New Roommates

Now that Summer stories are over I have news of Fall and Winter to tell. I guess I will start with the new roommates and friends that were made from these semesters (there are many).
When I moved over to Wyview I gained two new roommates, Jesse Grigg and Aaron Moss. Teddy got Matt Woolley, McKay Miles and Logan “Too Fine” Tatham.

Jesse is one of my best friends back in Boise. He is a great guy and loves to do dishes and clean, which I was glad about. Good times were had by all in that apartment. A time such as this when we watched General Conference over at our apartment and played some intense Risk. Then the time we played Axis and Allies and Jesse got a major sugar high. *Warning, do not let Jesse eat tons of Pixie Stixs and drink Vault in 5 minutes…he gets really funny to watch! Haha!

Aaron is more laid back. He is a big guy, like one of those guys who when you see him you keep your distance because he is kinda scary. But he is an awesome person and really nice and not scary at all. He loved sports and he and I took a tennis class together. It was awesome! Along with the sports he liked video games so every now and then we would have epic video game nights at our apartment, whether it was on the computer or on the PS2.

Matt Woolley is a smart, awesomely named person who would eventually go on to be mine and Teddy’s roommate in Winter semester. He plays the viola (lame I know… :P) and liked to hang out with us and still somehow managed to get great grades. I was jealous of how well he could do in school. Anyway, we became the Tri-Matt when I moved in and had tons of sweet things happen. There was all of the videos that he showed us…which occupied a lot of our time haha. There was the St. Patty’s day party. There was the time that he taught us what FTW stands for…which apparently is clean. Who knew? One of my favorites from Fall and Winter (no offense other guys).

McKay Miles is a trombone player. He and I had some epic conversations about playing trombone and how I wasn’t very good, which is fine because I was still in the Marching Band and Pep Band. He liked locking doors. Like all the time. We eventually came to an agreement about the doors and everything was good from there. He also kept us on top of the dishes most of the time, which was good for us. We needed to keep up with them cause it got pretty nasty after a while.

Logan Too Fine Tatham…well, I’ll save talking about him for another time. He needs his own entry. The point is, is that with each new roommate came new adventures. Fall and Winter was long, but very rewarding. Kind of. Teddy and I needed to work on our Academics a little, but we made it work. Good times were had and people will be missed.

Parasomnia Tales

Now many people have heard of the term “insomnia” but how many people have heard the term “parasomnia”? It is not as well known as insomnia but still as prevalent in our community today.
Parasomnia is defined as “any several disorders that interfere with sleep such as sleepwalking, sleep talking, night terrors etc.”

For example when a person is sleeping, there is a part of the sleep cycle called the REM stage that causes the body to freeze in order to protect itself. With parasomniacs this doesn’t always work which is why they walk or talk in their sleep. Parasomnia comes and goes as well. It is usually triggered by some sort of stressful event. School, a new apartment, any number of stressors can cause this disorder to come about.

I believe that I have this disorder. Or at least I think I do, based on the many tales that I have heard of from my roommates. I am a big sleep talker (apparently). Over the summer when I was rooming with Landon I would wake up in the morning and he would tell me some funny thing that I said to him that night. He would know and remember because he would stay up late a lot.

But one night in particular…I walked…and by walked I mean I thought I was some sort of secret agent or something. Now, most of the time I do not remember anything about the times that I walk or talk, but for some reason, I remember parts of this time. It all began that night when I started punching and kicking my wall. Landon asked if I was alright, no response. Then he told me that I “James Bond slid out of bed” and crawled into my closet. Once I was in the closet he asked me if I was awake. I did respond to this question saying that I was. He didn’t believe me and when I began to make my way to our door he told me to get back in bed. I guess my body understood this command because I did go back to bed with a quick stop at my computer to find something (which I obviously couldn’t find because there probably wasn’t anything to find). The next morning I woke up and was told what I did. It was embarrassing at first, but now it is really funny.

Now over the next few semesters I haven’t really had the opportunity to find out if I have walked or talked in my sleep. This is because my roommates would go to bed before me, which is fine, but I was curious as to whether or not I was doing these things still. Eventually Sterling began to sit by me while I would be sleeping during the day, just chilling at my computer. One day I sat up in bed, saw him there and said hi. I vaguely remember that part. But then I said something completely random and had no idea what I was saying, but after I woke up an hour later or so he said that I do that quite a bit. So I have still been sleep talking I guess.

My most recent exposure to sleep talking has happened fairly recently…as in last night. My roommate has insomnia, and even though he goes to bed earlier than I do, he wakes up in the night sometimes. The last few nights he has been woken up by us having conversations with each other while we are asleep. Last night (as he tells me) we were talking to each other and when he woke up he asked if I was okay. Apparently I yelled, “I’m not crazy Logan! I’m not crazy!” He said that it was okay and went back to sleep while I was still saying funny things in my sleep.

So there you have it. These are the funny doings of Matthew Rich at night. I sleep talk and sleep walk. If you ever want to get a few laughs at me (from something other than me being colorblind…) then come watch me sleep and you might just end up hearing something really funny come out of my mouth. So, I wish you all a good morning, because I cannot wish you a good evening while I am sleeping…um, never mind I got confused.