neck

when I wake up in the morning, my neck is so tight i can barely move it from side to side, or up and down. my shoulders are so tight that I can't move my arms fully around without there being cracking noises in my shoulders. I slowly stretch out over the course of the day, but I'm in pain if I look around too quickly until, usually, the early afternoon.

As I get older, I know this is going to cause more permanent problems for me.
My doctor tells me to exercise. Every time he says that I tell him I'm too busy. My work schedule causes me to work long, strange hours and wipes me out entirely when I get off, especially after one of my 12-plus hour shifts over the course of the week.

It seems like my neck and shoulders have been like this for a long time, but I think work has made it worse. I am constantly looking around, performing surveillance on the space to ensure that the kids are safe and not getting themselves into trouble. A lot of the time I am sitting down, so the muscles in my neck and shoulders moving my head around are working proportionally harder than any others.
What makes me tired, of course, is the constant unbroken attention I must pay, both through hearing and vision.

I have the highest admiration for people who ultimately get this job to be second-nature to them. To be able to perform the tasks I describe above and separate their lives and feelings from the horrible stories and conditions that come with our residents. Keeping interactions professional yet still trying to reach enough to help. And among the staff, becoming friends is hard because we can't be honest with each other in front of the mics and cameras.

It's been four and a half months and I view that as something. I am afraid this job is going to ultimately push me further than I want to pushed, though, and makes me wonder whether I want to do a job like this again in the future.

I have been distracting myself during my free time by setting up my new "recording studio" in my room which consists of a mixer, a mic, a guitar, and a brand new macbook. My fingertips are soft as hell and it is forcing me to take getting back into the stringed instrument slowly.

I spent a lot of money over the holiday and I'm broke for the time being. I'm going to have to crawl my way back out. I was getting used to being able to spend money freely. It's not long ago I was taking out $10 from the ATM at a time because it was all I could afford. I don't want to live that way, particularly. I'm going into work tonight. I hope I'll get to sleep shortly after I get out. I could really use it.