Strategy: Sleep

              For anyone in or starting college who does not yet know this: naps are awesome. Sleep is important; without it, your mind won’t function, your conversations will be less-than-interesting, and you’ll be wandering around stumbling over your own feet. Trust me; I know. The thing about naps, though, is that you never want them to end…

            Well, in any case, now you know what I’ve been doing for the past hour-and-a-half. For the record, before this nap I woke up at 5:00, did an hour workout, went to Calculus, and revised and submitted a philosophy paper. I’m squeezing this in between another class, study for a Modern Middle East quiz next Thursday and study for an upcoming Calculus midterm on Wednesday – which, since I’ve been sitting in my Calculus class with glazed eyes, eating mints to stay awake, needs a lot of studying.

            Not that classes are going badly. There’s just the usual barrage of assignments, and I have a nice balance of problem sets, tests, essays, and readings. Readings are particularly nice because they can be done far in advance – though sometimes you’ve forgotten what you read by the time the class gets to it. The other tricky thing is keeping track of when everything’s due, especially now that the internet means things can be due on days without class.

            It’s the little housekeeping chores that I keep neglecting. I haven’t done laundry in over two weeks – I still have clean clothes, since ROTC cuts down on the time I wear my own outfits. My room, while navigable, could look a lot neater. I keep, between everything else and no sleep, forgetting my room key – the people actually know who I am when I call now. It took me until this morning to figure out how to open my mailbox. And I still haven’t dug my winter clothes out from under the bed.

            It is getting wintrier here. Did you know ‘wintrier’ was a word? You can see your breath in the mornings, though according to the radio this weekend is supposed to be summery – by which they apparently mean in the 70s instead of in the 50s, Fahrenheit-wise. It’s about time to start worrying about winter clothes, but I figure I can hold out until at least after my Calculus mid-term.

            It’s also flu season, and I’ve had my free vaccination. Everyone is coughing and sneezing all over the place, and the cold weather isn’t helping with the runny noses. But we all press on – often with blank stares, slumped bodies, and uncaring faces, but we press on.

            On the bright side, UC has now moved the Monday night practices to Sundays, so we had a lovely practice yesterday afternoon and I can, with a little luck, go to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight. Speaking of extra-curriculars, we did get out Service Dress Blues from ROTC last week, along with Combination Covers and several types of coat/parka/etc. And I am planning on getting more involved in the Christian Group I’m in – but after Wednesday. Everything, at this point, if at all possible, after Wednesday.

           The classes themselves, while challenging, allow you to get an A if you try, I think. Having received very few assignments back, I’m not sure. But in my analysis, which I’ve spent some time on lately, if I can just get enough sleep to complete the assignments properly, I’ll be okay. My problem at the moment is that, with so little sleep, I’ve jumped out of my curious mode and into my survival mode. I will explore the concepts later; right now I just want to get the assignment done and go to bed. Deeper thought has to wait for midterm study or later leisure time, when I have some time where I am both awake and available.



           At least, that’s my thinking at the moment. But now that deeper thought is starting to come into play. So I’m hoping I can wake back up and get it together before my insomnia run catches up with my grades – not that I know what my grades are in some cases.

            So, that’s the plan right now: get sleep and study. I don’t have many assignments for the rest of the week; I still have a trickle, but doing most of the readings this weekend leaves me time to study. And maybe, if I can get my studying, assignments, and part of my long-term projects done, I can find some time to go dump things in the recycling bin….

PS – A few notes on the pictures. I’m not a good enough photographer to show my breath misting, so I just took a picture of the fog, and some fall foliage. And some ivy, since, you know. The picture on the right is of the ever-present tourist groups always taking pictures of everything else.

PPS – Between the time I wrote this and now, I actually got a full night’s sleep. It’s amazing how much better my brain works. Anyways, next week I’ll try to put in more about friends and activities and stop talking about classes and naps. Promise. :)