This is how relative time is… countries just decide to turn their clock forward or backward as they like! And when do they do it? Close their eyes, pick a date off the calendar and poof there we have it! Ok, the last part was an exaggeration.
Last week, my outlook calendar had some head-on clashes. The meetings initiated by Andreas, who was based in his Irish farm, started one hour later than it should. And the clashes were only for a week. It took me a while to figure out the strange phenomenon- since in Singapore, the impact was for a couple of months.
On Sunday morning, we were delighted to find that despite having slept for so long, it was still pretty early! We thought that we were being good by waking up so early- and when it dawned on us that we had indeed slept for that ONE HOUR more. Ah.. no more pat on the back.
When I was chatting with moo moo, she said she had to go to bed. I was like “why are you sleeping so early?” she exclaimed “it’s late!” then I realized, ah! We’re 14 hours apart now, not 13… not good…
This morning, my was I delighted to be walking to the office with some sunlight. For the last few weeks, the sky was still pitch black at 6.20am. My first thought was, “isn’t it nice that the sun is rising earlier!” Then almost immediately, I realized we’re starting a little “late”. And just as I thought I had it all figured out why we would want “Daylight savings”… My train ride home killed my enthusiasm… It was barely 5pm, and it’s getting dark outside. So dark, I could not even see my stop. Man… And Arthur’s comment after didn’t help “the days are just getting shorter and shorter, and 21st December will be the shortest day of the year!”
Since I’m still new to this, and pretty much fascinated by the “turning of time”, I turned to the source of all answers to try to find out more about daylight savings.. Here are some titbits of what I found…
• Daylight Saving Time gives us the opportunity to enjoy sunny summer evenings by moving our clocks an hour forward in the spring.
– ok, so I’m experiencing the removal of daylight savings.., and moving back to “standard time”.
• Yet, the implementation of Daylight Saving Time has been fraught with controversy since Benjamin Franklin conceived of the idea. Even today, regions and countries routinely change their approaches to Daylight Saving Time.
– exactly what I meant! It’s a man’s idea, and countries change their approaches to Daylight savings.. Can we then decide that we want 25 hours in a day?
• Most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and reverts to standard time on the first Sunday in November. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time.
– how does anyone decide on the date and time?? Strange… And different timezones switching at a different time? Democracy at an extreme? Why arent the states united?
• In the European Union, Summer Time begins and ends at 1:00 a.m. Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time). It begins the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday in October. In the EU, all time zones change at the same moment.
– at least some consistency…
There are some crazy stories about daylight savings.. you can go check it out too! http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/k.html
I was impressed with the clocks on the phones and laptops that got it right (though I heard there were screwups with Apple.. *shake head*), but we’ve gotta fix the clock on the microwave, stove and watches.. Only one left- my dear little car’s little radio clock.. we still cannot figure out how to set the time right… Now let’s hope we’ll figure out how to fix that, otherwise we’ll have to live with that until the time turns again!
