Confessions of a sleep procrastinator

(Written by Chitra )

(Pre-scriptum : Justification
I have always been a night owl, long before joining architecture. In my schooldays I slept around  1 which was not a normal thing for a school kid. Then during 12^th I sat up till 2 am mostly, and architecture, finally ended up giving me a legitimate reason to stay up late. Those who sincerely care more about sleep do sleep more than I do  )

________________________________________________

STORY OF A SLEEP PROCRASTINATOR 

its almost 6.30 am, I just had my breakfast and now I am lying on my bed. Most of you don’t see anything abnormal about my story so far but you see there is a part of this story that is not so normal. Its called ‘ pulling an all-nighter ‘. Now why would anyone in their right sense of mind pull an all-nighter and then lie down in their bed and start typing up the content for an article ? I mean, people can pull all-nighters but doing something productive afterwards is not a possible thing is it ? Now I probably got you thinking that I had work last night and that kept me up, and I am trying not to fall asleep so I can go to college or something.  But no ! Let me break your line of thought right there. I have no solid or liquid or even a gaseous state of a reason to pull this all-nighter.

(Note : It is considered an all-nighter if you do not sleep till 5am)

 I simply didn’t sleep.  Ever since study holidays started I spent my time doing NOTHING. NOTHING  AT ALL. My friends have been making art works, sketching, painting, studying, travelling, redeeming themselves. I think my redemption is doing nothing. Unlike my friends I do enjoy doing nothing.

I haven’t done anything productive for the last 7Days. In the last 24hrs I watched 3 films,  Played with my guitar and even played Farmville on Facebook ! (last time I played FV was probably 3 years ago.)
and spent the rest of the time passionately staring at my bedroom wall. (no, its blank.)

They say it takes 23 days routine to set up your biological clock. Me, I never liked routine. Living the life of a student architect, routine escalated from being boring to being impossible to have. At this point I actually started missing routine.

 In the last 2 and a half years, my body has grown to adapt, to change to cope with this crazy lifestyle that I follow here. Now don’t you try and tell me ‘its not that bad!’ let me assure you during the final submission days, over 90% of my classmates have at least once came to studio without brushing their teeth!

NOTE :  sleep procrastination is NOT Insomnia. Our brains wont let us go to bed.

 It is not that we do not like sleep it is just that we find just about everything else more interesting.

CONFESSIONS :

 I HAVE TAKEN A NIGHT OUT READING ABOUT THE HISTORY OF LOBOTOMY.  

You see, at around 3 am I became amazingly curious about lobotomy, for no apparent reason.  I just had to spent the next 4 hours researching on lobotomy. I JUST HAD TO. The end result was a realisation that people not necessarily become vegetables after getting a Lobotomy.

I HAVE TAKEN AT LEAST ONE ALL-NIGHTER  WATCHING ‘ KIDS REACT’  ON YOUTUBE. 

I HAVE TAKEN AN ALL-NIGHTER  WATCHING THE LIFE STORY OF ‘ELLEN’ ON YOU TUBE.

I HAVE TAKEN AT LEAST ONE  ALL-NIGHTER  READING CYANIDE AND HAPPINESS COMICS AND 9GAG MEMES.

I HAVE TAKEN AN ALL-NIGHTER  READING INSPIRATIONAL SCIENCE STORIES.

I HAVE TAKEN AT LEAST ONE ALL-NIGHTER  WATCHING MUSIC VIDEOS ON YOU TUBE.

I HAVE TAKEN ALL-NIGHTERS DIGGING UP INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES.

I HAVE TAKEN ATLEAST  10 ALL-NIGHTERS BY JUST TALKING TO MY FELLOW SLEEP PROCASTINATORS.

I HAVE BEEN TALKED INTO, AND I HAVE TALKED PEOPLE INTO SLEEP PROCASTINATION.

 FACTS ABOUT A SLEEP PROCASTINATOR :

1)We are classic night owls. We can sleep at any time other than the night time. 

2) If you ask us nicely we would stay up the whole night with you. No problem.

3) We find the first rays of sunshine and the chirping sounds of the birds to be the perfect lullabies.

4) We, simply are not Morning people. Even if we sleep at 8.00pm in the evening, waking up before 8.00 am is torturous. 

                 

5)we are the kind of people who think sleeping after drinking a refreshing cup of tea in the morning is the best feeling in the world.

6) You wake  a sleep procrastinator up before 7.00 am regardless of the time they went to sleep, they will be pissed , depressed, short tempered, puke-ish , and murderous.

