The country that never sleeps

So. It's 1:30am. Over the past week I have slept perhaps 4 hours a night (and I am a person who prefers 10 or 12, when possible). And yet, instead of curling up with my borrowed cats in my fabulously empty guest room chez amigo/caretaker amiga (how's that for mixed up linguistics....is there a spanish word for "chez"?)...I am writing on my blog.

Why? Why Meredith? (you ask). Well, blog reader, (I reply) apparently Chile is contagious.

There is some sort of super-human gene in your average Chilean that allows them to function perfectly well on approximately 10 minutes of sleep per night. I am absolutely dumbfounded by the hours that are kept here. Let's take a look at a Composite Sample day based on various people I know:

5:30am. Wake up. Shower. Eat breakfast.
6:15 - 7:30am. Stand in ridiculously packed micro on the way to a job in some inconvenient location.
7:30am - 7pm. Work. Or, be at your place of work, even if there is no work to be done, because butts in chairs have symbolic value.
7pm - 8:45pm. Ride home in ridiculously crowded micro through rush hour traffic.
8:45- 9pm. Relax.
9pm - 9:30pm. Eat onces (something approximately an afternoon snack which takes dinner's place, to my chagrin) and talk rapidly.
9:30pm - 12am. Study for some degree that you are working on, and/or work on your home-run business.
12am - 4am. Night clubbing, we're night clubbing...
5:30am. Repeat.

I am rather in awe of all this. Generally I leave clubs at the time when everyone else is showing up (around 2am, in most cases). I have also at times been at parties which then turn into outings....at 4am. After a night like that, I am generally out of whack and worthless for the next few days, and in need of a few weeks' rest before I'm up for another round.

However, Chile is getting to me. At the moment I have 3 jobs and a side project. I have met more new people in the last two weeks than I did in my first 2 months in Valpo...and I've been seeing both the new friends and the old regularly. My life has suddenly turned into a no-rest-zone. And yet I seem to be addicted (see timestamp on this entry).

A current composite day in the life of this chilenacized gringa:

6:20am. Wake up. Curse the fact. Reset alarm. (some things never change)
6:40am. Wake up again. Realize that lateness is becoming a threat. Take a shower. Loose showerhead falls on head at least once. More cursing.
6:50 - 7:30am. Put on clothes. Check weather. Put on other clothes. Wander around room picking up and putting away various teaching-related items, trying to clear the fog and figure out what exactly I am being paid to do on this particular day.
8 - 11am. Bounce around while speaking very slowly to 18 students who find me amusing on a good day, and crazy on any.
11am - 12pm. Ride micro to the office of distant employer.
12pm - 1pm. Have brief meeting with said employer.
1pm - 2pm. Ride micro back to Valpo.
2pm - 3pm. Have coffee with a friend.
3pm - 4pm. Spanish class.
4pm - 6pm. Get to a computer and churn out a combination of copy writing for distant employer, worksheets for evening students, and update emails for side project.
6pm - 7:30pm. Speak at a moderate rate about maritime terms with tired students.
7:30 - 9pm. Eat food that a cooking-prone friend generously proffers. Talk sh*t.
9pm - 12:30am. Go out to a bar or social gathering with some combination of friends.
12:30 -3:30am. Continue various emails, content generating, and so forth for side project. Write a bit more silly copy.
3:30am. Fall asleep with computer still on the bed.
6:20am. Wake up with even redder eyes, achier head, and incoherent mind. Cursing. And repeat.

So, I'm now rather convinced that I have somehow been infected by the prevalent Chilean motivation to be either at work or socializing at every moment that that it is physically possible to fight off gravity. I also seem to have come down with a case of the "DIY employment" entrepreneurship that is so incredibly present here (more on this cultural trait later, as it deserves a proper post).

Unfortunately I have not caught the unreal resistance to fatigue and its side-effects that most people here exhibit. For instance, I once had a woman come to an 8am class after working two shifts in a row---meaning she had been working since 3pm the previous day. All throughout class, her eyes would start to close and her head would start to drop.....and then she'd pull herself back up and conjugate some verbs.

Well, hat's off, Chile. I don't know how you all do it. I'm going to stop pretending I can, and hopefully regain some of my lost functioning ability.