I am desperate, please help

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I am going to teach my first day at this high school this morning, yes, it is 5 am, I woke up at 3 and can't sleep. I have been looking forward to the kids, to the school, to teaching at high school again all summer. Now what kind of teacher will they see in the morning? I am stressed out, sleep deprived.

The thing is I have been a night owl for at least 8 years. I would go to sleep at one or two and get up around 10 am. Like that I used to be a positive, energetic, cheerful guy. I would teach in the afternoon and translate in the evening. I have always been a successful teacher, love my job and now I would like to be good as a part time high school teacher. When the vice - head master asked me in June if I had any needs regarding my schedule, I asked him to try to arrange it so that I could still teach at companies in the morning. I lied to him. I didn't want to say I normally get up at 9 or 10 and work in the afternoon and evenings. I hoped I would get a schedule where I would start teaching at 10 am , at worst 8 am once a week, which would be ok, not ideal but I would survive. Last week he gave me a schedule where to my horror, all my three days at the school I have to start at 8. I asked him to change it, but he misunderstood and only switched MOnday for Tuesday.

You could tell me that I should try to change my routine and go to sleep at 10 pm etc. But I found out on the internet that such a daily regime change can take several months and for some people it is natural to go to sleep after midnight. I love the time around midnight when I love to think, read and write, to me it is the most inspiring and inspired time of day.

But I am very willing to do my best and start going to sleep at ten. But I am afraid it will be a drastic interrogation to my personality, to my lifestyle. Anyway, now I have to face the fact that the students will meet me when I will have slept for 3 hours.

I wish I could tell about my problem to one of the teachers there, but I am afraid they will think I am crazy or extremely lazy. They will wonder why the school hired such a strange, complicated person.

Any ideas will help. BUt I have to force myself in 2 hours to get dressed, get some coffee and dizzy and confused and nervous go to work to make my first impression. Awful. Whenever There is an important exam or a job, I always prepare professionally, dress perfectly, get everything prepared and I usually succeed, even impress people with my performance. I can't do this today, no matter how hard I have tried.

OK I have one hour left to get some sleep, at least I will lie and try to calm down. Thank you for your support

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ryunin--

I hate to sound brutal, but you'll either survive or switch careers.

Very few people on either side of The Great Divide like 8 a.m. classes.
For both teachers and students, the 8 a.m. classes are part of paying the ritual dues.

The man that pays the piper calls the tune.

From your present perspective you seem to feel that rising early is going to force you not only to change your daily schedule but to alter your basic personality.

If you're counting on a school paycheck this year, this attitude is counter productive.

Do you consider yourself a laid-back, flexible person? Or a regimentated slave to the clock?

Some people choose clocks, some people have clocks thrust upon them. Some people rise above clocks.

Owls have more glamour than larks--in the circles in which owls fly.

You'll get through tomorrow on youth and epinephrine, guts and gall and a refusal to fail.

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But I am very willing to do my best and start going to sleep at ten. But I am afraid it will be a drastic interrogation to my personality, to my lifestyle

"Interrogation" is either a very unconventional use of the word or a really all-out, wing-ding illuminating Freudian Slip.

Of course going to bed at ten will change your lifestyle. Change your personality? Vampires have a real problem with daylight. Sunflowers turn though the compass, east to south to west.

You are neither a vampire nor a sunflower. If your personality depends on hourly pre-determined quantities of daylight.....

Change is scary, but changing a schedule doesn't necessarily involve re-casting a personality.

How much sympathy would you have with a student who wanted your sympathy about going to bed at ten because of the schedule of the school; that he needed those midnight hours To Be Himself?

Sauce for the gosling, sauce for the goose.

Good luck tomorrow. Hold your dominion.

