It's a Good Thing This Candle has Two Ends

In a movement of solidarity with my good friend and fellow blogger Laura Nelson this post will be on what is becoming an o'so familiar aspect of college life: The Long Night.

My friend Tom and I have come to this theory that college is, quite possibly, the worst place on earth to learn. We are given heaps of outside the classroom work and then thrown into a building with 150 other students our same age, and somehow this is supposed to be a productive work environment. It is basically impossible to do homework in the dorm, especially living in a quad. With people constantly popping in to say hi, talk, play video games, etc distraction becomes the rule rather than the exception.

Luckily there is the library, that last bastion of peace, quiet, and focus that I have come to rely so heavily on. Unfortunately, I have some chemical imbalance (which must come from dorm food, because it seems all of us have it) that prevents me from doing any serious work before 9:30 pm. That is why I am posting this. I am currently plopped in the library surrounded by "Der treffende Ausdruck" (my German book), Sophocles "The Three Theban Plays," Machiavelli's "The Prince," Soren Keirkagaard's "Either/Or," Albert Camus' "The Plague," my glasses, and one very large mug of mocha. I somehow need to read or work with all these book in the next three hours and I'm not sure how that is going to happen.

To complement my late nights, I now have two early mornings a week -- 6 am crew practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am no longer burning a candle, but a blow torch. The highlight of my day may very well have been my two hour nap (the first one of the week) this afternoon. I've found a lot of college stereotypes to be blown out of proportion, but the late night idea is defiantly fully true.

And now, a brief list of things I've learned during late night study sessions:

• The girls at "The Brew" are basically goddesses. They are probably more important to running this school than the president. After all, even Father Wild needs coffee.
• Facebook is the anti-matter of work. It is literally impossible to do any substantive work with facebook running in the background
• Falling asleep in the big library chairs is simultaneously the worst and best feeling in the world
• Did I mention how much I love coffee?

A caffeinated and tired One Lost will now tackle The Prince...and out