Band-Aids for Broken Bones

A few weekends ago I drove a grand total of just under 700 miles to different points in the northeast with a long list of things to do and people to see, but it occurred to me that I didn't have any trouble staying awake while driving despite the fact that I wasn't sleeping well because of the stress buzz. In fact, I haven't had a problem driving ANYWHERE in the past 4 months. And I've gone at least 300 miles almost every single weekend. I hate to admit this publicly, but this is HUGE. I used to have trouble staying awake while driving in trips as short as 45 minutes unless it was first thing in the morning. Before this year, you could bet a lot of money that I would fall asleep at least once in ANY lecture. You might have found me passed out: on random couches, on desks, under desks, on tables or floors, in the race cars when parked, on computers, laying on a grassy hill at a concert... I was a napping CHAMPION. Once at my internship last summer I had a mid-afternoon meeting in a tiny room around a tiny table with FOUR people, and I fell asleep in my chair. I was 50% of the presence representing our company in that meeting.

Some of the ways I tried to address this over the years were:

- playing my iPod into one ear during class (this had to be done discreetly)
- bringing my computer to classes where it was welcome
- engaging in other activities during class like writing letters, balancing my checkbook, doing homework for other classes, etc.
- unhealthy amounts of Red Bull (sugar free and regular)
- using the buddy system (friend notices I'm out and kicks my chair)
- eating (I have NEVER passed out with food in my mouth. food is exciting)
- for driving: Books on tape, and I sometimes I'd fast-forward through the slow chapters
- also driving: conversation (on a cell phone. I know. Lock me up.)

The initial thought was that "You're in college, you work hard, no one sleeps well." That's actually fairly incorrect, though, I'd be in bed by 11 and up by 8am almost every day for at least two of those five years. But I still wanted my afternoon naps every day, sometimes twice a day, with no more than 3 hours of class (6 if I had a lab) in a given day. After college it was "Well you didn't really take a break between work and a super stressful job at a startup company." Ok, maybe that's fair. But then when I was unemployed and sleeping roughly 16 hours every day, it finally got diagnosed as depression. Which fit decently, since I was also losing vast amounts of weight, was constantly sick and had horrible insomnia (because I had to wake up to pee every two hours at night). Not to mention the unemployment in the start of the economic downturn. But I have never been hopeless in my life. Overwhelmed, maybe, but never not in control of my own body and mind. I agreed, since I didn't know what else it could POSSIBLY be, but it was weird and never sat right with me.

When I was finally diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in February and put on the correct treatment, it was a slow, steady trickle of health coming back to me - almost imperceptibly because of the surreality of the whole situation. I started sleeping through the night immediately. I stopped craving gallons upon gallons of water. I gained the weight back, which showed at follow-up doctor's appointments. I stopped getting sick (though I was ready with the antibiotics-distributing doctors on speed dial, and loads of sugar-free cold remedies). My hair slowly stopped falling out in handfuls in the shower. I went off the anti-depressants and didn't bat an eye (although I did notice that I could really hear and feel music, again after a few weeks). After about 2 months, I looked at my MIT employee ID photo and it made me sad, how sick I looked, so I got a new one.

But only now have I noticed that I'm not tired during the day or while driving. I just don't need naps. And I work 8-9 hour days, many of them non-stop. But even on the slow days I keep myself going without trouble. I get through three-hour meetings without a single yawn.

After YEARS, I have finally discovered my permanent solution.

Rare Instances In Which College Students Make Total Asses of Themselves

1. Guy X is hanging out with Girl Y at Girl Y's old sorority and they go into a room full of new people where there is a Rubik's cube sitting on the floor in the middle of them. Guy X can solve these. He decides it would be funny to "play dumb" and solve the cube to show off. He gets really into it, too. "Wow! What is this? I've never seen one of these before!! So you just make all the sides the same color??" And the new people are all ignoring him. He finishes the cube and repeats "I've never seen one of these before!" About 2 seconds later he learns that all the new people are math majors and they can all solve it and are completely unimpressed.

2. Girl Y is sitting in class where she regularly falls asleep; this time with her head over the back of the chair and her jaw hanging open. And then she yells in her sleep. So loudly, in fact, that it shocks her back into consciousness and Guy Z sitting next to her sees the entire ordeal and starts belly laughing in the middle of class. And it was more accurately described as a very loud moan than a yell. And it was a very small class.

This is all I have right now. Email me or comment if you think of ones that I should add.

Brought to You by Rage Against The Machine and A Lot of RedBull

Hello internet, I know its been a while, but I promise its been for a good reason. Plus its 4 am and I have 5 minutes of down-time until the welder's free. We are mere hours before 14 smelly, greasy, aluminum-shard-covered kids pack into 2 vans and a truck/trailer and start the 30 hour drive to Dallas, TX, where most of us will spend spring break testing and training driving for the race cars we've spent the last 6 months building. Currently, 10 of the 14 of us are still in the shop working - the three first-leg drivers got permission to go home and get sleep - and it is seeming very much like we will just be doing more building and not very much driving down in Sunny Dallas. God Forbid we have to cancel the trip to Hooters, though. I think that's the only reason about 7 of us are going (clearly I'm one of that seven).

My Hybrid baby, Starla, is so near completion it hurts me that isn't just a car already!!! What we're doing now is mostly fixing little things like some of the test rigs we set up into permanent, tech-ready connections, or making an undertray. Or some not-so-small things like re-welding last year's front left control arm. Or some REALLY not-so-small things like fabricating the entire second hybrid group's high voltage isolation circuit and re-running all the unsafe high voltage wiring because they gave this really nice, well-organized presentation, and didn't do ANY of the work that they said they did. The E-85 car (who will remain nameless until the Hooters trip) still looks like a pile of metal sticks. I find myself really unconcerned, though, because I'm a horrible teammate and I just want my car to work. Also, there are eight people working on that car right now, where only three of us are working on the hybrid.

Here are a few pictures that I think sum up the experience pretty well (these are taken about 3 weeks ago). 'The TIG' and the underside of my beautiful driver control panel. Yep. That's a beer. And a welder. Together.

(Oliver is safely in Connecticut with my family so that he doesn't starve to death while I'm gone. Also note that I am leaving early to go to Chicago and see a couple people I miss very, very much. And I don't have much to do otherwise - just find a job, study for the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, and find a roommate because I finally got rid of the heinous one. Kisses! Back to work!)

Nap Attack

A bunch of friends and I are up in the student offices where I probably spend 70% of my time - total time, not just time awake - and we're thinking about where would be the best place to install a hammock. Some of us think that this is a bad idea because we already spend so much time up here, that we really shouldn't encourage spending more time, but the majority of us just want to give up on ever sleeping in our beds again (or at least for the rest of this term) and make the room as comfortable as possible. I used, as a defense, that the way I fell asleep at my desk yesterday was so awful that it might even be dangerous to deny me a more comfortable spot - like a concrete floor.

I slouched down in my chair, headphones still on, and my neck bent around the whole back of the chair, such that my back was touching the chair back, and so was the back of my head - except on the other side. Do not try this at home. If it happens again, I will be sure to have one of my office-mates take a picture.

Eric responds to the room with "Yeah, I seem to remember that you have a particularly loose neck........and that sounds way more disgusting than I meant it to. What I mean is that this girl can fall asleep and her neck can bend at least 90 degrees in any direction."

Why...just Tuesday in class my head was so far below my left shoulder that all of my hair had fallen in front of it and you couldn't even tell that it was a human being in the chair anymore, just a lumpy jacket (arms tucked in) and some blond hair hanging down one side of it.