Where did my energy go? I’m popping those probiotics my mother bought me a while ago with a frequency which puts to shame even those many teenage popper-and-ProPlus-takers. These anti-antibiotics, they promise such wonderful things! All good things come at a price, however; with every swallow I’m involuntarily reminded that each must cost around 20 pence, which makes two probiotics a day worth a steaming hot chocolate from the canteen, with froth at the top and grainy, sugary bits at the bottom. Which lasts longer and probably would, even if only in the short term, make me happier.

Yet I’m still stumbling into bushes with dead legs and bleary eyes, still almost dying after one flight of stairs. Still falling asleep in History class, still making it only half-way up the slope of the subway before losing completely the will to move my feet through the abandoned crisp packets and dead crispy leaves. My head doesn’t stay up for very long without a fist under my chin. My eyes don’t stay open for very long without the aid of matchsticks.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell costing only three pounds is all well and good, if only it were possible to muster up muscle-strength to prise open the hardback covers (already besmudged by Brother’s chocolate fingers and a delicate ring of tea from the bottom of my ‘sundays are my best days for dreaming…‘ mug), let alone hold it up to readable eye-level. Reading in the bath equals wrinkly disasters which must be hung over the radiator for several days.

I am sleeping. I am sleeping a lot. Joe rang last night not so late, and almost as soon as I’d answered he told me with infinite kindness to go back to sleep. I capture extra minutes of sleep every morning after the alarm sings some sonata. The snooze button is a wonderful thing. I sleep before classes, during classes and in between classes when I should be sprinting towards deadlines. I sleep on trains.

It is possible to sleep standing up, even walking, and sometime I think I must be doing this, because in the time it takes me to blink much more than usual seems to have been said or done by others. Buses which, before lashes meet, are lingering at some far-off set of traffic lights manage to have traveled right past me and up to the next set by the time my lashes reluctantly come apart.

Something is wrong with my eyelids.

Or maybe the rest of the world is moving incredibly fast, and I’m the single remaining normal person trudging along at the usual pace; the world has gone hyperactive. I favour this explanation.