7)Most sleep procrastinators find it more comfortable to have breakfast after pulling an all-nighter than eating breakfast after waking up. (If we have a proper breakfast, and not a brunch, chances are we didn’t sleep that night. )

8)Sleeping more than 6 hours a day reduces our productivity.

9) we are at our happiest and best moods from 10pm-5am

10) Sleeping 7 hours every day for a week makes us feel guilty.

                               

PS : sleep procrastination in most cases is a result of force of habit. If you are a sleep procrastinator, chances are , you are a Student Architect !

PPS :Quoting the internet 

“The quality of your sleep directly affects the quality of your waking life, including your mental sharpness, productivity, emotional balance, creativity, physical vitality, and even your weight.
If you’re getting less than eight hours of sleep each night, chances are you’re sleep deprived. What’s more, you probably have no idea just how much lack of sleep is affecting you.”

               

 A moment of silence for the dark circles, the stoned look and the red eyes and for the morning sickness.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

(Written by Ridha and Chitra )

( a story about how we tried to be classy)

So yeah, lately we tried being classy. In order to accomplish this feat we started by dropping in the word classy 10times everyday. But nothing happened. So we googled how to be classy. Alas! Wikihow states that individuals who are classy refrain from saying the word classy! What a revelation! No wonder nothing happened.

We tried buying clothes without asking for a discount . But our basic instinct as an Indian took over. We valued quantity over quality. What the hell! We can buy 5 tops from our hard earned thousand rupees, than one top from Fabinidia. 

We tried to ignore the prize tags but the 50% discount boards kept screaming for us.

We tried talking in English but when we are passionate, mallu just overwhelms us!

Conclusion :

Crow bath. No crane (kaakka kulichal no kokku)

PROS AND CONS OF BEING AN UNDERDOG

(I dedicate this one to my friends Sofie , Thush and chitra

 who are by my side in the most trying times
 and Sachin, for helping out my friend)

Once upon a time there was an honorable school called Rajagiri in the mythical town of Kalamassery. In the 8^th standerd of that school studied a girl who was a pain to her classmates and teachers alike.

Why? Because she never submitted her assignments on time. There were only 8 girls in her class and all of them were exceptional students, except this girl. It was like she was send to blemish their name. The teachers and students tried to make her mend her ways but she remained unobtrusive.

 So they all prayed to God that he teach her a lesson. God listened to their prayers and dropped a curse on the girl, “Thou shalt atone for thy sins by taking architecture, where thou shalt be an underdog!”

                That’s how I ended up here. Now, every coin has two sides and so does this curse. I shall recount here, my experience as an underdog in my class. An underdog is the one who is always getting low marks making them on the verge of getting a year-back.

1.       No emotional trauma (except in the last minute)

Procrastination is our religion. ‘We can always do our work later when we are older and wiser’ is our mantra. During that time we can laugh as our classmates start worrying days before the submissions, like they have an anxiety disorder. They work like crazy so that they don’t lose out on the competition. They have emotional breakdowns and cry saying they don’t have a concept. They complain that they don’t have enough sheets and bring, like, a dozen sheets on reviews. 

None of that affects you. You are an entity unchained by competition and reviews. This is why you ended up an underdog in the first place.

2.       You are off the radar

The added luggage of a design course is the creative competition. This has meddled between friendships, created rivalry between the students and whatnot. But you are not part of that. Everybody just loves you. Sometimes I am glad that I am this way. 

I see many students go red in the face when they see the mark list, because their rival scored better marks. When she claimed she will score less! How dare she!! 

3.       Nobody expects anything from you

Design is your baby and you see people come like vultures to dissect your baby. I am talking about the good students here. Nobody cares to come to my table in the studio to look at my design. Why should they? Its not even finished yet.

 I feel sympathetic when our class topper is approached by the students asking

“Where is the class topper’s design? Let us see!”

It might not be finished and she would be embarrassed to show a sheet that’s not good enough. But the poor girl is always bugged to show her design, even when she doesn’t want to. Furthermore, the teachers are disappointed in the good students if they don’t keep up their design standards, since your standards are rock bottom, whatever you do they don’t really mind. 

4.       Small things are appreciated

When you are average student they only appreciate the real good stuff. But when you are an underdog, they applaud even the small things that you did right. Even if you don’t have anything to submit except a plan, they say,

“Ohh.. nice drafting!”

“That’s good. Since that’s all I have anyway.”

5.       Underestimated.

I know there is good reason for everybody to think this way. But hey! I don’t get marks because I don’t submit sheets!  Not because I can’t design! What’s even worse is that they make you a standard for comparison.

‘Man! I think I am even worse than Ridha this sem!’

