Midnight Oil

Being a teenager is all about dealing with the dirty art of sleep deprivation. It's about the long nights spent hardcore facebook creeping instead of starting essays, and those stupid, pointless deep talks that you're too tired to remember in the morning. College and teenagedom are both defined by the amount of sleep you get. You can wake up looking like you had a menage-a-trois with a ferocious racoon and a sand castle, or like those bursting bead Neutrogena models (why the eff do they splash water everywhere). Time to manage your time and hit the sac, and burn that midnight oil.


imageKrabs and I made this promise, kind of like that Lifetime Movie, "the Pregnancy Pact" but not really the same, that we would wake up at 7:30 am, grab b-fast, and do homework before our classes. Let's jusy say that as teenage boys we should not make promises we can't keep. We get up and we're a like zeetus-lapetus (get my Zenon reference) mess. We leave separately, and end up meeting again at Alice's CafĂ© 10 minutes later- super awkward. I'm not a stalker, I promise (ooph, there I go making promises again). I eat and it's off to biology where we talk about about CAM and C4 reactions in plants. All I'm thinking is anything plants can do in the dark I can do better, oh and C4 is what I throw when I play COD. This dude's cell phone goes off and it's Drake "Up All Night" - I geeked the hell out, like Steve Urkel style. From there it was on to HCOL where discussion of the Becky Skloot event, that I wholeheartedly missed to attend my way more fun chemistry lab (love ya, Danny Boy and Graham Cracker too), went on and on. Me, as a teenage, I have the right to judge people, without meeting them, and with no reason necessary; it's what we do. We got to the reading and discussed the brain, disorders, and all that mind craziness neural pattern gumbo stew. Class ends, and I get to blogging, just like I'm doing right now (so much paradoxical instances). I make an SOS call via Jimbo's phone, seeing as my new one hadn't arrived yet to my ever so generous parents for what else, uhm more money. I'm running late to chemistry lecture, but somehow I have time to stop outside the Davis Center to purchase zucchini bread from my tennis coach/teacher at her farmer's market stand. As I walk in and find a seat, Mystery Model is waiting to his physics prof a question, I say "hey" and he says "hey" back with a miniature staring contest. Class flies by and I envision myself light saber dueling with the evil villain known as inconvenient sleep. Let's say my will to fight sleep is dismembered and I may or may not have passed out for a few seconds. Whoopsies! Class ends, so Jandro and I make our way to the Davis Center to meet up with our coiffeur (haircut dude) and fraternity recruiter, BD, and on the way, who walks by once more doing the usual "I'm a model, so I gaze off into the distance while the photo shoot known as my life happens around me" - Mystery Model. We get the haps on what Greek life is actually about, American Pie is not the norm, my bad. Jandro goes to get his famed sanwich and I get a Ben and Jerry's Mango-Mango Sorbet smoothie (wildcard) with gummy bears on top. The server chick gave me the weirdest face, but I was like, you just can just put them on top if you can't blend them in. By this time, I'm tired as eff, it's 4:25 and my TV show starts at 6 o'clock and I've yet to prepare for the segments I'm in. The midnight oil, ran the hell out.



 I scrounge for hilarious tweets with the usual witty banter from Krabs, I get pictures and complain, all while battling sleep. I get to the set and we're just about ready to go on air. The show starts, and we're doing pretty well. Everybody is funny as eff, including our prodcuer, Jon Lott. Then we get to whether the Avengers (2012) movie will be good and J-Lo goes up against our big boss, Erik, in a live debate and quippy chaos ensues. 6 minutes turns into 15, but it was too funny to not let them battle it out. Hailey's Comet demolishes the celeb news with her brand of sarcastic humor like a pro. Allie and I tag team old TV shows and super hero movies, and I do my main event of destroying celebrity tweets. J-Lo ends the whole program with a tribute to the late Steve Jobs. I'm a PC, but I still respect that man for literally changing technology forever. Time to come back from TV land and I'm walking out of the Davis Center, and who's walking in. Uhm, you guessed it, Mystery Model. It's my third encounter with the dude in one day, I think it's a sign we need to at least become facebook friends (if we ever exchange names). I come back to my room and Sam I sit around doing nothing for the 20 minutes we have before our IRA (InterResidence Association) meeting. Let it be known we missed broomball for this meeting. We drew these "Personality Pigs" which ended up being hilarious. Me with my chicken-pig, and Brucey-Bruce with his slug-pig. We played this game called "Wah" and you know everybody was messing up. We got down to business, and everyone was updated. Just about an hour and the meeting was adjourned. It was finally time at 8:30 to relax and do some homework. I knocked my math homework of limits out of the park like a freaking grandslam, while Sammy and Jandro read for HCOL and chemistry. I'm plugged into my IPod just belting out tunes, with Jandro doing the same, and apparently we were like two dying whales moaning on a beach. Once I finish I decide that it's time to have a personal dance party. So I'm playing my most upbeat songs, and just working my whole body out in the mirror like a Chris Brown music video. I'm talking about a good 45 minutes of dance madness, and I assumed everyone had gone to bed, so I left the door open. Nope, Ali-Cat and No-Crap Carolyn walk on by and get glimpse of my VMA entry routine. Mondo embarrassing. Soon Krabs comes back, Shan-Dawg hangs out, for once, Jandro passes out on my bed, and Westside King Cole comes to visit. We end up talking about things like rollercoasters, who hails from Ohio, and other random stuff until 1:30 am. Mind you, I was done with my homework and could have gone to bed at 11:07pm. Who knows why, but we were just burning that midnight oil.



