Last night was my birthday in my birth-timezone. Because I live in the future (by 12 hours), I also had a birthday two days ago, as well as a surprise party sprung on me last weekend.

I’d been pretty busy on Thursday, was up at 7:00, and ended up only heading to bed 24 hours later. The plan was to celebrate Friday night at Wax Club, which is nearby and all-you-can-drink, so sleeping after work wasn’t an option. And Fridays are my ‘early’ days, when I start at 15:00.

I usually have a pretty good internal clock, that gets me up when I need to (but never when I merely want to). As a consequence, I’ve not once been late to work in six months, despite an extremely irregular sleeping schedule.

I set four cellphone alarms and slept across four ottomans in the lounge, rather than in my curtained cubbyhole beneath the stairs. Having the extra light and noise helps me to wake up, and I needed all the help I could get. Additionally, I anticipated some extra help from Andrew, a 5-year-old Singaporean kid staying for a few weeks.

True to my expectations, the next day I slowly woke to Andrew climbing on top of me and talking a lot. When I resisted his attempts to rouse me, he proceeded to jump up and down on my stomach. This was at 9:00. Oops.

Good thing he has a short attention span. In the afternoon he started hitting me with an inflatable toy, and wringing my neck when I proved too stubborn. After wrestling him away, I found it was the perfect time for a shower.