Despite having taken the morning shift for a few years in fast food, I will never be a morning person. Being forced to wake up while it’s still dark outside (in the summer, no less) isn’t enough to change my deep-seeded love for sleeping in. Neither will I get rid of the screens in my bedroom, workout first thing in the morning, or stop pressing snooze in the morning. (Let’s be honest.)

The problem is that all my good ideas pop into my head after 11pm, and if I go to bed without writing them down, all is lost. I love working after everyone has gone to sleep. I love waking up without an alarm.

It’s less distracting for me to work when it’s dark outside, but when my friends tell me about all the homework they got done between 9am and noon, I wonder if I’m missing out.

So, I set out to try this early-morning business.

And I failed.

In fact, I laughed at myself for setting the alarm at all, turned it off, and got another three hours of shut-eye. I guess it’s just not meant to be.

As I write this, I’m still reeling from the realization that I slept until 11am. Normally, this wouldn’t be a total disaster, but this time, there are too many notifications on my phone for me to feel like I didn’t miss something important that happened two hours ago when normal people are already up and running. (And I don’t mean “too many notifications” in an I’m-so-important way, but in the sense that everything is coming apart this close to the end of the semester.)

Is a bad case of morning FOMO worth the freedom of not setting an alarm? I have a paper to write, and it could’ve been half done by now. But I also needed to sleep. University is weird that way.

*Thanks her lucky stars that all her courses are given in the afternoon.*