They might not say that aloud, but yeah, you are an example for everybody how not to do this course.

6.       Roja

You might be wondering who that is. When you go on without submitting your sheets you end up in the shortlist of five people who are likely to get a year-back. So your design teachers decide to give you advice and inspire you to get out of Loserville. 

I have had the good fortune of getting into this list almost every sem. They tell you stories of kids who were really bad once and through sheer determination and perseverance overcame their hurdles and eventually, became the design toppers.

 I don’t know why, but I always get Roja’s story. When I hear her success story from my hopeless position, I just hate her more with every word they say.

7.       Dark rumors

Some beautiful people who care a lot about you come to know that you are in the year-out list. They are very considerate, so they imagine what you would do once you get a year-back. They commune with another equally considerate friend.

“What is she gonna do when she gets a year-back? She will probably drop out huh? Since her parents have a lot of money and all?”

         

“Yeah! There is no way she will pass with such low marks. She will drop out.”

Viola! Suddenly there is a rumor spreading that you are going to drop out, when such a thing wasn’t even in your agenda. Friends are coming to you to give you counseling.

“You should fight! After all, you survived all these years! Submit your sheets somehow. Don’t worry, we are all with you. We will help you draw the sheets! "  Now you are dumbstruck and mortified. Time to do some reality check.

         8.       Emotional trauma and existential crisis
                   (in the last minute)

This happens during final design, model and portfolio submissions. All the cool ‘I don’t care’ demeanor has evaporated to last minute panic.

These are very trying times. We do not eat, sleep, drink, take a bath or even brush our teeth! Continuous all nighters stretch our nerves super thin. This is when existential crisis sets in. Questions like,

 Why am I doing this?

Why should I do this?

What if I didn’t pass?

What am I going to do in the future? I will never reach anywhere!

Why did I take this course?! I am not even good at it!

....etc are asked. And only one answer to all of them. I hate my life!

 You want to burn the whole world, kill everybody or yourself, but rather, you draft, crying like a baby. On top of this some other beautiful people decide to be a pain to you. They are in doubt whether there is submission when there is none. So they call the teachers,

Student: “Sir, is there model submission tomorrow?”

Sir: Hmm, that seems like a good idea….”yes you can submit it tomorrow”

Student:”what about the site model, sir?

Sir: “Okay, tomorrow, 9’ o ‘clock submission, site model and block model.” The new order is immediately put up on the Watsapp group, so that tomorrow, everybody gets marks on an imaginary mark list. You are now struggling to put together a model within one day.   

9.       Underdogs unite!

You are not alone in your fight against submissions, other underdogs seek you out.

“You didn’t submit right? Me too! High five sistah! Let’s do it together!”

We do fun stuff like trying to complete the design in the last minute, give moral support to each other, beg the teachers to extend the submission dates, beg them to accept our sheets or models after the due submission dates.

 Thanks to them, I always have company in the most harrowing times. I don’t think the toppers unite and form lasting friendship like we do, do they?

10.   Epic comebacks

Another specialty of studying a design course is that there is always space for epic comebacks and second chances. Roja pulled it off, so can you. If you were an underdog  studying an engineering course you would have work your ass off to get to the top again, which is not always possible in the case of academics. But in architecture you just need a stroke of creativity to turn the situation around in your favor (in my case it came in the form of white ink on black sheet) and some good friends who will help you in your crisis.  

                Even if your internal marks are low, you can always shine in front of the jury. They do not know your past follies, whether you submitted on time or not, whether you are of good character or anything. 

The drama and uproar over who finished first and who has the most number of sheets is over. Looking at the big picture, I don’t think it even benefited anyone.

                In the end I always come to know that being an underdog is better than turning your head into mush by worrying over who got better marks.  

P.S : a minute of silent prayer for the author whose ‘carefree’ attitude will get her a year-back any sem.    

A lone girl with a roll pack

(Written By Asha) 

                  
This is an incident that happened to me which I would like to share with all of you. At least a few among you will be able to relate this to yourself for sure!

 I was travelling from Kollam to Shoranur in train, in fact returning home after a whole semester of frustrations, disappointments, pressure and the last jury day,that I screwed up. I stared at my roll pack stuffed with old sheets n sighed! 

My mind,my inner peace,everything was damaged to a great extent and moreover I was traveling alone. Six hours of pure joblessness.

 I have been thinking about writing an article since a few days . And so I kept myself busy. The only topics that came into my mind was my life, studies, insecurities, depressions and related crap.

 But eventually I quit thinking about it concluding that I haven’t got much to say,  differently  from what my fellow mates did. So my mode gradually shifted back from busy to joblessness again.

