Waking up in Time.

Its hard to go the full day on campus without getting a full night's rest but it is equally as hard to get a full night's rest without being interrupted at some stage by the numerous people looking to burst into your room and disturb the most important time of a man's day.

Last night all my friends decided that midnight would be a good time to form a social gathering in my room. It did not strike them at all that this may be the time that I might look to put myself to rest in my single, yet cosy, bed. Patiently I socialised with my intruders until eventually even those generic freaks that require no more than a few minutes to recharge their batteries and get back to neutral decided it was time to call it a night. Unbeknown to them I had specifically planned to go to sleep early and get up early in the hope that my day would be filled with productivity and learning as I only have one more day to learn for an important economics test.

Going to bed is one challenge that faces all men in residence through social obligations. Waking up, on the other hand, is a personal battle that every individual needs to win daily in order to get to a lecture on time, get that needed water after a night out, make it to the toilet in time to be sick (again after a night out), or in this case to get to the library before all cubicles are occupied and before yet another day is lost to socialising.

I have not been able to figure out if the "snooze" button on my alarm is good thing or a bad thing. The pros are that if you cancel your alarm entirely, fall asleep again, then all is lost until 2 hours later and anything that did fall in those two hours are forfeited for ever. The snooze button allows the alarm to sound every 5min so in theory there is no chance of missing whatever you have planned for the morning. But like i said: "In theory."In my opinion the snooze button is the devil. This morning I set my alarm for 7am and had every intention to get up at that time. 14 'snoozes' later and it was 8.10am and I have started the day on a bad note. It is just too easy to click snooze that in your semi-subconcious state the decision making process is almost made for you.

So now I am an hour behind studying for the day and I was not exactly ahead of the game to begin with. Combined with my obligatory blog and I am well behind where I planned to be by 9am the day before my test. My suggestion to this problem would be to go to bed earlier if this was not impossible. If music is not playing next door, the smoke from the fire is choking enough to keep me awake all night. And if, by some miracle, the fire is not going outside my window then there will be one person in residence that feels like a chat with me. I do not want to chat at midnight. Midnight is for sleeping, not chatting. If you want to chat then get me at lunch time as I feel lunch time is a far more appropriate time to have a conversation.

This leaves me with only one remedy to an otherwise bleak situation. This solution combines the need of others to disturb with the desire of you to get up on time. Give one friend (or first year) your room key and allow him to wake you up through a surprise wrestle at a time chosen by you. Theres nothing as effective as a wrestle in getting one out of bed. Its enjoyable, loud and pumps much needed adrenaline through the body that is essential for the task at hand: getting out of bed.

Regards
Student Micky.