly odd, but only when you realise that unless I go to the bakery before midday (Fat fu*king chance) then I sure as heck won't see fresh bread here at John's.
Wow, another unproductive night how unusual… oh the irony of it all, "Steph - Mistress of Irony" should be the title of my page, I seem to have more irony in my life, then a BHP worker… It wouldn't be so bad if I couldn't sleep at all, but not being able to sleep normally is annoying. I guess I sacrificed that along with all my other normality, oh well, I guess you can't cross burnt bridges…
First big yawn in a while, maybe I'm starting to falter, maybe I'm just boring myself… haven't heard from Sarah in a while, I miss her. Everyone seems really involved with there own stuff, it seems hard to find people to just have a casual chat to with all the exams and assignments people have at the moment, I'm paralyzed by my own inability to get work done, and the more I see people with "heads down studying" the worse I feel…
Shit, just remember that I have to write an abstract for this conference ASAP, great, yet another thing I have to remember. Along with seeing whether anything I write on my computer can be transferred to the Mac's at work. God I hope so, I utterly despise those computers. On the other hand, 4:00am in the morning is usually the only time they're not being used by someone or other.
I'm fading pretty fast, (a blessing in disguise" I don't know whether I'll make my optometrist appointment (hopefully my last for many years), but maybe today will be a better day, see you in 9 hours. 4:37am.
Oh, just remember, have to try and ring Soba, can't get through on her mobile… should get in touch with Sarah…

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