What time do you wake up every morning? Are you one of those people who magically manages to sleep past 7 or even 8? Are you one of the loathsome few who, with a smirk can say "I slept for 10 hours last night."?
For the longest time that was me. I would go to sleep at 9 or 10 PM and wake up at 7 or 7:15. I would leave the house at 7:35 and be at school on-time at 7:45. And yes, I was always incessantly chipper because sleep does that to you. Sleep makes the world shine... really!
Being the well-rested and well-prepared collegiate that I was I could never understand when one of my peers would doze off in class. Between the importance of not missing out on the knowledge of the day and not disrespecting our teachers -- who after all, work at least as hard as we do -- I couldn't fathom putting my head down and catching some zzz's. Nor could I fathom dreadful commute that many of me peers undertook every morning. They would say "imagine waking up at 5:30 eating breakfast on the road, not brushing your teeth and catching 3 busses with a schedule that is like a crazy ex-partner (totally unpredictable)." I tried and succeeded, but only in an impalpable way. You can't imagine the invisible weight until you have experienced it day-after-day. Suffice to say, if you can't imagine disrespecting your teachers and disregarding the contents of the school day you have slept enough.
The idea for this post came, not unsurprisingly, after I had begun to experience a real commute. As I mentioned earlier, for the longest time I had a dream-like commute. I would drive to school with little to no traffic and have a free parking spot waiting for me... Life was good. Now that I am in Germany -- Kleinmachnow to be specific -- I wake up every morning at around 6, leave the house at 6:50 and catch two busses and a tram to get to school by 7:45. It must be said that this is barely comparable to the commute some of my peers from Baltimore; at least the busses and trains run on time. Nonetheless, I can now sympathize with you. I can now fathom what it was you went through.
I am so happy to be where I am and to be doing what I am doing that I don't mind the nearly three hours I spend every day commuting from Kleinmachnow to Potsdam to Berlin (for German lessons) and back to Kleinmachnow. I am so happy that I have had even easier commutes up to this point and I am filled with so much respect for people throughout the world -- but especially in Baltimore, and in other cities with despicable public transportation -- who every day roll out of bed too early and roll back in too late. I am truly blessed. Life is still so good and I hope it is good for all of you out there too.
Peace and Love and German,
Harry
P.S. Mom, I will post some photos soon.
P.P.S. If you have a rough commute or would like to share anything please feel free to comment below.
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