So, this has been a pretty rough semester. I mean, I've been pretty busy at many times in my life, and that's frequently impacted my mental stability and physical well-being in a variety of ways. This semester, however, has so thoroughly surpassed all my previous experiences of sleep deprivation and fatigue-induced madness that I feel as though I have passed through the fire and emerged a new and much different man.
Sleep is important, I've learned. I've always considered sleep a luxury more than anything else. During last semester and the beginning of this semester, that belief seemed to hold true; I was sleeping for fractions of the physician's recommended allowance and still balancing all the various contrasting velocities of my life with relative efficiency. Then I discovered how much of a fool I really am.
As the semester wore on, I began to accumulate a sleep debt rivaling the war debt which my father insists the French never paid back after World War II. The symptoms, as most of you no doubt already know, are varied and delightful. I once was sitting in the library, reading Alfred Marshall's "Principles of Economics," when I fell into a micro-trance. For more than five minutes, the words on the pages smoothly shifted from Marshall's elegant exposition of the classical model into a rip-roaring adventure story featuring a quite improbable number of zombies and some chainsaws. For real.
It began with the pinkeye. I come from a family of distinguishingly poor eye health, so pinkeye was no particular burden or surprise for me, although it did turn me into something of a social pariah. People all over my class began bellowing at me in hatred and fear after word of my affliction spread like a magnetic field through the metallic and unattractive clump of students in the room, sending them climbing up their seats away from me, their faces twisted and transformed with fright. Apparently people don't like pinkeye. Good to know.
Of course, simple pinkeye was a small enough speed bump, even if it did glue my eye shut every morning. No, it was after the conjunctivitis spread to my other eye, turning them both a deep and lovely shade of red, and after I developed a severe case of bronchitis, incorporating a hacking, wet cough and a remarkably high fever, that I began to become upset at the world. So I went to Student Health.
The problem with Student Health is that the place reminds me of an Edgar Allen Poe story -- the long, twisting hallways, the sepulchral examining rooms, the dank smell and the dripping echoes of the waiting area. Ancient magazines limply graced the tabletops, and the desk incongruously had an enormous supply of free candy; I feel that they were sending the wrong message. Then, to add insult to injury, they forced me to fill out this bright pink sheet and carry it around for many minutes like a talisman against the germs, waving it merrily before me as I dragged myself from room to room and condescended to their prodding and their poking and the damnable pointlessness of the freaking ear-scope before they agreed with what was self-evidently the case, that I had bronchitis. The bill forced me to liquefy all the private wealth of Angola to provide payment.
Anyway, my friends, the point today is that I have learned once again, as they always did on "Boy Meets World," the lessons taught us by our mothers and our fathers really are worthwhile. Sleep is important. Vegetables are good. Running with scissors is not. One should not climb a ladder before one turns 25. Or maybe that was just my mom. In any case, get your sleep, enjoy the sun and don't shake hands with anyone whose eyes are the color of dried blood. I started something of an epidemic, I've discovered, and you shouldn't have to go to Student Health. I wouldn't wish the damn ear exam on my worst enemy.
Connor's column runs bi-weekly on Fridays. He can be reached at sullivan@cavalierdaily.com.
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