Nights like this

 

It's currently two o'clock at night. Or, some would say, in the morning. Sensible people are sound asleep by now. Not me - I'm engrossed in schoolwork. Not because I have to, I could just leave it until the morning. Only that's not a very good idea: Try to get me to concentrate on my writing at eleven o'clock in the morning, or at three o'clock in the afternoon - it will not happen. Trust me, I've tried. But as midnight approaches, I find myself becoming more and more focused by the minute - all of a sudden, I'm blind to things that normally provide huge distractions (cleaning, arts and crafts, a new episode of Pan Am...) and will write for hours if you let me. That's what's going on right now.

Make no mistake: This is not me "buckling down" or reluctantly sacrificing hours of sleep  - this is just me getting happily wrapped up in the task at hand (which tonight is pretty mechanical, as it has to do with translating), taking advantage of these wonderful midnight hours of distraction-free work. I'm quite content to be working for another half hour or so. This, to me, is part of the beauty of being a student: I can allow myself these kinds of nights when I feel like it, since I'm quite often free to sleep in the next day. I won't have to be at uni until one o'clock tomorrow. It's all good.