Cloud Nine has got a job – again. Yes – two years and several
adventures on from the PhD, I have actually found something resembling one of
those nine-to-fives that I’ve been hankering after. Something that’s (hopefully, please, please please) quite a
bit less horrible than the Grotty Job.
The only trouble is: I can’t sleep. Ever since I laid down
my little head on Sunday night, ready to drift off for a good night’s sleep
before the First Day On The Job, I have tossed and turned and I can’t sleep. On
that night before my first day, I woke up at four. Today I woke up at 2. (That’s
a lot of lying awake.) There was nothing for it but to do what any normal
person would do, and get up and write on my little blog. (Maybe, if I just tire myself out a little
bit, I’ll get a bit of a nap – between 6 and 7?...)
I must confess that I thought this was finished, you know.
The sleepless nights of the crazy last-months-of-PhD, or that awful night before the viva. The brain that won’t shut
down. The tossing and turning, the knot in the stomach. (Ironic, really,
since the main thing I didn’t like about the Grotty Job was that awful
knot-in-the-stomach feeling every time I had to go in. And now I have found
myself a Nice Job, and it’s like my body hasn’t understood yet that it is nice.
My body has a mind of its own, and it’s preparing the fight-or-flight response.
Or is my brain telling me that it considers this job to be grotty, too?...)
This and other wonderful secrets of the working world I am
able to consider while siting in my living room in the wee hours of a Tuesday
morning.
And now back to bed.
