Prepoceros

I should’ve gone to bed at least two hours ago (see below), so you get bullet points. It’ll probably run long; editing is for chumps/people who’ve gotten adequate sleep.

• The afternoon/evening before last I ill-advisedly drank two lattes back to back. I finally fell asleep around 6:00 and had to get up at 9:30.
• Consequently (see a few posts down) I felt great yesterday but groggy and useless most of today. I shouldn’t have been driving, for sure, but work isn’t exactly optional.
• While proctoring an LSAT this morning I realized that, in my drowsy state, I probably wouldn’t be able to do any “complex” thinking or get much homework done, so I chose to take the test* along with the students as a mini-experiment in the effects of sleep deprivation on logical thinking. (Yes, I’m a standardized-test dork. No shame here.) I expected to be slow and have difficulty concentrating, but to my surprise I finished most of the sections a few minutes early (which I rarely do). I just checked my score online, and—wonder of wonders—I pulled off a 179, my highest score to-date. (Best previous was 178.) Several times during the test I wanted desperately to lie down and drift off; I knew if I put my head down I’d be out in a second. And yet. Sleep dep makes me better at taking the LSAT? Further experimentation is required.
• While not-sleeping Thursday night I managed to work out the details of a reasonably-difficult proof for my Analysis class. I presented my proof in class on Friday (it took about fifteen minutes), and it was A HIT. Three different people came up and introduced themselves to me after class. What? Since when do math skills make one popular?** New and strange.
• I found an empty condom wrapper outside my door this morning. Surely it fell from someone’s pocket. Right? Blew out of the trash, perhaps?
• There has been a spectacular lightning show going on outside for the last three or four hours. No rain or thunder, just ten or twelve flashes a minute from all directions. Very few clouds. Intriguing.
• You know what word I don’t like? ‘Horny.’ It has an unpleasant sound to it, all nasal and face-wrinkly. Even when I type it I’m saying it in my head. Not that I type it all that often, but you know what I mean.
• Sammy wants to go out again, for the fourth time since I got home at 6:00. Sorry, puppy, mama’s sleepy as hell. Bed bed bed.

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* For me, the LSAT is not “complex” thinking. It’s hard, yes, but hard in a way that’s doable. There are rules. There are right and wrong answers. It’s clear when I’m done and, if I’m not, how far along I am. A “complex” task would involve planning or prioritizing or decision-making, all of which I’m lousy at.

** Not a rhetorical question: when the class itself is generally painful. It’s difficult to explain what a triumph this proof was without going into ranty detail I’m not prepared to share (you never know who’s reading), but let’s just say that the professor and I have differing opinions on how the class should be taught. I think most of the other students are on my side, but it’s hard to say.

Tags: Sam, sleep

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 23rd, 2006 at 11:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.