When did 1am become so early?

“Could you rank sleep, study and social life?”

I asked this question during one of my CCA interviews, and I was genuinely shocked by the freshies’ answer: “Sleep definitely is the last.”

Honestly, I can’t blame them for saying that, because I did the same thing too. Somehow, sleeping at 10 or 11pm has become a privilege, while being awake at 1 or 2am has become the norm for university students. Ask yourself: when was the last time you slept before 12am? Well, for me, it was two weeks ago, when I fell sick and went to bed at 9pm. Ironic, right?

So, what exactly happened?

Let us travel back to secondary school or JC. You went to classes until 4pm, maybe had CCA until 6pm, then went home, had dinner, did some homework or revision, and went to bed. Life was pretty structured. And if you didn’t sleep early, well… your parents would probably make sure you did.

University, however, is a completely different story. For the first time, we get to decide how we want to spend our time — choosing our own modules, planning our own timetables and deciding which CCAs and events we want to be part of. Suddenly, there is so much more to experience. And when there is so much to do, something has to be sacrificed. Somehow, sleep always ends up being the easiest one to give up. Maybe it is because we are used to having enough sleep in the past, so we never really realised how valuable those extra few hours were.

But once you enter university, those few hours disappear surprisingly quickly.

So, where exactly does all that time go?

Let’s start with CCAs. 

The fact that majority voted the latest timing says all

You have sports training from 9–11pm, then you have to rush back to hall for your block committee’s meeting. After the meeting, you thought you could finally go back to your room, have a nice and warm shower, and take a rest. But then your friends start texting in the chat, discussing where to go for supper. They seem so excited about getting Macs or Amaans. You can’t just leave the messages buzzing, so you decide to join them for supper. 

Supper jio is crazy.

And honestly, supper is not really about the food, as always. It’s about finally having time to chit-chat with your friends, gossiping and ranting about our lives. One conversation leads to another, and next thing you know, it’s already 2am.

And of course, FOMO is real.

We want to experience things together with our peers. We don’t want to miss the inside jokes, the random conversations, or the spontaneous plans. So, you go down for hall events, take photobooth pictures, and the next moment, someone is jio-ing you for mahjong. And as usual, you can’t turn it down.

You keep telling yourself, “It’s okay, I can sleep tomorrow.” And somehow, tomorrow always seems like a perfectly reasonable time to catch up on sleep.

And the scariest part is that you know you have an early class tomorrow, but you’re still sleeping at 2 or 3am. The next day, there are only two options — one, you wake up for your 8am class, probably still feeling tired and struggling to focus; two, you decide to just skip the class and continue sleeping. Personally, I choose the second option. Even though it’s already week 7, I’ve only gone to my 8am lecture twice. Sometimes I really wonder how professors can be up there so early, being so energetic and engaging… 

And after all those events and activities, you still have to catch up on your studies, right? So, there you are, staying up late again, catching up on all your lectures, tutorials and group projects. You tell yourself that once you finish these, you’ll finally be able to sleep early.

But somehow, the clock is already 3am again.

At the end of the day, maybe there is no perfect way to balance out everything. We might still be figuring out what matters to us, what we love, and how we are going to spend these 4 years. Perhaps this is what makes uni fun: making these choices along the way, although sometimes we might get it wrong along the way. 

So if you’re reading this at 2am, wondering whether you should finally go to bed, just know that you’re probably not alone. 

We will figure this out eventually. 

For now, maybe just get some sleep.