After a night of a minuscule amount of sleep, finding the motivation to actually get out of bed is like trying to discover a cure for the common, seemingly impossible. Somehow, I gather my wits about me and get my half asleep arse off to the gym for tennis class. Nasty-Nate and I rally a few times, and our coach, Muff, let's us all know what's going down. Gina, takes on Big E - Pretty Boy Evan battles Nasty Nate, and Rebecca and I tag team to take on the pretty committee of Lysser and Katie. After a well fought game of doubles, the team of RJ, as in myself, came out victorious 5 games to 2. Forehands, backhands, drop shots, and even some attempted smashes later and success is ours. I'm all sweated out, like straight dripping like a leaky water fountain of sweat and so after my "Jump On It" ritual on the loose tile outside the residence hall, I take a power shower. I dress up in a sweater, and I'm feeling clean like right after the dental technician scrapes the hell out of your already perfect teeth, and grab some breakfast. I come back to lay in bed and watch the latest episode of the Real World: San Diego, and Krabs does some homework before class. This season is actually pretty good. The bisexual dude, Frank, from Middlebury College (VT stand up) brings home a dude and hooks up with him all over the house. I'm talking doing the dirty in the pool, on the couch, on his roommates bed and finally in the shower, where he left his used condom. His housemates freaked the hell out, and they were wrong for judging his sexuality (let him do him) but he was way out of line for getting his man on man fix in every space possible of the house. Jandro comes in, and we're just sitting around not really doing anything when I get an email that my package has arrived. It's my new cell phone, another Droid 2, R.I.P. "Jonathan" - it wasn't your time to go, and I'll always remember you, but now "Asher" has arrived, thank goodness. I am now back in business and constantly connected to the real world, as in twitter, facebook, email, texts, and TV guide news. My tummy starts to rage, so I go to the MarchĂ© with MAbby, grab some pizza and orange soda, and bring it around town to the dorms. I don't know how but I wasted my whole Thursday, I was done with tennis at 9:20am and my next class is math at 4:00pm, why do I start cramming at 3 o'clock for my impending math test. I get to class, and even though it's chilly outside, it's still blazing up like a blunt smoking druggie up in there. It's as if we were all in a synchronized flash mob, where we all took of our outwear. Like a communal strip tease for our graduate student teacher, fail. Class nears the end and I run train on that test, aced the hell out of that, just like a power tennis shot, woot. Back to my room where it's time to play a Halo Reach firefight with Double-T. I munch on salt & vinegar chips while we crack tons of alien skulls. Night falls, and I'm sleepy but it's time for a pre-med club meeting. No-Crap Carolyn and I head to central campus where we step into a scary movie. We walk into an exam and get death glares, we scurry out, and see a sign pointing to the next room over. I go in there, and even more confused looks. So awkward right there. We go upstairs and the walls become more narrow, lights flicker, and I'm waiting for her to be grabbed and scream bloody murder. Luckily there are no hash slinging slashers around, so we go outside to sit on a bench. Due to my facebook friendship with Dyl-Dog, PMC vp, the coolest kid around, I text him asking "Dubs Tee Eff is up." I creep on his profile and realize he's at the Skrillex (WTE is that) concert but he eventually texts me back that the meeting was at 6pm. Epic fail. Back to the dorms where I'm hungry as hell again so I decide to order Chinese food for delivery for Jandro and I. Nemeis Norio comes down to play some video games and I go on a wild goose chase to receive the food. I'm just tired and my life is a mess. People come in and out scavenging for food, and midnight comes on back. I get to talk to my brother, Rocky, and I skype my bromance, Tay-Jay. The Thirsty Thursday participants make it back and cause the usual ruckus of drunken wildness and it's about time to bit the hay. 1:30am, why, no reason really. Midnight oil roasted.



Being a teenager is all about balancing out your life. Without sleep we walk around not only looking weird as eff, with unbearably foul as hell halitosis, we're cranky and confused as to why we're even alive. Sleep is truly essential to our crazy teenage lifestyles. You've got to make sure you get some and as much as you can. Even if everyone is up and about, that doesn't mean you can't make the smart decision and call it beddy-bye time. It's up to you to weight the benefits (being full rested and good looking versus a fun time, maybe, and looking you were run over by a bus in the morning). Set goals for yourself on when you want to sleep and wake up, and never underestimate the power of a well timed power nap. No midnight oil necessary.




My blog post question for the day is ... what time do you usually go to bed and why? Oh, always after midnight, and never before. Tons of reasons, mostly because I'm dumb as eff and time just seems to fly by. I also might have a slight problem saying no.

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