Being a college student, I don’t get much sleep. When I started living out of a tent, not much sleep changed to little to no sleep.

Monday night I left The Daily Orange around 4 a.m. By the time I made it back to my dorm room it was 4:30 a.m. I had a night’s worth of homework to do. Oh yeah, and I had to go back to the tent at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning.

My midday naps of last semester have been replaced by semi-productive work sessions at Gate E. It’s finally warm enough to get work done without my hands freezing.

I try my best not to fall asleep in class, and luckily I haven’t yet. But, sometimes I’m needed at the tent and classes like international relations no longer seem to fit into my schedule.

I’m not sure what kind of impressions I’ve made on my classmates. Those of you who have seen me in class have probably seen me walk in, shed two or three layers and drop my pillow next to my chair.

The entire campout has gone by pretty quickly. I’ve gotten used to going from class, to my tent, to class, and repeat. My body has basically been running off of pizza and Mountain Dew for the past week and a half.

As the days have passed, our tent has grown more comfortable. We added another sleeping bag, but what I’d really like is some sort of mattress pad. Maybe we’ll get that next year.

Tuesday was like any other day in Boeheimburg. I did homework and even fell asleep for a little. It was even warm enough that I couldn’t actually see my breath while I was inside the tent.

At night there was an Otto’s Army meeting, which gave us a break from camping out. We went over details for Saturday and brainstormed new ideas for cheers and signs.

It turns out we’ll be waking up at 5 a.m. to get ready for GameDay. It’s early, but it’s for GameDay — the ultimate spotlight for a school’s student section.

After the meeting I ended up falling asleep until the next person took over around 1:30 a.m.

To be completely honest, I’ve enjoyed my time at Gate E and every hour of lost sleep has been worth it, but Saturday can’t come soon enough. I’m ready to beat Duke, but I’m also ready to move back into my dorm room.

Published on January 29, 2014 at 5:01 pm

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus