Waiting for E-mail

It is a little after 6am here in Tokyo this morning and I am busy going through my morning ritual. One of the best ways I know on fighting jet lag is to try and stay on your old schedule as much as possible. So in Japan that means waking up at 4 or 5am and going to bed fairly early. The time difference is as much as 8 hours from home and so that is not a foolproof way of dealing with being a third of a way around the world, but it does help.

I have been up since 4:45 this morning and running through my daily routine. I start by trying to sleep as long as possible. Then I sit in bed and read the daily newspaper that is delivered to my hotel room. English papers in Japan are only about 10 pages and so that is a quick read. The stories haven't changed much since I was last here about 2 months ago. After the paper I sit down and read e-mail. I start with my personal e-mail and even though I received about 45 messages, thanks to a good spam filter, there were really only 2 or 3 messages that were important to me. Then I log into my work e-mail and that is where I am now.

Unfortunately it takes a while for Microsoft Outlook to sync with the servers and so I am patiently waiting for my e-mail to download to my laptop. Once that is done, I can attack all of those things from the office back in the States that have been happening while I slept. After all, it is a little after 1 in the afternoon back there and everyone has had an entire morning to flood my inbox with inquiries and requests. Perhaps now is a good time for a shower.