Two-Paper Combo: Plans and Reality
In the perfect world, this is what is supposed to happen last night up to the two-paper combo I have this evening and tomorrow morning.
Monday, 21 April 2008
- 6 pm: Wake up
- 10 pm: Reach school
- 10 pm-5am: Go through character list for Chinese paper
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
- 6 am: Go home
- 6 am-12 pm: Sleep
- 12-4 pm: Go through book one more time
- 5-7.30 pm: Chinese paper
- 9 pm-3 am: Sleep
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
- 3-8 am: Revise Embedded Systems one more time
- 9-11 am: Embedded Systems paper
Of course, nothing is perfect. I finished going through the characters list by 6 am, but by then it was raining heavily and I didn’t bring an umbrella along. So I stayed in school, had breakfast, and by the time I reached home it was already 8.30 am.
I set my alarm clock to 12.30 pm, half an hour later than planned. Then from 9-10.30 am, I just lay awake on my bed, tossing and turning, trying to sleep but couldn’t. At 10.30 am, I decided to postpone my waking up time to 1 pm instead.
From 10.30-11.30 am, I still tossed and turned. For some reason I was really sensitive to external interference. Like when I put on my blanket, I felt warm, but when I took it off, I felt cold. When I raised the air-con temperature by one degree, I felt warm again, and so on so forth.
Even the slightest sound of my flatmate hanging his clothes in the bathroom (the sound is caused by the metal hanger hitting the wall which is adjacent to my room) put me in an alert state again.
Finally at about 11.40 am, I was just about to fall asleep.
Just about.
Then my handphone rang.
!#$&@&!&.
And from my experience, once I’m awakened when I’m just about to fall asleep, I won’t be able to fall asleep so easily afterwards.
I might as well don’t sleep now. Besides, my experience with the English language has been that my linguistic abilities performing better when I don’t have enough sleep. For some reason, the creative side of me is able to string together more complicated and intricate sentences better when I don’t sleep enough. I hope it’s the same with Chinese.
Now the only problem is that if I were to do that, I would be awake for more than 24 hours by the time Chinese paper ends. That will leave me in a severe shortage of sleep, and I doubt the 6 hour sleep I catered to give enough time for the last-minute Embedded Systems revision is enough.
Well, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
The good thing is that I can sleep all I want after the Embedded Systems paper, since my last paper will be on 29 April.
Meanwhile, I’m off to mug Chinese again.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
When I was writing up, I was also in the same state as you. Strict schedule, sleep in blocks, etc. I was basically working continuously. This continued for only about 2 days before I simply said “stuff it” and have a proper sleep. Never underestimate the importance of proper sleep while you’re under stress such as exams. It’s better for you to have enough rest than to mug all night. The hyper sensitivity to external influence is your body’s way of telling you it’s still alert. You’ve gone past the “sleep zone” and therefore you’ll find it harder to fall asleep. Good luck with all your exams!
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:05 am
nxva: Thanks… I’ll try to get back to normalcy after my papers though…