I'm Leaving a Wakeup Call...For Musing Monday!

Let's see what I can blatter on about this week, spurred on by the Musing Monday question at Just One More Page!

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS, post is about the read-a-thon…

Are you planning on participating in the upcoming 24 Hour Read-a-Thon (either as a reader or cheerleader)? Have you made any preparations for the event? And, veterans out there, any tips you’d like to share with the newbies?

How to put this in a diplomatic way...hmmmm....well, I am not really a joiner. My level of being part of a group effort in blogland would be...this. :-)
I admit, I have been vaguely aware of this upcoming Read-a-Thon, seeing mention of it here and there. How these various events come up with me having such a limited awareness, I don't quite understand. The same thing happen with BBAW. I have about 90 blog in my Google Reader, 90 that I check out almost every day, so how I missed, as usual, the planning and discussion of this, I am not sure. I live in a cloud...a hazy bubble....such is CaiteWorld. But I have an excuse.

First, what is the Read-a-Thon? Well, to quote the web site...

"What is Dewey’s 24-Hour Read-a-thon? For 24 hours, we read books, post to our blogs about our reading, and visit other readers’ blogs. We also participate in mini-challenges throughout the day. It happens twice a year, in April and in October.

It was created by the beloved Dewey. The first one was held in October 2007. Dewey died in late 2008. We’re still saddened by her absence, but the show must go on. The read-a-thon was renamed to honor its founder in 2009."

So, people stay up for hours and read, and post about it and there are cheerleaders and prizes. But see, here is my problem with this particular event. As I have mentioned before, I am a shift worker. Not just an ordinary "I Work 3-11 or 11-7" shift worker. I work 12 shifts and they rotate. So, I work 6 am to 6 pm for a couple of days and then I am off for a couple of days. Then I work 6pm to 6am for a couple of day and then I am off again for a couple of days, back and forth, days and nights, nights and days, in 12 clips.

My point in telling ya all this is to explain that I am sleep obsessed. I have been doing this shift thing for years, for decades. As I was recently discussing with a Boss Man in my company that was involved with a federal panel (your tax money at work) studying this sort of shift work (we are federal regulated in our industry) people that succeed in shifts like this (which are common in our industry) put sleep as a top priority. If not, they burn out, get sick, go insane, drive off the side of the road on the way home. I have it down to a science at this point and am really pretty strict, in a bizarre way, about my sleeping schedule.
I am actually awake for 24 hour periods on a fairly regular basis. Often once a week. But for 12 of that I am working and the Boss People, not to mention the Fed Man, might get upset if I read for the entire period. And a non-scheduled 24 awakeness might throw my pattern into Chaos!!

But ya all have fun! If you need any tips at "working" for 24 hours, I'm ya Blogger! One suggestion...limit your caffeine. It will kill ya!!