The signs of spring's return are abundant as can be; the birds singing in the trees, flowers blossoming everywhere one looks, and warm temperatures that make the winter chill seem like little more than a bad dream. Unfortunately me, what's also included right alongside those aforementioned gifts of the season is a constant state of mild weariness.
Photographed above is the crack of dawn, several days ago. I can't recall exactly when I groggily pulled out my camera and snapped this, but I am quite sure that it wasn't too long after 4:00 AM in the morning.
To put it bluntly, the sun makes its triumphant daily reappearance a bit early here; before the clock strikes 5:30, it's already shining high in the sky, and blazing away as merrily as could be. I think amongst the several factors in play here, the biggest one is the fact that the entire nation runs officially on Beijing Time, which no problem if you happen to be in the legitimate time zone that Beijing lies in. However, Jilin City lies just outside of it, and as a result we tend to get our first dose of sunshine earlier.
For most people, this is an absolute non-issue. Unfortunately, I happen to be a person who takes the notion of "morning person" to a bit of an extreme at times. Usually if I awake and register that there's sunlight outside, my body will immediately want to kick into gear and start the day, regardless of how much my brain pleads otherwise. As a result, my common wake-up time has shifted about an hour to around 5:00 AM. I try to stay in bed in the hopes that I'll doze off again for a while longer, but for reasons beyond me that early morning cat nap never comes.
Needless to say, as of late green tea and I have become the absolute best of friends.
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