All Night Long

I am not a morning person. I do like the mornings, though, especially as a time to read The New York Times over a cup of coffee. Happily for me, morning is a relative term in our house, because, my partner (a PhD candidate) is even less of a morning person than I am.

I also need 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Without that much, I get sick, really quickly. I first found this out when I was 8 and in my small-town-New-Jersey's production of Cinderella. I got so sick from the late-night rehearsals that I missed the play.

I learned it again when I was 13 and stayed up too late working on a class project. I came down with mono the day before I was supposed to go to my first rock concert, Hall & Oates. (Stop laughing.)

So you might wonder why I took a job last year as a Teaching Assistant for an undergraduate class that requires me to be at school (a 30-minute commute) on Tuesdays by 7:45 a.m (but preferably 7:30 a.m.). This is compounded by my schedule on Mondays; I have Tax class until 8:45 p.m.

I kept the job this year, in part because I really like teaching and working with students, and I like the professor, and in part because the compensation is great the second year (tuition remission + stipend + health insurance=less debt). So I was stuck with my once-a-week crack-of-dawn extravaganza.

(Yes, I do realize that my BIGLAW employer next year will expect me to roll in before 11. For now, I am savoring the days.)

Anyway, the sensible thing would be to get home on Monday night, settle in, have a cup of tea/cocoa/warm milk/some other hot beverage designed to induce sleepiness, and call it a night. Instead, I am perhaps at my most productive on Monday nights. Bills to pay? Papers to grade? Reading to do? Blogging to blog? Monday night is the time for it. I have some sort of weird energy spurt induced by the anxiety of the early morning alarm.

This all makes Tuesday's a very special treat. Last night, I got about 3.5 hours of sleep.

Today, I felt just awful. All chilly and sick-like, which according to this study, is typical of the sleep deprived. Augh. I might have to go to bed and TiVo Judging Amy.