"Up All Night"

I can't really explain why, but over the past few months I've developed the nasty habit of going to bed at ungodly hours. Well after all sane human beings are sound asleep in their beds, I'm still awake, sharing the night with the goths and vampire wannabes. I've even taken to running later at night, mostly because I can't seem to find the time to do it during the day, and because there's a smaller chance of getting run over while crossing Lindsey Street (stupid main thoroughfare through campus).

But yeah, I stay up till 2:00 or 3:00 on a regular basis, and not just on the weekends. Which is all well and good if you can sleep in the next morning till at least 10:00 or s. I can't--I have to wake up early every morning to get to work by 8:00.

This annoying situation is of my own design, really, and I have no one to blame but myself. Fact is, though, rather than trying to establish a regular sleep schedule, I just take the occasional afternoon nap, which actually doesn't help me any at all and really only perpetuates the whole staying up until ungodly hours thing.

There was a point to all of this, I've just lost it.

Anyway, I can't help thinking that at the age of 23, I should probably not be doing this to myself. But I've noticed over the past, say, four or five years, I've been staying awake later and later, sleeping less and less, and generally doing my damnedest to prevent myself from ever sleeping more than three or four hours at a time. Unless I'm at home, and then there's really little else to do but sleep at night. Not like anyone in my house is awake after dark. Not like there are any people left in Shawnee I know of.

I've digressed, let me get back to my point--I'm starting to get almost used to so little sleep. That's not good, at least not in the normal sense of the word. What's going to happen is that I'm going to run up against a situation where I need to be well-rested--say, writing my Master's Thesis--and I'm not going to have a reserve of sleep to fall back on. I'm already trying to run myself on the proverbial fumes of the gas tank; trying to make a trip cross-country on said tank is probably unwise. But it's what I'll end up doing. So, fair warning--in the coming month or two, if you see me, and I have a harassed, dogged, and generally bleary-eyed look about me, it's of my own doing. But please, take pity on me--I'm a grad student, we're supposed to abuse ourselves. That's what graduate school's all about.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: The Beatles, "I'm So Tired"

"Call Me Up In Dreamland"

Huzzah for research, y'know? It's virtually all I've done today--research for my Master's Thesis, or research for my 19th Century Europe paper. It seems like that's all historians do sometimes is dig through archives and look for that one single, solitary source that will make or break their work, that will clench their position in the pantheon of great historians whose names are mentioned with awe, admiration, and great respect. You will never find the name Stephen Ambrose among those names, I can guarantee it.

Ambrose was the devil, plain and simple, because he pretended to be a historian when he was really just a plagiarist. But damn, he was a popular one. Really, I could have dealt with his crap if it weren't for the fact that the uneducated masses usually saw him as the representative of the historical profession. Most historians just saw him as an ass.

I wouldn't mind being as popular as he was, though. Granted, I think there's probably very little chance of that. Too limited an interest group for early modern British cultural and religious history. Ah well. That's why I do the comics and writing and songs. I want to be famous, or at least moderately well-known, to the point where someone might send me a random email or something saying, "hey, I saw your comic/short story/mp3, and thought it was great!" That's really my goal, I think.

On a slightly related note, go check out The Jaded, a very nifty webcomic by a wonderful young lady named Ping. It's a very well-done comic art and story-wise, and she's also one of the nicest random people I've ever met. She's actually helping us out with the archives at the Dim Bulb site, and not because she expects anything in return...at least, she hasn't asked for anything in return...

Oh, and this is the fourth time I've written out this damn post. If it doesn't work this time, to hell with it.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Van Morrison, "Wonderful Remark"