I’ve determined I kick ass. It’s official. We had a Chem quiz in..well….Chem today, and I kicked its ass, I think. I was first done, again, as usual. Of course, life will probably try to put me in my place by having me end up getting a shitty score, but that doesn’t matter because you, faithful reader, will never be the wiser. >: ) Anyways… Monday was really funny too. I was kind of nodding off in class and at one point, I woke up to a state of semi-lucidity right as the Prof was asking some question that no one knew; I answered it and nodded back off. It may have been something to do with Hess’s law or something, I forget.

That reminds me of those times back in high school. I used to sleep somewhere between 3 and 5 hours a night, depending on the night. I was just a night owl. I liked staying up late on my computer, reading, or whatever I felt like; GOSH! Anyways, here’s a typical day back then: (junior/senior year) (this was on days when I *wasn’t* driving to school, which I didn’t always do)

5:45am – wake up to Dad opening my door and saying “Wakeup.” in a gruffy voice. It was weird…I could always snooze my alarm away, or just ignore it, but when dad said “wakeup” it had this pavolovian response from me to get out of bed and go immediately to the shower. I need to record that and make my alarm clock play it.

5:48am – get in shower. Turn shower 2/3 to hot side. Stand until body warms up. Turn shower all the way to hot side. Sit down in shower. Sometimes I would wash first other times I would just sit down and fall asleep. Sleep until shower water runs cold (my parents HATED this, I got yelled at all the time for it). Quickly wash hair, turn water off, get out.

6:20/30am – get dressed with whatever clothes are handy. This usually meant mismatched socks and day-old clothing. Go upstairs for breakfast.

6:40/45 am – Eat breakfast. Whatever I could find. Oatmeal, cereal, toast, leftovers. Whatever. Eat quickly, get bag, run out door.

7:10/20am – book it down the driveway. Our driveway was about 2 or 3 hundred yards long to the left of my house, and ran parallel with the road. So if my bus was already at the stop, I could see it from my house through the trees. In those instances, I would run straight towards the road through the trees, and jump out onto the road. It’s a wonder I didn’t get hit.

7:20am – Find seat on bus. I have nfi where it was. Sit down. Knees up. Walkman on. Fall asleep.

8:15am – wake up, realize legs are asleep. shit. urge legs to start recirculating so I don’t look like I’m disabled. Sometimes I wouldn’t wake up and people would wake me up on their way out of the bus.

8:30am – First class. Class starts. Eyes get droopy. Head gets heavy. Arms on desk seem REEEEALLY comfortable (esp if I was wearing a sweater or sweatshirt that day). Head on arms, fall asleep. Wake up and answer questions when called on, and resume sleeping. There’s that pavlovian thing again…

???? am- 2nd class. Sleep through first portion, then resume day.

~day goes on~
Usually after lunch I would get food-comas and would get really ridiculously drowsy for about 15 or 20 minutes while my body digested food. I think it was from blood sugar or something. I ate a lot of sugar back then.
~day ends~

2:48pm – get on bus. knees up. walkman on. fall asleep.

3:15pm - This was always an interesting time. Sometimes I wouldn’t wake up when they got to my stop and my bus driver would actually have to come back and wake me up. Other times my friends on the bus would wake me up. Either way, if I was JUST THEN waking up, my legs were usually very much asleep. So I would stand up and usually they would be all rubbery, so I’d have to pull myself along the bus seats, like I was on a pair of parallel bars or something. They’d USUALLY wake up by the time I made it down the aisle, but a couple times they weren’t. Those rare occasions I’d poise myself at the top of the three-steps of the door, and kind of hurl myself onto the ground. I’d purposely crumple when I hit the ground so I didn’ tmistakenly dislocate my knees. That would have been funny.

My odd sleep habits continued through college. I’ve had the same alarm clock (A GE alarm clock with a slotted wood panel top finish, analog radio dial, annoying BZZT BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT alarm, and rectangular red LED display) since my early teens, and it’s gone with me everywhere. There have been many times where, if I was tired enough, I have turned my alarm clock off completely in my sleep, and remember NOTHING of it when I wake up (late). What’s crazy though is that it’s not just a button-tap to turn it off. You have to slide the slider two positions back to turn it off (three possible positions) and then pull it back towards you to re-arm the alarm. I would do that in my sleep! Amazing.

At one point, several years ago, I was working third shift at Whirlpool factory in Greenville OH. I was used to 2nd, but not 3rd shift. So needless to say my first few nights there were REALLY hard. I remember a few times where I was assembling KitchenAid mixers — I had done so many already and I was getting weary. It was really late at night. I remember that my eyes were still open, but I zoned out to the point where I wasn’t really conscious of my surroundings. It was more or less somnambulism (sleepwalking) except I was assembling a mixer! In my sleep!

Sleep and I have had this love/hate relationship a long time. I respect it in that if I don’t get enough sleep everynight, I get one or more psychological symptoms: depression, anxiety, irritability, erratic mood swings; basically the kind of side effects you get from taking various medications. But I hate that I have to be a slave to it like that… I feel like a wuss sometimes “uhh…sorry guys I gotta go home, it’s a weekday and it’s almost my bedtime.” hawrhawrhawr. I’ve had some weird hallucinations from sleep deprivation as well, but those’ll have to wait for another blog posting.