…and so I treat you all to a late night, unedited, rambling as I sip on herbal tea and listen to “More Than a Feeling” by Boston. Over the years I’ve developed a multitude of tricks to get up on time – sometimes with limited success, but at least I know what works and what doesn’t. Through setting 5 alarms on every electronic device I own and having at least two friends give me wake up calls, I can usually get up reasonably close to when I need to. (I did say usually.)  This problem of needing to find a way to drain myself so that I can fall asleep is new.

Whenever I used to get into this predicament, I would just let my system deal with it naturally, which usually meant staying up the entire night and getting back into the swing of things the next day. At least, that’s what I used to do during undergrad. In fact, this used to be my way of making sure I got up on time – I’d stay up all night to make sure that I’d be on time for my obligation the next morning – be it a plane flight or conference or just needing to meet someone really early. It doesn’t work any more – mainly because I’ll fall asleep sometime between 4 and 5 AM nowadays and not be able to wake up until 10 or 11 the next day. I’d be well rested with between 5 to 7 hours of sleep, but there goes any chance of making that 8 AM meeting.

You’d think travel or observing would screw me up then on a usual basis – but surprisingly not – I don’t seem to have a problem with jet lag (crossing fingers) and the fear of something going wrong with a multi-million dollar telescope ensures that I stay up for the entire observing session. When I came back from Italy and Tunisia, it took me no more than 24 hours to get back into the right time zone, and less than a day when I got back from observing in California. It’s just when I’m home, and I do something stupid to screw up my sleep cycle do I suffer. As great as listening to Don’t Stop Believing by Journey at 2 AM in the morning is, I’d rather be asleep so that I can get up at some reasonably sane hour.

The stupid thing that I did last week (now a week and a half ago I suppose) was pull an all-nighter between Thursday and Friday to get a paper done. In truth, it was only a half-all-nighter as I fell asleep on a futon in the office next to me by 4 AM and I was up by 8 AM. I did, however, get the paper done (and so begins the revision process). Success? Yes – but now I pay for it. Damn this productivity (and I maintain that “damn”, while not the most polite language, isn’t a swear word – long story).

And here’s the big problem, because the university’s technically closed, not many people are around – so I can’t even use the presence and biological clocks of others to synchronize myself. It doesn’t help that those people that are around are even bigger night owls than I am.

Anyhow, I’ve finished my herbal tea and I’m going to see if I can lull myself to sleep with my guitar.

Sweet dreams.

Mubdi