Ode to sleep deprivation

There is a very simple explanation for why I haven't blogged lately. I've been sleeping.

Of the many things I learned this past year, probably the most significant was the the average college student's remarkable ability to thrive on a frightening level of sleep deprivation. Oh the stories that come to mind....

• The time we all stayed up till 4AM on a school night when three of us had an 8AM class in....if you didn't catch that....4 hours. Ahh. We three souls met up on our ways to our respective classes that morning, and what a sight it was. We truly looked and acted like we had been partaking in illegal substances. Everything was JUST SO FUNNY. And then, that night, we had another party.
• The night I literally stumbled out of the administration building, due to high levels of exhaustion. Good thing I didn't drive.
• Then there was that other night a big snowstorm hit Milwaukee. This was when the rest of my family was in Florida and I held down the fort for two weeks. I had been at school all day. After a few of our late night shenanigans, in which we blissfully ignored the fact that my driveway was likely covered in at least a foot of snow because of more pressing issues at hand such as sitting in a conference room with the lights out discussing horror movies, I decided I must face the inevitable. Somehow, I managed to bribe two of my friends with the promise of a grocery bag of junkfood and a French baguette to come over and help me shovel my driveway at 3 in the morning. My driveway has never been cleared that quickly. After that, we sat around my kitchen table and feasted. What a great night. A week or two later, it happened again, and I got even more people to come. Looking back, I think the key is calling it a "party." (This pretty much works with anything: "Hey guys! Study party at 9!" will definitely get you a few people, plus a snack or two.)

photographic evidence

• Finally, I distinctly remember a day when two of my friends and I were sitting around at lunch, and we discovered that the number of hours of sleep between the three of us the previous night still did not add up to the full 8 hours recommended for adults. That one was impressive.
  

How does this happen, you ask? Here is a textbook example. It's 8pm and you've gone all day eating nothing but whatever free food you were able to scavenge, which doesn't amount to much. You and your friends spend several hours complaining about said collective hunger, arguing over what to get and who should buy, and blowing off homework. Finally, since nobody wants to walk anywhere because it's 45 degrees out and raining, you all agree on the staple of college diets, the pizza delivery. Then follows more arguing about what kind of pizza to get and how much. Finally, the pizza is ordered, under your own name, which your friends take advantage of by including in the "extra instructions" section the request to "tell me I'm beautiful." Finding out about this, mortified, you begin arguing again over who will actually answer the door. By the time the pizza guy gets there, it's after midnight and after another friend of yours shows up, everyone listens as the pair who answered the door tell about the awkward delivery guy:
"I guess I'm supposed to call you pretty. And you know what, you are!"
Then comes the feasting, in which several of you eat an astonishing amount of pizza, followed by reminiscing about the year spent together, because it's late at night at the end of the semester and everyone is getting nostalgic. Here you all realize that before you all leave, the world will not be able to continue spinning unless you go visit the courtyard together that you hung out in as a group for the first time back in Fall. So dropping everything, you file out into the said courtyard, running around in the rain and jumping in mud puddles. Because that's what mature adults do. When all is said and done, it's almost 2 in the morning and people are starting to fall asleep, even though most of you still have homework to finish. That, reader, is how we are beguiled of our sleep.

Anyways, when living in an environment in which 6 hours of sleep is a luxury, collapse is inevitable. By the end of the semester, you and your friends begin to have long, serious discussions eulogizing sleep. It's all you can think about. When summer break arrives, it is inaccurate to call it "summer vacation" as "summer hibernation" is what best describes it. So before my paper-writing skills begin to atrophy, I thought it best to resurface here and entertain myself you with relevant stories from college. Only a few more weeks before new ones start rolling in.....