The Luxury of Sleep

I’m realizing that I will sleep substantially more during winter break (which is short this year–only about 17 days) than I did during the end of semester between Thanksgiving and the end of finals.I haven’t counted the hours or anything, and a lot of the disparity is my fault. I sometimes stay up needlessly at school, not because of homework or anything, but just because that’s when everyone else is doing things. It has honestly become difficult for me to go to sleep before midnight anymore, and towards the end of semester, that stretched to 1:00 a.m. Once again, it’s not that I’m not tired; it’s just that’s when other people are doing things. Sometimes it feels like the campus gets going after midnight. It’s also hard to sleep when other people are talking about how much homework they have to get done; it makes me anxious that I’m forgetting something too. But that’s one of my own little neuroses.I also sleep an extraordinary amount when I’m at home. There’s something about sleeping in my own bed that creates a little black hole of comfort from which I can never escape–and never want to. A real mattress covered by high-thread count sheets and a big comforter…grandma’s hand-made quilt…just glorious. I even got sort of high-end pajamas for Christmas, so the experience is even more wonderful. On the other hand, sleep is sort of a luxury that I feel like I have to catch up on during break. I appreciate the challenges that teachers set me at Bethel, with projects and papers and tough exams, but the end of this semester was just relentless. With only three weeks between Thanksgiving and the end of finals, the “last projects” of each class had deadlines immediately after Thanksgiving. If most students have four true academic classes, that’s a lot of work. The last two weeks were constant revisions and edits and recraftings of projects, and then when you felt like you could sigh from getting them done…there’s finals. With all of that hanging over your head, getting good sleep when you actually get to sleep is pretty tough.It may sound like I’m complaining (and I kind of am), but the problem this year wasn’t that there was much more work than there was other years. The calendar just fell so that the end of semester was crunched into three weeks rather than four. Seven extra days can do wonders for college students.So I’m relishing the luxury of sleep during winter break, and I expect I’ll have some good sleep during Interterm too.But luxuries have their dangers too. I’ve got to be careful not to glut myself on my comfy bed. I slept from midnight to noon one day at my grandparents house during Christmas, and though the sleep was nice, I felt robbed of a good chunk of my day. I definitely don’t want to sleep my break away!