smoke alarms and 6am rage

This week is that dreaded time of the semester when the average [and even the above-average] college student says a big "oh %$*@" [a word that, depending on the person, could rhyme with trap, bell, duck, or meh] and gets down to business of learning that we all [I hope] are here at college for: exam week.

This week has also been known throughout time as hell, stress overload, the most important week of my life (this semester), and that time when no sleep is meant to be had.

Taking this concept of no sleep to the extremes, I woke up at the pleasant hour of 5:47am this morning - to the sounds of screeching fire alarms. [NOTE: NEVER a pleasant thing to wake up to, much less at 6 in the morning the day before exams.] Stumbling out of my room, grabbing my laptop, cell phone and wallet, I made my way down to the Tower courtyard where I joined the mass of confused and angry college students, wondering what was going on.Temperature conditions of our 6am sojourn outside: 45 degrees - and the sprinklers all came on, in deference of the invisible flames.

After about 10 minutes, it became apparent that no one, including the RAs knew what was going on and after about 15 minutes, we were allowed back inside. Grumbling about how this would ruin our college careers and plans to lodge formal complaints, we made our way back into the Tower to our respective abodes. Time now is 6:12am. Fully awake with no possibility of going back to sleep - since I'd have to wake up in about an hour anyway, I decide to blog about this annoying event - because that's what fully functioning people of society do nowadays. As I am whittling away at the loom that is my blog, the fire alarm goes off again. Time now is 6:34am. That means about 20 minutes since we got back, more than enough time for a tired college child to fall asleep if they felt the need.

Wary of being sent back out into the cold again, the majority of my hallmates, my roommates and I included, waited in our doorways to see if an RA in shining armor would walk through with a "please excuse this alarm" message emblazoned on his/her/its chain mail - we were not so lucky. So for the SECOND time in a 30 MINUTE PERIOD, we were sent outside into the 45 degree freezebox known as our courtyard; I had brought my laptop so I could continue updating this post - and so that it wouldn't melt if there really were a fire this time around. We were allowed back inside within 6 minutes this time.

Turns out that there was some faulty fire alarm sensor being set off in the Starbucks located in the Barnes and Noble connected to our tower; even the best caffeine fix isn't worth waking up at 5:47am the night before exams.
Vive le sommeil.