Caffeine Junky?

I think I'm becoming a caffeine person three weeks into my internship. It was a hard adjustment in the second week when we started having to be there at 8 instead of 10 after a summer of being lazy, and I started drinking green tea every morning. Then I started bringing tea into the hospital with me because I didn't have time to finish it in the morning and gradually that increased to a second giant mug of tea in the day. Then J. (a fellow intern) and I started going to get coffee in the afternoons because we can get it free after lunch but you don't want to venture into the cafeteria alone because the men who work in the kitchen like to tease and it can be overwhelming without backup. At first I got mostly decaf with a splash of caffeinated, but then one day there wasn't any decaf. Fast forward to yesterday when I had no caffeine and had a headache all day. Now two mugs of green tea and half a cup of coffee is hardly breaking any caffeine records, but if you haven't noticed by now, I'm super sensitive to everything. I have also discovered that Marc drinks 32 oz of coffee every day at work, but some how does not suffer headaches on the weekend when he has none. Mysterious.

I have been doing a good job with self care, caffeine not withstanding. Since there are no grocery stores close to where I am staying I make all my food ahead and eat the same thing every day: smoothie for breakfast, chicken salad with some kind of starch (rice, quinoa, potatoes) for lunch and some kind of legume soup for dinner (two weeks ago it was lentil, last week it was split pea, this week I'm making chili). I eat fruit and larabars between, and I admit I have been eating chocolate covered almonds from the bulk bin, but it occurred to me if I don't buy them I'll be forced into sugar-free week days since I don't really have access to anything without a longish drive so this week I'm doing without those. I also got a one week trial to a gym that is very close and went after I got off three days this week-- next week I hope to increase that to four days after I sign up. I'm definitely getting 7 hours of sleep, and often I get 8. With the increase in activity I feel like I need more and I need to try and make myself go to bed sooner.

It's a weird alternate reality I live in five days a week, and then I come crashing back into my life for 48 hours, with barely enough time to catch my breath before I'm off again. Strangely I miss Marc most when I first get home and it all hits me, as if I have been suppressing or ignoring it all week long, only to have it rise up and out when I come home again.

I had a lazy, rainy day yesterday. Marc and I stuck close to each other and did errands and watched movies. I haven't gotten any homework done yet, which means today like most Sundays will be frantic as I try to get work done, make soup and chicken and quinoa to last me the week, do more errands and try to drive back to Dupont before it gets too late.