Conquering my drowsiness (December, 19)

Conquering my drowsiness December, 19

   If you ask me what is the hardest part for me in attending my programming school I wouldn't mention difficulties in learning two programming languages within 8 weeks or spending 6 long hours at the school all weekdays. The hardest part to handle is my persistent drowsiness during

the lessons. When I have good sleep at night, I get a little bit sleepy only in the afternoon, just a couple of hours before my school ends. It's relatively easy to overcome that. But when I had a busy evening doing some work on the computer and as a result went to sleep later than usual, I suffer a lot on the next day. I drive to school hardly keeping myself awake, sit at the lessons and try to focus on studying but my sleepy hell

continues all the day. And it disappears only when I go to bed, when I need to be sleepy!

   I read about several methods on how to help staying awake. The first one is very old but reliable - to bring a thermos filled with strong black coffee and drink it at school during breaks. It helps to keep your head clear but the drawback of drugging myself with caffeine is also huge. You spend all the day at high tension, with your heartbeat pounding in your head, but in the end you're worn out and yet not sleepy at all when it's time to rest. The bitter taste is also not my favorite. Coffee reminds me medicine - yes, it works but you have to be ready for its side effects.

   There are some more methods to wake your brain. For example, do some exercises in the fresh air, expose your eyes to bright sunlight. In theory it's supposed to work perfectly. But it didn't work in my case. Walking outside in the soft and warm sunlight makes me feel even more relaxed and sleepy. Working out also makes me tired, so when I return to my class room, my sleepy hell starts to carry me off from reality.

   I read about methods like taking a hot shower or taking a short nap, but it's impossible to practice those at school. Just for a starter, they don't have hot water! And they also don't provide students with pillows and blankets. I laugh imaging students, napping in the class, just right after taking a hot shower!

   But I still feel "proud of myself" because however sleepy I am I can still stay awake, while some of my classmates totally surrender to drowsiness and sleep as if dead right in front of the teacher. Not only do they sleep but also they snore and drool. And that audacity puts me out.

   Unfortunately my neighbor to my right sleeps all the time. Sometimes I try to slam the desk drawer or shut my textbook just to see whether it wakes him up or not. I found out, that his morning sleep is pretty bold. Even our teacher failed to wake him up by calling his name. I wanted to suggest to the teacher to hit the sleeping buddy on his head, but I didn't want to ruin my own reputation, being so bloodthirsty.

   Our "good guy" teacher finally gently patted the sleeping jerk on his shoulder until he woke up. The other teacher, "smart guy" really got mad at my neighbor once, but he didn't touch him at all. After he woke the student by calling his name (more than 10 times, I so wanted to put it to and end by using brute force!), the "smart guy" threatened the jerk in very low voice but in very harsh terms. He described all the consequence and I think that the  threat kept my buddy awake until the end of the day.

   Despite our teacher's hot speech, on the next day, everything was just like before, no improvement. Morpheus won again. Yawn...