So the first week of fall semester began, and woe and behold we had our first real roommate issue. I was very nervous and paranoid that I would oversleep for my first Army workout Monday morning, so I wanted to make sure I woke up extra early, and most importantly, got a good night’s rest. I was thinking to myself that if I went to bed around ten, I could get a solid six hours of sleep in my system before the big first day. My roommate and I had discussed what time we needed to wake up in the morning, but some how we had skipped over the part where we would talk about when each other was going to sleep. So I jumped into bed around ten o’clock sharp and much to my surprise, my roommate was still watching T.V. How in the world was I supposed to fall asleep listening to fanatic soccer fans screaming for their favorite professional team? I figured that if I just shut my eyes really tight and turned the other way the noise and light from the television wouldn’t bother me, but I was wrong. I tossed and turned for hours praying to the god of sleep that he would just knock me over the head so I could rest before my big day, because in all reality, tomorrow was MY day and the world revolved around my wants. Yah, that wasn't going to happen. Around two thirty A.M. my roommate finally went to sleep, and so did I. “O boy,” I thought sarcastically, “now I can get an awesome two hour nap before I have to start my day.”
The next dilemma of the day, dealt with the speedy shutting off of the alarm clock. I’m sure most people can relate, that when moving into a new room, sometimes it’s hard to track down where the hell the alarm clock was placed, especially when waking up when it’s still pitch black outside, and navigation through a dark room is nearly impossible. Four thirty had arrived and my alarm clock started its annoying cycle of beeping and screeching that is only supposed to be heard for a matter of seconds. I felt all around the shelves of the walls and squinted my eyes to try and track down a light switch. By the time I had tracked down my alarm clock, I had committed one of the worst sins man can do to another man; waking them up early in the morning when they don’t have to be up. My roommate had that dazed and confused look on his face, as if he was a bear waking up from hibernation in the middle of the winter. I quickly apologized and prompted him to go back into his deep sleep, a sleep he had only started a little over two hours prior. What I learned from that first Monday morning was that I was going to have to learn to fall asleep, no matter what what going on around me and that I would need to develop night vision in order to change into my clothes in the dark, a feat I’m still working on to this day.
