Day two: jet lag. Despite five hours of sleep on the plane from Dulles to Geneva, my body insists that it is, in fact, midnight when we land. It is unhappy, it is tired, and it is angry at my brain for keeping it up. Despite the overwhelming exhaustion, the eyelids heavy like pig iron, you HAVE to remain awake on day two or you’re a dead man. So I went to meetings, I got my CERN ID, I put in a request for a key to the SMU office, I had lunch and coffee with colleagues, and I stayed awake. It wasn’t pretty.
It’s not the exhaustion that actually gets to me; it’s the persistent headache. Whether it’s from lack of sleep, and offset caffeine schedule, or both, it sucks. But, no matter. Despite the lag, I was able to get my CERN ID today and thus, after 10 years, achieve again legitimate access to CERN. No more needing to be escorted by my colleagues!
One warm and fuzzy part of all this was that CERN still had me in the system from when I was here 10 years ago. My CERN ID number is the same – only the photo has changed. That made the whole thing kinda nostalgic (and fast).
Day three will be better, except that I almost always cannot sleep easily on day three. However, day three marks the start of my shift training and thus the start of my welcome transformation from CERN user into ATLAS member.