Well, when you are not really doing anything except staring at people and out of the window, obviously  your mind would be wandering and mine also took me places. I was thinking about everything and anything. My mind was saturated with thinking about useless stuff and I just wanted to clear everything off.

 So I started texting people, checking my newsfeeds and browsing random stuff just to keep my brain engaged.

 I was starting to feel better but then this post came out of the blue-“the ten most infamous murder cases that India ever witnessed”. Out of curiosity I followed the link and started reading. It contained 5-6 sentences about each case starting from 19^th century to the present. And four out of the ten were rape cases. All faced by lone, vulnerable women. 

Reading this dragged me back to hell. I was really disturbed and it completely  killed my partially dead, frustrated mind. I switched off my phone and continued staring out of the window. That did not actually help though. I kept thinking about the article that I read. Could not even enjoy the pleasant climate.

On top of everything there was this middle aged “uncle” who came and sat opposite to me discussing about all the problems that India is facing, with the sisters who sat near me. 

Obviously the topics  included rape cases. I felt like jumping out of the train and then may be escape to the outer space. I could not take it any longer…but by then the train reached Shoranur junction. I thanked Indian railway and stormed out of the station.

I boarded the Ottapalam bus and reached there by 7pm.My parents could not come to pick me up as my sister was in hospital.

I looked around. The bus stand was less crowded and all I could see was middle aged men with lighted cigarette in their hand and crooked-weird look on their face. 

I somehow managed to make my way through them and spotted a bus that would take me from Ottapalam to Thiruvilwamala. I enquired about the scheduled time by which the bus will reach my place to the driver, informed the same to my parents and sat down on the very first seat without even looking around.

I placed my roll pack in the space left out in my seat so as to confirm that no one would sit near me, more like a shield of protection…!

I figured out that there are at least one or two women in the bus from the distant murmuring voices. And eventually, the bus started. Again an hour of joblessness. My mind returned to the same old pastime. The only difference being that now it is now just a solid topic-lone women. I kept thinking about all the cases against women, even the ones I have vague ideas about just came into my mind.

After a few halts, I could not hear any female voices from behind me. I dared not to look back and check.

The constant thinking made me remember my own experience. This happened while I was studying in school, in 12^th.I was travelling in a private bus, from my home to school and had to kick this guy who tried to harass me. I slapped him left and right at last making the co-passengers hold me back. 

An old woman actually exclaimed-‘stop beating him!’. That was a pleasant experience now when I think about it. If I had not reacted that way, it would have been a lingering trauma in my entire lifetime. Recalling the incident I tried to sooth myself reminding me how brave I was then and that I have not lost a bit of that courage.

The bus  continued its journey through the deserted road with less number of street lights and lesser number of passengers- not even a single woman-alarmingly increasing my fear and heartbeat. I could hear giggles, and comments from behind  and I felt as though they were talking about me. Again I was afraid to look back. By this time, my heart beat skyrocketed.

Suddenly, from nowhere, a man placed his hand in my shoulder. I felt a cold wave of terror all throughout my body. I froze. In a fraction of second, I thought about all escape routes that I can take. 

the first one being beating up all of them with my roll pack(I recalled people calling it missile/AK-47 each time I carry it around, while traveling in train. Well, if people can think of it like that it can sure act like one!) or if it is a worse scenario- jumping out from the bus, well. that would kill me.

Then with all my courage, I turned back.

To my amusement, I saw this old man, with a teeth less smile holding my roll pack,(yes the shield of protection :D),and asking me-“ethu kuttydya?” ( “is it urs?”) in the very native Trissur slang. Trust me that is the most beautiful smile I had ever seen in my entire life, or I felt so.

 I could see all these doubts in his eyes, like-what is the thing that he is holding! He didn’t ask any though. I guess the roll-pack had fallen down from my seat to the backside and he picked it up for me.

By this time I was about to reach my place. I thanked him and got down.

The three things that I could conclude from this incident is-

1)The world ain’t all that bad as we think it is. There is still a considerable amount of humanity left in this world.

Keep looking for that ray of sunshine among the dark clouds, it is there somewhere for sure!

2)Whenever  you are alone or in a vulnerable state, believe in yourself. Sometimes, you are the only one who can stop you from being dragged into hell.

3) Whenever you feel that nothing is happening the way it is supposed to be, never loose hope. Hopes, aspirations and beliefs are the reasons why earth is still not vacant, it makes man live!

Would the bus ride have been this scary if I had ‘not read the article? stirring up all my old and new memories?

I wondered, as I walked towards my house.