When you move to another country inevitably you are going to pick up certain traits and habits from that culture. They can be good or bad, and a lot of it depends on how you look at it. For example, if I were to say that I don't care as much. Someone could see that as a bad thing, but in reality it is that I don't fret the things that I have no control over anymore. I have learned to live life and let things fall as they may and if necessary deal with it then. That I would have to say is probably the leading cause of why I am happier here. Other small changes include thinking about the temperature in terms of centigrade, learning some Arabic, starting to kind of like dresses and skirts, and being able to get away with sandals year-round without strange looks. I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones that come to mind.
One habit that I recently "examined" and "tested" was their sleeping habits. Mainly due to weather in the spring, fall, and summer many people are forced indoors to escape the grueling heat. However, as you would guess, sitting around the house all day can make a person go mad. Their solution-- sleep. You won't care if you are stuck indoors all day if you sleep through it. Considering the climate it is a perfectly reasonable and logical way to function, but what does that mean when you have to work in the morning. How do you get around sleeping during the day and staying up late at night?
Naps! You see, in the Arab culture they still get their eight hours of sleep a day, it just isn't in one continuos stretch at night. You get up early, go to work, come home and nap for a few hours, wake up and eat dinner, do any work that needs to be done, and it is back to bed. Everything gets done and you get your rest. I admit that at first I was not sure how in the world they could function. My students would tell me about how they nap after school and then end up not going to bed until 1 or 2AM in the morning. When you have to get up to pray at 5AM, that all seemed crazy to me. Now whether it was on purpose or by accident I do not know, but somehow I started adopting this habit as well. I come home and take naps after school, which started out short, but have seemed to lengthen. This has lead to very late nights and early mornings. When I realized that it had been a while since I had gone to bed before midnight, I blamed the naps and initially tried to remedy the situation. It didn't work. Eight hours is eight hours right?
That is the question that I have come to figure out holds the key to why I am still so tired that I had to start writing this blog to keep myself awake and alert. Eight hours broken into pieces, does not help your body the way that eight continuous hours at night can. I am not saying that this culture is wrong for their habits, I just don't think it works for me. Who knows, maybe if I pushed through and keep this up for a while, I would become just as energized and functional as the rest of them. Getting there is the problem, because I love me sleep and would rather not struggle.
In the end, what I have come to realize is that I cannot completely hand yourself over to a new way of life. As much as I would like to, there are certain things that will remain the same about the way I live. I can still become a part of a culture and learn to understand a culture without changing who I am completely. I know that it seems weird that such a deep idea was brought on by something as simple as sleep, but what can I say, inspiration sometimes comes from the most unlikely places.
One habit that I recently "examined" and "tested" was their sleeping habits. Mainly due to weather in the spring, fall, and summer many people are forced indoors to escape the grueling heat. However, as you would guess, sitting around the house all day can make a person go mad. Their solution-- sleep. You won't care if you are stuck indoors all day if you sleep through it. Considering the climate it is a perfectly reasonable and logical way to function, but what does that mean when you have to work in the morning. How do you get around sleeping during the day and staying up late at night?
Naps! You see, in the Arab culture they still get their eight hours of sleep a day, it just isn't in one continuos stretch at night. You get up early, go to work, come home and nap for a few hours, wake up and eat dinner, do any work that needs to be done, and it is back to bed. Everything gets done and you get your rest. I admit that at first I was not sure how in the world they could function. My students would tell me about how they nap after school and then end up not going to bed until 1 or 2AM in the morning. When you have to get up to pray at 5AM, that all seemed crazy to me. Now whether it was on purpose or by accident I do not know, but somehow I started adopting this habit as well. I come home and take naps after school, which started out short, but have seemed to lengthen. This has lead to very late nights and early mornings. When I realized that it had been a while since I had gone to bed before midnight, I blamed the naps and initially tried to remedy the situation. It didn't work. Eight hours is eight hours right?
That is the question that I have come to figure out holds the key to why I am still so tired that I had to start writing this blog to keep myself awake and alert. Eight hours broken into pieces, does not help your body the way that eight continuous hours at night can. I am not saying that this culture is wrong for their habits, I just don't think it works for me. Who knows, maybe if I pushed through and keep this up for a while, I would become just as energized and functional as the rest of them. Getting there is the problem, because I love me sleep and would rather not struggle.
In the end, what I have come to realize is that I cannot completely hand yourself over to a new way of life. As much as I would like to, there are certain things that will remain the same about the way I live. I can still become a part of a culture and learn to understand a culture without changing who I am completely. I know that it seems weird that such a deep idea was brought on by something as simple as sleep, but what can I say, inspiration sometimes comes from the most unlikely places.
No comments:
Post a Comment