Sleeping

Unfortunately for me, this week has been very indicative of my sleep habits. Sunday night was probably the worst night of the week, as it usually is for me. My weekend activities consist solely of two things, usually. I use the weekend to primarily catch up on all the sleep I lost during the week, and thus it is not unusual for me to sleep close to 30 hours over the weekend (that's fifteen hours a night folks, this should be an Olympic sport). Therefore, on Sunday, I usually get up refreshed around 2, and spend the rest of the day doing homework, watching Sunday night cartoons, and doing more homework. The general plan is to get to bed between 2 and 3 am. The hard part is falling asleep. On Sunday, I could not fall asleep. Eventually I drifted off around 6:30 am. I wish I had some great excuse, like I spent all night researching some archaic law for my Note or an army of angry AFLAC ducks had stormed my apartment or I was at an Oscar after-party with Keira Knightly, but really, I just sleep too much over the weekend. I was awakened 25 minutes later by the Mike & Mike show blasting two inches from my ear. Of course, I do not get up then, rather just hit the four minute snooze until 8:15, when I roll out of bed and head to class. The rest of the day was spent in a lethargic haze as I swayed from class to class as though I had spent too long at a champagne brunch.

I eventually made it through the day, my work for the next day complete by 7. I then made a critical mistake; I decided to read a novel. When I read a book, that's not a text book, I become very invested it. I refuse to skip ahead, and thus am forced to read the book all the way through. In fact, it becomes a mission to finish the book as soon as possible. Because of this, I have only read three novels since I started law school. I decided around 7:30 to pick up this book and continued reading (A Civil Action, my parents sent it to me for my birthday, and I have never seen the movie). I was able to finally put it down around 9, and fell asleep shortly thereafter.

I woke up on Tuesday at 8 for class. Someone once told me that how you feel depends on the one day previous night's sleep. Seeing as how on that night I got roughly 45 minutes of sleep (counting the sleep between pushing the snooze), I was wasted the entire day. Could not focus, lacked motivation, and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. I struggled through, fought the good fight, and was ready for sleeping around midnight. However, the plight of the citizens in A Civil Action begged for my attention, and figuring that I did not have to get up until 10, I could read for an hour. I did so, then tried to fall asleep for 30 minutes, then gave up. I picked up the book and read until 4. The book was still not finished, and that made me a little depressed, enough to keep me awake for another hour.

Bearing to the hearsay theory of sleep, I felt pretty good on Wednesday. The work needed to be done for Thursday was made easier by the fact that my 8:30 class had been canceled. Not only did this mean I did not have to prepare for my hardest class, but I could sleep an extra three hours. Given this opportunity, there was only one thing I could do. I came home from class, and read A Civil Action until I finished. It took just over an hour and a half to finish, and the glorious ending motivated me to get to work. Unfortunately, the side effect of finishing the book, is the realization that there is no longer a task to complete. This thought hung over my head as I tossed and turned for three hours, not falling asleep until 5 (and woke up at 10).

So to recap, that's 45 minutes of sleep Sunday night, 11 hours Monday night, and 5 hours Tuesday and Wednesday; an average of 5.4 hours a night. Though the book is the critical element this week, it will probably be something else next week. This is quite a vicious cycle I have gotten myself into. I wish I could blame this on being in Law School, but that really is not the problem. Anyway, tonight I have taken the only sane solution to falling asleep at a normal hour without any tossing and turning. A 12 pack.