The Joys of Slumber

Third term has begun here at IIMA. This is supposed to be the toughest term in the first year. And believe me, when they say it is tough, they mean it! We have loads and loads of work this time and hardly any holidays worth the name. Even the public holidays are compensated by classes on saturdays...

I had a whale of a time in the term break. The first thing I did on the exams getting completed was to get as much sleep as possible...Ahhhhhhhh! The joys of slumber! The exquisite sweetness of a refreshing sleep is not matched by too many pleasures in life :-) It was a treat to be able to get up totally refreshed in the morning and read the papers at my own leisure instead of hurrying through my activities like an automaton. But then, too much of sleep too becomes boring after sometime. What is really needed is a nice balance of work and sleep. Sleeplessness for a while is fine (especially if there is some important work to be done). Foregoing sleep is really worthwhile only if you get some overwhelming reward for doing so (and don't mistake me - a feeling of achievement is also a good enough reward; I am not talking about monetary rewards alone - in fact I don't think money is worth losing sleep over )

The thing with sleep is that you tend to crave more of it, the more you get when you have a sleep debt. At that point of time, it does not really refresh you. Quite puzzling in fact. I would have thought it would be good to grab whatever snatches of sleep you could when you are sleep deprived. Doesnt work that way though... Sometimes it makes more sense to keep that sleep debt at bay...

It is a very confusing thing actually. But I guess in a place like IIMA, there has to be some sort of compromising on sleep if you are to get your job done. The balance between the additional work done and the reduction in sleep is the tough thing though ...

Sitan