Nocturnal

Yesterday I went for two walks. The first walk was after lunch because I had something to drop off at the post office. Usually I would have printed the label at home, rather than doing this walk. I desired to go for a bike ride but the chore was more important. In the process I learned something.

If you need to print something, you can go to the post office, and via an app you can print the label for a package there and then. You can then send the package, without dealing with a person. It’s quick and efficient. It’s thanks to speaking with a person that I learned this.

This morning I set the alarm to wake me at five but I didn’t get up. I felt tired and decided I need sleep more than a bike ride. I don’t know whether I am affected by the seasonal change, or whether I am still tired from this weekend. Waking at 4am wasn’t that hard on Friday, but after cycling hard on Saturday, and hard on Sunday I need time to recover.

Every year the Moléson tourism board and related teams provide people with the oppotunity to do the Face, and the Pillar by night. I have wanted to experience this multiple times in the past but because either of work, or weather, I had to cancel the plan to experience this.

The idea is simple. Sunset is at 20:25. People start climbing the VF from 1900 onwards with the option of doing the “easy” Pillar or the hard “Face”. As I did The Face a few weeks ago in daylight I did The Pillar instead. My decision was based on two things. The first is that I had organised to go with a group, and I felt a sense of responsibility to help those with less experience should they require it.

Normally I like to do things in the morning because I wake naturally between 0600-0800. Today was no exception. I could easily have got ready to do the hike, and then do the via ferrata but the thing that really blocked me is the one hour twenty drive from Le Pont to Moléson-Sur-Gruyère and the one hour drive home late at night. I could have been fine with doing both things but I want to be a hundred percent for this evening. I want to have the choice of the easy, or hard option. I also want the drive to be relaxing, not a challenge.

When you’re s student normal clocks no longer have any relevance to the way you live your life. Sometimes you go to sleep three hours after the sun rose and other times you have a nap at three in the afternoon. Occasionally you sleep from ten at night till 6 am. That’s extra ordinarily rare. When you’re in halls this is particularly true. You’ve got an entire ethnic group in university that takes the university to be the same as school. They come in at 8 am and leave on the dot at 1900 hrs. That’s because they’re still at home and they live according to their parent’s cooking schedule. They love to play during the day. Most of the people I know are of the night disposition. They will party all night and pull all-nighters to get work done rather than get up early in the morning to do things the way non-students do. It’s a great way of life. You might not see the sun in winter but in Summer there’s a chance you’ll be sitting in the sun soaking in the rays whilst office workers are slaving away. It doesn’t matter, in three to four years most students will experience the same so it’s only a question of time. Anyway, the point of this post is that I was leaving the library after doing some work on my dissertation when I spotted an orange fox lurking around. it was looking for food and that’s not hard to find where students have been. I thought that I should scare it off by hissing and stamping my foot but it remained oblivious. I decided to walk up the stairs and turned around. It was heading towards the turnstiles to get into university. Did I meet one of the rare academic foxes in North West London? Let’s see whether I see it at my graduation. How many of you have had such encounters with nocturnal creatures?

The games are starting at 10am Tokyo time but 3am Geneva time and it’s amusing getting to work. Yesterday was really tiring as I’d been woken by workers at 7am. So far we’ve seen about 40 matches and Italy’s defeat was a shame. We only have one match at a time but four of them in total so our day is 14hrs long. The teams today are: germany vs nigeria, US vs australia, France vs. Angola and Greece Vs. China.

For the next few weeks I’m going to be living according to the FIBA schedule of games and it may be hard. there are going to be a few early mornings which end around 1300 CET so that’s not going to be too bad.If I had a passion for basketball this would be perfect. It’s going to be a new experience for me.