To Drool, Or Not to Drool

I am always impressed by those students who valiantly muster the motivation to wake up at 7 a.m., arrive at Lamont by 8 a.m., arrange their study materials, set up their laptops—and then fall asleep.

I am equally impressed by those who drag their sleep-deprived carcasses to class, sit down, pull up their desks, arrange their note-taking materials—and then fall asleep.

Yet every day, the lecture halls and libraries are littered with these inspiring students. Yes, they’re snoring. Yes, they’re drooling on their notebooks. But they’re studying, and that’s what’s important.

Frankly, I am ashamed by myself and others who awaken at 1:30 p.m. on a weekday, well aware that we are far too drowsy to attempt any purposeful activity at Lamont. We are the people that have no ambition, no motivation, no drive. We are more concerned with our health than academics. We are “The Losers.”

“Hey, you,” I think at the snoring Winner on my left. “You’re amazing! The willpower and determination with which you’ve made this staggering sacrifice in the name of gaining an academic edge is astounding.” Her forehead bobs, chin flopping open. “You are truly an inspiration.”

Head nodding, drool pools in the corner of her mouth. Drool is valiant.

And by now my time is being well-used too, because there’s a voyeuristic thrill in watching a slumbering inspiration drool, and snoring is a distraction in Lamont.

What can be done for those poor out-of-sight Losers, charging up their intellectual batteries in their beds, those pathetic souls who can’t quite contain that all-natural instinct to sag their eyelids, whose only crime is listening to their bodily signals? How can they be helped? A study skills course? A time management class? Effort training?

Unfortunately, those poor sleeping Losers are often upper-class students, too old to be helped. They have somehow derived from experience that sleep is for beds and academia for the conscious, and now they are firmly set in their ways, a poor example for overzealous, sleep-deprived first-years.

Of course, at this moment the Winners are too busy sleeping in public places to be called on to set an example, to demonstrate how lethargic delusion always leads to quality work.

A note to the Losers: You have clearly embarked on a lifetime of failure, because no, the world simply cannot be saved after you wake up. It must be saved, by you, now, at 6 a.m.

Make sure to set that alarm nice and early tomorrow.

—ARIANNE R. COHEN