After seven long semesters of trial and error, senior Richie Winkel has “finally optimized his morning alarm arrangement.” His roommate, Donald Trax, disagrees.
“I was always sleeping through my alarms and showing up late to class, but I’ve finally figured it out.” Winkel explained. “I set my first alarm for 4:15 AM to break me out of my REM cycle, so I’m not sleeping too deeply. Then, I set my next alarm for 5:45, just as I’m passing between N2 and N3. I snooze that, then place my phone across the room so I have to walk over to get it next time. Then, I have alarms set at 30-minute intervals, which logistically decay to 12.5-minute intervals by 9 AM. If all goes according to plan, I should be out of bed by noon and ready to go bright and early. It’s perfect!”
“Not quite perfect,” said Trax. “Sure, it’s better than sophomore year when he bought a comically large wind-up alarm clock with the bells and hammers, and it’s definitely better than freshman year when his mom would come to our dorm to wake him up – but it’s not perfect.”
“I’m a pretty light sleeper, unfortunately,” Trax alleged, “so I’ve had to start finding stuff to do with my mornings. I’m not Muslim, but I’ve started doing Fajr at dawn just because I’m awake. I’m also really into yoga nowadays. And the ‘Today’ show – I’m a huge Savannah Guthrie fan now.”
Trax alleged that despite all the alarms, the only thing actually waking Winkel up is Trax himself when he finally gets tired of the iOS “Radar” sound and starts throwing stuff at Winkel.
