I Have Not Slept In Days: Shut Up During Quiet Hours

I wasn't going to write an editorial this week because my energy has been sapped by the ridiculous, busy-work-masquerading-as-trustee-approved-rigor, but I'm up. I am up because I am a mentor living in a First-Year dorm with people who are much like Austin Powers just out of the freezing process: they have no inner monologue and no volume control.

Perhaps they do not understand how much concrete echoes at 4:30am when everyone else is silent. Perhaps they do not realize how thin the walls are. Guess what guys-they echo and they are thin. SHUT UP! I have been tempted to have lengthy discussions about how much my professors suck and how homework sucks and how men/women suck, or how drunk I am, etc., outside of their doors at about 7:00am or so when they have really hit that deep sleep. I have also thought about practicing my flute at about 10:00am, within quiet hours (I actually understand the signs posted everywhere that state quiet hours, you see) I have felt an overpowering need to really work on my upper register (you know those nasty squeaky notes that are hard to play). But I prefer to be passive/aggressive through my writing.

I have been told to call the RA's whenever these people wake me. I have been told to sic campus safety on them whenever they wake me. I guess I don't want to be a bitch, so I haven't done those things. But I already am a bitch to most of them because I have to tell them every night, "Please be quiet. I am sleeping." "Please don't sit under my window and talk. I am sleeping." "Please don't have a study session outside of my door at 2:30am. I am sleeping." Well, that's a partial truth. I am not sleeping. I get a lot of homework done though, but I can't remember a lick of it the next day.

I think the worst part is feeling hung over all the time without having had the pleasure of actually drinking. You know that not-enough-sleep hangover that makes you really cranky? It's 5:53 am on Saturday morning. I have two papers to finish, ten more to read for my mentees, an annotated bibliography to write, two exams and one quiz to study for. I am cranky.

In case you missed all the signs posted on the walls, Quiet Hours run Monday­Thursday 10:00 pm-8:00 am and Friday­Sunday 12:00 am-10:00 am. I know them by heart. I look at them longingly when I am awakened by slamming doors, clomping clunky shoes stomping by, cell phone calls in the hallway at 3:00am and random insipid chatter.

I know you guys get all excited when it gets dark out and everything, but try to control your excitement and take it down a notch to a panic. In other words, please be quiet. I am trying to sleep.