Crazy night
So last night I went to bed around 10 PM, maybe a bit earlier. That seems like a fairly reasonable time to get to sleep, right? Unfortunately, I didn't sleep through the night, and woke up a little after midnight. So I got up, had something to eat, and not feeling especially tired anymore I stayed up a bit and worked on old written qualifying exam problems (including one that eerily reminded me of a problem from the 2007 putnam) until 2ish, and then I played Super Paper Mario for an hour or so (which I'm enjoying a lot, despite some of the critical reviews, although I haven't really had the time to spend too much time playing it).

Around 3 AM I decided that enough was enough (yay tautologies) and headed to bed for the second time that night. Unfortunately it was not to be, as the little town of Mandeville decided it would be relatively chilly that night, which prompted the house here (which has a mind of its own it seems) to jack the heat up to compensate. Since my bed is right under a vent, I was scorching hot, and found myself unable to sleep. Around 6 AM I had the bright idea to relocate, and I went and took over a couch in the "TV room" downstairs (forcing the dog to relocate as well, but he didn't seem to mind too much at the time). This lasted about 30 minutes before my father decided that it was a good time to watch the news, and he came in and turned on the lights before uttering a "Who's there?" I apologized and offered to move, but he said he'd use the TV in the kitchen, which he listened to at a high enough volume that he may as well have just listened to it in the TV room. Eventually he shut it off, and all was quiet again.

So I finally slept for a couple of hours (and had a crazy dream about someone cutting me in line in a supermarket), only to find that I hadn't avoided my initial problem at all, as the heat got to me there as well (that and the sun was out and shining directly on me). so I got up, walked past the dog who was wagging like crazy (who stopped wagging the second I walked past him, making me feel guilty), and went back to my original bed. I slept for about an hour only for the dog to get his revenge by whining like crazy. So I got up to see what he wanted, although my sister beat me to it and I went back to bed *again*. This time I slept until 2 PM (which is 3 PM in the time zone I'll be returning to before long) [and had an equally crazy dream about some kind of math residency in NYC], and now my sleeping schedule is completely out of whack. The chances of me fixing it (my sleeping schedule) before I take my written exams in a little over a week are roughly 0, and I suspect that I'll be taking them with the same state of mind as every important test that I've taken over the past several years: Exhausted with 2-4 hours of sleep the night before. Guess there's no reason to break that tradition now...