Is it Wednesday again already?

If it is, then that means it’s time to write another update for ROW80. However, there is not much progress to report.

As feared, the changing of the clocks also heralded the flipping of that switch in my mind, and my SAD is now in full swing. I find myself completely drained of energy by 3pm. Two cups of strong coffee in the morning, a brisk walk outside and my therapy light aren’t cutting it at the moment.

This makes it very hard to focus on my studies and my writing. Inside, I’m stoked to have so much going on, want to learn, want to write and panic about the time slipping away, but I just can’t get my mind to focus on anything that might be important.

It’s just taken me 30 minutes to write this post so far, that’s how slow I get.

Even though I love coffee, I usually drink Jacobs Krönung (or Nescafé Gold) Instant coffee when I’m at home, mainly because I live alone, and I’m used to the taste of instant thanks to my years of travel and living in the UK. I also have a very small kitchen and counter space for a kettle, toaster AND coffee machine gets pretty tight. However, I inherited a barely used Russell Hobbs Black Glass Coffee Machine from an elderly neighbour who died last year. Another neighbour took it and kept it for me, until such times when I am in need of proper coffee. And that time has come.

I caved in last night, bought filters and 500g worth of Tchibo Privatkaffee Guatemala Grande ground coffee. They’re 100% Arabica beans, and it’s a strong roast with a chocolatey taste. In Germany, we really only do 5 roasts, and this is a 4 so it should be pretty strong. I’ve never tried it before, my family usually goes for Brazilian coffee, which is a 1 out of 5.

I barely sleep more than 4 hours anyway, no matter how tired I am. So a 2 hour nap in the afternoon really screws up my internal clock – big time! I figured with winter as cold and dark and generally miserable as it is and my nights of studying and writing, it would be more efficient to make a huge pot of coffee, get a thermos and get to work, instead of making one cup after the other, or trying to fill a thermos with individual cups of instant coffee in order to the the water / coffee powder ratio right.

So this is what I’ll do: Get my poncho out to keep warm

• Get my poncho out to keep warm
• Sit closer to my SAD light for longer
• Make and drink huge amounts of strong coffee
• Study hard
• Kick ROW80‘s and NaNoWriMo‘s butt!

Hopefully, I’ll have more writing progress to report on Sunday.

Check here, whether the other ROW80 participants did any better.