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THANK you for your understanding. I felt awful last night , it was so early in the morning, but to my surprise, I found out that having slept only 3 hours triggers some kind of emergency system, so in the morning I was almost laughing, I was relaxed and energetic. The kids were AWSOME! They really helped me - quckly understood the way I teach and immediately started to communicate in English. THe teenagers came later, but at that point, although a little tired and sleepy, I had already overcome the worst and with the teenagers I was confident and relaxed. A funny thing, although most of them were listening to my introduction and asked questions, one girl was at the back row, totally ignoring me, even disturbing a little, you know, her T shirt said in big bright letters KISS MY... But she was an exception and her class teacher said she is like that and doesn't care about anything or anyone.

Anyway, now I have to be carerul about my sleep regime and hopefully it will work out. I can still spend some late night on the weekends. Next school year I will just tell the bosses that I am losing chances to work at companies in the morning and will ask them to let me start teaching at 10.

WHen you study what doctors say about sleep regimes, they are not sure, if some people really need more sleep or later sleep, not sure about what is going on in the system of these people. But it seems to them, that some kind of people have their bodies set for late nights and late mornings. IF that is true, I would deserve some rest in the early morning, I guess.

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ryunin wrote:

Anyway, now I have to be carerul about my sleep regime and hopefully it will work out. I can still spend some late night on the weekends. Next school year I will just tell the bosses that I am losing chances to work at companies in the morning and will ask them to let me start teaching at 10.

Okay. Been there, done that. I finally retired from teaching this past Spring after 28 years; but I still like to say I am a teacher...I must work on that.
To give the best you can to the students you need to get a decent night of sleep. Although the emergency energy system can work on the first day or two at some point it will shut off and you will be left a drag-ass listless, useless body unable to communicate with your students. Whether you need 6 hours or 7 hours or 8 hours or even 9 hours of sleep per night is something you need to learn. When you get out of bed in the morning you need to feel well rested.

What do you mean by 'Next school year I will just tell the bosses that I am losing chances to work at companies in the morning."? Are you employed as a freelance teacher?

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Sturgis wrote:

ryunin wrote:

Anyway, now I have to be carerul about my sleep regime and hopefully it will work out. I can still spend some late night on the weekends. Next school year I will just tell the bosses that I am losing chances to work at companies in the morning and will ask them to let me start teaching at 10.

Okay. Been there, done that. I finally retired from teaching this past Spring after 28 years; but I still like to say I am a teacher...I must work on that.
To give the best you can to the students you need to get a decent night of sleep. Although the emergency energy system can work on the first day or two at some point it will shut off and you will be left a drag-ass listless, useless body unable to communicate with your students. Whether you need 6 hours or 7 hours or 8 hours or even 9 hours of sleep per night is something you need to learn. When you get out of bed in the morning you need to feel well rested.

What do you mean by 'Next school year I will just tell the bosses that I am losing chances to work at companies in the morning."? Are you employed as a freelance teacher?

Yes, I started to teach at high school this September but normally I free lance and teach at companies in the late morning, or in the evening, sometimes translates, too. So my load at high school is only about one third of my total income. 10 classes a week. Today I talked to the vice head master and I told him - now quite calm and sounding professional - that companies offer me jobs teaching in the morning and he said next time he can arrange that I will teach in the afternoon. Whoopeee. But I like the challenge to live like "normal" people and go to bed before midnight and get up before 7 am. It's going to be tough, but I can make it.

I was also thinking why I don't suffer much when I go to a buddhist retreat where we have to get up at 4 or 5 am. THe thing is there you have a lot of short breaks, 10 or 20 min breaks during which I nap and can continue, also during long meditation you don't care so much if you are sleepy, while in class it is annoying a little bit. Another thing, at the retreat there is nothing to do at night, no temptation to go out drinking or watch a movie or sex or anything, so you just go to sleep at 10 and feel great, like nothing to worry about. IT is quite difficult to me to adapt this ordinary life routine into my city life that is full of excitement. There is so much to do for me at night - music, movies, bars, friends, reading, etc. I feel like during the day, I just organize things or work, but have no time to do the exciting things - so only at night I can start that part of my life. So now I am basically learning to be an ordinary person and enioy ordinary moments of the ordinayr life, quite a philosophical issue, I guess.

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I am desperate, please help

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