I was woken up by all the commotion of someone arriving from out-of-town. The regular greetings, how are you’s, what's happenings, created quite a whim in my household. Well, I can forgive all that. Mind you that I hadn’t gotten up from bed. I pretended to be fast asleep but neither my mom nor the guests paid any heed to that and continued their conversations right into the night after the very late dinner. I was so irritated that I didn't get any sleep.
I braced myself for appearing to be rude and gathered enough courage to tell them to shut up. They did but not for long. My aunt called up someone on the phone and happily started talking, and really loud at that, as if it was during the day and no one was around.
![Reading Reading](http://karthikabir.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/98603518.jpg)
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Quite unnerved by all this, I decided to study the book which I was supposed to have anyway, which I had procrastinated doing. Perhaps the bright light that the tube emitted made my aunt shut up for good. The air was cold from the fan and it was quiet now. I was wide awake by now. Whatever little sleep I had in my eyes had disappeared. I continued to read.
It is then that I discovered quite an amazing thing. I had completed four chapters and looked up at the clock to find out that only an hour had passed. It was 1:30A.M. The previous four had taken me almost three days to complete. “Wow!” I said to myself.
Perhaps that's how the proverbial phrase “Burning the midnight oil” came about.
I had done this once earlier at 3:00A.M. but not at 1A.M. like this time. So, it has convinced me that reading after midnight is quite effective provided you are wide awake and anyone wanting a serious read should try it. Probably one could sleep during the day to stay awake during the night.
Have you done this or wanting to? Share you experiences.