Room Time
I have reached a strange sort of equilibrium between frustration with myself for being unable to keep to an orthodox sleep pattern and frustration with myself for being unable to commit enough time and discipline to studying.
This weekend, such an equilibrium involved me spending most of Saturday and Sunday daytimes asleep, and most of Saturday and Sunday nights doing work. Although I didn’t quite plan any of this, in hindsight it avoids the multiple distractions of the day and has me wide awake at times where there’s nothing much more to do than study.
After sleeping at 5 am on Saturday morning, I then woke up at 3 in the afternoon, which rather shocked me, but then forced myself to work from 10 pm to around 4 am, after which I did some website fiddling till breakfast at 9. I went to bed at noon, after mass, not to awaken till 9 pm. After dinner I came back up here and managed a reasonable amount of work again.
There are, however, problems to living this way. First of all, it’s decidedly antisocial, given that while the rest of the world is out and about I’m semi-comatose in my room. Today at around 1 pm I blearily opened the door to a knock from John, asking if I wanted to join everyone for soccer and picnicking in the park. I had to say no.
The second problem is that removing myself from the distractions of the world still doesn’t tackle the myriad distractions in my little room. While ploughing through the Roman law principles surrounding mixing of property, I decided that it was all getting a bit too masochistic and put on Daydream Nation. This usually means that for the first four tracks at the very least I am incapable of doing anything other than lying down with my eyes closed and experiencing intense aural bliss. This incapacitation continued in varying degrees over the next couple of hours, when I decided to revisit some of my old favourites just so they’d know they’re still loved even with my recent CD sprees.
Some random thoughts, which are not meant to be profound musical commentaries, because it’s 5 in the morning:
On Daydream Nation (Sonic Youth): ‘Cross The Breeze is such a trip. I regularly attempt to decide what my favourite Sonic Youth song is, and I regularly fail, but this often features prominently in the pointlessness. Love the song, love the album, love the band.
On Dog Man Star (Suede): It’s probably not particularly hip to like Suede these days, and I’m not really sure if it ever was, and I know this album has been criticized for being ridiculously overdramatic, and I know lots of Real Suede Fans prefer their first, and even more Real Suede Fans say the B-sides are the best, but I’ve listened to all the albums and most of the B-sides, and I still like this one best. I like every song on it except The Wild Ones and This Hollywood Life. LOVE Heroine, The Asphalt World and Still Life. So there.
On In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel): I’d actually forgotten about this one for a while, because Marten lent me On Avery Island and I’ve been listening to that, but after Jeremy raved about it the other day, I started hearing the songs in my head and made a mental note to give it another spin. Sounds even better in real life than in my head. Maybe I’ll dream about two headed boys and kings of carrot flowers tonight. :)
Okay. It’s 5.04 am. Think I’ll put my last choice for the night on, switch the lights off and snuggle in. Hmmm. Blue Lines, or an Ella compilation?