Weekend's Worth Plus One

This was very much a work weekend and a real test. On Friday morning, I started my 3 AM to 3 PM shifts. Last week, I worked Friday, Saturday and Sunday. When I accepted the job, I knew it would be 4 days a week, 12 hour shifts. The 3 AM start threw me off at first, but when I realized that's really when the British sports news happen, I knew it would be fine. Back at KOMU, I used to wake up to be at the station by 3:30 for the morning sports anchoring shifts. So, this isn't terribly new to me. As the news director back in Missourah always said, if it was easy, everybody would do it. I'll happen to think it's just the price to pay for getting to cover sports as my job.

Okay, let's go through how the days went. Thursday night, I tried to go to sleep early, but that just didn't work. I ended up falling asleep around 11:15 PM and then woke up at 2:15 AM to get going. I called a cab and got to work early. The shift went well. I learned a lot from the leader of the shift. He was pushing me to really flesh out a story by going beyond the obvious. That got me to dig a little deeper and ultimately made the content better. I was running on adrenaline for most of the shift, so I wasn't too tired, just surprisingly hungry. Toward the end of the shift, we had a department end of the year lunch. I made sure to say thanks to the team for helping me out so much in the first couple of weeks.

After work, I grabbed lunch, went home and pretty much went right to sleep-bad idea. I ended up waking up at about 5:30 PM, only a two hour nap. So, I got up and got ready to go to shul for services. It was a very nice service, I was just a bit out of it as you might have guessed. After, I went upstairs for a Shabbat dinner, but I was just really too out of it to enjoy it. I went home and went to bed, got up, got a cab, got to work (this time maybe 4 hours of sleep--so, in two days, a total of 9 hours of sleep). Getting through Saturday was much tougher. The work wasn't more difficult necessarily, I was just tired. I ended up going and taking a twenty minute nap during my break. I decided after the shift, I wasn't going right to bed.

My goal was to stay up until 6 PM and then hope I could sleep until 2ish. I had lunch and came back to the apartment to find my roommate watching How I Met Your Mother! I brought the dvd's with me and I'd hoped he'd like them. He watched quite a few of them, so I think he's on board. The funny thing about watching the shows on his television, is that it looks like it was shot in a studio. Obviously it is, but this is the first time I'd noticed that it looked like that. I didn't mind as the first season of HIMYM is legen wait for it, I hope you're not lactose intolerant, dary. Those early episodes are packed with great lines.

So, I pretty much accomplished my goal- I went to sleep at 5:45 and woke up at 2:30 (almost nine hours of sleep!). What a difference that made. Sunday's shift was very good. We were a little short staffed, so it was crucial to get stuff done fast. Sunday mornings seem to be action packed because there is a lot of Premier league football to cut. Plus, we had La Liga and Club World Cup games. Mark Hughes, the Manchester City manager, got sacked (fired) surprisingly, so that was more good content. One of the things I love about this job so far, is that I get to work on lots of different sports. This weekend, I did stories on football, swimming, Nascar, NBA, Chinese basketball and the NFL.

Ah the NFL, definitely my favorite part of the weekend. The Cowboys/Saints game was broadcast on NFL Network in the states, and both ESPN Australia and Sky Sports (UK) had the game live. So, starting at 9:00 AM, I got to watch Dallas try to give New Orleans its first loss of the season, while trying to keep the Cowboys in the playoff hunt. I'm waiting for a video to get up on Facebook of me predicting a Cowboys win (shot Tuesday night at the Channukah party--oh, side note, I lit Channukah candles for the first time in my own apartment last week, very cool feeling). So, Dallas dominates the Saints for most of the game and then comes the fourth quarter. The Saints fantastic offense gets going and makes it a 7 point game. Are the Cowboys really going to give up this game....that would be crushing. Tony Romo drives the Cowboys down the field, milks five minutes off the clock, and sets up a Nick Folk field goal from 24 yards out. All you Cowboys fans out there now, for some reason this guy just can't make a kick these days. His first couple of years in the league he was spot on, but he's in a funk right now. He missed of course. That leaves, MVP candidate Drew Brees one more chance. Of course, I'm now thinking, well here it comes. The Dallas secondary will let them make the completions to get down to the 50 and then they'll just heave it. Luckily, DeMarcus Ware forced a fumble around the 45 yard line and Dallas won! Whew, really intense. The Scottish guy I work with loved how intense I was, because he would be doing the same if his club were on. I cut those highlights, what a joy, and then was done for the day.

I came back, went to sleep around 7 PM and woke up this morning at 9 AM. That's roughly 14 hours of sleep. As my mom likes to tell me, that must be what your body needed if that's how long you slept. It felt great. I woke up and skyped with Dad, David, Melissa and Amanda. It was my first type skyping with David and family, which was great because I also got to see the kids. Aaron was super cute with the computer. He told me about his birthday party and asked if I was there. Of course I wasn't, but hopefully I'll be at many of his future shindigs.

After watching some episodes of Glee (really liking it), I went to the National Museum of Singapore. This was probably my favorite of the museums so far. The History part of the tour has an audio guide you get. The displays were fantastic and so was the information from the headset. There are two different ways to take the tour, so next time I go, I'll do the other one. There is also a living gallery which was nice - showed food, fashion, movies and photos from the cultural and physical landscape of Singapore.

After thoroughly enjoying the museum, I set out for dinner. I went into a food court and to my surprise found a stall called the Mexico Taco Hut. Of course, I checked it out, it looked good so I ordered. I got chicken tacos with peppers, onions and guacamole and it was so good. The lady who owns the stand moved here about eight years ago to set up a Mexican restaurant. She then moved to Beijing for a couple of years to open a restaurant there. She finally moved back to S'pore and opended this place for her own. I'll definitely be going back, the food was good and so was the price.

So, that wraps up a weekend plus one. Go Cowboys!

Michael