Here's my genius elevator pitch: Let's all just give up and sleep for the rest of the spring semester.
Whatever your justification may be — from an act of protest to finally prioritizing your mental health to simply identifying as a hibernating bear — I know my own reasoning lies somewhere between all three.
I didn't decide to make sleeping my full-time job for no reason. It's an idea — no, a calling — that's been brewing for a while. Probably since I saw a horde of engineering students armed with lightsabers try to ride a Starship robot like a horse into battle — haunting.
Before my life became sleeping 14 hours a day like my idol, Dakota Johnson, I used to wake up for my draining routine and wish I could just become one with my mattress. No, I don't mean figuratively. My most desperate wish between the hours of 6 and 9 a.m. was to be made of memory foam and covered in a novelty Joe Jonas blanket from 2007.
Then reality would set in, and I would have to trudge to class, overpriced and over-sweetened coffee in hand.
For 90 minutes, I'd be subjected to the torture of pretending to listen to my professor drone on. Of course, they'd check in on the glassy-eyed class only during the last five minutes.
This semester, one such professor decided to start his first class with "Your degree will probably be useless in 10 years."
It's not the first time I've heard this, but to hear it on a Tuesday at 8 a.m. when I've already spent years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars in tuition just to have a seat in this class was a slap in the face. I glanced around at the other students in the class, and it seemed the comment flew right over their heads. They were still the same chipper, optimistic workers of tomorrow who believe they'll be able to make a living wage right after graduation — adorable.
But for me, the comment was an omen. "Screw this," I thought. What further education do I need? If my degree is useless, then what does it matter if I just walk out of the classroom and hibernate until spring semester is over?
So I got up, grabbed my backpack, said I was going to the bathroom — a professor should never question a girl going to the bathroom with her backpack — and never returned.
I have been rotting in my bed with Wallace, my emotional support Porgi (he’s a pug-corgi mix), ever since.
I regret nothing.
The spiral
It took me a couple of hours after walking out on my professor to go through the stages of grief over my future career and accept that he was right. My degree, schooling and future in the working world is meaningless.
Now that I've arrived at that epiphany, it's time to have some fun. And by "fun," I mean boatloads of melatonin and lucid dreams.
This may surprise you, but I used to be a straight-A student. The mere thought of submitting an assignment late used to send me into a panic and frantically jolt me awake in the middle of the night to triple-check that I hadn't missed anything on Canvas. Now, all I want to do is play "Murder on the Dancefloor" on repeat and prance around my apartment while double-fisting Simply Spiked Lemonades.
Academic advisors will say this is a classic case of burnout. But I didn’t "burn out." Burnout is something people like to pretend happens slowly over time because that makes it preventable.
Fools. Nothing in college happens slowly. After a string of unpaid internships, paralyzing imposter syndrome, 130 credit hours and counting, volunteer work, part-time jobs and near-constant anxiety attacking from all angles, we are all bound to explode.
After the initial impact comes clarity and the realization that the world is cruel, professors don't care, parties are all the same, classmates are annoying and predictable, and Michael Crow is slowly replacing us all with robots. So we might as well take a Marie Kondo approach to life and do things that spark joy while throwing the rest out. For me, nothing sparks more joy than sleep.
So that's how I found myself leaving class and never returning. I am now living and vibing in the nuclear fallout of the consequences of my own actions.
Too tired to innovate
In nature, winter is a time of rest. Even trees take the winter off, only to come back stronger in the spring and resume the noble, yet futile, work of trying to save the planet. This is my tree time. Give me a few months, and I swear I'll solve climate change.
In the meantime, imagine me as one of those men who are so frustrated with society that they take off to live in the forest so they can build log cabins and, I don't know, commune with moose. I just substituted the moose with Wi-Fi, heated blankets, a multistep skincare routine and books about faeries.
It's mid-March and my days go as follows: I wake up around 8 a.m. to feed Wallace and let him out. I may not be going to class, but if nothing else, I am a competent dog owner. Then I return to hibernation until about 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon.
After that, I usually migrate to my standard-issue gray pleather couch, where I rewatch an episode of "Normal People," have a refreshing cry and then switch to a '90s romantic comedy as a palate cleanser while eating the first of my many daily bowls of cereal.
Every night, no matter what day of the week it is, the parties always start around 10 p.m. That's my cue to grab my headphones, bathrobe and pepper spray and to breathe in the fresh Tempe air during my crime-fighting vigilante walks — yes, I’ve been watching "The Lego Batman Movie."
Turns out, Tempe can be peaceful when it’s devoid of 20-somethings doubling up on rented scooters.
If you're still not convinced of my way of life, your concerns may be valid, but I've clearly become enlightened. You see, one of my last straws before diving headfirst into this hibernation plan was the announcement of ASU's new partnership with OpenAI in January.
It was an inclusive way to usher in the new age of AI by saying "Fuck you," to liberal arts and computer science students alike while giving a pat on the back to any business bros who get their diplomas handed to them after four years of jumping off roofs onto folding tables.
When you've spent tens of thousands of dollars on an education that's supposed to prepare you for the emotional damage of corporate life, you'd think you'd be taught those valuable skills. But no. Your university decided to throw its lot in with cheating robots, and if that's not a clear sign to give up like me and the mountain men, I don't know what is.
Another perk to the hibernation lifestyle, especially if you want to maintain your GPA, is you can use this new ASU-OpenAI partnership to your advantage. Let ChatGPT write your five-page essay, discussion post or coding project. Maybe use the three hours of the day when you're fully conscious to proofread it, or don't. You're golden.
If you fall into any trouble, remember that your professors are probably using ChatGPT too, the University condones it, you have a strong legal case to defend yourself, and nothing matters in the grand scheme of things anyway.
Back to my nap.
Back to life, back to reality
Hibernation can't last forever. After about three months, your friends become a little too concerned and start knocking on your door, yelling things like, "I'm keeping the baby!" and demanding to come in and disrupt your dream featuring Henry Cavill.
Bills have to be paid, your dog has grown tired of your attention, and the sun, unfortunately, starts looking warm and inviting again.
My hibernation ended a few weeks after spring break. To my surprise, I missed people — some of them at least — and going for walks, and seeing engineers with lightsabers and foods other than cereal.
Sleeping is important — possibly the most important thing there is — but even the bears and trees wake up, and so must we all.
I enrolled in a Session B Introduction to Philosophy course, and after months of continuous REM cycles, I felt like Henry David Thoreau emerging from Walden Pond (my bedroom).
Thanks to ASU-backed large language models, my grades remained steady, and everyone was none the wiser. But this philosophy class was the first time since freshman year that I actually wanted to try.
Hibernation recharges the brain and heals the soul. If you're not yet persuaded to try it, just know your school work is bound to improve too.
If you are like me, overwhelmed and questioning reality, don't ignore the call of the pillow. Full-send the slumber. Rest, relax and thank me later.
Edited by Camila Pedrosa, Savannah Dagupion and Madeline Nguyen.
This story is part of The Development Issue, which was released on April 3, 2024. See the entire publication here.
Editor's notes: The opinions presented in this column are the author's and do not imply any endorsement from State Press Magazine or its editors.
Reach the reporter at aeagerto@asu.edu and follow @audrey_eagerton on X.
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