Never ending meetings

After three weeks, i still cannot get use to the "meeting culture" here.
Once I enter the meeting room, my brain automaticly change to "sleep mode" and my eyes receive a instruction - please close.
My head almost kissed the table when I was attending the department meeting. And at that time the director was talking about the coming year goal.
How to make myself awake during the whole meeing will be my goal for the moment...
I tried 苦肉計... I "mit" my hands until I got a lot of purple marks.
I tried black coffee... but it seems "sleep mode" is 無敵.
My friend said I had too long holiday so I need to take a long time to reheat the engine.
I said... no, I think I had left school for too long so that I really forget how to "pretend listening" for extreme boring classes.
Ah... very painful!