While the hullabaloo surrounding the introduction of an 8:40 a.m. class start time is perfectly justified given the sleep schedules of most undergraduates, the situation has been awkward for those of us on campus who routinely awake well before then. We nod and put on a suitably pained face when our friends bring it up. We offer our sympathies, perhaps, and move on, never wanting to seem out of touch or uncool to the slumbering masses.
I am hardly an exemplar of the wakey-wakey tendency at Columbia, and I don’t mean to speak on the true early risers’ behalf. Varsity athletes with early morning practices, committed joggers with calves so defined they could cut you, and all sorts of other “morning people” have basked in the rays of the early sunlight much more than I have. But if 7:30 in the morning to a college student is 4:30 to a normal adult (which I believe has been proven by, like, science or whatever), then I think I would have to qualify as an early riser.
