Foreign Policy Blogs

Fighting Jet Lag; Jet Lag’s Winning

Source: Science Daily

I’m back in South Africa. Most years when I come back I start off and sometimes finish in Melville, in Johannesburg. It’s an area with which I’m intimately familiar, and it gives me a comfortable place to settle in, re-adjust, and recover from jet lag. I’ve been coming to South Africa and traveling internationally regularly for fifteen years, and yet I’m still lousy at dealing with jet lag. Perhaps it’s a lack of discipline on my part (I cannot sleep on planes, so when I get to a bad, any bed, I know I should fight of sleep, but I never do), or maybe I have an especially stubborn circadian rhythm. Whatever the reason, I usually need several days to make myself get on a normal schedule rather than forcing it at once.

My posts here for the next few weeks will often take the form of diary entries–light on links, heavy on observation, reliant on my own knowledge and background but also my own prejudices. For some of you, my work might be too much self-indulgence. For others, it might represent something akin to real reportage from someone who often traffics in opinion journalism.

 

Author

Derek Catsam
Derek Catsam

Derek Catsam is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. Derek writes about race and politics in the United States and Africa, sports, and terrorism. He is currently working on books on bus boycotts in the United States and South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s, the Freedom Rides, and South African resistance politics in the 1980s. He has lived, worked, and travelled extensively throughout southern Africa. He is also a lifelong sports fan, with the Boston Red Sox as his first true love. He was one of about three dozen people to write books about the 2004 World Champion Red Sox, and the result is Bleeding Red: A Red Sox Fan's Diary of the 2004 Season. He writes about politics, sports, travel, pop culture, and just about anything else that comes to mind.

Areas of Focus:
Africa; Zimbabwe; South Africa; Apartheid

Contact

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