Another Nap?

For the last two and a half years I have spent my free time studying for a diploma. It was completely online (so no scary lectures or exam halls) and I sent off my final assignment in January. I got an automated email saying I would get my results within three months and with one day left before the three-month deadline expired, I got another email to say I had passed.

So, I’m now a certified hotel manager. I am qualified to bore anyone to death with long discussions on yield management, customer relations software and legal compliance. The next question is, what am I going to do with this qualification? Realistically, nothing. I have no interest in being a hotel manager and actually having to deal with legal compliance, customer relations software and yield management.

One thing it does mean is that I now have vastly more free time. This has coincided with the semi-finished hotel actually being completed (only five months behind schedule). The journalists, VIPs, board members, influencers and local dignitaries have finally left us alone so we can actually start doing the jobs we applied for.

This means I am now working night shifts full time. This works very well for me, no crowds, no noise, no stress. The first question anyone asks me when I say I work night shifts is about sleep. I am sleeping twice a day, a few hours in the morning and then another few hours in the evening. This has resulted in a number of things I wasn’t expecting, I am now much less tired. My constant brain fog has cleared, and everyone assumes I am asleep so doesn’t bother me with tedious nonsense such as ‘do you know who left this empty box here?’

This means I am free seven afternoons a week. Throughout the winter, I used this extra time for lying in bed. Just napping all day long, like a 98 year old. This was easy as it rained for about 7206593872378502938 consecutive hours during January, February and March. It was dark all day and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything.

However the clocks have changed, the skies are brighter and (although it’s possible I was hallucinating) I believe the sun has come out at least twice in the last month. I decided to get some hobbies. I have the radio – which I love – but alongside that I decided to buy a book of ‘zen colouring advanced art therapy perfect patterns’ which is a fancy term for ‘colouring book’ alongside a pack of 50 felt tips (which was heavily discounted). It has been sitting unopened on my desk for about a month and now I moved it into a draw where it will be inevitably forgotten.

Still with the feeling I should be doing something useful with my afternoons, I have bought a double-sided jigsaw. Thinking this would be a good idea as I could do it twice, I cleared everything from my desk in preparation. That was two weeks ago… I still have not taken the plastic from the box and things are starting to appear on my desk again.

So whats next? Perhaps long walks, which sound lovely. Writing and naps are great too, maybe I’ll even remember to have some lunch. Its just such a shame that work gets in the way.