The sleeping patterns of uni life

Since beginning uni, I have slowly been sliding into a new sleeping pattern. No longer am I a slave to the conventions of full time working life. No longer do i follow a schedule set down by the 'man'. Each night staying up a little later and consequently each morning staying in bed that little bit longer, has led me to a consistent bed at 2am, waking at 10am kind of life. Which I adore. I have always abhorred mornings and found myself at my best and most humorous, thus productive, in the wee hours of the night. Now the only emerging problem I have stumbled across with my new found life is that shortly, once exams are over, I will be going back to full time work during the holidays, so I can fund my semester 2 study. Although my part time hours consist of lovely shifts that start at midday, alas my full time hours consist of heart-wrenching, nausea-inducing 6am shifts. YES 6AM!! As the inevitability of these horror shifts get closer and closer, I take a moment to reflect on the last time I had to do one of these murderous shifts.



The irritating and incessant beeping of my alarm startled my early morning dreams of table racing in an Egyptian restaurant, and the moonlight streaming through my vertical blinds reminded me that, for all intensive purposes, that it was technically still night time. The piercing LED’s of my alarm clock shouted out that it was in fact 4.30. This notion confused me as I was sure 4.30 only existed during the afternoon and I feared that if i stepped outside my house that I would be terrorised by the Langoliers, wanting to eat my flesh for being trapped in the time that doesn’t belong. These obviously logical and completely justified thoughts ran through my mind as I stumbled to my iBook to attempt to hack into ‘Michael’ the stupidly unprotected wireless network to check my email.

In between dry retching and sobbing sporadically I managed to shower, dress and jump onto my scooter. As I meandered through the dark and deserted streets, reminiscent of scenes from a horror movie depicting the world after a nuclear holocaust, a cluster of stars began to taunt me with their iridescence. “Look at us”, they gleefully shouted, “If we are still shining brightly, it must nighttime. bwaahahaha”. I looked away, tears glistening in my eyes and thoughts of “why me?” floating through my head. As I picked up speed, the early morning chill descended on my body. My thick wooley jacket, fit for the most arduous and wicked conditions as claimed by the young, fit, blond haired wonder employed by my local Kathmandu store, failed to live up to it’s description as my body began convulsing with the cold. Streams of air attacked at me from every direction. It snuck in under my collar and straight up my sleeves to then encircle my torso, almost creating some kind of bizarre wearable refrigerator. I begin to lose control of my body and the sound of my chattering teeth was magnified and echoed hauntingly throughout the confines of my helmet, while my hot breath steamed up the visor, making the passing cars mere blobs of shining light. My misery was palpable as I wandered into the empty bowels of the hospital, wondering whether the doctors who schedule such early appointments realise the effect they are having on my mental health.

And as I sit here now at my desk, full of red Bull but unfortunately not vodka, it takes all my strength and buddhist training not to start yelling, “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts like cancer!!!”

Art vs. Science – the Battle for Middle Earth, I mean Bush Court.

Those studying either art or science are like different species. So detached are they, that I, as an artsy kind of student, had to even look up the word species on Wikipedia to ensure my biological classification of both Art and Science students was technically correct. Even the definition I found “A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring” suggested to me that I should stick to accepting dates only from those on ‘my’ side of Bush Court. Now coming from a household where all disciplines are well represented (Business, Pharmacy, Multimedia, Asian Studies, Nano-Science and Philosophy) you would think that I would be all into the ‘hand-holding, we are all the same on the inside’ hoohaa but my weekly foray to the dark side, otherwise known as the Science and Computing Building, starkly illustrates the differences that set us apart.

Each week I cross from the lush, pagoda-filled Social Science and Humanities side of the campus, with it familiar grassy knolls dotted with students lazily perusing their readers whilst sipping frappes, to the funny smelling building filled Science side of the campus, for one of my Foundation tutorials. As I step into the dark, cool and silent building, my anxiety levels rise as I worry that my lack of graphics calculator would distinguish me as an outsider. Whiteboards filled with equations line my passage to my class. The occasional open door reveals desks with sinks and people wearing lab coats, or a geeky master’s student, complete with pocket protector, busily preparing to teach a Physics class. I quicken my pace, eyes down, worried that at any moment, someone wearing safety goggles will pounce at me from one of these doors and demand that I must tell them the atomic weight of Bohrium, if I wish to proceed. This perverted version of Billy Goats Gruff has lead to me writing the periodic table on my left arm. You know, just in case.

I wonder if these science students feel the same way when they venture to ‘my’ side? Do they get worried that someone may ask them to name 4 influential artists of the 20th Century? Can there be love between Art and Science? Can an understanding that we all fear the other bridge the gulf that is Bush Court?

I say yes.