Sunday, December 7, 2008

In Exam Purgatory

In college I only ever pulled one all-nighter. I had a lengthy paper due in my Women's Lit class for which I had done very little reading (surprise, surprise!). Somehow I muddled through and got a passing grade on my paper. My current boyfriend, now Madhubby, was very impressed with my stamina and ability to just Get It Done.

But all-nighters are not the norm for me. I don't require much sleep - five or six hours will do - but I DO need those five or six hours in order to function as a semi-articulate human being. Anything less and I am seriously impaired.

Last week, I got fifteen hours of sleep. By Friday night I could barely string two coherent sentences together, but I felt an unusual amount of clarity during my exam. In retrospect, it was my body making its final push before crashing and burning because after finishing that four hour exam, I left the law school, went home and immediately crashed for the next nine hours. Oh, beautiful, beautiful sleep that had been so guiltily taken the previous week!

Last night I was back to my regular five hour schedule and tonight I will snatch a few more morsels of sleep because next week I will be back in Zombie Town. I have an exam due Thursday, but I'm going skiing at least two days between now and then because I can and because skiing focuses my attention on something other than how much my life sucks right now.

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