Here’s a brief institute anecdote.
So the sleep to work ratio is unreal. The vast majority of us stay up til at least midnight, and many people stay up significantly later than that. This wouldn’t be a problem if we didn’t have to wake up at five in the morning. Point is, we don’t sleep much, ever. We get on buses to our schools at six in the morning, we arrive at our schools at seven, we teach and attend sessions until four in the afternoon, we get back to St. John’s at five, eat until six, go to a night session from seven ’til eight thirty and then generally lesson plan until we go to bed. Rinse. Repeat.
I’m mentioning this for two reasons. First, because I wanted to get the oh-my-God-we-never-sleep thing out of the way early. It’s the big institute cliche to talk about how grueling the schedule is. Yes, it’s unrelenting. The surprising thing is that, despite being unrelenting, it’s really not so awful. Between activity, camaraderie and the obscene amounts of caffeine we get through, and we’re all accustomed to running on little sleep at this point.
The second reason I mention our sleep schedule is that it plays a major role in the anecdote I intended to start about two paragraphs ago. Last night I went to bed around 1:30 am – not great or awful by institute standards. I set my phone alarm for 5:30 am and fell asleep almost immediately. A few hours later I notice my phone alarm going off – I’m not sure how long it’s been going, but I glance at the clock and see that it’s half past the hour. Oh, expletive, I think, I missed the bus – I glance across the room and see my roommate has missed the bus too. I spring out of bed, still muttering obscenities, and dash to brush my teeth (while in the bathroom I attempt to simultaneously wash my hair. This is not a combination of activities that is possible for human beings.) I’m freaking out – I still had a little printing left to do, I don’t have my clothes put together, I don’t have the money for a cab. I finish brushing my teeth and run out into the common room of the dorm suite, shampoo lather still unwashed from the back of my head, and everyone else is gone. Of course. I wasn’t sure what else I was expecting.
I go back to my room to wake up my roommate and begin wondering how we both slept in accidentally – maybe the power outlet in the room? That doesn’t make sense, though, I realize, because my cell phone wasn’t plugged in, so the outlets shouldn’t have affected it. I decide to look at my room clock to see whether or not it’s still got power.
My room clock still has power. It still has power and it reads a dim “3:40 AM.”
At this point I feel really stupid. Just hugely, terrifically stupid. My phone alarm did go off, though, so I check to see what was wrong with my phone. Turns out my alarm didn’t go off. It was my text message notifier.
I had gotten an automated text message from Soulja Boy. At 3:30 in the morning. It read as follows:
“Get my brand new SBTE Romplr iPhone app n rmx Swag On, Crank That and Hey You, *Fab new MS tools!”
Mr. Tellem, you are a fab new MS tool. Fair warning to those of you considering making a phone call to six seven eight triple-nine eight two one two – you might get kissed through the phone in the wee, wee hours.
