The girl across the hall from me routinely goes to bed at 7 and then gets up at about noon. What makes this a little unusual is that she goes to bed at 7 a.m. I wake up a half-hour after she goes to bed.

I love to sleep. I go to bed fairly early, especially in comparison to my peers. A late night for me is around 11:30 p.m.; a late night for some of my friends is, oh, the next morning.

The Boston Globe has an article today about how sleep deprived college students are. You can read it here.

It says that the first thing college students sacrifice when they need more time is sleep. I can understand the temptation. I’ve only been a college student for a month and I already feel overextended occasionally. Between classes, homework, making friends, working for the school paper, Scottish Country Dance, my love of The Office and this blog, some days I want to scream.

But, I don’t. Instead I’ve come to realize that college, like life, is all about prioritizing and making choices. My school work, obviously, comes first. But after that, sleep is pretty high up there. I’m willing to sacrifice Scottish Country Dance and, if need be, I can watch The Office online. But without sleep, I’m a miserable, cranky zombie that no one would want to be around.

My friends think I’m crazy. “How do you get it all done?” And the honest answer is, I get it done because it needs to get done. And I go to bed because I need to go to bed. It’s simple, but it’s gotten me this far. And I think it will bring me a little further.