Yesterday, I was so busy I felt as if I were in the midst of a vast and dense thicket. I desperately wanted to break free from the branches that scrape against my skin from all sides, from the brambles that entangle around my limbs, from the mosquitoes that whispher taunts and the leeches that sap me of my life-blood. The thicket, it seemt, was a living entity constricting tighter and tighter around me in a slow process of digestion.

        Yet, somehow, after hours of patient trekking, I mananged to find my way to the edge. Exhausted yet elated, I limped towards the open and sprawled myself on the grass.

        I heaved a sigh and watched it rise, white and wispy, to the sky.

        "Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day." - Friedrich Nietzsche

        I broadcast that quote to some of my officemates over the network a while ago. I was, once again, caught in that narrow wormhole that connects the world of the waking and the sweet world of sleep. I knew I wasn't alone in the struggle. Someone replied, "How do you stay awake?"

        For the past few days, I usually find myself in the verge of dozing off, somehow wishing I were at home in the company of my pillow and not in the office facing cryptic codes that are far more potent in sending one to yonder realm of slumber than counting sheep. And though I may not be an authority on such matters, I can read the signs well enough: I SERIOUSLY need sleep.

        Ah, a classic case of sleep debt. Wikipedia defines sleep debt as "the cumulative effect of not getting enough sleep". A friend of mine said that for every hour of sleep missed, we need to pay four hours of sleep for it. I don't know if the figures have been proven scientifically but either way, the only way to pay off one's sleep debt is by obtaining extra sleep over and above the daily requirement.

        So why am I not getting enough sleep? Hmm. . . nice question. Recently, I've been sleeping late and waking up early. The other day, for instance, I slept at two a.m. and woke up at six (met up with my college classmates prior to that, details here). Typically, I sleep at around twelve to one and wake up at around five to six in the morning. Last night, I slept earlier than usual though, at eleven.

        Oh well, my eyes are starting to sting and I'm feeling faint streaks of pain breaking like lightning in my head. Taihen desu ne.