Am I a vampire? I sure as hell sleep like one

Here I am, once again, sitting at my desk in my dorm room. To my right is my window, 2 metres by 2 metres, which affords me a view of Sai Ying Pun, Victoria Harbour, and West Kowloon. I'm watching the sun come up. It's 6am already. Yes, I'm still up. For the twenty-something-th time in the last month, I've been awake to witness the sun rise. No, the sun does not rise abnormally early, and no, I haven't been waking up abnormally early either. I just can't sleep.

I normally keep rather late hours. Since moving into Graduate House, I've been going to bed at 4am and waking up at 10am; after taking my time to wash up and have brunch, I COULD make an appearance at the office in the afternoon (if I felt like it) and ATTEMPT to get some work done. No, this does not happen every day, but I DID sleep from 4-10am every day.


Last month, I had to write a paper for the first time in 2 years. I gave myself 2-3 weeks to work on the assignment (only 3000-4000 words, or 15 pages) so that I could read thoroughly, cite carefully, and write diligently. Unfortunately, in the 10 hours or so I'd spend at my workspace in the daytime, I'd get less than 2 hours of work done. After midnight, however, my productivity was as different as.. well.. night and day. After the clock strikes midnight, I can get a lot of work done and tended to refrain from distracting myself with reading news, replying to emails, and instant messaging. If I'm at my desk for 5 hours after midnight, I'd get 4.5 hours of work done. Therefore, I stayed up later and later. I found myself going to bed at 5am, then 6am.

By the time I submitted my paper 2 weeks ago, I thought the worst was over. Boy, was I wrong. I arranged a Graduate House excursion to Macau the day before the deadline, and had schedule the gathering time for 8:30am. Since I was used to sleeping at 6am by then, I figured it would be slightly better to stay up all night rather than to sleep for just 2.5 hours. Anyway, that was the first of my attempts to stay up all night and all of the next day in order to correct my cycle by sheer exhaustion.

The first of 5 attempts in the last 2 weeks. While this solution seems brilliant in theory, it can end in failure in practice. In fact, my brilliant solution managed to make things quite a bit worse. Somehow, I began to sleep at 8 or 9am, and once, I fell asleep at 10:30am and woke up at 5pm. How did this happen? It's exhausting to stay up all night, let alone all day. My energy levels sank, my eyelids felt heavy, I was constantly yawning, I retained a lot of water, and my gastro-intestinal system gave me grief. Needless to say, I couldn't really concentrate on anything, so I didn't get any work done, and could barely manage to write blog entries. I also felt too weak and too bloated to do any exercise, which would probably help me sleep better.

The challenge was in staying awake - napping or sleeping during the day would negate my efforts to exhaust myself enough so that I'd sleep extremely well at a decent hour of, say, midnight, or more realistically, 4am - which became nearly impossible because of my accumulated exhaustion and because nothing could keep me awake. Caffeine never works on me. Actually, caffeine (and alcohol) can make me sleepy. I ended up reading a lot of news and watching a lot of movies just to pass the time. Sometimes, I went to my office to TRY to get some work done. Whether watching movies in my dorm or reading in my office, I invariably fell asleep at my desk, either with my head resting in my folded arms, or leaning back in my chair, my neck tilted backwards at an uncomfortable angle. This kind of napping is exhausting and painful, yet I was able sleep like this for hours, up to 5 or 6 hours. Of course, this messed up my cycle even more.

Last Thursday/Friday, the last time I stayed up all night and all day, seemed to finally work. I went to bed before the sun came up, then woke up before noon. Until today, that is. Now, I'm wondering when this will end. Will I live this way for the rest of my life? I might as well become a night watchman or a taxi driver or a Hong Kong-based investment banker who deals with African stock markets. It would be perfect if a vampire bites me, since I practically keep vampire hours these days anyways.


NOTE: I know for a fact that some of you will suggest that I drink warm milk or to read a boring book. Been there, done that, and guess what: I'm still awake!