So That's Where the Sun Comes From

With the exception of Dallas Winter Conference, I haven't been awake before 9 a.m. since the end up last semester. With another semester starting tomorrow, I thought that today would be a good day to try to jolt my sleep pattern back into a reasonable place.

My average bedtime during the break has been 4 a.m., meaning that this is easily the worst shape that my sleep pattern has ever been in. Of course I do work until 1 or 2 a.m. on most nights, but I'm still not doing a good job of going to bed promptly even when I get home that late...or on nights that I don't work for that matter.

I hate mornings, I am not a "morning person"...so much so that I find the fact that some people are to be very annoying. I like sleeping late...I like hitting the snooze button on my alarm anywhere from 5 to 10 times...waking up is one of the most difficult parts of my day because I have a very hard time doing so, no matter how much sleep I have had.

I guess the root of the problem can be traced back to my entry about iniative, few things take more iniative for me than to will myself out of bed in the morning. I am a very hard sleeper, when I'm out I'm out and often I am in a somewhat comatose state just minutes after I fall asleep. That's a plus of course, I sleep very well and rarely wake up at night (except to pee if I really have to) but it's a negative when it comes to having to promptly get up, shave, shower, grab my stuff and drive to school. On top of the physical difficultly, I have little iniative to wake up...well, mabye I have a lot...but it's still not enough. I almost always make it to class on time, but it's a struggle. I don't feel that I am at my best, or do my best for God before noon.

What I need is more iniative, iniative to honor God in the morning...all day for that matter. I feel the farthest from God during the first hour that I am awake. My brain and body work very slowly, I often end up remembering many simple facts about my life and about God only after about 30 minutes of stubling around. This means that in the first half hour of my day I am very weak in a spiritual sense, and sometimes I have difficulty shaking it off and it affects much of my day. If I could only wake up faster and wake up with more time than to just get dressed and leave then mabye I could start my day faster. I've gotten to the point of contemplating posting importiant facts, verses, passages, anything above my bed so I can wake up and be reminded of what is true and not the lies that my brain spins at me every morning. I'm sure this sounds pretty weird, and believe me it is.

This past semester was a huge test in this area. I avoid 8 a.m. classes like gay bars and I-35 though downtown (puns intended), however last semester I was confronted with a required class that was ONLY offered at 8 a.m. Fortuntely it was only one day a week for lecture and my lab was later in the day but the fact remained that I was basically forced to take it.

So I hated Tuesdays. I hated having to get up at 6:30, usually just 5 hours after I had gotten off work the previous night (the only way I could be awake enough in time to take the quiz that was given at the begining of every class), spend 30-45 minutes just to brush my teeth, shave and shower, drive to school half awake while it was still pretty dark at 85 m.p.h. while cars zipped past me going faster, hopefully find parking near campus or take the bus, and stumble up the hill to Old Main just in time to take a quiz that hopefully at this point I would at least be able to read. Yes, I hated Tuesdays.

But of course difficult and uncomfortable circumstances always leads to the development of character. I gained alot of the iniative that I was lacking every Tuesday. As much as I hate mornings I'm glad that I've had 3 semesters with 8 a.m. classes to make me realize that there is really no good excuse for skipping an 11 a.m. class. Good times? Well, not really, but good in the sense that I'm more disciplined after last semester. After the 8 a.m. class I had to sit though Physical Anthropology...a difficult class even for me and one where I had to take 10 to 12 pages of notes for every class. Even though it was at 9:30, I had already been up for three hours so my body was tricked into thinking it was much later and I can credit the grade I got in that class to having to get up so early for the first class.

I guess I've kind of come to a resolution here. I can draw from last semester in my quest for more iniative. Getting up for 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. classes this semester should be a breeze in comparison. I'm hoping that will be the case. But I can't just rely on myself, or my experences, I need to rely on God or any goal that I set will be fruitless.

Take it easy,

- Jordan