Monday, December 8, 2014

The foreign language of sleep
What is sleep?  Sleep is something I don’t partake in anymore, that’s what.  As of this moment, I have gone a little more than 33 hours straight without sleep.  If you know me personally or have read some of my previous blogs, you may know I am no stranger to staying up all night or going long periods without sleep.  Most college students are more adept to it than others.

It’s kind of a cultural thing in college to undervalue sleep.  If I use a lot of caffeine and stay active I usually can stay awake for as long as I need to.  But I’m sure it depends on the person.  Over the summer I had similar experiences to this.  I worked three jobs (more or less cause two of them were part time) and had one instance where in a span of 72 hours I had 7 hours of sleep.  Even without working, a healthy dose of sleep over three days is between 18 and 24.  It was a kind of living hell at certain points, especially when working third shift. 


Right now though, there’s just under two weeks left of school, or should I say, “under two weeks left of not sleeping.”  There are probably many other students who are in similar circumstances I am.  After all, misery does love company.

2 comments:

  1. I can't remember the last time I got a decent night's sleep. My finals are this week so it's really crazy. College in general makes it hard for students to get enough sleep but finals take it so a whole new level of hell.

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    1. I think 33 hours to stay awake is long enough. I know it's the college culture, but I can tell when my students are operating on too-little sleep--and more importantly their work shows it, too. No wonder everyone is hacking and coughing and sleeping during finals.

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