I wish I were cool enough to say "werk", but... I'm just not there... yet.

I finished classes today! I'm just a few final projects/essays shy of finishing off my third year. I remember writing a blog post after finishing second year pretty damn clearly, so this post is kind of incredible to me. But, as with all time-flying situations, while it seems like it's been no time at all, when I think back to the beginning of the year, it was a long time ago. I'm a different person now! Third-year me is somehow very distinctive from second-year me and certainly (thankfully) we are all very different from first-year me. Sorry first year me.

Guys, I feel like I finally got my groove back. I've been working hard, handing in some quality essays, and in general I have been in de Zone. We're not counting writing this blog post as procrastinating. But I shouldn't say that, because it's not that I haven't been procrastinating, but that I've gotten a real handle on it. I think at least part of it is that I've been doing work that I genuinely want to do. I've been doing some really cool work lately, some really ballin' essays that are entirely up my alley. From how Wells handled concepts of race in The Time Machine to what we can learn about communicating environmental issues from analyzing John Evelyn's Sylva. Sci-Fi and 17th Century forestry writings! Two of my most favorite things! That wasn't sarcasm, just... nerdgasm (I'm so sorry).I think that a combination of that, and the knowledge that I am so close to finishing this semester off that's really given me a worker-bee kinda mojo.

I can't wait to go home! I keep thinking back to last summer. I mean things weren't perfect, things never are (darn things), but man they were hella tight. I just liked the vibe of last summer. I liked the way I lived last summer. I mean yes, it would have been good to have gotten a job and made some money over the break, but that just didn't happen. So I'm embracing another summer of freeloading with my parents and having some hardcore down time with ye olde self. And like last summer I won't have nothing going on. I've still got work with my student organization, and some training for a job in September. And again, I've got some personal work lined up like researching grad schools, prepping my applications, and I've been starting to develop a summer reading list for my undergraduate research course.

No, I'm serious.

All I have to do is keep at it! Keep going! Home stretch! So c'mon guys- let's GO GO GO!

Routine Booking Procedure. Move Along.

I either started at the beginning of this year or the end of the last, but I've been reading before bed every night and it's honestly one of the smartest decisions I've ever made; for a couple of reasons:

First of all, as an English student, but also as an adult, I struggle on a daily basis to find the time to read 'for fun' and I know I'm not alone in that annoying guilty feeling you get when you know you haven't been reading as much as you want to and you feel bad for doing yourself such a disservice.

Second of all, it's been going around the internet for a long while that you should avoid screens, specifically LED light, before going to bed. Supposedly this light suppresses some chemical or something that makes you tired, so you it's harder to get to sleep coming straight off of a computer screen and/or you don't get the best rest that you could. But no! Stop right there! This is hearsay! Don't trust what's going around on the internet! Be a responsible individual! That's right, guys- let's hit the literature.

*Funky 80's Montage Music*

The literature agrees! I read a few studies and they all seemed to concur that blue light suppresses the production of melatonin, which makes you tired. I'll reference a couple of the articles I read at the bottom of the post if you want to check them out. So there you have it! My second reason was sound. The blue light coming off of your computer, phone, and I would imagine handheld gaming devices is bad news for sleep cycles.

I don't think reading before bed will make a huge difference, but I think I enjoy it even if it isn't helping me sleep. I just like spending time with these cool cats-

I like to have a couple of options when I snuggle under the covers. Mostly I'm reading Don Quixote, but for those nights when all you want is Shakespeare, I have William Shakespeare's Star Wars to provide my fix. Occasionally I'm in a weird mood and I just want to read something really simple, so I like to keep a kind of 'dumb' book ready. Right now my stupid book is shockingly not Star Wars but A Princess of Mars on my Kobo. Oh, Edgar Rice Boroughs. Finally, because it's the end of the semester and sometimes I go to bed panicking about how much work I have to do, I keep a 'work book' next to my bed so that I can go to sleep researching if I need to. Right now I'm working on an essay about The Time Machine, so I'm reading the critical essays in this edition I borrowed off of a friend. Normally I wouldn't read things for classes before bed (the idea is not to think about school) but sometimes it can't be helped.

I also keep a mechanical pencil by my bed because academia has ruined me and I can't read without making notes in the margins anymore...

The moral of the story is, if you're not reading as much as you'd like to be, try giving it a go before bed! Some nights I can barely make it through one page before I'm off to snooze-land, but others I'm up for ages just reading. I even found, once I get really into a book, that I've started to go to bed sooner and earlier so that I can read longer before going to sleep. I don't know if its helping me get to sleep faster or get a better sleep than if I jumped off the computer and under the covers, but I do know that I'm finally finding the time for books I have been waiting years to pick off the shelf.

REFERENCES:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2005.00463.x/full

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7450_supp/full/497S13a.html?goback=.gde_3084791_member_244253435

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945711001651