Stage 1: Day 4: Evening

Even with the low sleep, I still fail to nap for any significant percentage of the half hour. I get tired, and I lay down, but I just don't fall asleep. Maybe my body needs a little less sleep to adjust to naps. I have operated on 4-5 hours of sleep before, so the 5 hours I got last night was probably enough.

Tonight, I need to stay up until at least 2, possibly 3. If I can manage it, I'm going to take a nap at 10. My roommate is at a concert right now, and I don't know how long that will take. I tend to sleep better when he's not in the room. It's not like he's more distracting or noisy than the general noise around the dorms. I don't know why I sleep worse. I figure once I get into the habit of naps, and my body depends on them, I'll get to sleep no matter what. Hopefully.

The one thing I lack, that I would have liked, is some level of peer pressure. You know, a couple other guys as crazy as me, who want an extra 42 hours a week (out of 168, that's 25% of the week I'll have back). I am starting to notice a few more side effects I wasn't expecting:

• I have absolutely no idea what day it is. And to some extent, what time it is. It's weird, I got up at 2:30 today, and it felt like 6:30. Also, after I take the first nap after classes (the 2:00 one). It feels like a week since I've been to my MWF classes. Honestly, Wednesday morning feels like a long, long time ago.
  
• Alertness/Fatigue levels and patterns. How do I describe this one. I have the most energy about a half hour after a nap. At about hour 2, I hit a small low, kind of like how you normally feel around 4. On the monophasic schedule, at 4, I didn't want to do anything. I get some back, and that's part of the problem, I'm not all that tired when I'm supposed to be sleeping again. I expect this problem to level out.
• Mental Clarity. Right now, I feel at least as clear mentally as I was before. I expect it to dip over the next couple of days, since I'll be transitioning. I hope that after I'm adjusted, I'll have the mental clarity of before, if not more. This is one of those "seems too good to be true" things, where if it isn't, I don't mind. I'll be happy with my normal level of thinking and all that extra time.
• Mood I've been surprisingly calm. Most of you who know me know that I get kind of emotional, and I get depressed. I've been amazingly not depressed, and perhaps happier. Sometimes even giddy. Maybe it's just because of my recent addiction to the Gilmore Girls.
  

Eh, that's enough. If I'm up at two, I'll blog again. If not, oh well. Tomorrow I have a little more taxing day. Both more mentally challenging and over a larger time period. Here's hoping I'm not a zombie.