Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Hibernation season starts early for the Caboose

Sleeping Drew -photo taken by the KU

Right around October, the seasons begin to change drastically in Minnesota. Fortunately we have had a beautiful fall so far with warm temperatures and not too many days of rain. There were a few storms near the end of September that caused some trouble but so far things have been pretty pleasant. Cool temperatures at night ranging in the low 40’s make for great sleeping weather and “hunkering down” underneath the covers or cuddling closer to a significant other when they accidentally kick off the covers (sorry about that Kristen).

Around this time, people begin to notice changes in their Circadian Rhythm or what is known as the “Biological clock”. It is a process in your mind/body that wakes you up at the same time every morning or if your unlucky every night at 4 AM and won’t allow you to go back to sleep. For me, I notice the natural instincts of sleeping in and hibernating begin to take hold right about now.

Take for example this morning. Last night I went to bed around midnight (my usual time) and was out like a light after doing some light reading. In anticipation for the morning, I set my alarms with the hopes of getting up and heading into campus early to catch up on some important reading for classes.However, nature or my body it seems had other plans.

This morning I woke up at about 6:45/7:00 AM, physically got out of bed, walked over to the bottom of the stairs and stopped. I remember thinking to myself, “It’s still dark out, screw this I am going back to bed.” The problem is I did just that!!! Instead of getting dressed and ready for the day I went back to dreamland.

Now I have to admit, that bed of mine is very comfortable, and when it is cold in the morning and still dark out, it calls to me saying “don’t you want to spend a few more minutes with me?” Like the smell of fresh cookies will draw you to the kitchen, the warmth of the covers and the softness of the sheets pulls you in only to latter face the hard reality that when you look at the clock it reads 9:23 AM, not 7:23, not 8:23, but “oh god no not 9:23" and “I am so going to be late for my class” AM.

I like to refer to oversleeping as my own personal version of hibernation. Though the true trophy on resembling animals in their hibernation practices has to go to my roommate Kevin who from most of the time that I have known him can sleep until 1, 2, at the latest 3 PM.

I know this does not excuse me being late for class, but humans need their sleep. That’s one of the reasons why I some day hope to never have class on a Friday or never have to do anything with my Fridays or at least be able to sleep until 10.

If I was to be an animal in my next life, I would choose to be one of two. The first choice would be a bear. How cool would it to be a bear living in the forest, eating berries, wrestling with other bears, spreading my bear seed with female bears for the betterment of the gene pool, mauling the occasional woodsman who gets to close to the cubs or my cave, and then like Yogi stealing the occasional Picnic baskets from unsuspecting campers.
The other choice would be a house cat named Henry. I could lie around all day or go exploring in the house of my owners looking for mice to kill and other forms of prey to show that I can contribute around the house. Mostly the thought of being petted and massaged doesn’t sound like such a bad life.

On second thought, the bear is still the coolest one that I have come up with in a while and if souls truly do transcend space, time, species, etc, I would like to come back as a Grizzly Bear living in the wild.

What kind of animal would you want to be in a next life? And if you could, would you hibernate?? You know I would.

Think about it, and drop me a comment

Until next time

Andrew, or should I say Boo-Boo
“Hey Boo-Boo, I am smarter than the average bear!” –Yogi Bear

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I still think that you should be a kitty cat. :D

Unknown said...

and it's Dassel, not Dassle silly. ;)